Big Willy Daytona

[ethelkilledfred]

Here is a picture I took in early 70's when I was about 10 years old.  Big Willie and his street racers came out from California a couple of times to Great Lakes Dragway in Union Grove, Wisconsin.  A different paint scheme than the others were.  Thought you may find interesting, and I just joined the website today.

Dale Mathews
Lenoir, NC

Here is Union Grove article:




Here is Tomiko's car with that paint job at Fremont racing against the famous Corky Bousay off of SpeedVision. Tomiko took the win light.


Big Willie really like this pic, Thanks. This was Tomiko's 9 second Match racing Keith Black Hemi Queen Daytona

[ethelkilledfred]

I thought I'd heard some story about him losing everything in Katrina?

No, Big Willie's hometown got hit, but he was not living there at the time. He lives in Los Angeles, California. His relitives lost everything.

[ethelkilledfred]

What became of that once red now black 73-4 se charger with the daytona wing n scoops n flares? its also sitting behind willy in the video of street racers, anyone have any idea where that car is?-MATT

Here is the car, awaiting a 482inch KB Hemi transplant. One of the last KB Hemi's built by Keith Black himself and givin to Big Willie. It's and all aluminum water jacket motor.


The 557incher built by Keith Black and freshin up by Keith Black is in the race Daytona

[ethelkilledfred]

Here are current pics from this year. Big Willie at the Grayboys Car show

[ethelkilledfred]

Man alive...what a true LOVE Story ! I wish we all could see a lot MORE of THAT in America...
I hope Willie is doing ok now.  What is he up to currently ?

Big Willie is doing very good. He is currently working with the Mayor of Los Angeles to re open T.I.'s Brotherhood Raceway. Here is a pic of a previous protest when Big Willie told the Los Angeles city council, "if they don't want to give him a place to race, then he will bring the races to them!" Yes that is a Funny Car at city hall-Brian Raines's nitro burner.

[moparstuart]

great info , thanks for sharing

[ethelkilledfred]

great info , thanks for sharing

Thanks, got more, will keep you guys updated

[ethelkilledfred]

Cali











NY

[ethelkilledfred]

[ethelkilledfred]

[nascarxx29]

Cool stuff thanks for sharing .I seen alot of your achive pictures neat stuff
http://forums.hotrod.com/70/1387347/general-topics/re-big-willies-daytona-sold-250-00000/page2.html

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/bolus/2008/02/big-willie-and.html

[nascarxx29]

http://www.webshots.com/search for [Big Willie]-[Tomiko] nets result pictures in EthylKilled Freds ultimate Collection
http://www.webshots.com/search?query=tomiko&start=504

[nascarxx29]

http://www.unitedstreetracers.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1165864889

[ethelkilledfred]

Here is what Sports Illustrated had to say about Brotherhood Raceway on their 40th Anniversary Issue-

From:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1005652/1/index.htm

September 19, 1994
A Peacekeeping Force
Warring gangs downshift at Big Willie Robinson's drag strip
Ken McAlpine


It's a sunny Saturday, and spectators at Brotherhood Raceway Park are holding their cars. At the starting line a Ford and a Chevy, both souped up, lay down serious rubber. Their spinning wheels spew billows of white smoke. The noise is like Velcro tearing inside your skull.

But the source of the auditory agony isn't tire screech. It's the chubby fellow whose screams are assaulting a defenseless public-address system. His name is Willie Andrew Robinson III, but he prefers to be called Big Willie.

"Which car you want?" yells Big Willie. His question is directed to the track announcer, a frequent target of Big Willie's good-natured hustles. "I got 20 hot dogs with chili and onions against whatever you can put up. You beat me, you can throw a picnic. Invite everyone you know. Maybe even have some leftovers. C'mon now, don't be scared. If you're scared to bet, you deserve to lose."

The announcer picks the Ford. "Bung mistake," says Big Willie, cackling.

The colored bulbs on the starter's tree light up one at a time, top to bottom: yellow, yellow, then green. Big Willie implores the racers, "C'mon, cut a good light and run straight." The Chevy does precisely that, squealing down the quarter-mile track to a convincing victory.

"Hooo-eee!" he shouts. "My lucky day! Just got Thanksgiving dinner squared away! Hot dogs with chili and onions!"

Two more cars pull up to the line. Big Willie turns to his foil with a toothy grin. "Listen," he says. "I'll give you a chance to get some hot dogs back. I have a heart."

