Steelworks

The RodCast!!!

2011-09-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

Yup, you read that right folks... The RodCast is coming! I don't know if there's really a lot to explain that isn't already in the name but, just in case, I'll give you a little background on what, why, and a little "who in the hell do I think I am?".

For starters, that last part is easy. I'm just a fan, and nothing more than that. Just like all of us, I stand in awe of what has come before us in our hobby and sport and feel like it is worth the time and effort to try and ( as the tag line states ) "Preserve and Promote" the tradition. I'm just a bit more of a glutton for punishment than most and my thick skull oftentimes can't talk me out of these ideas. So here I am, and I'm genuinely excited! Most of us have heard of the Podcast format by now, and some ( myself included ) are probably following one or two. I think it's a great use of technology and I really like the idea of people being able to produce their own online radio show on whatever topic they're way into. Being able to personalize what you want to take in or be around is just so... well, it's a lot like hot rodding isn't it?

The RodCast will be a weekly show of one on one interviews with folks from the traditional hot rod and car world. As any of you know who have read my blog posts, I am deeply interested in the early days of our little world and the people who helped create it. I think the look and feel of early hot rodding is as beautiful, both culturally and artistically, as anything we've created in the past 100 years. I do. And the fact that we live in a time when both, the pioneers who created it and our first youth movement actively paying homage to what these guys did originally, are crossing paths, is very exciting to me. The idea that, right now, knowledge can be shared between these two groups directly makes this a special time for all of us who live and breathe this stuff. As we all are, I am interested in hearing from and speaking with as many pioneers as possible. And we will. These guys never let you down and you always walk away inspired, smarter, more grounded, and maybe just a little humbled knowing just how much better these guys are than us. At least I do. But what always brings me back around to a feeling of optimism about the future of our hobby ( and the future in general ) is when I get to meet and talk with a guy half my age who just finished building a spot-on perfect traditional Ford based hot rod or similar. That's a story that I feel needs to be heard just as much as the great inspiring tales we get from our pioneers. And it's because they work together. If we only had the past it wouldn't be enough to sustain us and our interests. But the fact that we can go out and recreate and experience the very same things that guys did 50-60-70 years ago by learning those same skills and gathering the same knowledge is the difference between something being a static museum display, and something that is truly"alive".

From the 1st or 2nd generation pioneer to the 20 year old kid who somehow has a stranglehold on how to build a perfect AV8 roadster... and all folks in between. And I do mean all folks in between. Earlier here I purposely wrote "traditional hot rod and old car world". As much as I am a purest about my hot rods, I also have a genuine love for many other types of go fast or look-good vehicles that can make me just as crazy. Now before you check out of here in fear that I'm talking about pro-touring or rest-o-rod/ street rod stuff, know that I'm not. I just don't like cut offs. Cuts offs are, well... limiting. I stand by the belief that when something is really "right" it's just that. And although I'm still talking about a traditional or nostalgia focus here, I can see ( and have seen ) a wider range of cool than some followings in this world seem to want to accept. I can appreciate that, but I can also appreciate the 1960s, the cars that became available, and the amazing golden age of drag racing that came with that decade. For example; I've always been interested in guys who've done a lifelong or long term ownership, and if I run across someone who bought a '62 409 new, drag raced it, street raced it, and has loads of colorful stories about it, and STILL owns it...? well, I'm gonna want to talk to that guy.

And that really brings me full circle here. It's going to be about the people. It's going to be about the people and their stories. It's going to be about the people who have stories that I think we can all relate to and who come from our little "food group". One of my favorite things about our hobby and the traditional old car world is how comfortable it feels to me. I grew up in a house with a Dad who was a factory worker, who raced, restored, and serviced his own cars, who never had a repair man enter his home, ever... and figured out how to do things when he had to because, as he used to say, "If somebody else can do it?... " And if there is something I find truly inspiring about the state of our hobby today and the younger guys coming up who are building beautiful traditional cars, it's that it stands in the face of a horribly defeatist line that I hear said about our society often these days... "We don't build anything anymore" or "We don't know how to do anything anymore".

Well, I don't buy it. Not for a second. And I don't think anyone in this slice of the hobby does either. If a 20 year old kid can still build a safe, well engineered, and great looking car out of thin air just as 20 year old kids did all those many years ago, then things haven't changed as much as they want us to think. We just need to keep spreading the word so as to make sure "they" are never right. That way we really will preserve our little world for the generations that aren't even being thought about yet.

So if you're interested, I'm interested. I'm really looking forward to meeting with and talking to a whole range of character and then passing it on to you guys. Know that, in addition to straight up car folk, I'm planning on pulling in some of my more car minded musician friends that I think will have interesting takes on why this stuff is just so damn cool. I always find it fun to get the take on this stuff from my music friends, as they ( like me ) look at it as another art form. I also will be talking to guys young and old who are making their living in the hobby to find out what they do and how they do it. We'll have companion video shorts and clips on the website from many of the episodes and I'm excited to say that right now I'm producing some original music for the RodCast that will be available on the website and on iTunes. I guess you could say that I like to be busy!

So stay tuned around here as we begin to spool this thing up. I will be regularly updating the progress as we approach our launch date. Oh, and just a little teaser... I just finished doing an in depth interview with the great Bill "Tiny" Davis of "Hill and Davis" streamliner fame. We got some great stuff with Bill and will probably have to run it as a two part RodCast. Bill is alive and well and living in Speedway Indiana where he is ( get ready for this you guys ) currently recreating his international record setting Hill and Davis/City of Burbank/Bob Estes spcl. streamliner to return to Bonneville with the car in 2012 a mere 60 years to the day after setting his initial record! Yeah, you heard that right.

Again, welcome back! And as always... Stay 'tuned'

Welcome Back!

2011-09-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

Well, what can I say but… welcome back! It has certainly been a while. I suppose if a seriously bitchin’ issue of Hot Rod Deluxe won’t bring me back into the fold, than nothing will.

Wow, that’s about all I can say about this latest ( November 2011 ) issue of that fine publication. Wow! I am just knocked out. What a great job these guys did. My sincere thanks go out to both Jay Storer and my pal Dave Wallace Jr for putting in the time, the attention to detail, and the passion that we all felt my late friend Tom Sparks’ story deserved. It isn’t very often that something so dear to you can be handed over to other folks and what comes out in the end is beyond your expectations. But this is one of those rare occasions. Again, well done you guys! I could never thank you enough.

As the text states many times throughout this issue, Tom’s story could easily fill a dozen issues of any magazine and we would still just be scratching the surface. His life and accomplishments are simply hard to comprehend for us mere mortals, but Dave and Jay did an excellent job in giving us all a nice detailed overview of what Tommy did. I think anyone who reads this issue will walk away with as good an idea as one can have of just how serious a guy Tom was, and this is far and away the most pleasing part of this for me. Tom was such an understated and humble person that you’d oftentimes have to pry out of him even the most matter of fact of his life’s achievements. Because of this, Tom flew pretty far under the radar and I always wanted to try and find a way of helping him get his due. I wanted this because he’d earned it, he was my friend, and I knew that his story would inspire the younger generation of car guys following him just as it had done for me. Thanks to Dave Wallace and Jay Storer, I think we’ve been able to do just that.

I have to say that some of the issue is pretty damn “blush-worthy” for me, but I’m gonna try and power through it! I honestly do feel a little embarrassed by how much attention I got ( especially in the crazy two-page centerfold… I’ll find a way to get you back Wallace! ) , as I already feel a little squeamish about my unbelievably good fortune in having been chosen by Tom to be the caretaker of his old roadster pickup. That’s so much more than enough that anything beyond that feels somehow greedy and beyond flattery. The only thing I can say is that it is truly one of the highlights of my life and I will do everything possible to do right by the roadster and by Tommy in making sure that it is properly treated and preserved for the next caretaker.

Speaking of inspiration, some readers may have noticed a little something in the “Roddin’ at Random” section of this issue that references my current project. As I stated earlier, being around Tom these past several years, as well as many of his fellow hot rod pioneers, has not just been inspiring… but flat-out life changing. To steal a label from Tom Brokaw, these guys really are our “greatest generation” and I don’t think it can be overstated just how awesome their impact on our country and culture has been. I think we feel it everyday without even knowing it and, much like Tom’s life, I think this ( and these characters ) shouldn’t go unnoticed.

In Monday's blog I will spell out what I’m working on and how excited/anxious I am to be so near the launch of it. It’s been a long time coming but I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun and, I hope, pretty entertaining for anyone interested in traditional hot rodding, vintage drag racing, American roots music, and all the other fun stuff that folks like us dig.

So welcome back… Stay ‘tuned’… and see you on Monday!

Tommy Sparks, my First Hot Rod, and the Last Flathead ( Part 6 )

2009-06-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Within a couple weeks of getting back home I booked my first flight to So-Cal for the sole purpose of checking out some more car stuff. This was going to be a different kind of trip for me. No business, no music jobs to play, just research... hot rod research.

That last bit that Tom had told me was really haunting me. Could this be that there were a bunch of guys my age building 1940s style dry lakes hot rods? Driving them on the street and to cruise-ins, and running in packs as if it were 50-60 years ago? I couldn't get there fast enough to see this for myself.

Fortunately for me a good friend had recently moved out to the Hollywood area and had a guest/pool house that I could stay in. I arrived into town and quickly gave Tom a call to see if we were still on for going over to the Bob's Big Boy friday night cruise-in. He said sure and to meet him at his house at 5pm. I hopped in my rental car, drove over the hills, and met Tom as he requested. Low and behold when I went to turn in his driveway it was already taken. Sitting there gleaming in the California sun was a '29 roadster on deuce rails. This was one of Tom's cars that I had seen the first time I visited. It is a semi-modern roadster that was built by Roy Brizio as one of his first customer cars. It has a Chevy in it with a turbo 400, a nice finished interior, above average paint, but is pleasantly traditional. I-beam axle with split hair-pins, 9 inch Ford, polished Halibrands, and a nice aggressive stance. The engine is strong and makes a great sound. I found out later that the car houses a 1970 LT1 370hp 350 that had been built up a bit and that the car is on record as having run high 11 second quarter mile times. Plenty fast for a street roadster.

So there we were. I was going to my 1st So-Cal cruise in and couldn't be doing it in any more style than this. Riding in a hot rod roadster with Tom Sparks. Pretty cool.

We ran down Riverside into the Toluca Lake/Burbank area and were soon upon the great scene. From at least a quarter mile off I saw the Bob's sign hanging out over the street in its over-the-top 1950s style and all around us in traffic were hot rods, muscle cars, and every other kind of interesting machine imaginable. All headed toward Bob's. When we came to the entrance I could see that there was no way in, and most definitely no open parking spaces... and it wasn't even 5:30 yet and still light out. There were multiple Cobras, lots of muscle cars- many of them unrestored survivors, I remember a surprising number of vintage brit bikes, solid axle Corvettes, old gassers and super stocks with their noses in the air, sportscars, and of course the usual street rods. This was definitely a "something for everybody" scene. I was so anxious to see some of these throw-back roadster guys that I was looking through the cars sharply for any sign of them. Nothing yet, but Tom assured me that they'd been showing up with great regularity.

We parked his car a block away and walked back up Riverside to take a lap or two around the parking lot. It was just amazing. So many things struck me as unique to the southern California scene that day that it is difficult to zero in on one, but I'll rattle off a few that really got me and continue to do so; For starters, you realize that many enthusiasts out there drive their cars a lot. It is such a part of the culture and signature of individuality for Californians ... and of course the weather is so damn agreeable. By and large the cars were not as show prepped as you would find at a cruise-in in the mid-west. They were driven in from where they live and looked to have been driven all that day and several times through the week. I clearly remember a '66 GT350H that was parked near the front door to Bob's that looked as though it was there because its owner had to inspect something in the kitchen. It had discarded this and that in the floorboards, the windows were down, it was unlocked, and no one was nearby watching every move every onlooker made near it. It was a very tidy car with older paint that looked well sorted. This was a look and feel that I would find in many a collector car seen through the years in and around southern California, and one I really liked. What a pleasant break from the cars with mirrors underneath and a brake drum off to show the restoration work. Nothing wrong with that of course, but in this case I knew that if I hung around long enough I would get to hear a well tuned solid lifter hi-po 289 fire up willingly, pull out into traffic, and zip away. Knowing that option was there if I wanted gave a whole new level of enjoyment to being up close to these great cars.

