Two Lane Blacktop Novel

[CoronetRTguy]

Two Lane Blacktop – Street Wars

Hey everyone,

I thought I would post about a new novel I’m going to be working on. I have always loved hearing about street racing scene from the past. I know with a lot of the movies today like Fast and Furious we get a lot of imports with a blend of some Muscle cars.
I thought about writing a novel with each chapter being a short story. I could give background on characters, cars and location. I keep tossing the idea around in my head about what time period I want to have this all take place in.

The more I think about it and I go away from my first idea being the 60’s and 70’s I’m thinking of adding modern day to it. I’m looking at doing the glory days of our beloved cars to the present day cars that we would like to see matched up with classic Muscle cars.

So my question is for you guys and this will be helping me out in my journey on this project. I do have the first story kind of started and later on I will give you guys a sneak peek of it. So with that being said my questions for you guys are.

What MOPAR would you like to see going against the brand X guy?

What year would you like for the story to take place in? If you want past or modern day just tell me along with the match up of cars.

I’m also going to throw this out there and put it in the mix. If you would like to be one of the characters or your car or both let me know. If you would be interested in this I would need to do something out of the box in what I have been planning to do.

I’m in the process of completing two novels that I hope to have out by the end of the year or first part of next year. The first two novels will be a Zombie story that I have been working on and off of for the past few years. The other one is a Romance novel (re-writing a good bit of it right now) that I wrote the majority in about two and half hours.

I have done mostly Horror, Zombie, Post-Apocalyptic type of stories and I’m now branching out to the Romance world as well. I was going to do a book on some fun filled facts and try to setup a photo shoot for the cars that I had in mind but in the area I live in it is very hard to find the right cars let alone the people willing to do this.

I’m still kicking around the idea of trying to do a photo shoot for this book. I will update as I go about this idea. The title of the book is also just a working title as of right now.
The novel or for it to be novel length would have to be seventy thousand words. I’m going to start with my first idea and go from there. I’m going to try and make each story 10-25 thousand words and if it goes past that, well it will be okay.

My goal is to have seven short stories but I’m sure as I go along I will go to ten maybe more as I get into the project. I would love to have twenty stories.

So for now that and this is me just thinking out loud, tell me what you would like to see and I will see if I can make it happen.

 

[Budnicks]

I think the name "Two Lane Blacktop" is Copyrighted

I use to do allot of street racing, when I was younger, before I got smart & graduated to the race track exclusively, too much to loose on a street race, I traveled the west coast to street race, for some big {for me anyway} money many times, mostly in the Northern & Southern Calif. areas in the mid 70's -80's, the biggest problem I see is the short stories about a street race, will only take a single page to two pages max or so even double spaced, unless it's fictional & is highly embellished or lies, unless maybe you start the story from conception of the project, car or trip, or maybe give a detailed background story on every character/subject, they won't be very long stories otherwize... There are a few stories already here on FBBO, won't make for a book thou, unless it's a very short book, more like a page per story max & 100+ stories... I thought of writing a book about all the street racing in the Concord, Walnut Creek area of the East Bay of NorCal S.F. Bay Area, you would need to use fictitious names on some of the stories or just 1st names, most people didn't know, or remember someones last name, or don't want their names used, you would need permission, mostly they remembered the cars, sometimes racing 3 nights a week 1 night in Concord, 1 night in Walnut Creek, 1 night in either Pittsburgh, Antioch, Fairfield, Modesto or Sacramento, even in my early years H.S. years in Shingle Springs, Diamond Springs, Placerville, Auburn & Georgetown foothill areas, that's all just in central NorCal for years at-least 74-87 or so, then I grew up, raced at the track, some guys never did... Good luck, Have fun writing the book, that's just my thoughts on the subject...

 

[Benji]

I have one from about 1973 with me in my 1971 340 Cuda street racing a 1971 Ford Torino 351 Windsor. He bragged to everyone at the local hamburger stand that he would beat me four car lengths in the 1/4 mile! I've another where I took on a 1970 Challenger 440 with my little 340.