He's a man with a heart, all right. And a cause. That is why he has worked so hard to preserve this drag strip on Terminal Island, at the western end of Los Angeles Harbor. The raceway, which has gone in and out of existence for the past 20 years, is a demilitarized zone of sorts. Gangs from south-central Los Angeles, from the barrios at the city's eastern edge and from the San Fernando Valley come here to slam down the accelerators of rusted Pintos, sleek Camaros, jacked-up station wagons and other moving contraptions. Overseeing it is 52-year-old Big Willie, a 6'6", 300-pound peacekeeper.

"Black, white, yellow, brown, skinheads, Nazi party members, Muslims, we got 'em all," he says. "They're all here at the track, and they're communicatin'. And once they start communicatin", they start likin' each other, and once they start likin' each other, they forget about the hate." Big Willie's operation consists of' several acres of asphalt, a line of cracked barricades and a POW-MIA flag popping in the sea breeze. The site is called Brotherhood Raceway because brotherhood is what Big Willie has preached since 1966, when he returned from a two-year tour in Vietnam and formed the National and International Brotherhood of Street Racers, a group of hot-rodders who provide an antidote to racial unrest. The only requirements for membership are a vehicle and a lead foot.

In the early days, members gathered at night on deserted streets and in back alleys, holding races that drew hundreds of fans. Drag racing on city streets is illegal in Los Angeles, and the police considered shutting down the enterprise. Ultimately, they decided to look the other way. "They would come and help out with traffic control," says Big Willie. "We weren't supposed to be there, but we were bringing peace to the streets."

Finding a tract for a bona fide drag strip wasn't easy. There was the matter of noise, and the scarcity of unused land in the city—not to mention the brotherhood's potentially combustible membership. But Big Willie persisted, and after a long search, the races moved to Terminal Island in 1974. Over the next decade, the Los Angeles Harbor Commission shut the raceway down several times because it needed the land for storage or port access. Each time, Big Willie would pester then Mayor Tom Bradley and the city council for help in finding a new spot by showing up at council meetings and making speeches about how his strip helped keep the peace. "I've never known anybody more persistent," says Bradley. "He just won't give up on his dream. He can be so persuasive that many people who at the outset are opposed to his ideas are finally overwhelmed."

Almost 30 years after his crusade began, Big Willie is still at it because the ills he has fought with missionary zeal—racism and violence—are still alive and well. So is his manifesto: If you're racing, you're not killing.

[ethelkilledfred]

Big Willie would rather press ahead than look back in anger. Back to his childhood in the 1940s in New Orleans, with its separate schools, separate churches, separate racetrack seating for black people. Back to Louisiana State University in 1960, where he ambled out of history class one day to find the windows broken, headlights smashed and tires cut on his prized 1953 Oldsmobile hot rod. Back to yesterday's news stories of children gunned down in the streets. "There's a lot of ghosts around me, lot of ghosts," says Big Willie. "I don't have time to sit down and cry. I got to keep pushin' forward to bring more people together, so we don't have this crazy violence out there."

Everyone is welcome at the track, where the motto is: Run what you brung, tow what you blow. Big-rig trucks, Volkswagen buses, go-karts, bicycles, dog sleds and a motor home built out of the front half of an airplane have all rumbled down Big Willie's drag strip. The eclecticism of the machinery is matched only by that of the crowd: tattooed muscle bikers, Hispanic kids in white T-shirts and floppy pants, bony black youths sporting hair nets and oversized jewelry, motorheads elbow deep in engines, families sprawled in beach chairs and eating picnic lunches. Even Big Willie's mother, Lula Mae Robinson, has raced here, piloting her Cadillac with aplomb. "Man can show up naked driving with his privates, he's welcome here," says Big Willie.

The melting-pot atmosphere is due in large part to Big Willie's disregard for profits. Ten dollars gets you in the gate, but Big Willie lets in an armada of folks for free: veterans, policemen, firefighters, Big Brothers of America and anyone who can't afford the admission. "It's not good business," says Tomiko Robinson, Big Willie's wife of 25 years and his assistant at the strip. "But it's the way Willie wants it."

Big Willie is not, however, a starry-eyed softy. His supporters go on about the size of his heart; but it's public knowledge that he once ripped a car door off its hinges to rescue his wife from her race car after a crash. Brotherhood members police the track, but it's Big Willie's presence that ensures calm. On the rare occasions when a fracas seems imminent, Big Willie halts the racing, collars the suspects and drags them out on the track, where he berates them in front of the crowd. As he shouts, he jabs the air with a deli-pickle-sized finger while the sinners stare at the ground. "By the time he's done," says Tomiko, "they're so embarrassed they've forgotten why they're angry."