The other thing that I kept shaking my head at was the fact that, if you walked up to, lets say, a solid axle Corvette- it would be a high-performance version more often than not. I use the Corvette here just as an example, but it was that way with virtually anything I would come upon. A Road Runner was liable to be a 6-pack or a Hemi, the XK140 Jag over there has the C-Type head, that '57 Olds is an original J-2, and that '73 lime green 911 is an RS, and on and on. I think it just gets back to how "at the front" the car has always been in their culture. It's just a notch or two more important there than it is most anywhere else and it is clearly reflected in the kinds of cars that were ordered new and still remain there today. Lucky for the rest of us that they are in the best climate for car preservation ever invented.

As all of this was washing over me, Tom recommended that we go in and eat while we could, before the real rush happened. I couldn't believe my ears... real rush? The place couldn't be more packed. It was more like being at the coolest burger joint on the weekend of the hot rod nationals than at one of many weekly cruise-in spots. How was it going to ramp up from this? Ah, ye of little So-Cal knowledge... I had no idea. We got a table after a short wait and placed our order. Lucky for me we got a booth right in the front window bordering Riverside drive and were able to see all of the cars as they would come in. It was a great backdrop for continuing some conversation with Tom.

He was interested in hearing about the music business and I, of course, was interested in his life with cars. So fortunately for both of us it wasn't completely one sided, as I know I would have just driven him nuts. We even stumbled on the fact that we both held bicycle riding as one of the more important parts of our lives. Tom had great success as a champion level long distance racer and really knocked me out with some of his stories from those days. I had spent a few years of my life believing that I might have a career in riding BMX freestyle, having put a team together in the midwest to put on bike shows and demos complete with mobile vert ramps and the like. This was nothing to compare with what Tom had done but it was some common ground outside of the car world and I was surprised how interested Tom was in hearing about it and how it worked.

Of course we were back onto cars before we knew it and with every sentence I just became more and more amazed at what he had been able to accomplish. I had gone into this with a decent understanding of Tom's career in hot rodding and, believe me, that part of his career would be more than impressive just on its own. But I was now learning about all of the many other facets of his career that I frankly didn't see coming. It just went on and on. Success with sports cars during the golden age of Cal-Club racing in the 1950s ( including some home made Ford based specials, a C-Type Jag, and a Maserati supercharged grand prix car ), racing stock cars with Bill Stroppe, his long running history of showing his restorations at Pebble Beach and judging there for over 30 years, and then of course his long relationship with the movie studios. I just couldn't believe my ears... especially when

... it happened. We were sitting next to that window having pleasant conversation when suddenly the sound of several rapping, raspy, throaty exhaust notes filled the air both inside Bob's and out. Reverberating off of the store fronts up and down Riverside like rolling thunder and then the source finally coming into view. Tom looked out the window and said with a smile on his face,"There they are." There they were indeed. The hot rodders! It was everything I had ever imagined in my wildest dreams but intensified well past anything I could have envisioned. It was everything! The whole reason the term was ever coined. The complete explanation for why it had such a nasty and explosive reputation when it arrived on the scene back in the day. It was chaos. Every head whipped around to see what was happening, people stepped back from the sidewalk, parents grabbed their children and clutched them. And these hoodlums, these delinquents, these Hot Rodders, came wheeling into the parking lot, tires squealing, as if it were their own. They instantly made you feel like you'd been caught on their turf, like you'd better leave if you know what's good for you.

They drove around the parking lot looking for the right spot to back into. Engines revving through open exhaust, lurching forward over and over as they darted around in low gear. Every action they took, every move they made, even the way they looked and the way they sat in theirs cars, was rude. Completely rude... and in the greatest way! This was ____ing hot rodding man! This was it. Down and dirty, scaring women and children and grown men alike. This is why it existed then, why it has continued to exist in various forms to this day, and why its impact has been felt both culturally and throughout the automotive world for over 60 years. Absolute pure American hot rodding. I had no idea, until that very moment, that I had never seen or experienced hot rodding. I thought I had, but I hadn't. This was my first view of it and its pure, visceral, dangerous, human quality was filling every sense I had.

I jumped up and grabbed my camera and started for the door. Tom yelled out,"where you going? Those guys will be out there all night." But I couldn't help myself. It was like a giant shark was swimming by and I had to snap a shot or it would go under and I'd never see it again. I burst out the door and caught a shot of the lead guy just as he was wheeling past me. I continued to walk around the parking lot catching shot after shot of he and his fellow roadster drivers as they zeroed in on the best spaces. Finally they settled in the back, reversing into a corner of the lot and kinda making their own haphazard bunch up- making it look like an impromptu club meeting was happening. With a lot of noise and sawing at steering wheels, they all gave a few final blasts to their throttles and were settled.

As soon as that last exhaust note faded, it felt as though the completely awestruck crowd filling the parking lot would erupt into applause... at least that's how I felt. It was simply glorious. Nothing I'd ever heard or seen before had hit me like this and I was sold. Completely 100% sold. I quickly walked over to the lead man's roadster to get a closer look. The more I looked the cooler it got. It was the most patina'd machine I had ever seen. The car equivalent of Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar. Worn in all the right places like a beautiful old hammer, and just as simple and easy to understand. Human signature everywhere- in every way. Absolute purity of design and purpose. I had to have one. This was a fact ... and there was no turning back.

I returned to the booth where Tom was sitting, he looked up at me, saw the look on my face, and just started laughing. Then he said,"Well, I guess I know what you thought of that." And you know what?... he did. He of all people. After all, he'd been there before... just like me. Maybe in another time, but it was the same. It was the same, and it was something he understood all too well.

Jim Deist 1928-2009

2009-05-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well we've lost yet another one of our original hot rod pioneers with the passing of Jim Deist on March 9th of this year. Jim was 80 years of age.

For anyone who follows auto racing, especially drag and land speed events, the name Deist is one of those industry standards that you end up taking for granted. But the truth is, it took the vision of this one southern California hot rodder to develop the first commercially available parachutes for use in drag racing when he founded Deist Safety in 1958. And thanks to Jim Deist's vision, countless lives have been saved in racing since he started his company through the use of both his parachutes and his other lines of driver safety products.

Jim learned his trade while working for Irving Air Chute during the late 1940s and soon took the concept of air-foil deceleration and combined it with his passion for drag racing. Thanks to the support and encouragement from friend and racing pioneer Mickey Thompson, Deist was able to expand his product line during the early 1960s to include the harness style race belts and fire suits that can be seen in use across the entire range of motorsport still to this day.

Although Jim Deist was honored with many industry awards throughout his successful career, I think it can be safely said that his greatest pleasure must have come from the countless lives that his products saved through the years and will continue to save long after his passing.

Another example of a person from our greatest generation who spent his life developing better and safer ways of doing things and, in turn, shaped and effected our existence for the better... and in ways we could never quantify.

The Pasadena Reliability Run 2009 ( Part 4 )

2009-05-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

... and you thought I'd forgotten.

As far as the day I had going on this run, I have nothing but great things to say about it. Fortunately my co-pilot/navigator seems to feel the same way. We just had a blast, and possibly most important of all, the little red '29 RPU behaved beautifully.

For me, the most hair raising part of the experience happened at the very beginning and the very end of the day. As I think I said earlier, we left at 6am and headed out of North Hollywood. Everything was great. Barely any traffic on the streets, low 60s temps were making the engine happy, and we were packed in and comfortable- looking forward to our full day with the old hot rod. Then it all started to get rather serious.

We were following our friend Vic in his old roadster and I guess it just never crossed my mind that we'd be hopping on the interstate to get over to Pasadena at a decent time. You see, driving around town is exactly what a flathead roadster seems to like best, and after all it is what they and the parts that make them up were designed for. Cruising around at 30-45 mph is plenty exhilarating in one of these but, take it from me, 60-65mph on the interstate can be downright scary if you're not ready for it. And I wasn't. I had never driven one of these, at least not a truly primitive ( and I mean that in a kind way ) early hot rod. I may sound like a pansy to some of you out there right now, but until you've jumped out onto the 210 in LA in one of these vehicles, running old bias-ply tires that are picking up every line in the road, sitting upright in that old cockpit, eyes even with the top of the windshield and knee cap even with the top of the door, bouncing along with no seat belts while SUVs fly by all around you ( with zero regard for anyone else ) going at least 15-20mph faster than your already seemingly way-to-fast 65... well, you get the idea. It'll put some grey hairs in your head.

Fortunately we weren't on the interstate for more than about 20-25 minutes and it was over. I couldn't help notice while hanging onto the old girl, that everything felt and read through the gauges as completely happy. It was running a cool 140 or so on that drive in the morning, and never got above 160 at anytime throughout the day. That's including the Reliability Run itself. Now remember, we climbed up into the mountains above Pasadena and took the car as high as 8,200 feet! And it never missed a beat, not for a moment. I can say this without exaggeration, the car felt so good it gave you the feeling that this was part of its daily commute. And if I'm to be honest with myself, I have to admit that that just shouldn't have been the case. I have such a high opinion of Tom's abilities as a car builder and mechanic that I'm over confident in anything he has touched, but, no one can fight the time factor when a car has been in a long storage. Obviously something he built will have a better chance than most any other, but again, I really did expect something to get cranky at some point. It never happened.

Eventually I just relaxed into the idea that we had the strongest and best built car in attendance and really started to drive with the pack and have fun.

We left off at 30 second intervals but bunched up together somewhat by the time we got into the mountains. The traffic lights in town helped this happen but also I think my fellow roadster drivers had the same feeling I had about it; It was nice to be in with a group. This was one of the more enjoyable experiences about the run. Carving up through mountain passes in a flathead roadster, and seeing a line of similar cars in front and behind us, and more importantly to me- HEARING them working all around was a huge thrill. As we all know, nothing in the world sounds like a well built flathead, and to hear a pack of them accelerate up a grade together with their gurgling pipes reverberating off the rock walls that the road is carved through... well, you can just imagine. When one guy would get into his roadster a bit to really jump up an incline, it would inspire all of us and together some great mechanical music was being made.

We stopped off a few times for breaks, pit-stops, and to help a friend here and there who was overheating ( Did I mention we never broke 160?) but really made good time considering, and always came into the various stop off points when there were quite a few cars in attendance. Tom's car got a good bit of attention, as it was one of the few cars there that was an actual old hot rod from back in the day, and we would always draw a nice little crowd when we parked. This reminds me, I can't remember if I've mentioned this or not, but the long-term ownership award has to go to the gentleman that I approached to compliment on his very smart and clean '32 full fendered roadster. He was an older guy and when I asked him how he's had the car he answered,"Well, I built it in '39 and I've had it ever since."

This is the kind of stuff I think you could only experience with an event like this. As famous as this run is to followers of old Hot Rod magazines and old hot rodding in general, it is still a rather underground, and certainly under publicized, event. Therefore the people who do come out are there because this is their main focus in the hobby. These are the guys who are dedicated to the tradition of the hot rod for life.

For the princely sum of $60 each, oh, and having been invited because of Tom and his car, we and the other 93 cars who showed up had an incredibly unique experience that I can say will go down solidly in my top 5 list of all time greatest car events/activities that I've ever been part of.

And yes, we made it home fine... even in Saturday evening traffic, which was a good bit hairier than the morning. As I pulled into Tom's driveway and let out a sigh, the little flathead was idling smoothly and running cool. Almost as if it were mocking me and my doubt... and I could feel it was ready to go again at that very moment. And you know what?, so was I.

The Bronco lives!

2009-05-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

I hope that everyone that reads this can directly relate because it is a truly great thing to experience. I can't imagine another action that you could take in the old car hobby that would give you so much back. I'm of course talking about the "first drive" made after months or years of a build or restoration. The reason I'm so excited and inspired on this subject is because that is exactly what I got to do today.

As some of you know, I've been deep in a complete rebuild/restoration of my friend and boss Gary Allan's 1976 Ford Bronco for some time now. I've had the truck in my possession since last August and the paint shop had it for about 8-9 months before that. So, although I did get it running when it was delivered to me from California after its almost ten year hibernation, and drove it a little bit then, that was almost 2 years ago and my memory of wheel time with it is foggy at best. Not only that, but it has had a complete drivetrane rebuild as well as an entirely new interior built and installed. That includes a beautifully fabricated dash-board by Kevin Tetz.