Ben

 

[CoronetRTguy]

I use to do allot of street racing, when I was younger, before I got smart & graduated to the race track exclusively, too much to loose on a street race, I traveled the west coast to street race, for some big {for me anyway} money many times, mostly in the Northern & Southern Calif. areas in the mid 70's -80's, the biggest problem I see is the short stories about a street race, will only take a single page to two pages max or so even double spaced, unless it's fictional & is highly embellished or lies, unless maybe you start the story from conception of the project, car or trip, or maybe give a detailed background story on every character/subject, they won't be very long stories otherwize... There are a few stories already here on FBBO, won't make for a book thou, unless it's a very short book, more like a page per story max & 100+ stories... I thought of writing a book about all the street racing in the Concord, Walnut Creek area of the East Bay of NorCal S.F. Bay Area, you would need to use fictitious names on some of the stories or just 1st names, most people didn't know, or remember someones last name, or don't want their names used, you would need permission, mostly they remembered the cars, sometimes racing 3 nights a week 1 night in Concord, 1 night in Walnut Creek, 1 night in either Pittsburgh, Antioch, Fairfield, Modesto or Sacramento, even in my early years H.S. years in Shingle Springs, Diamond Springs, Placerville, Auburn & Georgetown foothill areas, that's all just in central NorCal for years at-least 74-87 or so, then I grew up, raced at the track, some guys never did... Good luck, Have fun writing the book, that's just my thoughts on the subject...

This is going to be an all fiction book with my goal of having the stories being 10-25 thousand words per story. I set the goal of seven stories but I know that when I get started into each story the word count will go out the window. I also know that as of right now with the goal being set of seven stories it end up being more like 12-15 stories maybe more.

To be novel lenght the word count has to be seventy thousand and it will not be to hard to work the limits I set for each story and I also know that my word count will go over it for each story. I want to give some back ground on it as the reader is reading and not just have it go down to a race. I want a back story to each one of them.

Would love to hear about your time racing on and off the streets and you should do a book. I know a great editor and if you do an ebook you will not have the over head cost of printing like I will have along with cover art and paying the editor.

- - - Updated - - -

I have one from about 1973 with me in my 1971 340 Cuda street racing a 1971 Ford Torino 351 Windsor. He bragged to everyone at the local hamburger stand that he would beat me four car lengths in the 1/4 mile! I've another where I took on a 1970 Challenger 440 with my little 340.

Ben

I would love to hear about those as well. I used to own a 70 SCJ drag pack Torino 429 4spd car. I do miss that one and for a heavy car it could move. The 340 cars are some of the best big block killer cars.

I thought about doing a non-fiction book but I want to do it as fiction and I'm not sure if I will make MOPAR come out on top every time.

 

[Hemi Rebel]

Whaddaya mean mopar does not come out on top every time? Ok, i guess if you want to do a story about a guy in a slant 6 valiant that loses to a copo camaro by a fender that would be ok. Seriously though, this is awesome. I always loved the storys they used to put in mopar mags about "the good ol' days" . I havent read one in forever.
Not sure if you are trying to do a bunch of stories centered around the same character or different stories completely unrelated but a good one would be to tell the true story of what would happen in the beachboys song "shutdown".

 

[CoronetRTguy]

Whaddaya mean mopar does not come out on top every time? Ok, i guess if you want to do a story about a guy in a slant 6 valiant that loses to a copo camaro by a fender that would be ok. Seriously though, this is awesome. I always loved the storys they used to put in mopar mags about "the good ol' days" . I havent read one in forever.
Not sure if you are trying to do a bunch of stories centered around the same character or different stories completely unrelated but a good one would be to tell the true story of what would happen in the beachboys song "shutdown".

I need to go listen to shutdown again its been a long time since I have heard the song.

Yeah like a slant six car not winning or maybe winning against a big block or small block car for some crazy reason or another. When I write I just write I never have a layout of how the story will go or end so as I'm writing it and go back over it it's as if I'm reading it for the first time.

If a MOPAR wins or not will be up to the driver, car and what ever else could happen. I'm sure doing an all MOPAR book the MOPAR is going to win every time........Maybe I just have to play it out.

