Wow. Someone figured out that their Super-8 home movies from the sixties aren’t going to last much longer and had them converted to video files. The result, after posting on YouTube, is a Twilight Zone-like return to a long gone era where Tri-Five Chevys were almost new and creativity was the dominant driver of performance.

Self reliance was another major factor in this time frame. Dad would often pack the family, dog and lawn chairs into the family car and head for the drag strip. Changing of the rear tires and, sometimes, the rear gears would be done on arrival to set up for a day of racing. Some didn’t, of course, as you’ll see a few sets of wide whitewall tires in the racing at an unverified drag strip, possibly Indianapolis Raceway Park.

You’ll notice the lack of a Christmas tree and the presence of a flag starter in these videos. That innovation didn’t arrive to NHRA tracks until 1963. The hard core fraternity built and ran their home built gassers and rails began the evolution from wide and short to long and thin. After NHRA dropped its ban on nitromethane that same year, the fuel classes bloomed along with performance records.

The golden age of Factory Experimental (FX) cars was just coming with Thunderbolts and 426 HEMIs on the horizon. Early FX cars would include Don Nicholson’s Comet, the Malco Gasser and Gas Rhonda Mustangs and the Mr. Norm’s Dodge. The return of factory support would see a gradual drain on weekend warriors as competition became more specialized and professional. Before that, though, drag racing was a family sport and we can hope that many more videos like these will surface before the films start disintegrating.