So I didn't really have much to go on today by way of comparison, and honestly I was only thinking about how all of my work was going to behave on this first test run. Now, I should say, it has been run before. The engine was assembled by Shaklette Automotive and dyno run and tuned. Then after a couple of days of wiring by my friend Mark Lambert, we started it up and ran it in place for several minutes- enough to get it up to temp. For the most part it behaved. The usual little nit-pick stuff wasn't working; a couple of gauges, two of the outside lights, we had a fuel leak that I finally licked this morning, and as best we can tell... a bad distributer cap. Don't you love it when a new part is bad in a situation like this when you're dealing with everything else on the truck being new as well? Really helps the diagnostic process!

So that was my goal today... drive the truck for the first time since its total rebuild. Once I got the fuel leak taken care of it was full speed ahead. Just taking it off the casters and setting it on the ground was cool. Its a funny thing, when you've been working on the same vehicle, in the same place for so long; a vehicle that hasn't run or moved or made a sound. When you finally get in the drivers seat ( which you haven't really had a reason to do yet ), you have an entirely new view of the vehicle. It all suddenly looks so pretty and new because you're not underneath it or working with a part on the bench or under the hood. Everything is smooth and shiny and clean around you and you can't really believe it's the same machine. Then it happens... you turn the key and it jumps around and vibrates and starts making all of this noise ( In today's case it was a whole lot of noise, as it is still without exhaust and running through open headers ).

When this happens with me I spend a ridiculous amount of time checking and double checking and triple checking every inch of it before I leave the driveway. You've become so incredibly familiar with it at this point that you can envision every part working away and you can remember having your hands on it and assembling it and putting it on the vehicle. It's nerve racking, or is for me anyway, because all I can think of is,"I hope that bracket I had so much trouble fitting is holding", or, "I hope that hose that never seemed to go on the PS pump quite right is not going to pop off ", or worse yet," I hope my torque wrench is accurate... I'd hate for those rod caps to be loose."

And on and on and on. I just start thinking about all of it, every part, moving faster than I can see in focus. But then it happens, at some point you just have to start to trust- or you'll never leave the driveway ( or finish any project ). And you begin a real world test. Treating it like a soccer-Mom would a new car. Throw it into gear, accelerate, brake, accelerate. Run it up to high-way speed. Pretty soon it starts feeling like what it is, a working machine. One that can and will be used and now has a new life. But as much as it can seem like something that can be understood plainly, it's still too exciting that it was all put together by your own hands and it's working... and you're pleased, you're smiling, it's fun, real fun, and this is what it's all about. This is the feeling, the high that you're working towards the entire time you're out in the shop. Every move you make starts with you thinking about how this will work when you start and run it, and therefore you are constantly picturing it and imagining it in your mind until it stops seeming real. Like maybe this thing that has taken on all the personality of a huge piece of furniture sitting on casters that you roll from one side of your shop to the other will never be more than that. A completely frozen structure.

But you know better, and soon you prove it to yourself and the car. It is the biggest daddy of all, in my opinion, and I had a great day around here because of it. For the record, the truck sounds like a top fuel car with the open headers, and the 400hp 351 Windsor under the hood pulls really really hard. Gary's words to me when talking about what he wanted me to do with the engine were these, and I quote,"Man, I want it to be SCARY fast!" Well, I know one thing, he will not be disappointed. Tomorrow morning the truck will be at the exhaust shop at 7am and then I can really get it out on the road for some serious sorting.

Two great things will come from all of this work, Gary will finally have his old Bronco from his youth back in his life, and I can then get back on my long awaited roadster project. Now let me tell you, if you think I'm excited at the first drive with the Bronco, just wait until I fire up that flat-head roadster for the first time. Consider me counting the minutes.

Stay tuned!

The Pasadena Reliability Run 2009 ( Part 3 )

2009-05-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

I know, it seems impossible that I still have material for this but I do. And if you think this is crazy, let me tell you, I'm just scratching the "traditional hot rodding" surface. My head is so fully in that zone it's hard to see any other form of vintage motorsport at this time. This is a good thing, as I'm just putting the final touches on the Bronco build for my boss and am hyper over-anxious to pull that truck out of my shop, deliver it, and start wheeling in all of my roadster parts to finally get back on that project. But that is another story for another time.

As I hope I've been able to get across, I had a pretty good time at the old Pasadena Roadster Club Reliability Run. Again, the people and cars in attendance, combined with a wonderfully "in tune" feel that I had with any and all of the folks I met and spoke with, was beyond compare. But what I haven't arrived at until now is the actual hands-on experience that I had as a real live participant.

I arrived into Burbank on Friday mid afternoon. This was the soonest I could get there because of some work I had in Nashville that week. I would have loved to have been able to get in sooner for a number of reasons. For starters, I always enjoy my visits with my friends Tom and Laura Sparks and they always race by and are over before I know it. But more importantly to the task at hand was preparing Tom's old roadster pick-up for the run on Saturday. You see, as well built and sorted as that vehicle is, it has been sitting in hibernation for several years. Tom does have a schedule where he starts all of his cars every month or so and brings them up to temperature, moves them around a bit, and makes sure the brakes etc. are still fairly happy. But with a collection like he has, you can only do so much. And the roadster pick-up doesn't exactly get called out onto movie sets like the other cars oftentimes do, so it sits unused more than possibly any other car he has. Again, I'm absolutely confident of the build of the car, but anything will get cranky when not given proper attention. So, I felt like every minute would count from the time I got there... and I was right.

The first thing I did when I arrived was check all the fluids throughout the car. Fortunately our good friend and fellow flathead roadster owner, Vic Cohen, had spent an afternoon with the car earlier in the week and a lot of this stuff had been checked off. The brakes were topped off and the fluid looked OK. The clutch needed a touch of adjustment and the coolant was a bit low. After we felt like everything we could think of in the garage was checked off we headed out for a test drive.

The car started right up as if it had just been shut off. No kidding. I've heard this car run a lot over the years and am always impressed with how responsive and eager its little flathead always sounds. We got it out of the garage and headed down the driveway and before we made it half way down Tom's block the front end took off in a terrible rhythm. The king pins were clearly loose and the front tires were rocking back and forth violently. This wasn't exactly a surprise to me, as the car had done this on our way back from the Throttler's annual car show and picnic a year and a half ago. What was a surprise was how immediately it would take off and at such a slow speed. This was not good. We had no way of doing the king-pin repair before the morning. It was now getting dark the night before the event after all. So, back to the garage we went to see what we could do.

Tom had an old So-Cal steering dampener kit that he suggested we try. I agreed of course and got to work trying to fit it to the car. The kit was made for split hairpins and not for the split Ford wishbone that the roadster pickup is running. This caused me to have to modify the bracket supplied with the kit, and cut some aluminum plate to size that the new bracket/clamp could mount to on either side of the wishbone. After a good hour and a half of setting this up we hopped in for test drive number two. We never even made it out of the shop. The front lower crank pulley, which I knew was close to the dampener mounting point on the center link of the front end, was rubbing on this new clamp when the wheels would turn. Even though I jacked it up from under the i-beam axle to load the front end so as to constantly check for clearance, the front end settled even more when put on the ground. Just enough to make it impossible to run this dampener. Onto plan B.

Tom suggested adjusting the front end toe to maybe get the car to stop its violent front wheel shake. I first tried towing it in, test drove it, and it was worse. So, back at the shop, I toed it out. This helped a bit but it was still taking off, though now I knew I was going in the right direction. A little more toe out and it got better still. I kept going until it was completely gone at any speed but without having the front end crab walking. This was all done old school, in the driveway with a tape measure. My throwback hot rodding experience was starting early on this trip. Vic and I took the car down to Bob's Big Boy to see how it would behave and also to see if anyone was still hanging around down there. Of course the place was still pretty full at nearly midnight and we got some thumbs up from the folks hanging out.

Now we were all feeling pretty good about the car and its chances of having a good following day. That is until Tom started trying to figure out when the last time was that the car really driven a good distance. He thought back farther and farther, so far that I was getting scared, and finally came up with something like 15-18 years ago. 15 or 18 years ago!!!??? And we're about to set out on a 130 mile reliability run and that's not including the 20 or so miles to get from north Hollywood to Pasadena just to get to the start of the run! Well, apparently the only person concerned about this was me because both Vic and Tom just sat there saying over and over that it would be fine, and saying it with confidence. I know I heard Vic say in several different ways,"You don't know how tough these things are." Well, I guess we were going to find out. After all it is a "Reliability" run... it's right in the name.

The following morning showed up quickly, with Tom and I meeting Vic at 6:15 am in front of Tom's house. Vic has a super bitchin' '27 roadster pickup that runs a full house 59AB flattie, stroked with original Eddie Meyer heads, two pot intake with 97s, Winfield SU-1A cam, '39 trans and a 3.78 banjo. Very cool and extremely well built car. Vic is quite the machinist and takes great pride in his work. It shows throughout his entire car. Speaking of, a little skinny on Tom's roadster while we're at it;

Tom built this car in either '42 or '43 and had it sorted out enough to run at one of the rare lakes meets that happened during the war in '45. After the war Tom got a job at Eddie Meyer Speed equipment as a machinist and engine builder. Sometime around '47 a customer had Tom and fellow Eddie Meyer employee Ray Brown build up a hot flathead for a race boat. For some reason the guy didn't want the engine when it was done and Tom scraped enough dough to buy it in long-block form. It was a 59AB, 3/8 overbore, fully balanced, ported and relieved, with a Winfield cam. Oh, and built with care by Tom and Ray Brown. Once Tom took ownership of the engine he needed heads and an intake to complete it so that he could get this new mill set down into his roadster pickup and give some new life to it. The problem was that Tom had spent every penny on the engine and had nothing left over. He went to his boss Eddie Meyer and asked if there was a way he could get a set of Meyer heads and a two-pot intake and be put on some kind of payment plan. Old man Meyer came back at him with the following proposal; Tom had two weeks of vacation time coming up and Meyer needed someone to paint his house. The two struck a deal... Tom would spend his vacation time painting the entire Meyer house in exchange for a new set of heads and intake. And so it was done.

As I said before, that little engine, still sporting its famous Meyer equipment, still resides where Tom placed it all those many years ago. It has never been apart and still runs like a top, or at least like you'd think a flathead built by Tom Sparks and Ray Brown would.

( Well, I've done it again. I suppose it's probably time to invest in an editor. See you on Monday for the conclusion of the story of the Pasadena Reliability Run '09 )

The Pasadena Reliability Run 2009 ( Part 2 )

2009-05-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm sure the previous post has made all who've read it want to run out and get themselves an authentic flathead powered hot rod roadster right? Well, it should have anyway. I can certainly understand how it would. My first experience of really living with a flathead roadster for a day was pretty damn life changing I must say.

I've spent so many years admiring these cars, somewhat from a distance, that it seems strange to me that it has taken so long to have some real world hands on experience with one. In my defense, I simply don't own one ( well not one that is assembled ) and they aren't exactly running around in the part of the country where I live. So I guess you could say that this day that I got to spend running this old car, and the event that I got to be a part of, really was a bit of a double down in the fantasy column.

As far as my impressions go from having driven one of these for an entire day, and over a pretty trying route, is that they are everything I ever imagined they were and more. It did not let me down in any way, and my expectations were pretty high. The only possible negative surprise might be the fact that at 5'10" I'm just a tad bit too tall for the cockpit of a model A roadster. But, Tom is probably about 4 or so inches short than me and he built the car to suit him after all. I'm confident that some adjustment could be made with the seat when my roadster project gets to that point. It's certainly nothing close to a deal breaker that's for sure.

The main thing that was delivered in huge way was the totally visceral motoring experience that can only be provided with a car like this. I've had it in my mind for years that this is how it would be and it did not disappoint. The only thing that could deliver such a pure connection to a machine would have to be an older open wheel race car. You feel and smell and hear everything going on beneath and around you that is making this thing go. When you accelerate you can feel the linkage pulling through the firewall and turning open those twin Stromberg 97s. And the great thing is, if you wanted to lean far enough over the windshield and you weren't running a hood, you could actually see them working while you're driving. This can be said for a lot of what goes on with the car. Just lean out to the side and you can see the front tire humming along, the steering arm pushing and pulling at the backside of the front hub, the suspension action, and when you press on the brakes you can hear the shoes scraping away at the inside of the brake drums.