This will be a book about a bunch of different cars and drivers. I don't think I will do more then one story on each driver and characters. I may but as of right now with the way I'm planning on doing this one it will be one story each. If the book comes out good and it gets good reviews I may do a book two and take the peoples favorite car and driver and do some more stories with them. It also depends on if I'm having fun doing it and I can tell you I have sat down and started to write Vanishing Point (small scripts, stories and shorts) and had fun doing it. I wish I had them saved on a memory stick I lost them all when my computer crashed.

Stay tunned I may get a chance to write a small one tonight and if so I will post it up. If I dont get to tonight maybe over the weekend. I'm four-teen thousand words from having my second novel done and its one I'm trying to get finished along with my romance novel. I'm also halfway through a class that is 25 hours long with six quizes and one big exam coming up on it.

 

[70rr-brian]

For the "good old days" story... The year...1972. The reason...Any muscle worth a crap is currently roaming the streets and likely still healthy. As far as mopar....Any BB Mopar B or E body will suffice. As mentioned...even the little 340 is a good story eating up ford or shivy BB's. But a 68 Dart GTS with a 340 would make a nice story too.

As far as modern day...If the muscle is going to be beat by a ricer you lost me already... But modern muscle beating old days muscle I suppose I could live with.

 

[CoronetRTguy]

For the "good old days" story... The year...1972. The reason...Any muscle worth a crap is currently roaming the streets and likely still healthy. As far as mopar....Any BB Mopar B or E body will suffice. As mentioned...even the little 340 is a good story eating up ford or shivy BB's. But a 68 Dart GTS with a 340 would make a nice story too.

As far as modern day...If the muscle is going to be beat by a ricer you lost me already... But modern muscle beating old days muscle I suppose I could live with.

Thanks for the idea's and time line. Also I will NEVER have a ricer beat a MOPAR. I doubt that I take any of the stories to the point of having the MOPAR lose but if its a match race it will be up to the driver of the story.

I just want to make this fun and exciting and very interesting. I want some background to the main people of the story and the car and where it goes from there we'll see.

But as far as a MOPAR of any kind losing to a ricer it's not going to happen!

 

[Bruzilla]

I think you'll have to set the book in the past, most likely in the late-70s and early 80s. Most of these cars didn't really get raced hard until they entered the secondary market in the mid-70s, and by the mid to late 1980s, these cars had already started to enter the collector car field and the thought of taking these cars out on the streets and racing them was enough to make many owners catch the vapors. And forget about modern day. I go out to all my old drag racing sites and there's nothing but imports and Mustangs. You write about a lot of vintage Mopars racing today and it's going to come off as some fantasy novel.

By the way... I watched Two Lane Blacktop for the first time a few weeks ago. I liked seeing the race footage, but that was the most pointless, disjointed, worse written movie about racing I've ever seen, and that's going to be a similar problem for you. Drag racing itself is a very visual activity and doesn't translate well to the written word. We've all read hundreds of kill stories on the internet and in car magazines that describe that "big race" in mainly technical terms, but how many times can you write "... but then I shifted into 3rd and..." before the end product gets repetitive and boring? I think to make the stories more interesting you'll need to focus less on the racing and more on the personalities of the drivers, what their motivations were, how they prepared for the race (both the cars and themselves), and how they handled the outcome of the event. That allows the reader to associate themselves with the characters without the need for overly repetitive text involving shifting, timing, throttle use, etc.

 

[Montclaire]

Any good story, involving any primary activity, is a story that uses the activity as a setting and not the subject matter. If you're writing a book about people who work at a McDonalds, do you write about the people, or about how to run the shake machine?

If you are doing seven short stories, they should focus on the car owners and who they interact with. Each story could involve a brief race at the beginning or end, describe the roar of the engine or the banging of gears, a few lines and then move on. The winner is not important, you really don't even have to reveal that in real-time. These stories should then begin to play off each other, say the lead from story 2 is in a neighboring town to the setting in story 5. Maybe you don't mention the person by name but you hint at the description of the car and the reader knows it's all connected. You would tie all this in by story 7 and have seven shorts that are really one story from different angles.

