It was a lot like Rat said inthe 50's and 60's when I grew up to the present age haha. Street racing was big but you gatta remember a fast car back then had a tough time making a 14 QM time. No tires mainly.
big memory of a car we built in HS. 53 Ford with 56 Olds motor 3sp od. 4.11 gears traction bars, mild cam, 4 2 bl 94's , and a trick dual point dist that I made. It would go 6000 easy (a lot back then). It was a real killer and would do credit to todays burnout crowd.
Three Guys from Mpls with another Ford hotrod heard about us and came up 150 miles just to find out how fast it was. back then there was a great rumor trail as there were the college guys travling. anyhow they showed up at the drive in. All of us in car club jackets, white socks, Elvis styles etc. Braging...whoa the BS flew haha. finally push came to shove and we went down to the local street dragway.
The usual flag guy. Can you imagin we carried handkerchiefs..not to blow our noses on.haha. And away we went. It was a good race side by side. I don't know how fast we went as the spedo was long gone on the peg. we ran 4 times with an even split. About 1/2 car lenght. Then the cops came and we all split. Nobody got caught and we all met at the drive in. Funny thing it was like old friends afterwards at the drive in. No flip offs or any of that.
The really funny thing was about 5 years later we were sitting in a pub in Mpls after a carclub meeting having a brew and these 3 guys set down next to us. we were laughing and telling about the "old days" and one of these guys leans over says hey 'ain't you the guy from up north with the 53 Ford we raced a few years ago??" Holy crap talk about a blast. We closed that place up buying each other brews and BS ing.
Anyway that's how it was.