The purity of it is something you just have experience. You feel a direct connection to every part of the car. When you step outside of it, it looks like a motorama cut-away display. Nearly everything is in plain view. If you bend down and sight the car from the side you can basically see the entire drivetrane running front to back. It really is the automobile in its purist and most basic form. Finally, having driven and having ridden in many a late 1920s early-mid 1930s American automobile, I now have a complete understanding of the life-changing and emotional connection so many young guys made with these cars. Compared to an everyday car in its time, these must have felt like rocket ships. They are so light on their feet, responsive, handle well when set up properly, that I just can't imagine the feeling they provided to someone used to a stock early 1930s sedan. The feeling of freedom that this kind of unimaginable, for the time, maneuverability must have provided is something that I don't think any of us could ever have a true perspective on. It is no mystery to me why so many of the original guys are still into these old roadsters, will still make appearances at events like this, and in some cases were never able to let go of their cars. And I'm expressing this and feeling this solely based on my experience of driving one of these for a single day. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be involved with this as part of a community of like-minded fellow roadster owners and builders. Again, it all ads up.

The last thing I want to touch on here that really impressed me while attending the Reliability Run relates directly to what I've just written about, and that is the state of the current traditional hot rod scene. I couldn't possibly be more pleased with where we've ended up in 2009 with this movement. The arc of this has been a funny one and I was never quite sure where it was going and honestly worried about it from time to time. Of course I shouldn't have and it probably speaks to some kind of short-coming with me that I would be concerned about a scene and how it is being perceived or what the face of it is. Ideally it should never be about that and should only be about you and your car. But, being so tied into this movement, I did tend to worry about what it was becoming from time to time. It seemed as though a few years after this started to get traction, a lot of people were beginning to populate the scene who thought of it almost as a fashion statement or lifestyle belief. Nothing wrong with that of course, but that smells strongly of "fad" and that is never a good thing. Especially for something that I feel is such a beautiful and important part of our country's 20th century history.

I suppose I worried that it was getting cheapened and had no way of defending itself. I knew their were a good number of folks who were involved that respected the traditions of it, like understanding its history, being knowledgeable about the mechanical make up of the cars ( if for nothing else to be able to build a smart and reliable car ), and that it was not supposed to be a kookie-car build-off. So I knew none of this would be terminal, but I still didn't know where it would go. Now I know where it is and, again, it's in really good hands.

There were a good number of younger guys ( 20s and 30s ) that had come out to be a part of the PRC Reliability Run. I would estimate that almost a third of the participants would fall into this category. What I saw with these guys was what the traditional hot rod scene has finally been distilled down to. After all of the over the top rat-rod guys have come and gone, and the trucker cap wearing-PBR drinking-Buddy Holly glasses-wearing dudes ran out of steam, we are left with a bunch of folks who are building spot-on period correct lakes-style roadsters and doing it with a great attitude. Every guy I met in this group had a safe, well built, historically accurate roadster, had done enough of the work himself that he could talk about any part of his car intelligently, had a strong grasp on the history of the sport and its culture, was quick to honor the guys that built this for us, and were excited to meet the ones who we're lucky enough to still have around and who were in attendance that day. What more could you ask for? I didn't encounter a single one of these guys who was wearing "I'm a hot rodder" on his sleeve. Just the opposite.

A very cool example of this was seen first thing in the morning as people were arriving and getting their roadsters in line. A couple of original Pasadena Roadster Club members were nice enough to bring along some scrap books from roadster runs etc. from back in the day for people to see. They placed them on a table next to the morning's free coffee and donuts and left them opened to the first page for anyone who was interested. Not only were the younger members of the club on these things immediately, but they tracked down the owners of these photo albums and had a great question-answer session with them looking over their shoulders while us younger guys leaved through them. You could easily sense the joy it was bringing these "old timers" to have these younger guys be so interested and curious about what they did when they were our age and younger. It was perfect harmony, both groups overjoyed to have the other in attendance showing an equal amount of enthusiasm.

So do I think the future of real hot rodding is safe and sound? Absolutely I do. And if what I've written here doesn't convince you, consider the fact that 94! traditional hot rod roadsters showed up with their pilots and navigators at 7am to get in line for a 130 mile round trip to help continue the tradition of possibly the greatest test of man and roadster that any early southern California roadster club performed back in the day. The Pasadena Roadster Club Reliability Run.

( Tune in next time for more on the story of how things went for me and Tommy and his old roadster )

The Pasadena Reliability Run 2009 ( Part 1 )

2009-05-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well here we are folks, back home after a glorious hot rod excursion out in So-Cal that I, once again, was certainly not worthy of. A great time was had and the goal of being able to do this with my buddy Tom riding shot-gun with me at the wheel of his '29 A-V8 RPU was achieved. There was simply no better way to experience this great hot rod tradition for the first time and it may possibly go down as the best hot rod event I've ever been a part of... and I'm happy to say that that is against strong competition.

I will be writing more on the actual story behind my being able to attend this and what was involved in making it happen in a future post, but for now, and because I just re-read the PRC letter to participants and I think it is totally bitchin', I've found myself inspired to post a copy of this letter here for your entertainment. There are several things about it that I just love and I have a feeling you'll recognize them immediately. Mainly I admire the purity of vision that the newly revived club has of itself. They are absolutely in touch with what constitutes a traditional hot rod in the classic sense of the term, or at least how this is defined by southern California traditional hot rodding standards. It reminds me of the afternoon I spent with the great hot rodder Harold Johanson, now in his early 90s, who said to me when he recognized my enthusiasm for this kind of car and the culture that existed when these ruled the streets,"Boy oh boy, you would have enjoyed hot rodding."

This has stuck with me in a big way for a couple of reasons. For starters, it communicated to something that I'd been getting a sense of from the many "old timers" that I'd been lucky enough to be around, and that is; to them hot rodding started several years before the war and was dead and gone by sometime around 1952-53. And not only that, but the kind of car that they considered a legitimate hot rod was a stripped down roadster... and only a roadster. This was a car built of Ford parts, built on a budget and, although modified to at least double or even triple its original power output, it was everyday transportation, it was the pass to your social scene and your sport and, most importantly, not so purpose-built that it was an occasional-use toy. It was a vital component in your life, extension of yourself, and communicated something to fellow folks in "the know" loud and clear.... you were a hot rodder.

I hope you enjoy the following as much as I did;

Pasadena Roadster Club Reliability Run #10 Saturday May 2nd, 2009.

In October 2002, 57 years to the month after the Flyers club and Vellociteers club joined to form the Pasadena Roadster Club, the PRC was revitalized with the goals of building and using early-style hot rod roadsters, preserving Pasadena's hot rodding history, and re-establishing events hosted by the original club.

As part of this continuing hot rod tradition, the Pasadena Roadster Club is hosting its Reliability Run #10. This run, which will include a poker run along with a timed run, will start in Pasadena and follow a predetermined timed course ( standard time established by a PRC member driving a hot rod roadster.) It will include minimal city driving and lots of two-lane scenic rural roads, with some extreme changes in elevation, and end back at the starting point. It will happen "rain or shine".

Like the original, this run will be limited to open hot rods only, 1936 or earlier. We are also inviting old hot rodders who were involved with hot rodding in the Pasadena area in the 1930s thru the early 1950s to join us for a reunion at the finish line following the run. We are especially searching for cars and participants from the original reliability runs.

HOR ROD QUALIFICATION STANDARDS;

Participation in this run is by "invitation only" and is restricted to roadsters, roadster pick-ups, phaetons/tourings, modifieds and cabriolets, years 1936 and older. This event is intended for early '50s and earlier hot rods only. Hot rods with 1953-and-earlier running gear and equipment are emphasized and encouraged, although more modern components may be considered of the hot rod otherwise adheres to an immediate post WW2 style and appearance. Due to limited space, only 100 hot rods will be accepted, and the PRC reserves the right to reject any application at its sole discretion.

All entries are responsible for their hot rod being properly maintained and in safe operating condition, currently licensed and insured. ALL entrants will be required to obey all traffic laws at all times. We are able to hold this event ONLY with the co-operation of the Pasadena Police Dept. Irresponsible behavior ( speeding, burnouts, reckless driving ) will jeopardize the holding of future runs and will not be tolerated. Violators will be promptly removed from the run and will not be invited to or accepted for any future Pasadena Roadster Club events.

Well, I guess that says it all. Doesn't this sound like something you'd like to be a part of? I'm going to tag on a few photos to get us started. There are many more to come.

Enjoy!

The Pasadena Reliability Run 2009

2009-05-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

You read that right. How appropriate that with all of this talk of traditional hot rodding and my pal Tom that I'm leaving bright and early in the morning for LA to partake in one of the coolest hot rod events of the year? Feels pretty cool to me anyway.

To make things extraordinarily cool for me I'm getting to not only participate in the Reliability Run but will be doing it with Tom while driving the very '29 flathead roadster pickup that I wrote about earlier. That's right folks, the very car that I first saw that fateful night the day I met Tom. It all seems pretty surreal. This will not be the first time I've had the pleasure to drive this car while Tom rode shotgun, I had the chance to drive the car to the Throttlers annual club picnic/car show in Burbank two years ago. You can't imagine how "not worthy" I felt pulling into that event driving the old Tom Sparks roadster with Tom riding next to me. Pretty cool. Eventually I'll get to the part of that day when we left the show and got involved in a real live flathead roadster verses flathead roadster street race on the streets of Burbank. I guess you could say that if you'd told me in 1995 that that scene was in my future I wouldn't have believed you for a second.

So that's the story, off to So-Cal in the morning. I'll spend the afternoon prepping the old roadster for its big run in the hills. I'm not even sure how long of a run it is. I believe that when they did the original run in the '40s and '50s it was 100 miles. I'm sure this will be a fraction of that but I understand that it is still a pretty decent challenge for man and machine. I participated in the 2001 River City Reliability Run ( which has since turned into the Pasadena Reliability run ) as navigator with friend Buddy Pepp while Tom rode shotgun with Bruce Meyer. I believe that was a 60 mile run. The cool thing about the Pasadena run is that is starts in the a.m. in the parking lot of Rose Bowl just as it did 50-60 years ago. We've all seen those super groovy Hot Rod magazine shots of the original run when all of the cars were in this same location back in the day and Saturday morning will be no different. Talk about nostalgia!? Not to mention that this run is notorious for attracting many original hot rods that participated in the original runs, like the Doane Spencer, McGee, and Ray Brown roadsters. You can bet I'll be taking photos.

So that's my story. I have a great weekend to look forward to and I'll be back early next week to give you all the full report.

Stay tuned!!!

( The above photo was taken right after we got home from the Throttlers show two years ago. That's our friend Vic Cohen with his exceptionally well built '27 flathead powered roadster pickup parked next to Tom's original '29 RPU. This was the cast involved in the street race I mentioned. Vic's car is in a good bit better tune and I didn't really feel comfortable running Tom's old car flat out... in other words we lost. Not used to losing, Tom was sitting next to me the whole time yelling at me to run it harder. I know I should have listened, but I think you understand.)

Tommy Sparks, my First Hot Rod, and the Last Flathead ( Part 5 )

2009-04-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine, I left southern California a couple of days later with a serious skip in my step. It's almost laughable now to think about it. I mean come on, I just met one of my heros and basically got to see behind the hot rod curtain. AND, speaking of that, I got to step out from behind the curtain on The Tonight Show. It was a pretty damn good time.

I returned to Nashville fully energized and ready to begin my journey to the next level of involvement with this whole early hot rodding thing. I honestly can't say if it entered my mind on the flight home, or maybe when I was inspecting Tom's original A-V8 roadster pick-up, but all I know is that I immediately started focusing on the idea of building an authentic hot rod roadster. After all, my research was now getting me closer to understanding what the traditional ingredients were for making one of these, and I had the best counselor you could ever ask for in my new friend Tom, to help guide me. I had been asking him specific questions about the building of one of these and he had the answer every time without hesitation. The problem was where to begin.

