60s Drag Racing for Pink Slips on Route 22 in Union, New Jersey

Racing for Pink Slips on Route 22

Long before organized drag strips and sanctioned race nights, Route 22 in Union had its own unofficial drag strip. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the action could begin almost spontaneously. Two drivers hanging out at the Adventure Car Hop would size up each other’s cars, exchange words, and suddenly issue a challenge. Sometimes the stakes weren’t just bragging rights. They were racing for pink slips, the ownership papers to their cars.

Word traveled fast. People poured out of Adventure and lined Route 22 to watch. Friends of the racers would temporarily stop traffic, set out cones, and clear the two westbound lanes. A starter stepped onto the highway, often armed with nothing more official than a white T-shirt. The two cars staged side by side, engines revving, while the crowd waited. When that shirt dropped, they were off.

The run headed west from Adventure Car Hop in Union toward the Big Top Car Hop in Springfield, roughly three-quarters of a mile down Route 22. It wasn’t sanctioned, scheduled, or remotely legal. It was ad hoc Jersey street racing, created on the spot by young drivers, fast cars, and a crowd eager to see who really had the quickest machine on Route 22.

For a few minutes, one of New Jersey’s busiest highways became Union’s unofficial drag strip.

The Adventure Car Hop opened on the highway’s center island in Union in the mid-1950s and became one of the era’s flashiest drive-in landmarks. Interestingly, older Union residents may remember the highway as Route 29. New Jersey’s statewide highway renumbering took effect in 1953, when the Route 29 designation between Somerville and Newark, including the stretch through Union, was officially replaced by U.S. Route 22.

So by the time the Adventure Car Hop was operating around 1955–56, its official address was on Route 22, even though “Route 29” undoubtedly remained part of the local vocabulary. The car hop continued into the early 1960s before disappearing from the rapidly changing Route 22 landscape; a Red Lobster now occupies the site.

At the other end of Union’s unofficial Drag Strip, westward on the Springfield border, was the Big Top Car Hop, another of Route 22’s great 1950s roadside gathering places, operating in Springfield, New Jersey, by at least 1957. Its circus-themed identity was more than a name: a 1957 copyrighted Big Top menu featured a lion in a cage, a waitress, and circus imagery.

The restaurant appears in both the 1958 and 1960 Springfield directories on Route 22, and contemporary memories describe roller-skating carhops, charcoal-broiled burgers and hot dogs, and even life-size stuffed animals displayed in cages.

In February 1958, a serious early-morning fire damaged the restaurant; more than 50 firefighters and volunteers responded, and the newspaper identified Marvin Geller of West Orange as the owner. Big Top also became part of Route 22’s legendary hot-rod culture: former patrons remembered young drivers congregating at the nearby Adventure Car Hop in Union and racing west toward Big Top, roughly three-quarters of a mile away, with a quarter-mile course reportedly marked by a white line across the highway. According to a family recollection, Geller later reopened the Big Top location as the Garden of Eatin’, but the new restaurant was short-lived.

The site’s history followed a classic Route 22 evolution. The Big Top Car Hop later became the Garden of Eatin’, and the property later hosted World of Tile at 174 Route 22 West in Springfield, New Jersey. It’s a car dealership lot today.

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More Area Icons Worth Remembering along “The UNION DRAG STRIP”

Lido Diner

The Lido Diner was a classic stainless-steel Route 22 landmark in Springfield, New Jersey. The familiar diner was a circa-1960 Paramount-built diner, and by 1966 Gus, Theodore, and Helen Hiotis operated it; a contemporary trade article described its landscaped entrance with hedges and flagstone walks.

Later remembered for its own bakery and freshly baked bread, the Lido survived well into the 1980s; historical photographs document it in 1981 and 1984, and diner historian Larry Cultrera recalled eating there in 1987. It stood at 205 Route 22 in Springfield and was eventually demolished; a 7-Eleven later occupied the site.

Swingle’s Colonial Diner

Swingle’s Colonial Diner was one of Springfield’s best-known Route 22 landmarks. The Swingle family entered the diner business in the 1950s, led by Joseph Swingle, a former salesman for the famed Jerry O’Mahony diner company. By 1962, brothers Dallas, Joseph, and Fred Swingle Jr. operated the Springfield diner. It promoted itself as “America’s First Colonial Style Diner,” combining the traditional roadside diner with Colonial décor and atmosphere.

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