Here’s a great old film from Southern California exploring the wild world of drag racing in 1965. Don’t miss this one, hot rodders and drag racers.
REVISED AND UPDATED — Produced by the the Petersen Publishing Company, the founder of Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines, and narrated by a very young Dick Enberg, this film features countless drag racing personalities of the 1960s. Here we are treated to rare views of Connie Kalitta, Ed McCulloch, Tony Nancy, and Danny Ongais, to name just a few. The stars and their magnificent cars were gathered for the 1965 edition of the Hot Rod Magazine Drags, held annually in those days on the mile-long backstretch at Riverside Raceway, the legendary road racing facility just east of Los Angeles.
The Hot Rod Magazine Drags ran for only a few years, 1964 through 1969, but while it lasted, it was a very big deal in the Southern California drag racing scene. We’ve presented a few of these old drag racing documentaries, and we’ve sat through many more. You won’t find a better film about the world of drag racing circa 1965, when the sport, many will say, was in its golden age. At 47 minutes this video runs very long by internet viewing standards, but we consider the time well spent. Bookmark it and watch in installments, if you can. (We originally ran this piece several years ago but it developed some bugs and broken links. After the repairs, we liked it so much we placed it back on the top of the queue.) Enjoy the video.
Wow, 47 minutes, I’ll watch it later, I’m a busy man(not really) I remember watching drag racing as a kid on the “Wide World of Sports”, with Jim McKay and I thought Chris Economaki( although, I can find no evidence he actually covered those events) Trouble was, they were featured with several other sporting events, Rattlesnake hunting, or bowling, not like today, where they are 3 hour programs ( 1 hour of drag racing, 2 hours of commercials)
Agreed, much too long for the Internet. That’s why I’ve held off running it until now.
Why too long ? I converted it and downloaded. Now I can watch it on my flat screen–it’s all good.
This is outstanding, after the first 12 minutes it is FED heaven . Thanks MCG for posting.
Can this film be bought?
Thanks for posting.
thanks for the ride down memory lane . great post
VIDEO WILL NOT RUN -SAYS “PRIVATE”
The host has now taken the video private. All apologies. A note will be added at the top of this post. Thanks for informing us.
great video
Love this film ! Real history thanks for sharing it !
Great film! I sat and watched it straight through, seemed like only a few minutes! Great to see in color how the cars actually looked and sounded back then. And great to see a young Snake, Mongoose, and Bounty Hunter and actually hear them speak. But where was Big Daddy?
Makes me want to go to the nearest local track and see what’s going on!