(Words and photos by Doug Gregory) – The theme here is it was seriously HOT. Much of the pit area at Atlanta Dragway is paved. The bleachers in 1993 were aluminum. It was a bit hazy (read as super humid) and well into the upper 90s. If a cloud drifted by a chorus of ‘ahhhh’ would ensue. Super Chevy Shows had previously been called ‘Super Chevy Sunday’, but since it was now a three-day event the name had to change.
The weekend was filled with show cars, a big bracket race, ProMods, and Jet cars. For the ProMods each round had a crowd-judged burnout contest based on applause level. All gave a pretty good show, but it was clear Charles Carpenter in the Custom Autosound ’55 wanted every win. While the others would roll into their burnouts about midway to the staging beams and carry it out 100ft or so, Charles figured that wasn’t enough. He started his on the line-lock with the rear tires about a foot forward of the water box and rode it out well past 330ft down track. The crowd went nuts every time. I’ve got video I’ll eventually get uploaded.
The Jet cars weren’t to be out done with Roger Gustin’s crew leading the way. With every release of the thrust pops you could see the windows on the tower shake – that is when we could see the tower through the smoke. The bracket racing was super-competitive and crowd favorites were easy to follow as they ground through the rounds.
The car show was more than well represented by the bowtie faithful. Stan Shaw’s ’57 Chevy was there as was PHR’s Project X ’57. There were more tubs in the show than a hi-rise condo. Pro Street was definitely in its heyday. My 14yr-old tells me that it seems a majority of cars built in this era are either red, yellow, blue, or a mix of the three. As I look back over my photos from the late 80s to the late 90s it’s pretty clear my son has a pretty good sense how things were.
No wonder when folks like Troy Trepanier came out with a mint green ’60 Impala or a pastel orange Buick or the Hay’s rolled out a pink Thunderbird it really caught our attention. The pit area was also well worth checking out and again that mix of red, blue, and yellow was quite evident.
The diversity of rides here (although it’s a Chevy-powered event) was pretty neat. I’d never seen a Covair setup for drag racing nor had I seen a traditional Willys gasser in person at this point in my life. There were trucks, classics, roadsters, and a whole bunch of 1st-gen Camaros. If you ever wonder why the price of these are typically high its because a fair number of them were back-halfed to spend their lives on the dragstrip.
Enjoy the pictures as I enjoy the memories…
button” text=”CLICK HERE to see Doug Gregory’s Sweet Photos From Super Chevy Show Atlanta 1993″]
Fun gallery! Brought me back to being a teenager. The 80s and 90s were a fun era of drag racing.
~ Stan Shaw R.I.P. ……and “Project X” is saying: “Please, please take these wheels off of me!”
The Corvair was awesome!
I was there, too. The Super Chevy events back in the 90’s were simply too much to cram into 1 day. We would take off of work and go for 3. It would take most of the afternoon just to go through the car corral/parts area.