I'd even do a short from a girls perspective, here she gets all dolled up for a date with a street racer type and the door handle won't work, she gets grease on her dress, hair blown all over since the headers are hot on the floorboards and they have to keep the windows down - winds up sitting with her friends at a gas station while the date bench races the whole time with a few guys, who also brought their dates (and, more importantly, their cars) to the gas station. lol

Really, you could do a whole book just about the people that have to deal with us; the used car salesman, the women, the cops, the parents, etc. I remember a write up from either Mopar Action or High Performance Mopar, where the writer recalled as a teenager having a neighbor with a 69 Hemi car, I think his name was Frank. There was a line that Frank had only two shirts, with a Hemi iron-on decal affixed to both - one was dirty for when he was working on the car, and one was clean, for when he wasn't working on the car. That's the stuff you have to capture.

I have a few movie ideas that have not been done on film yet, but since I could very well still win the lottery, I will keep those to myself for now. haha

And BTW, don't bash two-lane. If you don't get it, that's fine, but there are obviously others who do get it.

 

[Bruzilla]

I feel sorry for anyone who gets Two Lane Blacktop. That flick ran like a lot of high-idea/low-budget films. You shoot lots of scenes, run out of money, and splice together what you got to try and tell a disjointed, incomplete, story.

 

[Montclaire]

Like I said, some get it, some don't. As far as I know the film was put out as was intended, save for the ending which had to be changed since they could not get the car to roll in the final scene, even after several takes. It had to wait for AG to do that. lol

 

[roadrunnerman]

Maybe you could write a story about a guy with a 55 chevy that gets transported into the future and the only way he can return is if he wins races against fords,chevy and MOPARS in which case he would never be able to return.

 

[Bruzilla]

To me it played like a movie some guy decided to make to capture a scene that was popular at the time, street/drag racing, which is a good idea because you can just film a lot of races and keep your set and production costs down. Then you get a couple of singer buddies who want to try out acting, Taylor and Wilson, you get your girlfriend, and one B-grade actor. Then you sell cameos off to investors who want to pay some cash to say they were once in a movie, which means you have to come up with situations to put them in that generally don't move the story forward.

And the outcome? Tons of gaps with the girl's story, no backstory on the GTO guy, they never get to DC, and nothing gets resolved. It's a story with no beginning, a middle, and no end... which isn't really a story. But the opening scene was great!

 

[CoronetRTguy]

Any good story, involving any primary activity, is a story that uses the activity as a setting and not the subject matter. If you're writing a book about people who work at a McDonalds, do you write about the people, or about how to run the shake machine?

If you are doing seven short stories, they should focus on the car owners and who they interact with. Each story could involve a brief race at the beginning or end, describe the roar of the engine or the banging of gears, a few lines and then move on. The winner is not important, you really don't even have to reveal that in real-time. These stories should then begin to play off each other, say the lead from story 2 is in a neighboring town to the setting in story 5. Maybe you don't mention the person by name but you hint at the description of the car and the reader knows it's all connected. You would tie all this in by story 7 and have seven shorts that are really one story from different angles.

I'd even do a short from a girls perspective, here she gets all dolled up for a date with a street racer type and the door handle won't work, she gets grease on her dress, hair blown all over since the headers are hot on the floorboards and they have to keep the windows down - winds up sitting with her friends at a gas station while the date bench races the whole time with a few guys, who also brought their dates (and, more importantly, their cars) to the gas station. lol

Really, you could do a whole book just about the people that have to deal with us; the used car salesman, the women, the cops, the parents, etc. I remember a write up from either Mopar Action or High Performance Mopar, where the writer recalled as a teenager having a neighbor with a 69 Hemi car, I think his name was Frank. There was a line that Frank had only two shirts, with a Hemi iron-on decal affixed to both - one was dirty for when he was working on the car, and one was clean, for when he wasn't working on the car. That's the stuff you have to capture.

I have a few movie ideas that have not been done on film yet, but since I could very well still win the lottery, I will keep those to myself for now. haha

And BTW, don't bash two-lane. If you don't get it, that's fine, but there are obviously others who do get it.

I hear what you are saying about making a movie. My romance novel is being looked at by an indepent film maker to turn into a short film or a full length film. I have a long ways to go till I get it into print right now. I'm going back over it and doing some re-writes to it.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not re-writing Two Lane Blacktop and I think I get the movie. I just like the cars and the fact of no real talking in the movie just adds to it to me. I also love Dirty Mary Crazy Larry.

Did anyone see the original Vanishing Point? There was not that much talking with the main driver of the movie.

