Long after sunset one day 44 years ago, 21-year-old Kevin Lawrence exited his 68 Chevelle on a lightly traveled road just beyond the Chicago suburban sprawl. After hushed negotiations with another young man, he got into his car and fired up an engine that barked mightily before settling into a bass idle. He turned on the headlights, illuminating 50 feet of road. I pressed the shutter on a dented camera, clicking frames as my flash defied the darkness.

Mr. Lawrence – a fisherman’s hat on his head – was focused on the road ahead. To his right was a Camaro with huge rear racing slicks. A few dozen young people were gathered on the side of the road; among them was his wife and running partner, Pam Pappas Lawrence.

A raised hand fell and the two cars screeched through the darkness, accelerating to 120 miles per hour in 12 seconds just as flashing police lights rushed in from behind. Spectators jumped into their cars and followed the runners. I did the same. A few stragglers were arrested and then released after insisting they did not know the attackers.

Earlier in the night, dozens of teenagers and 20-somethings had gathered at Duke’s Drive-In in Bridgeview, just outside Chicago, to show off their hopped-up cars and maybe win some cash. money in street drag contests. On that evening in August 1977, the crowds were huge, with outrageous machines taking up every available space and spilling out onto Harlem Avenue. The group had heard that a budding journalist would be on hand, documenting the drive-thru’s reputation as a hotbed of illegal street racing for “Hi-Performance CARS,” a long-defunct magazine that targeted the off-road fringes. the law of the hot-rod hobby. .

Cars were an obsession for many there and at that time. Social media and the internet weren’t even on the horizon. Athletes kept busy with sports, but for many others there were cars. Teenagers of all persuasions spent their free time under the hood, breaking their fingers to make their cars usable. Once he could move on his own, they would work even harder to make him faster. And I hope the fastest.

Mr. Lawrence, now 65 and living in Palos Hills, Illinois, was among the fastest at the drive-thru that night. He was an automobile veteran. At 12, he had followed an uncle who worked in a body shop. There he swept the floor and went on trailers. Soon he learned to fix crumpled cars. But he was intrigued by the mechanical side of things, so his uncle taught him how to rebuild engines.

They built a modified car – a Ford Starliner with a pumped-up V-8 – and it performed better than most muscle cars in casual drag strip racing. But a day at the track was a major undertaking. After an early climb, there was the 45-mile trip to the US 30 drag strip in Merrillville, Ind., where there were entrance fees and long waits to do two or three runs. over a 10 hour day.

After high school, Mr. Lawrence was hired by P&G Engineering, a shop owned by a local professional racer. He continued his automotive training by rebuilding carburetors, performing tune-ups, and operating a dynamometer that measured the power to the rear wheels of customer cars.

Access to the dyno and other P&G resources proved invaluable as Mr. Lawrence was building his own hot rod – the 1968 Chevelle SS. The original 396-cubic-inch V-8 gave way to a 454-inch with two four-barrel carburetors.

With more than 500 horses at the cleat, it was fast. The dyno confirmed its potential, and Duke helped Mr. Lawrence test it, often with substantial sums at stake. The drive-in also created camaraderie.

“The guys and gals hanging out at Duke were watching out for each other,” Mr. Lawrence said. “We competed, but we were friends, and when strangers showed up looking for a race, we hired them.”

After the photo of Mr. Lawrence and his street-racing Chevelle appeared in the magazine, racers from the Chicago subway and elsewhere descended on Duke’s to challenge him and others, who proudly wore jackets emblazoned with “Duke’s Drive In, home of thee.” the fastest street cars.

Mr. Lawrence competed on the streets for over 10 years, winning about 90% of his races and developing a reputation as the guy to beat if you wanted to make a name for yourself among the Chicago street racing fraternity. He still worked days as a mechanic, but the racing winnings helped improve life for the growing Lawrence family, which now included two daughters, Danielle and Nicole, who would both eventually find success behind the wheel of race cars. .

Mr. Lawrence was arrested several times during the race. “The officer usually gave me a variety of tickets,” he said. “Once I decided to challenge a ticket for 125 miles per hour in a 50 mile per hour zone. The judge called me into his room and said in several words, ‘You don’t want to do this. Pay the ticket and shut up. I followed his advice that day and thereafter.

“I made enough money street racing to put down a down payment on my house,” he said. “Then I said stop it.”

“I kind of grew up,” Mr. Lawrence added. “There was a time when street racing, as we did it on the southwest side of suburban Chicago, was relatively safe. We ran on rural roads devoid of homes and businesses, and closed the road to what little traffic there was. But eventually there was more development in our area which resulted in more traffic. Also, street racing was illegal. When my daughters reached school age, I wanted them to understand that breaking the law has consequences. »

But Mr. Lawrence didn’t lose his love of automobiles or his desire to compete, so he teamed up with pal Scott Fulkerson on a National Hot Rod Association Pro Stock car.

Pro Stock race cars look like touring cars, but they are sophisticated race cars with a precision-engineered tube frame under the body and a highly modified drivetrain. Capable of accelerating to 200 mph in seven seconds, they have virtually nothing in common with the production cars they resemble.

Jumping from the street to Pro Stock—the most competitive class in NHRA drag racing—was a formidable challenge. In the 1990s, when Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Fulkerson jumped into the fray, the fastest and slowest cars in fields of 16 were often separated by just a tenth of a second. And it was not uncommon for up to 40 well-funded cars to compete for those 16 spots.

Unlike its big-budget rivals, the fledgling team operated from the garage behind Mr Lawrence’s house, just as he had done in his street racing days. Mrs. Lawrence, who had always been her husband’s right-hand man, pitched in, and soon their two daughters were also helping out.

In 1997, Mr Fulkerson married and racing was not part of the plan. This made finances even more difficult. The competition was spending thousands of dollars a week on research and equipment. Mr. Lawrence was trying to compete with a small fraction of that.

He recalls that 36 cars competed to qualify for a 16-car field in Memphis. The 16th qualifier completed a quarter mile in 6.803 seconds. Mr. Lawrence was No. 21 at 6.806.

Finally, in his last two years of racing, he qualified his Pro Stock Chevrolet Cobalt for an event. His pit crew, now with more than a dozen friends and relatives, broke. Tears of joy were shed. He would go on to qualify again, but his tank was almost empty.

“I tried and tried,” Mr Lawrence said, but he was exhausted. Facing better-funded teams, he added, “I bailed everything out and sold everything.”

But that wasn’t the end: enter the Nostalgic Race – a quarter-mile competition brand featuring facsimiles of great cars from years past, raced for a guaranteed prize at reserved shows. Mr. Lawrence built a near-perfect reproduction of one of the most famous Pro Stock cars of all time, Warren Johnson’s Oldsmobile Cutlass. Mr. Johnson was one of the NHRA’s most successful drivers for many years. He and his wife, Arlene, provided technical advice, team uniforms, decals and more.

In shakedown races, the car recorded quarter-mile times of 6.8 seconds at over 200 mph. This is virtually unheard of for a new car and a testament to the fruits of Mr. Lawrence’s more than 40 years of racing experience and the expert help he receives from his family.

“I’m going to run five or six Pro Stock nostalgia shows with the Cutlass this year, but it will be a family affair,” Mr. Lawrence said. “My daughters are busy moms so they’re not racing anymore, but they’re part of my crew and the next generation of Lawrence family riders.”

At many events, Mr Lawrence’s grandchildren, including Katelyn, 10, Johnny, 9, and Sydney, 8, will drive junior dragsters built by the Lawrence family – essentially karts that look like dragsters. .

It’s in their blood.