 
The
club started out as Gino's Drag Team, back left Searea on left
Vito Lombardo on right, front left John Plantenga and Dan Jackson. This
was the core then came Ken Firlik, Goose, Greek, Chuck Dykstra Troy
Brewer, Mark Telder. The above picture of course is Gino's Pizza
on Michigan Street in Grand Rapids. We were refered to by outsiders as
the Street Racers. This was because the cars we drove could be seen at
the local dragstrips every week end.
   Dan Jackson
Vito Lombardo
Searea Russell
   Carl
Foster
Chuck
Dykstra
Ken Firlik
   Troy
Brewer
Bill Orrman
John
Plantenga
   Lyle
Buffem
Warren "Goose" Hull
Tremolos
"Greek" Karmenlago
 
Mark
Telder
Robyn Smith
This group brings us up to 1978 which is when we officially
became the "Grand Rapids Street Racers Association".
The
Grand Rapids Street Racers have been around for over 35 years as a club, longer
as a group of car enthusiast. We came together because we were alike. We loved
fast cars and enjoyed working on them to make them even faster. We like to
cruise around in them being loud and proud. We like to drag race them and we
like to show our hard work off. And we like to raise a little hell now and then. So we hung out, worked and played together as a
group. We cruised downtown in the early days, when you still could. When we cruised
into town everybody would refer to our group as "street racers"
because we drove our cars as well as drag raced them. The name stuck. We also
got a reputation for being trouble makers just this side of a
jail cell. Well some was deserved some wasn't. We were after all just kids with
fast cars. Well about 1978 or so one of the group, Troy Brewer thought it would
be a great idea to make the club official and made himself president. We got
t-shirts jackets, began sponsoring car shows and other events, Vito's 4th of
July parties were legendary. Since this did not require us to do anything other
than what we were already doing we said fine.
As we became part of the Street Machine National
scene we
met many people like us, and made many life long friends. The club
through these events
became known on a national level. People we met from all over loved to
hang with us cruise the night away. They looked forward to these events
as much as we did. If someone from this area managed to get
their car in a national magazine you can bet they belonged to our
club.
Here are the Street Racers from the 1980's  1979 Robert Whitman |  1979 James Bartlett |  1979 Larry Pratt aka"Bimbo" |  1980 Rick Robinson |  1980 Steven Grinwis |  1980 Steve Amato |  1980 Greg Wyeth |  1980 George Anderson |  1980 Rick Jansma |  1980 Ron Sheldon |  1981 Mike Arnsberg |  1981 Randy Closser |  |  1981 Steven Grinwis |  1982 Kirk Wakefield |  1982 Jimmer Kline |  1982 Scott Leys |  1982 Butch Allessio |  1982 Jeff Carlson |  1982 Bob Wakefield |  1982 Jerry Clement |  1982 Darrin Dean |  1983 Dan Devires |  |  1985 Mike Tomczak |  1985 Bill Bayer |  1985 Scott Oshinski |  1985 Dan Fouts |  |  |
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