As I continued to stay in touch with Tom, I started to learn first hand about southern California car culture and how mind-boggling it is. I don't think this is a thing that could ever be exaggerated. Until you've spent some time around it you just can't understand the support and activity in that scene. There is just so much to see and do and participate in that it is overwhelming. Every day, weekends and week days, there is something going on. Oftentimes on the weekends you have to choose between 4-5 car happenings. There is a cruise-in somewhere every night of the week and ( and I love this ) several that happen in the a.m. on weekend mornings. Just imagine that? Morning cruize-ins! It's not enough to just have them in the evenings, they have to have them in the morning too. Of course there are the car shows, the swap meets, the race meets, the auctions, the rallies, the various club get togethers, some of those happening once a week year round. I'd have to say this was the first thing that I had to get used to when talking with Tom. Every time we spoke there was something else going on. And I'm not talking mundane stuff, I'm talking like,"There's a dinner tonight at the Petersen Museum that Carroll Shelby is hosting..."

It was always something. Of course that last example might not be on everyone's calendar because, as I was also learning about Tom, Tom was swimming in a pretty serious group of folks out there. Because of his many accomplishments, and having been in the So-Cal car world his entire life, he was naturally a member of this pretty elite group. Fortunately, I would never for a moment feel like he and his friends thought they were, in any way, more special than anyone else. Of course they were to me, but they didn't feel that way and they continued to act like the same speed crazed maniacs that they'd been their entire lives.

Sometime in the month or so following my initial meeting with Tom, I was talking with him on the phone, asking him question after question about the early hot rodding days, asking him more stuff about his career with cars, asking him about his old hot rod buddies who were still around, and began telling him my idea about building an authentic 1940s roadster. He perked up when I said this and knocked me out with the following,"You know, something must be going on with you young guys and this hot rodding business because I just saw a crew of young guys at Bob's Big Boy last Friday night driving old roadsters like we used to have. They were even dressed like we used to be." Whoa whoa whoa, what? What did he just say? I asked him to repeat this. He said,"Yeah, I couldn't believe my eyes. There must have been a half dozen or so of them that came to the Friday night cruise-in over there. I thought they must have been from a movie set or something but apparently this is something they're really into, just like you are."

Well this was some heavy duty news to me. I'd thought I was the only one my age on the planet thinking about this stuff. I mean, what were the chances that other guys my age had come upon this early hot rodding stuff at this time? Whoever these guys were I had to see what they were up to. As Tom and I kept talking he asked when I thought I'd be out there again. He said we could go over to the cruise-in on Friday and I could see this stuff for myself. I remember he added,"You should really get to know these guys. It sounds like they're doing the very thing you want to, with building a roadster and all. They must know where to find these cars and parts etc." Yeah, I couldn't have agreed more. I definitely needed to see what these guys were up to.

Pretty soon I was booking my first of what would eventually become many many trips out west to take in the amazing southern California car culture, and with the greatest tour guide imaginable. Within weeks I would find myself at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank face to face with some of the first players in what was about to explode into the 1990s traditional hot rodding phenomenon and would experience the biggest surprise of all as it pertain's to this whole early hot rodding interest of mine... I was not alone!

Still here...

2009-04-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yup, this is how bad it has gotten. I'm now posting a note just to say that I'm still around. Because of multiple business goings on, I am pretty overwhelmed these days. I'm writing this at 1:06 am and have just finished for the day... and I was up and working at 8am. So, obviously this blog has had to take a hit, as anything else is on my schedule that I consider a luxury.

That being said, my goal still is to try and find that pocket of time everyday to sit and write away, and that will again be the goal tomorrow. So, for those who are still interested, it could happen any day. I'm especially keen to get back on the Tom Sparks story so be looking for more of that.

Thanks for your understanding, and I hope you enjoy the next installment. David

Open House on Gasoline Alley (15)

2009-04-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

And lastly, we're on our way home. I may have mentioned that my brother Rob and I ran his two cars down to gasoline alley for the open house. It certainly makes the experience complete when you can roll in in a period ride. Parked along serious competition, both cars managed to receive their fair share of compliments... which was nice considering I restored the Corvette. They also ran like clocks there and back, and that was after the two of us couldn't help ourselves from running them off from a dead stop and all the way through the gears a couple of times. The Impala runs good but is no match for the Corvette.

For the record I built both engines and the Corvette's is a 1962 340hp 327 that has been modified with a modern hydraulic Comp cam and compression that has been lowered to 9-5.1. It's a BW T-10 4spd car with a 3.55 posi. The Impala is a 283 power pack car with a similar Comp cam, RPM painted intake, .30 over, a really nice set of cleaned up 461 double hump heads, M-21 4spd, and a 3.55 posi. Both cars are super fun and have a nice crisp stock look- if I do say so myself.

I liked the photo of them in my Mom's driveway ( though the colors do clash ). I tried to imagine a guy in the mid '60s lucky enough to have a stable like this.

Open House on Gasoline Alley (14)

2009-04-15T05:08:00.000-07:00

Finally, this F100 was really knocking me out. Just couldn't have been cleaner or more tastefully done. Props to whoever built and owns this!

Open House on Gasoline Alley (13)

2009-04-15T05:07:00.000-07:00

Another cool group shot of some interesting RPUs, T-based speedsters, etc., lined up for the Indy open house. The F100 was very interesting. Looked like it really runs at Bonneville, and with a few different engines. Cool!

Open House on Gasoline Alley (12)

2009-04-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

Easy to forget how popular the GM stove-bolt 6 was back in the day. What a cool alternative but period choice for motorvation. I love the way these sound hopped up too. Very cool hybrid RPU.

Open House on Gasoline Alley (11)

2009-04-15T05:05:00.000-07:00

Another really well done Indy hot rod. This time a '29 sedan with a period Chevy. Great color and wheel/tire combo. Nice to see a model A shell too.

Open House on Gasoline Alley (10)

2009-04-15T05:04:00.000-07:00

I'm not usually taken by Munster Ts, but I really liked this car. Nice job by Indy area hot rod builder Steve "The Greek" Panarites.

open House on Gasoline Alley (9)

2009-04-15T05:03:00.000-07:00

More amazing stuff from the Automotive Hammer Art shop. A crunched AC Bristol front end is not a problem for these guys... they'll just make another. The late XK120 roadster had taken a bad hit to the rear and this is what it's looking like after they just got another back end scabbed on. I'm confident it'll finish out as nicely as the AC.

open House on Gasoline Alley (8)

2009-04-15T05:02:00.000-07:00

I love the early '60s super stocks. I believe this was a tribute car, but it was a really well done one... complete with original black Ford paint.

Open House on Gasoline Alley (7)

2009-04-15T05:01:00.000-07:00

Open House on Gasoline Alley (6)

2009-04-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right, there are more. I was loading the last of my photos today from this great Indy open house and realized there are still quite a few I need to post. I have to say, aside from the obvious thrill of getting to tour these shops, this was a damn fine gathering of well built and tastefully done machinery. I guess we should assume that would be the case in a town with such an impeccable motorsports history.

Sit back and enjoy!

The above photos are of Johnny Capels bitchin' '32 roadster. Johnny has a serious history at the Speedway, and with racing in general, and upon his recent retirement built himself a really nice flathead roadster. The craftsmanship found in this car is just what you'd expect from one of the greatest Offy race engine builders Indy has known, not to mention the rest of the detail work that his fellow ex-Indy friends helped with. Great car!

The roadster is all steel, runs an early '50s Merc flattie with an Isky 400jr, Offy heads, a T-5, quick change, and a fuel injection system built by he and his buddies. I've ridden in this car and it is a serious runner.

Open House on Gasoline Alley (5)

2009-04-14T05:05:00.000-07:00

Open House on Gasoline Alley (4)

2009-04-14T05:04:00.000-07:00

Open House on Gasoline Alley (3)

2009-04-14T05:02:00.000-07:00

Open House on Gasoline Alley (2)

2009-04-14T05:01:00.000-07:00

Open House on Gasoline Alley

2009-04-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Before I start telling you about this amazing little weekend event I went to recently, let me say that I will be continuing the series on Tommy Sparks. Without a doubt, these writings have produced the most positive feedback I've received since beginning the Steelworks blog. It's a real joy for me to be going over those memories and apparently it shows. Thanks to all of you who've relayed your kinds words to me about it and you can look forward to reading part 4 very soon.

Now, on to today's post.

I went up to visit my Mom and brother Rob this past weekend in Indianapolis. It was to be a short visit, but I would be in on Thursday and there for the entire weekend... so you never know. Well, as luck would have it, I got a call from my friend Roy Caruthers while on the road heading up 65. We were catching up on things when he happened to mention that the annual open house on gasoline alley was on Saturday. Now before we get confused lets be clear; the gasoline alley that Roy is referring to is actually Gasoline Alley Road. This is about a quarter or third of a mile long block that is no more than a half mile from the speedway. I believe the street name was instated sometime in the 1980s because the entire block on both sides end to end is populated with race car builders, fabricators, components manufacturers, and restoration shops. It really is a sight to behold.

Especially on this particular weekend. I don't know who got the idea to have this annual open house but I loudly applaud them. Basically the first half of Saturday was a combination hot rod show and shop tour. And as you'll see, the Indy folk do not screw around. The quality of car that showed up was impressive and the shops and the projects within them were nothing short of humbling.

The most impressive to me was getting to see the Automotive Hammer Art shop and their current projects. One of which was a serious life changer.

The car is the famous SuMar special. Built on a Kurtis Kraft chassis and running a Meyer-Drake 270 Offy, the car ran at Indy in 1955 and finished a credible 9th with Jimmy Daywalt at the wheel. This was done without the aid of most of the streamliner body panels, as Daywalt demanded their removal sighting an inability to see the front wheels as a serious hinderance to his driving abilities. Marshall Teague went on to perform record land speed runs in the SuMar at Daytona in 1959, but was killed two days later in the car while trying to up his record.

Currently languishing in a Daytona Beach auto museum, the original SuMar special is just static display these days that quietly tells the tale of a by-gone era when an independent team of innovators could come to the 500 track and shake up the norm. Fortunately for us the craftsmen at Automotive Hammer Art have not only the talent, but the client to make it possible for people to see a spot-on accurate recreation of the original SuMar special come to life.

The pictures will say more than I can. Take time to click on the photos of the car in progress and just marvel at the craftsmanship going on here. It is pure art.

Enjoy!

Tommy Sparks, my First Hot Rod, and the Last Flathead ( Part 4 )

2009-04-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about how Tom lives is the overriding understatement of everything about him. He is completely unassuming in every way and simply doesn't have it anywhere in him to brag or boast. Heaven knows he has the material, but I think that when all you've ever known is the big leagues, you let your accomplishments speak for you. After all, they can never lie.

This understatement showed itself to me and Al as soon as we pulled into Tom's driveway. His house is a very lovely, tidy, stucco adobe Spanish ranch home built in the 1950s. A narrow, single car width, driveway rolls back past the left side of the house and fan's out into a two space car port. As we got out of our car, Tom carefully tucked his 356 under the carport next to a pale yellow '65 Corvette coupe that was as dead original and California clean as the Porsche. He motioned us back into his little courtyard area and we all had a seat. Around us were several pieces of automobilia like a couple of old gravity feed gas pumps, some nice old porcelain automotive signs, and some cool hit and miss engines. From where we were sitting we could see that he had some buildings hidden behind his house. They were incredibly well positioned, far under the public's radar. You would simply never imagine that any of this was back there.

Soon we were greeted by Tom's lovely wife Laura. An absolutely saint-like woman who has been at Tom's side since they were students at Hollywood high. She not only came out to say hello, but brought a tray of cookies and lemonade to tide us over until dinner was ready. I was still just shaking my head at all of this. A mere 4 hours ago I was driving around the valley without any direction, searching for long lost scenes and landmarks, becoming completely discouraged, and had yet to meet a single resident of California. Now I was hanging out with a true hero of our sport and was about to see an actual dry lakes hot rod from the 1940s in the flesh. Incredible. Of all the things that I had thought about while reading those two books, all of the history I wanted to try and find, the people I wanted to search out, it never once crossed my mind that any of the cars could possibly still be around. I mean, a lot of them were looking pretty used up in those old grainy black and white shots from 50 or more years ago! How could it be possible that a single one could have escaped and been preserved?

After a nice relaxing time there in Tom's courtyard, it was now time for the show to begin. Tom stood up and said,"Oh, I was going to show you my old car." I said,"Oh yeah", like I could have possibly forgotten this. We walked over to a small parking space between his two buildings, and there it was... the distinct shape of a Model A roadster underneath a plain cotton cover. He asked if I would walk around the other side and help him roll the cover off. Of course I did. With every turn of that cover, with every foot or so of bodywork that was revealed, time turned back, back, back,... until it was 1946 again.

