MY first legit drag race was in Mexico. Not the disclaimer "Mexico", the real Mexico, Nuevo Laredo Tamaulipas Mexico. Just across the border from Laredo TX.
I would visit my cousins in Laredo during the summer ever since I was a kid. As I got older I would drive down there, stay a couple of weeks, party like hell with my cousins, and live like a king. Life was good back then. I was 21 years old,single, building my mini-monster truck "Gladiator", I had an 86 GXXR, a Dodge station wagon with a slant six for beater duties. But my baby was a 68 RS/SS Camaro. Red, Rally sport wheels, and hide away headlights. 327 SBC with 11:1 compression, 650 Holley with mechanical secondaries, Turbo 400, 12 bolt with 4.10 gears. Nice thumpin cam with dual exhaust...ohhhh yeah. It wasn't intended for racing...just a cool car to cruise the scene with. So my buddy and I decide to drive the 68 Camaro to Laredo. It's 1500 miles each way. The drive in itself was an adventure I will never forget and a story for another time since this is about my first drag race. All the way down, at every gas station, people would approach me and wanted to race me. I just wanted to get to Laredo and start having fun.
Once we arrived, we did the usual...party, eat, go to the clubs. On Sundays all the "kids" would cruise this certain boulevard. Mostly driving their parents cars/trucks. Some rich kids with nice cars. Not really a hot rod scene. Laredo was a small town, and the word was out that there was a red hot rod from Chicago roaming the streets. One of my cousins acquaintances had a bumble bee 70-73 Camaro on Cragars. Sounded nice and he thought he was the fastest car at the boulevard. He was talking crap to us all week. I had no intention on racing him.
Sunday comes, we are cruising the boulevard hung over like zombies drinking bloody marys and the bumble bee camaro pulls up next to us. He starts revvin his motor and doing little mini launches next to us. He was talking trash to me and my copilot in front of all the honeys. Enough was enough....
The boulevard was a 4 lane road. Two lanes going each way in the middle. On the sides of the boulevard were service roads on each side where the hoochies would park and tease the guys. There were speed bumps about every 50 feet so you couldn't go fast on the actual boulevard but after the last speed bump....it was a straight road into the dessert. We agreed at the last speed bump....it was "ON"!!! We had about 20 cars behind us as we crawled. People were lining the boulevard. At the last speed bump, I dropped it into first, slammed the gas....when the mechanical secondaries in the holley opened up the 68 launched hard. The Camaro was easily doing 120 mph and destroyed the bumble bee. When we returned to the boulevard, my buddy and my cousin were hangin out the windows screaming and yelling. The crowd was cheering us and giving us thumbs up!! We were the Kings of the Boulevard!! We parked the 68 and next thing you know we got a crowd around us. It was really cool that night. We sat around drinking beers and BSn with everybody. I wish I would have never sold that 68 RS/SS. It was the one that got away....