| Grand Rapids Street Racers History |
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  The club roots go back to Gino's Drag Team, back left Searea Russell on left Vito Lombardo on right, front left John Plantenga and Dan Jackson. This was the core then came Ken Firlik, Lyle Buffem, 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   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 made the club official so we could hold a car show in Eastbrook Mall registered the club with the Kent County 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
1982
Kirk Wakefield
1982 Jimmer Kline
1982 Scott Leys
     1982 Butch Allessio 1982 Jeff Carlson 1982 Bob Wakefield 1982 Darrin Dean 1982 Jerry Clement      1983 Dan Devires 1985 Mike Tomczak 1985 Bill Bayer 1985 Scott Oshinski 1985 Dan Fouts |
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