run whatcha brung

 The hotrodder scene is full of over used, tired out, dried up cliche's. I get so sick of hearing them that I instantly wonder if the person saying them has any clue what they are saying. "Run whatcha brung" was one that I heard many times in my early street racing years. It meant that if you showed up to race and your opponent had a lighter car, bigger tires, bigger motor or a nitrous system, oh well, to bad for you. Nobody said it was going to be fair. On the other hand if the odds are stacked in your favor, oh well, run whatcha brung right?  "There's no replacement for displacement" this basically means bigger is better when talking cubic inches. Guys with big motors never stop saying it untill you reveal a nitrous system they didn't know you had! "Three quarter race cam" this is just a little bit smaller than a "full race cam" and it means that the guy who says it knows nothing about cams. "355 american" this is a special high performance engine built in a secret american machine shop in very limited numbers and installed in various cars and trucks that somehow were smuggled into Canada,  or it is an old 350 chevy that is bored .030 oversize. "400 american" same story as above.  "blue block or orange block" when talking chevy engines obviously orange must be better, why not get an orange block and paint it blue? What a sleeper that would be! "cheater slicks" this refers to..... I'm not really sure, maybe tires that hook on the street but may or may not be real slicks?You are a cheater if you use them though!  "NAWWWS" If you say this it means you beleive everything is true that happens in the fast and furious movies and you probably have a honda with a 4 inch exhaust tip on the back. "Bone stock" When a street racer says this it means an engine with a cam, intake and headers and it is about to blow your doors off! " Ported and polished and blueprinted" This means I dropped my motor off at the machine shop and i got a really big bill when it was done, I'm assuming these things were done because I got charged alot of money! "Rat rod" I posted on this awhile back but its basically another word for "I'm to broke or lazy to make my car look decent". As you can see there is lots of automotive jargon that needs to be scrapped from the hotrodders dictionary. They are mainly introduced into our hobby by non-car-guys pretending to be car guys to impress our women and teenagers! So men, here's what to do. Teach your wife and kids the gear head lingo so they can identify the fakers! You don't want your own family members to embarass you by spouting off some goofy two-bit movie line in front of your real car buddies do you?  Educate them! Make them read through this blog! Its the right thing to do!