Street racing back in the 70-80's in the Inland Empire

I recently heard that John Sanders had died and I wanted to put up a little tribute to him here...

There was a pretty hard core group of street racers here in the Inland Empire, which is the San Bernardino/Riverside area of SoCal, back in the 70's and 80's. They raced everything that had wheels, and a few things that didn't, and John Sanders was one of those who made his name racing everybody/anything with his VW's. John had a string of fast VW's, as soon as any of his cars started getting a reputation, he'd sell it and build another one.

Well, this story is about his white Bug.... John had been absent from the scene for a few months and one night he gave me a call and wanted me to drive his 'car' out to one of the racing spots for him... This sounded like fun, so I said OK. I went over to his house and there was this super clean white cal-look setting there and he came out threw me the keys and said be out at the spot at 10:30.... I'm thinking I had scored a fast ride for the evening, so I jumped in and fired it up.... IT's a Freaking 1300 stocker!!! I'm looking at him and he's got a big shit eating grin and his face and he says just be there and it'll be way cool... OK, I'm in, see you there.... So, I show up at the spot at 10:30 and park on the side of the road and start bench racing with the group that had assembled there...

About twenty minutes later, I hear a VW sneak in and park about 5 cars behind the white car..... John walks up and whispers to me, go over and choose off this real fast black Camaro that was setting there, and tell him that you'll race him with the white VW.... I say, 'what are you thinking?' -- He says just talk up how fast the VW is -- -- how it'll kill the Camaro and make sure that I show him the stocker and that I want John to drive the car, because it is way to fast for me to drive. AND when I get the Camaro hooked, get him to race for $500 dollars -- -- I'm shaking my head, but I'll play the game --- So I'm acting the newbie talking stupid and how fast my VW is and these guys are looking at me like I'm a sucker -- They look at the VW, I start it up and rev the stocker a few times, all the time saying how it'll just kill the Camaro and these guys are eating the line up... and when I say I'll race for $500, they are already thinking how they are going to spend the money... SO the deal is set up, they run off to get the Camaro ready. SO I still not up on what's really going on here and I start to hand the keys to car to John and he just waves me off and runs back further down the street and I hear the 'other' VW start up.....

John pulls up in an identical white VW, only this one isn't a 1300 stocker from the sound of it.... John and the Camaro line up and this VW sounds BAD ASS!!!! Needless to say John just blows this Camaro away,,, It is not within 5 car lengths even.. John comes back, parks the 'other' car down the street and runs up to the stocker and acts like he's getting out of the stocker just as the Camaro crowd comes running back to figure just what the hell has happened to them..... Well, I collected the money while the Camaro guys are looking all over the engine trying to figure out where the Nitrous was Blah, Blah, Blah, and I'm setting there trying not to laugh my ass off......

It turns out that John had built one of the first 2500cc Autocraft engines and the 2 identical white bugs. These cars are so identical that the license plates were only 1 digit different .... Man, that car was fast,,, It had a totally different sound to the engine to any VW I ever heard up to that point......

We played that game at several of the race spots in Riverside and Ontario and even down in the OC and LA that whole summer and slowly the word got out about that fast white VW and there was no more races to be had and suddenly the race car disappeared and he sold the stocker for a ton of cash, I don't believe there were more than 15-20 people that ever figured out that there were two different cars.....

.......and that is how John Sanders went down in local street racing lore. RIP John.....