I couldn't believe my eyes. There it was, a real live WW2 era flathead hot rod roadster. Something that I'd never seen in my life, and never thought I would ( or ever could for that matter ). Everything that had been feeling like fiction was now real and right in front of me. And all of the ingredients were there. I knew them from these great books and knew them well, but to be seeing them in person with the greatest tour guide I could ever ask for answering my questions?... well, you know.

I remember thinking that it seemed larger in scale than I thought it would be. I also was impressed by how big the flathead engine appeared nestled down between those Model A frame rails. Oh, and what a flathead it was. You have to remember that Tom Sparks is often sighted as one of the greatest flathead builders in the history of hot rodding. This has been said by many people including Tony Nancy, Alex Xydias, Ed Pink, and Ray Brown- so don't just take my word for it. And if it is any proof, the engine in Tom's roadster was built by him in the late 1940s while he was working for Eddie Meyer speed equipment. He raced it on the dry lakes, street raced it during the week, and the engine has never been rebuilt or apart for any reason. It is as he built it 60 years ago. Take a minute and think that one over.

The engine is a 59AB block with stock crank and rods, a Winfield cam, a full port and relief job on the block done by Tom at Meyer's, full Eddie Meyer speed equipment including heads and heated two-pot high-rise intake, and two Stromberg 97s sitting on top. Behind is the ubiquitous '39 Ford top-loader transmission and it all feeds into a stock banjo rear end with 3.78 gears. A classic period hot rod set-up. The frame was a '29 that had been boxed and the body was stock. The front axle had been dropped 3 inches and filled, and the wish bone had been split. '39 Ford juice brakes were at all corners, the spring eyes had been reversed front and rear, and the car had the perfect stance.

This was the real deal alright. I walked around it slowly, taking lap after lap. I felt like I couldn't open my eyes wide enough or focus sharp enough. Tom was nice enough to answer questions and offer up anything interesting about the car that came to him. Suddenly I noticed something that I had seen in my beloved hot rod books. It was immediately recognizable and I zeroed in for a closer look. There, mounted in plain view on the face of the passenger side dashboard, an actual 1940s dry lakes timing tag. I could not believe how cool this was. Again, the scale of it was not what I expected. It was actually larger than I thought it would be. It would be hard to miss if you were looking for it. How interesting to think that guys would advertise their car's top speed to the world, collecting one after another with each SCTA timed run, and hard mount them right on the car. What an amazing time this was. Just think... you could go to a drive-in or roadster run and just look inside other guy's cars and see what they've got. It must have helped tremendously when choosing off someone for a street race.

As I continued asking Tom about the car, I found out some interesting things about both the car and the man who built and owns it. Apparently Tom built the car during the war years and had it done in time to run at El Mirage in 1945 ( Yes, they did run some dry-lakes meets during the war ). This first version of the car can be seen in a photo from a previous post. I'll try and post that photo again here. The car had an unknown 21 stud flat-head in it and wasn't quite built for speed at first. See Tom had a full fendered '29 straight roadster ( this was a roadster pick-up ) at the time that was a nicely finished out car. It was the car that he and Laura used most and had both a full interior and a top, which was pretty unusual at the time for a hot rod. In fact, Tom appeared in the very first issue of Hot Rod magazine standing next to it. The roadster pick-up on the other hand was a true, stripped down, jalopy style hot rod. Tom said that he never even got around to painting it until the late 1960s.

I asked him how it was possible that he still had it. He said that he was as amazed as I was by this, as he and Laura had quite a few lean years while trying to get a business going in the speed world and the car had to be moved around from place to place many times over the years- sometimes when the car wasn't even together. Imagine that... he held onto this car through all of those times... times when the car could have easily been sold for parts to help pay the bills. I said this to him and he came back with,"Well, it was never worth anything back then- but it was always worth a lot to me, so why sell it?" I couldn't agree more.

This guy was turning out to be everything and more that I thought I would find in these early hot rod pioneers. He had as much energy for this stuff as I imagined he had when he was 19. You got a sense that he had never slowed down, and when you got him on the subject of the early days, he would light up even brighter. All of the names would come flooding back, the cars and their owners, the stories and the triumphs, all framed against this dream-like back-drop of 1940s southern California, one of the greatest American paradises that has ever existed. Weather that was absolute perfection, terrain and landscape that were pleasing, and a spirit of adventure that clearly enveloped the populace. What a high it must have been.

Now here I stood visiting with one of the great adventurers and true geniuses from this place and time. He walked over to his old roadster, reached in, turned the key, and fired it up. He stood there next to it while it rumbled lumpily at idle, and at that moment I could see and feel and smell it all like I was standing there living in that time. It was now all, every bit of it ( the people, the cars, the community ), totally real to me. I truly saw it as a complete reality right then. The books had taken me this far, and I was forever grateful to their authors, but now I stood here in a new reality, learning from and observing one of the true architects of this great American lifestyle.

Oh and we were just getting started...

Tommy Sparks, my First Hot Rod, and the Last Flathead ( Part 3 )

2009-04-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

The next chapter of this little saga will forever be the most mind boggling to me. This is for a couple of reasons; The first would have to be the simple fact that it actually worked out- and in a bigger way than I could have imagined. The other thing that makes me shake my head about it is the fact that I did this in the first place. I feel a strong sense of nostalgia when I think back about the 25 year old who did this. I like to think I still have a good amount of spirit for adventure, but I know that I wouldn't do today what I did then. It's not a feeling of being impressed with myself, it's just surprise. That said, I am forever grateful to that 25 year old who took this chance.

Many planets were aligning nicely for me in 1995. I had just taken my first significant gig since moving to Nashville, playing guitar for a true hero of mine- John Prine. This was indeed a dream come true. I remember a funny moment when I showed up for the first rehearsal... we had played through a couple of songs and the band was sounding good, then John walked over to me and asked,"Hey do you know a song of mine called Angel from Montgomery? It's in D and I'll start it off. Just come in with some electric when you hear it." I'm glad I didn't laugh out loud because that was exactly what I was feeling. Angel from Montgomery???!!! That's like asking me if I've ever heard of a song called "Happy Birthday". In other words, without knowing it, I had been preparing for this day for about 10 years. There wasn't a song of John's that I didn't know, and there weren't many that I hadn't played. Every band I'd been in before I moved to Nashville covered his stuff and I'd spent countless hours playing along to his records in my basement. It was the perfect combination that you dream about your entire life; finding yourself with the opportunity of a lifetime, and being nearly over-prepared. I wish I could say that that has happened again since. It hasn't.

Anyway, back to our story.

So the touring with John got underway in support of his new record "Lost Dogs and mixed blessings". All was going good and with few surprises. Then suddenly a call came in from the office that we had a TV date coming up and to put it on our schedules. This was no ordinary TV date, this was the Tonight Show. Too say the least I was excited about this. The Tonight Show! Where do I even begin with what that show had meant to me growing up?, and I know I'm not alone. It almost felt like they must have made some kind of mistake. Really, they want US to play the Tonight Show? Well they did indeed and it was coming up fast.

After the shock of this wore off it started to occur to me that this meant traveling out to California. California!!!??? And not just any California but southern California! My mind was swirling with all of this early hot rod business and now I was about to travel out to the exact location where it all happened. I immediately began to hatch a plan. I would go out a day or two early and see what I could find in the way of hot rod history. I mean, I knew some of the locations thanks to my great find "The American Hot Rod". I could get a rental car and see what was left of the old street race spots like North Supulveda. Try and get to a few of the night spot hang outs like Bob's Big Boy in Burbank or Parker's Night Owl in Glendale. Maybe even make my way out to El Mirage or one of the other lake beds. There was so much I wanted to do but time was limited because this TV date was sandwiched in the middle of the tour. I had to get a short list of must-do's going, put them in order of importance, and just see what I could check off.

As I sat down to do this I had my book next to me and kept thumbing through it. I made lists of locations and tried to get an idea of how big an area I'd have to be covering. I'd been out to California when I was 7 or 8 but that didn't mean I knew my way around. As I continued to try and formulate some kind of plan, I kept coming back to all of these great characters. Man were these guys cool. So amazing were their accomplishments. I just couldn't imagine what it would be like to actually meet one of these guys, ask all about the old days, listen to stories from when these guys and their flat-head roadsters ruled the streets and dry lakes... that would really be the business.

Then of course it hit me... this is exactly what my goal should be. This and nothing else. I should go out to So-Cal and use my two days that I had to see if I could find out where any of these guys were today. Even as dangerous as they lived when they were young, I just had a feeling that many of them were still be around. I believe people that live life to the fullest and have an adventurous streak, are hard to take down. That being said, this doesn't always stand up in the world of rock-n-roll.

Now I had a nice streamlined plan. If I totally struck out in finding some of the original hot rod pioneers, at least I would have had a good adventure, and surely I would make it to some cool old landmarks. Though I have to say, I know for a fact that I wasn't thinking anywhere near that clearly. I just had it solidly in my head, without a touch of doubt, that I would run across someone who had first hand knowledge of the early days. I know for sure that it didn't occur to me that I wouldn't. Crazy!

So, all I had to do now was call John's office and make sure this was cool with my new employers. For all I knew they might not be OK with me traveling out there early without the rest of the pack, especially without the road manager-whose job it is to make sure everybody gets where they are supposed to go. So I rang up and talked to John's manager Al Bunetta. At first Al didn't seem too cool with this, which is understandable. Then he asked me what exactly I was going out there early for, I told him, and then a whole new door opened up.

Al freaked out and ( and I remember this clearly ) said,"Hey man, didn't you know I was a hot rodder? I have an all steel '32 three window at home! I used to live out there, that's where I got the car. That and my original California '40 coupe." Well, a soft breeze could have knocked me over. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This was all making me dizzy. Al went on and surprised me with what he said next,"Hey man, I'd love to go out there early with you if you want to run around with somebody who knows the place and a bunch of car guys."

I remember that for some reason we took different flights. Al was out there ahead of me and picked me up at the airport. The first thing we did was drive to a burger stand and have a classic southern California cheeseburger lunch. As anyone who has been out there knows, the people of So-Cal take their burgers very seriously. Even the chains are pretty exceptional. I spent the better part of lunch telling Al my story and about my newfound obsession with early hot rodding. I found out quickly that Al was the real deal. Al ran with Dick Scritchfield in the 1970s and remembered when he was driving around in his brown true-spoked '32 Vicky. Al didn't really have any leeds on where the old timers might be but he certainly knew the parts of town that I had on my list that I wanted to check out to see if any of the old hang-outs and/or speed shops were around. With that, we headed to the valley.

Within an hour or so I came to the depressing realization that the valley from the Dean Batchelor book was long gone. The neighborhoods that we went and visited didn't have even the slightest feel of places that would have at one time been littered with hot rodders and speed shops. Not even close. In fact I remember feeling like it was a trick. That this was all fiction and I must have had it wrong about those times ever even happening. These communities were so overpopulated with both people and businesses, how could any of what I'd been reading about have existed here. I didn't get any kind of sense that there were ever orange groves lining each side of the road for miles anywhere near here. Where were these guys opening up these cars and racing side by side and then running down dirt roads from the cops? It just didn't make sense. Maybe the book was wrong, I started to think.

But that couldn't be. Dean Batchelor was a serious writer. He lived this very thing that I was trying to find a scrap of, and I was standing in the very spot that he spun great stories about. What happened?

As Al continued to drive me around I started feeling pretty foolish. What was I thinking? This stuff that I'd been pouring over had happened 50 years ago! Of course there was nothing left of it. What the hell was I thinking? Did I really think I was going to pull into Glendale or Burbank and see kids running around in flat-head roadsters? Did I think I was going to run into Ed Iskenderian at the gas station? Now I really was feeling crazy.

At one point Al picked up on this and, as a way to cheer me up and make sure the day wasn't a complete bust, he suggested we drive over the hills into Hollywood proper and visit the shop that had built his '40 coupe. That did pick me up a bit and sounded like a nice way to finish out the day. I mean, at least I'd get to see a real live southern California hot rod shop and maybe talk to some car builders. And who knows, maybe even see some great cars under construction. Yeah, this was making sense to me. This was at least realistic.

