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The Last Sandy Beach
Outlaw Race, 1982.
Posted
Sunday, January 25, 2004
Told
by the Kalama Valley Kid.
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By
early November, I had a pretty good reputation for dragging at
Sandy’s and was seriously thinking about buying a bolt-on
go-fast item called NOS, short for Nitrous Oxide System. But the
damn thing cost so much I decided to try one before I dropped
350.00 bucks for a new kit.
On
a cool windless Hawaiian Thanksgiving afternoon, I borrowed a
Nitrous setup from a good friend of mine who had a notorious hot
rod reputation all his own. In many ways, Guy Swift was the king
of Street Drag Racing.
Nothing
mattered to him except getting his `37 Chevy to go as fast as it
could in a quarter-mile on any two lane black top west of Hawaii
Kai. For whatever reason, Guy stayed away from Hawaii Kai when he
could. In my book though, he was the kind of guy portrayed as the
hero in hot rod movies like American Graffiti’s John Milner. And
I looked up to him.
He
was a tough guy, mean, quite, but cool and kind hearted to many he
liked. All in all, he respected me but never considered me to be a
comrade in street racing. I hate to admit though, I think Guy
always thought of me as a rich kid from Hawaii Kai if only
compared to where he originally came from. But, while Guy was
working on his fame west of Oahu, I was working on mine from the
East Side.
When
I ask to borrow his Nitrous setup, he quickly unhooked two steel
braided lines from a set of dual carburetors that filled the
engine compartment of his metallic blue `37 Chevy coupe, then
walked around to the trunk and pulled out a little blue bottle.
While
balancing the NOS bottle against his right foot and cracked
driveway splattered with over spray from rattle-can paints, he
said, "remember, this is a cheater kit, no regulator comes
with this set-up so you gotta guess how much Nitrous to pump into
your motor to make you go fast." I asked with a smirk like I
knew it all, "Is there any way I can tell how much is going
in?" "Here’s how I do it," he said. And then he
demonstrated, "just make sure you open this valve one full
turn counter- clockwise. Too much, you blow up. Too little, your
motor will starve for fuel. That’s the only thing you gotta
worry about. Just don’t open that valve more than one full turn
and you’ll be ok." I shook his hand and said, "thanks,
I’ll let you know what happens."
CONTINUED»
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