Growing up in Northern Virginia as I did, scrimping and wrenching on my old MGB’s and Triumphs and Alfa Romeos, I was something of an outlier. Virginia was muscle car territory, and the kids who got the most respect were the kids who had the fastest street racing cars from traffic light to traffic light. Rob Douglas and his AMX. Ronny Jardine and his ‘68 Mustang. The Taff brothers and their 440 Charger. Kirk Faett and his tubbed Oldsmobile Cutlass 442. David Plum’s Pontiac LeMans. And maybe the king of Reston’s suburban streets, Ron Ridgeway and his seemingly unbeatable Coronet. These were the rides, and the people who owned them, that made Reston kids stand up and take notice. Not my ‘77 Scirocco, as much as I loved it…
On most nights there were races somewhere, and we were always fascinated by them. Someone calling out another car, challenging them, at a specific time and place, to a showdown for bragging rights or money or both. Sometime we’d get to be there, rolling up in our own cars, or our parents’ Hondas or something. Other nights we’d arrive at the rumored race spot and wait in the darkness for a hour or more, with no one ever showing up. Special nights might see a number of guys gather in secret at the old Pepsi bottling facility in Centreville, where a private service road ran dead straight into the darkness for nearly 3/4 of a mile, the beginning of which had been rubbered in by thousands of past burnouts.
Cars were special to us. Those nights were special to us. Partly because of the cars, sure, but mostly because of the people who owned them and loved them. It was a social scene. It was a shared brotherhood of petrol and rubber. We never had a “Black Ghost,” but I remember a nearly mythical Camaro, rumored to be from a nearby town, known only by it’s personalized license plate, “SITN LOW.”
When I watched this film, I realized anew why we all love cars so much. It’s partly the cars, sure, but it’s also the people. The way the cars are woven into the stories of our lives, and the way those stories, and those lives, become linked, even between generations and locations, and socioeconomic groups. They bind us together.
Happy Holidays. Here’s wishing you love and luck and success and happiness in 2021. And here’s wishing you more automotive stories and the rich, full lives they bring with them.