As we pulled up to the shop I was not disappointed. Not only was the place right at the corner of Melrose and Gower and caddy-corner to the old Paramount movie lot ( which gave me a good dose of feeling like I was really in Hollywood ) , but the shop was full of great cars in various stages of build. There were street rods and hot rods and sports cars and muscle cars. The shop even had a rack on the far end of the lot with cars stacked two high and about 10 wide. We met the owner, who remembered Al and the '40 he sold him, and I got to hear some great stuff about the car and what a screaming good deal Al got on it, as he bought it back when those cars were not the hot tickets they are today. I remember that the owner pointed out 3 late '60s Road Runners that were stacked up on the racks. He said that they belonged to the actor Mickey Rourke and that they'd been there for over three years and no one knew where Rourke was or could reach him. Knowing what we now know about him, this makes perfect sense.

This shop owner was a nice guy and spent a lot of time showing us around, but we were really cutting into his afternoon and it was time to leave. Just as he was walking us out to his car I started thinking again about my original reason for coming out here. I had been beaten down so much with our little tour of the valley that I felt embarressed to even bring it up again, but I just couldn't help myself. I almost got in the car without saying anything, but at the last second I turned to the shop owner and said,"You know, I'm sure you'll think I'm crazy, but I actually came out here today to try and find someone who was around back in the early hot rodding days. I know the scene has long since dried up but, I really don't know why, but I just thought there could be a chance that some of the original guys might still be around out here you know? I mean, yeah, it was a long time ago but they can't ALL be gone right?" The guy just looked at me. Then, and with a very matter of fact attitude about it he said,"Well yeah, a lot of those guys are still around. I don't exactly know where they get together or if they do at all, but I see them around. You know, at cruise ins and such. You know, Isky, Ray Brown, the So-Cal speed shop guy Alex Xydias ... you know ... those guys."

Well that completely floored me. He just read off a list of names that were some of the biggest guys in the history of the sport. It was like hearing a page from this book of mine read aloud to me. It just came to life, right there! It was real again. I couldn't believe those guys were around... and walking around cruise ins!! This couldn't be happening. I guess the guy could see my excitement and amazement. I had so many questions, so many things I wanted him to expand on. Where did you see these guys? How long ago are you talking?

Then, before I had a chance, he said,"You know, there's a guy who's an early hot rodder who runs a shop right down here on Gower ( he points straight out the gate of his lot at the road bordering the Paramount wall ), he may still be there but it's getting close to five. He might have something to say about that stuff. He's not really into hot rods anymore, more of a classic car guy, but he's the real deal. He raced the lakes back in the day, the whole thing. His name is Tom Sparks."

What???!!!! Tom Sparks???!!! That's the guy! That's the guy from the Batchelor book. That's the guy that stood out more than any other ... among strong competition. How could this be happening? Maybe it's not the same Tom Sparks. But then again... look where we are. I was trying to stay level headed. Either way we were jumping in the car right this minute to see if we can catch him before he leaves. Tom Sparks! I couldn't believe it. I started immediately telling Al about everything this guy had done back in the day. How every few pages of the Batchelor book there would be yet another photo of him with some bitchin' car that he built. I went on about the range of speed competition he was involved in- the dry lakes roadsters, the drag cars, the Tony Nancy 22jr., the road racing specials, this guy was serious.

As I just said, I had seen a lot of photographs of this guy in the book but, again, this was a long time ago. I tried picturing in my mind the photo of him tuning the carbs on a supercharged flathead that he had run in a Willys coupe ( way way way before anyone had thought about drag racing a Willys coupe. In fact, this would have been around 1953 ), that photo was pretty close up and pretty clear. If we were going to be meeting THAT Tom Sparks, I wanted to at least have a chance at maybe recognizing him. I went over the picture in my mind and tried to tack on a few years. Then before I knew it, we were pulling up to his shop.

The shop was on a small lot that had clearly been used for automotive servicing for many many years. The pavement in the lot was black with years of grease and other car-contaminants that had been burned into it by the California sun. A bare metal XK120 Jaguar roadster was rolled out into the lot alongside a beautiful, red, black plate, California Porsche 356. The building was long, housing three businesses in total. A machine shop on the far left hand end, the Sparks shop in the middle, and a body shop on the other far end that looked as over-run with work as you would think an L.A. area body shop would.

Al and I got out of the car and walked up to the edge of the open bay door. The bay was about a car and a half wide and two cars deep. There was a far work bench with a lathe, drill press, and other high quality old machines from back when things like that were regularly built to military standards. The shop was well organized and clean. Along the left hand wall were two bare flathead Ford blocks in stands and something very interesting sitting covered on an engine stand near the back wall of the bay. Whatever it was it had a supercharger on it and big tube headers.

Just then I heard a voice coming from the office that I could just see the door to in the rear right hand corner of the bay. The door was open and a single voice was talking. I slowly walked back and looked into the office from the edge of the door opening. A gentleman was sitting in an office chair with his back to me, talking on the phone. As I stood in the doorway waiting for the phone call to wrap up I started to notice some things in this office that I was simply awestruck by. Things that I had only ever seen pictures of, and they were numbering in the dozens. It was overwhelming. Trophy upon trophy from places like Santa Ana, Paradise Mesa, Pomona, and Bakersfield drag strips, Riverside Raceway, dry lakes timing tags from Harper, El Mirage, and Rosamond, and a real live SCTA dry lakes trophy with the bust of a modified mounted on it. There was at least a full day's worth of early hot rod memorabilia to look at. The walls were covered with photos of the famous and the famous places from the early days of hot rodding and drag racing.

As I drifted away looking around this office and at all of the treasures on display, I began to gain confidence that this guy may just be the Tom Sparks that I'd read about. It was making less sense to me that there could have been two of these guys in the same era that had accomplished this much with the same name. Or maybe that was the answer, maybe it was two guys that did all of this, it certainly was the work of more than one person. I continued contemplating this and gazing around at all of this stuff and then suddenly I was snapped out of it."Hello, can I help you?" said the voice from the chair. I looked at him and he stood up. Again he said,"What can I do for you?" And there he was, Tommy "Sparky" Sparks, in the flesh. I have no way of describing how without doubt I was at that moment as to who I was meeting. This was him alright. No doubt about it. How was I so sure? Well, it was simple. He looked exactly the same! I mean exactly. There was no mistaking this guy from the young kid in the book. In fact, it was startling. I was off balance in a big way. I had gotten what I'd asked for and was now realizing that I had no way of putting into words why I was here.

Fortunately Tom is as nice a guy as you're ever going to meet. I slowly began telling him about my interest in early hot rodding and he just nodded along, listening. I told him that I'd gone into the shop down the street and the guy had sent me here because I'd asked about any of the original hot rod pioneers that might still be around. He then began asking me questions. Why would I be interested in this stuff? ( he must have asked me that a dozen times ). Funny enough, I couldn't really put it into words. For a while he thought I was some kind of reporter and continued to ask me what kind of business I was with that would have me researching this. I told him I was here just for my own personal interest in the matter. He still didn't seem to understand. Remember, this is 1995... a few years before the nostalgia hot rod craze really came on.

We continued to talk. I told him that my friend Al and I had driven into the valley to see if any of the old places were still around. I rattled off a few landmarks that I'd wanted to see, he laughed and said,"Hell, that was 50 years ago." Then he asked,"How in the world do you know about this stuff anyway?" I told him about the Don Montgomery book and he immediately said,"I've known Don since we were young guys." I then told him about the impact that the Dean Batchelor book was having on me and he said,"Yes, that's a very fine book. Dean really did a nice job with that. It's a terrible shame that he passed away. He was a good friend." I was so blown away at this point. He really was this guy I'd read about. He ran with and new these guys and seemed to have an incredible memory for the early days and was just now beginning to open up and reminisce. This was what I'd been waiting for.

He and I and Al sat and talked for about two hours. The more we spoke the more freakish I think I appeared to Tom. I would ask about a particular car or the person that built it and he would just keep asking why I knew about this stuff and how did I ever come to be so interested. There were so many things I wanted to ask him that it was hard to pick a particular one. Then I realized that one of the things I really wanted to hear about was the 22jr project he did with Tony Nancy. He got a smile on his face and walked us out into his shop. As we turned the corner he said,"You know, a friend of mine found that car and is restoring it. He's having me do the engine again just like I did it originally in the '50s." And with that he pulled back the cover on what I had seen sitting near the back of the shop. The real live Tony Nancy 22jr supercharged flathead. One of the nastiest full-race flatheads ever built. De-stroked to 258 ci and running an Italmeccanica supercharger, this little engine propelled the 22jr to mid 10 second e.t.s at 135mph in the mid 1950s!!! The car and its engine made the cover of hot rod magazine in December of 1957. Now, here I was standing next to it with the guy who built it!

We went back and forth talking about the 22jr and the Sparks and Bonney Willys coupe ( which the engine was originally run in ) and eventually started to work back to the dry lakes. This is when Tom really lit up. I asked about his old friends, he told me about the guys who were still around and the guys who weren't. He described the carefree lifestyle of those days, echoing some of what I'd read from Dean Batchelor, and I just couldn't have been more pinned to his every word. We batted names and cars back and forth, and talked about everything "lakes". Then, the biggest shocker of the day happened, Tom said,"You know I still have one of my first hot rods I ever built sitting at home in my garage. I'll bet you'd like to see that." I couldn't believe what I just heard.

And with that, Tom Sparks asked two complete strangers who just walked in off the street if they'd like to come to his home that night for dinner with he and his wife and see, not just his old hot rod, but the rest of his cars that he'd collected over the years. You can bet we said yes faster than you can blink.

We helped Tom put some stuff away for the night before leaving the shop and then hopped in our car and followed his shiny red 356 over the Hollywood hills into North Hollywood. It would be an amazing night, one I'll never forget, and would also be the start of a great friendship with a true hero... one that I'll always cherish.

( The photo above was taken by my good friend Al Bunetta on that very day that I first met Tom. There was no way I wasn't going to get a picture with Tom and the Tony Nancy 22jr engine before we left. And yes, I was going through my Chet Baker phase at the time. )

Tommy Sparks, my First Hot Rod, and the Last Flathead ( Part 2 )

2009-03-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Because the discovery of the Montgomery books had had such an impact on me, I was now stopping by every book store that I saw- looking for more of this info. I even went to our public library which, I'm sorry to say, was pretty rare for me. I kept coming up short, and it was beginning to look like it was going to be me and these couple of hot rod scrapbooks for a while.

Then, one day, there it was. What I think is undoubtedly the holy grail on this subject; "The American Hot Rod" by Dean Bachelor. If you were going to limit yourself to just one book on the subject, you could do no better than this. First and foremost, the late Dean Bachelor was a very fine writer. He had experience as an automotive journalist that few in the field could approach, he worked for a wide range of publications and could write about nearly every facet of the sport, and could use his first hand knowledge of the subject matter to really firm up the credibility of a piece.

Although he could write about Ferrari with the best of them ( he was the long time owner of a 340 Mexico ), we would find out in early 1995 that Dean Bachelor grew up in southern California in the 1940s, had an early interest in speed, and was out on the dry lakes as soon as he was able in a hot rod roadster of his own construction... right along side all of our hot rod pioneers. Dean was one of the founding members of the famous "Road Runners" roadster club and an early SCTA member, all before the onset of WW2. He had one of the nicer '29 on a '32 street/competition roadsters that ran back then, and it was competitive too. He also built and ran a long line of modifieds, lakesters, and streamliners. He was instrumental in starting the So-Cal Speed Shop with close friend Alex Xydias and, together with Alex, built one of the best looking, finest designed streamliners of early Bonneville which ran an astonishing 193mph in 1949 using Ford flathead power. Oh and it keeps going; Dean was the official photographer for the Pebble Beach Concours for over 20 years and his level of excellence as a writer earned him the honor of having an award named after him... the "Dean Bachelor Award", which is given out each year for the finest automotive publication. Oh, and as long time editor of Road and Track magazine, Dean is largely credited for establishing that brand and making R-n-T what it is today.

So we had a good man on the scene to be writing about the history of hot rodding. And a fine job he did. It seems somehow appropriate that Dean passed away just as he was putting the final touches on this book. This was, after all, the story of his childhood, teenage, and early adult years. And somehow, with a lifetime of automotive writing under his fingertips, he had never tackled the subject of the very thing that had given him his addiction to speed. In the book, it almost feels like he had so much he wanted to do for this that he saved it until the end. A colleague and close friend of Bachelor's states in the book's forward,"This is Dean's book. This is the book that he talked about writing his entire life."