Big Willie makes ends meet at home by doing assorted odd jobs. Despite the flexible admissions policy, the track stays solvent, thanks to a combination of municipal largess, private support and Big Willie's creative street bartering. He leases the strip from the city for $1 a month. The barricades and bleachers are on loan from the Long Beach Grand Prix. Local businesses chip in product prizes. Graffiti artists paint the signs. A lawyer agreed to represent the raceway pro bono after Big Willie used his street connections to locate the man's stolen car.

The folks along the strip say Big Willie has helped curb violence outside the raceway gates. "Since we've had this drag strip, things have been much more mellow," says Reggie Foley, a 26-year resident of Compton, a south-central L.A. neighborhood familiar with gang violence. "Man's doin' a wonderful job. We're thankful Willie believes."

Says Steve Soboroff, a former harbor commissioner, "L.A. could use a lot more people like Willie. So could the world."

At the moment, however, the world seems more concerned with commerce than with calming hotheaded kids. Next spring, a harbor expansion project is scheduled to gobble up the drag strip and replace it with a coal-exporting facility. Officials say they have no plans to furnish another spot for the strip.

But Big Willie doesn't seem overly concerned. He believes he has the support of Mayor Richard Riordan and hopes to set up drag strips in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and New Orleans. With characteristic optimism, he says, "This is one story that doesn't end here."

[Daytona Enthusiast]

Back in the early seventies all the street racers around here would meet at a big grocery store parking lot by our house. When my Dad worked nights he'd always run into Big Willie and Tomiko parked across the street from the
lot at the gas station, Queen Daytona towing King Daytona. It's probably what influenced him into buying one in
76. It would have been great if he took some pictures, but it was just another day in Hot Rod paradise. I never
got to see King or Queen in person, which sucks. I met Big Willie with my Dad in the mid 70's in that same
parking lot during the day. He was driving his early Barracuda with the wing on it. I don't remember what the
conversation was because I was a kid. I just remember shaking his hand...super nice guy.

Here's my favorite picture I've got of King.

I think UFO said he was going to run this style of hood. I wonder if he's going to run the elephant sniffers???

[tan top]

thanks for the sory , intresting  good picture also
bet you dad had some aweome back in the day storys

[TiMopar]

Cool picture and story, thanks!

[C5X DAYTONA]

This is our old 69 Hemi 500 that my dad purchased from a friend of Big Willies for $60.  Car has the same plates that were on Queen Daytona at one point.   Also these plates were for the 500 as Daytona's never got Black California plates..  

[C5X DAYTONA]

Queen Daytona with the same plate

[tan top]

good picturs CX5   thanks for sharing 

[nascarxx29]

This is our old 69 Hemi 500 that my dad purchased from a friend of Big Willies for $60.  Car has the same plates that were on Queen Daytona at one point.   Also these plates were for the 500 as
Daytona's never got Black California plates
..  

..  

Wonder why that is daytonas didnt get black license plates a CA thing??.When we used to live in Northridge Ca in 69 I remember our family cars having the black on yellow plates.I dug up info on Ed Ryans daytona that was used in the ADAM 12 episode WHO WON 1972.That was the original owner hemi daytona sold from Canoga Park Dodge.And I got additional info when Jim Radke confirmed that car was Ed Ryans I was checking up on.I got to rewatch that video and see what he has for plates.But I did go on the site selling that Hemi daytona it has Blue on yellow 596BIY.And the Keith Black LA Dodge Daytona I think has blue on yellow plates.Interesting but why the color plate change
http://inventory.bestofshowautomotive.com/CarDetails.asp?VIN=1969DAYTONA
http://www.hulu.com/watch/46171/adam-12-who-won#x-0,vepisode,1

[Aero426]

1970 was the last year black plates were issued.    Depending on when the car was sold could dictate whether you had a chance to get a black or blue plate.   I have no idea when the exact changeover occured.  But if you were not the original owner, you would be pretty much guaranteed a blue plate even if the car was a late model used car.   

[Tom Q]

My Cuda was reg'd oct 1970 in socal, blue plates

[6bblgt]

The black/yellow plates ran out during calendar year 1969 some DMV offices ran out of them earlier than others.
If a Daytona was first registered in an area less populated than LA it would be possible to have black/yellow plates.
California plates stay with the car not with the owner.