The History Of Street Racing – The Black Ghost: Street Racing Legend is a new documentary from the American Historic Vehicle Association about a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE that was ordered new by a man named Godfrey Qualls.
This triple black 426 Hemi would become a legend in the underground street racing scene in Detroit and only years later would people find out that the car was being raced by an off duty cop.
The History Of Street Racing
Godfrey Qualls was a remarkable man by any measure, a Purple Heart veteran and then a Detroit police officer who had ordered his Challenger R/T SE in 1969 as a way to recapture the thrill he felt jumping out of airplanes as paratrooper. The car certainly came.
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Qualls remained a legend in Detroit street racing for decades, even though no one knew his name. He raced but kept his identity a secret because of his day job with the force. It wasn’t until many years later when he called in help to get the Challenger running again that people began to learn about his story, and the incredible history behind the car.
I won’t go into any further details here as I don’t want to spoil the film, it runs 40 minutes long and has already been seen by three quarters of a million people despite being released a few days ago. (at time of writing).
If you would like to visit the Historic Carriage Association and read more about the important work they do you can click here.
The 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE ordered new by Godfrey Qualls was a legend on the streets of Detroit. Optioned in triple black with a Hemi 426, it dominated street racing throughout the ’70s before disappearing for decades. Learn the full story behind this original survivor car, how it made its way back onto the streets, and have its story documented as a piece of American automotive history!
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Articles Ben has written have been featured on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, Pinterest official blog, eBay Motors official blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge , and many more.
Was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the website has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from all over the world and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media .After losing his first race to a Chevy Beretta, Justin “Big Chief” Shearer launched on a lifelong pursuit.
“I don’t even think it was GT; it was just a Beretta and this kid wore me out. I vowed then and there that I would have a car that Beretta could not beat. And that’s how it all started,” he said.
Show that follows a band of street racers climbing “The List” of Oklahoma’s fastest street cars. Alongside his friend and business partner Shawn “Murder Nova” Ellington, Shearer assembles a cast with names like Doc, Farm Truck, Daddy Dave, Varley and Kamikaze, juggling egos and talking trash like a sideline wrestling promoter the cycle.
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The cars are cool, too, including the likes of Shearer’s own ’69 GTO twins, Ellington’s clearly murdered out ’69 Nova, Daddy Dave’s off-road ’96 Sonoma pickup, and a fan favorite Chevy ’70 collects a Farm Truck and an AZN sidekick that amazingly looks like a clapped out farm truck, along with an old dog that rides shotgun for most races.
What’s more, the show exposes at least one form of drag racing to a much wider audience than traditional racing broadcasts could even dream of reaching. According to a Discovery Channel press release, the second season finale in August averaged 2.57 million viewers to claim the number one spot among men 18 to 54 and was the third show to have most watched with no bans that Monday night. , trailing only USA’s WWE Entertainment and NBC’s American Ninja Warrior.
For all its success, though, Street Outlaws also often comes under fire from more traditional drag racers who say the show glorifies dangerous street racing and often appears on stage, far from the image “ street outlaw” she claims to portray. Clearly aware, if somewhat surprised, of the success of the show and the flag it attracts, Shearer says critics have got it all wrong.
“I understand where they are coming from, but in my opinion, we glorify racing heads up on a budget and instead of putting on the smallest tires we can find and then shipping them to the race track and talk about how cool. yes we find the most shocking way we can find and wear the biggest tire and then talk about how cool we are,” he said, laughing.
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“But I know there are guys out there going, ‘I do it (drag racing) the legal way and I do it the right way and the professional way and blah, blah, blah , blah, blah, and these are f* *King idiot rednecks from Oklahoma who street race cars slower than professional drag racers and they get all the attention.’ So how could they like it? I mean, I wouldn’t like it. I would be like who the f**k are those guys? F**k those guys!”
As the lightning rod for a show that’s a lightning rod of its own – and a very, very popular one at that – “Chief” agreed to speak to DRAG ILLUSTRATED recently about what the show is all about and’ what he and his outlaw street friends are really trying to do. deliver.
When I was growing up, our parents drove cool cars and they were passed down. When I was in high school, dude, there was nothing but rear-wheel drive, muscle everywhere, whether it was Fox-body Mustangs, F-body Camaros, LT-1 cars, or older Monte Carlo G-bodies. Whatever it was, it was rear wheel drive and it was a V8 and that’s how we did it. But high school kids now, how can they want a cool car when their parents drive a f**king Tahoe?
And then after our generation, I am 33 years old, after I graduated high school, then you have the whole gas boom crap and everything happened. So then everyone gets their parents’ hand-me-down cars and instead of having Monte Carlos and Regals and Mustangs, cool cars, they get Toyotas and Honda Accords.
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Thing, but at least those kids modify their cars. They gave enough shit to go out and do something with their car and today it’s not like that. Now you go to high school – drive by Putnam City High School, my old school – and right now you see nothing but four doors, just hideous SUVs everywhere and all they all they do is put stereo systems in them and then they drive them back and forth to their f**king snow cone job. Nobody works in auto parts stores anymore and makes that shit, so we’re trying to bring that shit back.
I’m so glad to hear you say that because I think that’s what drag racing or car culture is missing right now; someone has to make it cool to have a badass car again. Someone, like Street Outlaws or whatever, it’s good to see something happening in this day and age that makes it fashionable to have a badass car again. The reach of this show is quite unbelievable. You have to feel good about your contribution to what the show is doing for the high performance industry, right?
We are; we are still in shock. We had no idea. The whole thing, literally the whole damn thing, we had no idea. We didn’t know where it would go or how it would get there.
When I started the Website (for The List), what was it? ’02 or ’03? I can’t remember. But it was 60 people. It was just our friends and we thought we were the worst street racers in the world and once we got to the point where we could afford a trailer, we started driving around to find out. And every city has that group of guys who know how to set up a ’78 Malibu, where you pack the tires on the street; put a set of V6 springs and an airbag in the right rear and that bitch will rock.
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Then before you know it, we got Kyle from Video 1320, we thought it was the craziest thing ever. He drives from Omaha, Nebraska, to Oklahoma City just to film us racing. I still don’t understand that. We didn’t get it and then before you know it, those videos became quite popular on the Internet and then we had our own videos which were also quite popular.
But the big thing was really the group of guys around here, we’ve all raced together for so long and we’re so competitive, before you know it, we’re up to 25 hundred horsepower on the street and we’re looking back, going how the f**k did that happen?! And so when the show came out, we actually – our producers, everybody thought this was going to be one season, eight