I will be doing this with back ground story on the drivers, cars, race, town or city and it wont be just about the race. I will get a story line going and let it unfold from there.

I also see what you are saying about being later in the 70s to early 80s. I have a few ideas that once I get something started and written I will post a little of it and you can tell me if you like it or hate it.

 

[super-bee_ski]

Year: 1970
Car: 66 Plymouth Belvedere HP2 (Hemi) OR Dodge Coronet..; Why? It gets no-respect ...

 

[Budnicks]

To me it played like a movie some guy decided to make to capture a scene that was popular at the time, street/drag racing, which is a good idea because you can just film a lot of races and keep your set and production costs down. Then you get a couple of singer buddies who want to try out acting, Taylor and Wilson, you get your girlfriend, and one B-grade actor. Then you sell cameos off to investors who want to pay some cash to say they were once in a movie, which means you have to come up with situations to put them in that generally don't move the story forward.

And the outcome? Tons of gaps with the girl's story, no backstory on the GTO guy, they never get to DC, and nothing gets resolved. It's a story with no beginning, a middle, and no end... which isn't really a story. But the opening scene was great!

I've seen the movie probably 50 times... I pretty much agree on the quality of the film & neither Taylor or Wilson can act, for ****, I think Wilson's only lines were "I need to check the valves & change the jets", at least a few time in the film, the film jumps allover the place the director & actors were stoned or Acid trippen' 99% of the time it was made, I'm sure.... BUT it has a cult following for sure, be it right or wrong, at best a C-Movie... It's a bad acted, lousy storyline, about a couple street racers/con man, 3 guys, 2 cars, occastionally "street racing" to make money, a lying ***, drugy, drunk, BS'er, Con-Man type guy driving a stock 70 GTO "the Judge" driven by famed actor Warren Oats {old western actor mostly from the 60's era} & a Fubar-upped 55 Chevy, w/fiberglass tilt front end & ugly little scoop, w/BBC LS7 w/2x4 tunnel ram, w/660 Holleys, fenderwell headers, M22 rock crusher 4 speed, rollbar, slide windows & cheapy old Plastic $50 race seats, that ran mid 12's on slicks @ the track, w/slicks they carried around in the trunk, with all their tools {supposedly it's the same 55 modified, from American Grafitti, "Falfas Field Car"}, the 55 & GTO guys, did bet Pink slips, on who could get to D.C. first {what's up ??, with no outcome} & a nobody transiant scummy type late 60's-70's hippie girl, not all that attractive either, screwing/hitch-hiking her way across America... I'll probably watch it again too, not for the storyline or acting, just beacuse of the era of cars & racing...

 

[Montclaire]

The 55s were built by Richard Ruth and although they said in the film that the car ran in the 12s, the fully prepped one would peel off 10s. The car was legit. And I believe two out of three made it into AG, I can't recall exactly, but that is fact as well.

 

[CoronetRTguy]

Year: 1970
Car: 66 Plymouth Belvedere HP2 (Hemi) OR Dodge Coronet..; Why? It gets no-respect ...

I love those cars and I think Mopar Muscle did a write up on one a 66 Plymouth Belvedere HP2 Hemi car and the guy was a bank robber that drove the car.

I have this one on the list.

 

[HT413]

I'd love a story about this paasage from http://www.allpar.com/WEDGE.HTML. Always loved the stories about the 413 and 426 wedges from the early 60's. (Who didn't?)

"In June of 1957 the AMA (Automobile Manufacturing Association), fearing a government and public outcry over safety issues, passed a ban on all factory-sponsored racing activities. Compliance with this ban did not last long [and did not prevent automakers from adding power to their engines]. In 1960, Ford was the first to defy the order, by producing the "Special Power" 352 CID engine. Chevrolet and Pontiac also jumped into the fray with 409s and "Tri-power" carb setups. This not only garnered attention on the racetrack, but also generated a lot of "image" and subsequent sales at the dealerships. Mopar had no such "image" product at the time. As Chrysler's Dick Maxwell stated in a 1984 interview, "We were virtually invisible on the street." However, these packages were not strictly engineered for racing, and often lost to more "pedestrian" Mopar 383s on both the track and the street.