The book is so thorough in its documenting of hot rod history every step of the way, that it is truly awesome. Who could have ever guessed that guys were building and racing jalopies out on the California dry lakes as early as the late teens? And more striking is the fact that there are grainy old photos of these happenings! How about a photo of the first known speed shop, Lee Chapel's, from 1932!!!??? He is able to take you through the entire history of it from inception through every era and movement, even when these pockets of time were 3-4 years or less. I do know that the first time I read it I thought it should be used as a formal text book if and when the history of hot rodding would ever be an elective... and I mean that as a compliment. It is that detailed.

This was what I'd been waiting for. Here, in front of me, was the story AND the characters. The real live history of hot rodding. You can imagine how quickly everything else in my world stopped when I found this. I know I read it cover to cover the first day I had it, and continued to go back and re-read it over the next few months. Slowly I started to not only get a handle on the story and the names behind it all, but I began to get a true feel for how this happened. It was really making sense to me. Almost feeling like there wasn't a choice for the lucky young guys who lived out there during these early days. Money and entertainment were scarce, the cars were cheap and plentiful, and ( especially after the war ) - thrills were scarce... certainly compared to what a lot of these guys had just been through. The greatest race courses for flat out top speed runs were all around them and free to run on. Again, it would have been strange if it hadn't happened.

Last but not least were the great names and characters populating this book and the stories within. Truly amazing accomplishments being performed by kids. Kids. Not young adults, but kids. Late teens early twenties. This seemed to be the age group that was getting everything done. Inventing all the componentry, inventing the speed equipment and companies that would become the standards of the industry to this day. Pulling off daredevil-like feats behind the wheels of exceedingly unsafe and homemade machines. Raising the standards of what was considered fast several times a year and ultimately bringing the world land speed record back home to the United States. Proving to the rest of the country that what may have started as a youth movement steeped in danger and rebellion would develop into a very well organized community that promoted safety and innovation, and would have its effects felt all throughout the automotive world in the years to come.

These were some pretty impressive kids. And as is the case with anything you read or follow, some players begin to stand out to you more than others. For whatever reason; personal taste, style, a common interest with what the person's specialty might be, whatever the case, you just start to find yourself paying closer attention to what a couple of folks in particular are up to and accomplishing. With every reading of the book I began to pick out some of my favorites. It was hard to choose, but again, they find you.

One guy in particular was really impressive to me. As I've said before, I like the enthusiasts who have a wide interest. Dean Bachelor was certainly this way, and so was one of the guys that seemed to be getting a lot of ink in this book. He was an early hot rod pioneer for sure, dry lakes racer, renown engine builder working alongside the best guys there were at the time, was in on the beginning of drag racing as a successful builder and competitor, he even built a series of Ford based American road racing specials using all that he'd learned from his engine building and chassis building days... and this was all accomplished by this kid during a span of about ten years!

What was his name you might ask???, well, you may just have to tune in tomorrow to not only find that out, but hear about my first hot rod safari out to So-Cal looking for any of these guys that might still be around. I think you'll be surprised by how lucky I got. I know I was.

( The photos above would be of my original dog-eared copy of Dean Bachelor's "The American Hot Rod" , and of course Dean himself in his beautifully turned out roadster about to push off down the salt. )

Tommy Sparks, my first Hot Rod, and the Last Flathead ( Part One )

2009-03-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Let me just start by saying that this one has been on my mind for a long time. Ever since I started doing these posts I knew I would have to get to this someday and try to tackle it. I'll tell you up front that it is a big daddy and one that I'm a bit intimidated by, as far as communicating it to you in some kind of tidy way. The first problem is the fact that the story is a bit open ended, and just getting us to that point means having to cover about 15 years. But because it has been the major automotive distraction in my life for these past 15 years, has taken me on multiple crazy adventures, forced me to develop some new talents in the shop that I thought would be years down the road, and paid off handsomely in what will surely go down as one of the greatest and most rewarding friendships of my life, it would be impossible to not eventually tell this tale. So I guess I'd better get started...

The beginning of this story will be a familiar one to many out there who became infatuated, as I did, with early hot rodding in the last 15 years or so. I say this because ( and I made a case for this in an earlier post ) I believe the work of one man is quite possibly responsible for this motorsports phenomenon of the early 1990's... Don Montgomery. For those who don't know, do yourself a favor and seek out a couple of Don's wonderful books on early hot rodding. These are basically scrapbooks from immediate pre-war and post-war southern California, and what makes them so wonderful is that Don was an active participant who was right on the front line with Vic Edelbrock, Isky, and all the rest. Fortunately for us, Don Montgomery was an avid photographer, had good equipment, shot often, and loved shooting his favorite subject- Hot Rods.

I honestly can't remember where I bought my first Don Montgomery book. It was around the time I'd just moved to Nashville, which would make it about 1993, and his books were not at all widely available then ( not that they are now ). My guess would be that I spotted them at a car show somewhere in the mid-west and picked one up there. I do know that my first viewing of that book, "Hot Rods as they were", truly changed my life. Looking back on this fact, I can see clearly now why this happened. First would be the fact that I had simply never seen photos like this of early hot rodding. Of course I had seen a picture here and there, and I'm sure they grabbed me when I did, but it wasn't until I saw Don's book with page after page covering 20-25 years of development and lakes racing and roadster clubs that I realized ( and I know this sounds crazy considering how long I'd already been obsessed with old car culture up to this point ) where hot rodding and the idea of the high performance American car came from. I honestly don't think I gave it a lot of thought until then. Where did this stuff actually come from? How did it start? These were not heavy thoughts on my mind. I really think I just thought... that it just happened. Just sort of happened one day that people wanted to go fast and fast cars were suddenly available... like it all came from a vacuum.

I had to know that this wasn't the case. But again, it just didn't occur to me. I think I just assumed that it all came from organized auto racing and left it at that. Of course a good bit of it did but, as this book showed, there was at one time a huge youth driven cultural movement that nearly consumed a good portion of southern California, as literally thousands of young men and teenagers decided that they had to have one of these Gow-Jobs, one of these Hop-Ups, one of these Hot Rods.

The other, and probably most important element to my instant love for this stuff, was the fact that this was the first big gear-head interest that I'd had that was all mine. As anyone who's been reading this knows, my father was a world-class enthusiast. He had my favorite quality in a motorhead, which was a passion for anything mechanical that was beautiful, fast, or just plain interesting, from any era, from any walk of the auto world. Therefore, I was exposed to pretty much everything automotive while growing up. Pretty much. The one thing that my Dad didn't have a lot to say about was early hot rodding. This makes perfect sense, as he was simply not the right age to have a connection with it. And there probably wasn't a lot of hot rod roadster action in the Buffalo area right after the war and leading into the 1950s... to say the least. He was certainly a car nut at a very young age, but by the time he was to begin driving the flat-head and Ford based hot rodding was on its way out. So I think it was probably as simple as that for him. He was just never around that stuff and didn't have a connection to it. I do remember him saying that he had a friend in Hamburg, New York, while in his teens, ( Ray "Zippy" Zell ) that had a chopped Merc or two and ran full house flat-heads. He also used to comment to me when we'd see a hopped up flat-head at a car show that those were the engines to fear in the early '50s and that they were very durable ( For some reason I clearly remember that "durable" comment. Good to know that someone wasn't just walking by them and saying how they over- heat ). And now that I think about it, he did own a flat-head for a while when I was probably around 12-13. He had a 1934 Ford 1-ton dump truck that had a 1946 (59A) flat-head in it. Not exactly a hot rod, but I do have a crystal clear memory of him driving the complete running chassis around the back yard as my brothers and I turned the front tires by hand, because he hadn't installed the steering column yet.

But I digress. So, here I was. I had my first real look at the early days of hot rodding and my mind was blown to bits. Beautiful primitive cars that looked so at home with dirt roads and orchards as backdrops. Like they were in their natural habitat. That southern California was made for these hopped up jalopies whose owners never had to worry about having a top or fenders. The roads looked flat and straight and ready to be sped on. It was like finding a new planet. One that I'd discovered. Again, one that was mine. I didn't have a single car friend who was on board with this or had an interest in any way. Admittedly, my Dad was interested, but I don't think he ever thought a usable car could ever come from the piles of old Ford parts that I kept hauling home ( I hope he doesn't end up being right about that ). So he was curious, and would keep an eye on me and this new craze of mine, but he was keeping his distance.

I continued to obsess over this, bought another Montgomery book through the mail, and found an entire new section of Hemmings that I now turned to every time it arrived. I was trying to find out what the parts make-up was for these cars when they were built back in the day. What were these guys using to make these cars go 120mph on the dry lakes? They couldn't possibly be using the existing Model A components could they? Also, I was on a fierce quest to try and find some kind of first hand account ( again, the Montgomery books are mostly scrapbooks with limited and plain captions and very little text ) , some kind of story thread that would help explain what started all of this. When exactly it started, and when exactly ( and why ) did it die. Who were all of these guys who shaped it? Who were the big players? Who invented what? etc etc etc.

Again, I was feeling pretty alone in this, and for good reason. I needed to find that magic portal to go through that would help connect some of these dots. Maybe even find out what happened to some of these original cast members. Yes, it was a few years ago that all of this happened, but it was reasonable to think that quite a few of these folks could still be around.

Little did I know that soon a lot of my questions would be answered about the story of it and the cast behind it. This would of course ad a huge amount of fuel to my fire and, I'm happy to say, all of my wild enthusiasm was about to pay off in a way I could have never imagined. I would soon find the magic portal...

... Stay tuned

Achille Varzi

2009-03-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

As someone who prides himself on having a decent knowledge of our pre-war racing heros, I'm certainly no Doug Nye. I do the best I can with what I have but, even with what sometimes feels like a limitless amount of enthusiasm and energy for this stuff, I can only keep up with so much. Some stuff should be a no brainer I know, and some of the historian material does enter the transom and then drift past to be forgotten in the currents, nobody's fault but mine if it doesn't stick to my mental ribs.

One of these points of motorsport's history that I was recently reminded of was the fact that a good number of pre-war racing drivers started there careers competing on two wheels. The list is long and impressive, but may I throw out two names that might just ring a bell with you???, Tazio Nuvolari and Achille Varzi. That's right, both of these great ( actually the greatest ) pre-war Italian racing champions began their careers on motorbikes. In fact, Nuvolari kick-started his career by becoming the Italian motorcycle champion in 1924.

Although Varzi didn't have the success on two wheels that Nuvolari enjoyed, he learned much from his time behind the bars and was able to make it instantly translate to his new career in sports and Grand Prix cars.

The bike that is pictured above is a rare piece of hard documentation from Achille Varzi's past.

This extremely rare 1924 Sunbeam Model 9 is not only the earliest surviving example of this model, but is the very bike raced by Achille Varzi. This bike began its life on display as a brand new machine under the Sunbeam banner at Italy's 1924 Turin show just before Varzi took ownership.

Being one of the great early examples of a high-performance 500 single, these bikes were highly sought after when new, as they were among the fastest and most competitive in their day.

Fast Ford

2009-03-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well kiddies, it's good to be back yet again. The road has been trying to eat me alive and, once again, has taken me away from this very enjoyable outlet. Speaking of the road, I have to quickly tell you fellow gear-heads that last night we played a show in Minnesota and one of my favorite things happened... my two favorite worlds of music and motorsport collided again.

Our pedal steel player, CJ Udeen, casually mentioned to me that he had a friend coming to the show who he used to play music with back in the day and that he was a serious car-guy. I perked up and said that I would look forward to meeting him and bench racing after the show if he hangs around. A couple hours later CJ says to me that his friend is a major league high-performance Ford guy and will be driving to the show in one of his seven! Shelby Mustangs. Interesting, I thought.

Well, sure enough, when I went to the bus before the show there was a red '68 GT-350 convertible parked outside the door. A nicely restored car too. Soon I met the owner and we had a very fun and lengthy talk about these great cars and the magical era that was the 1960s for Ford motor company. I think anyone who looks back on that era with Ford has to be awestruck by their accomplishments. From drag racing super stocks, running their "Cammer" 427s in top fuel and funny car, NASCAR, and of course their tremendous showing on the stage of international sports car racing with the GT40 project. It truly is astounding, and I think as much as we hear about it and are aware, much like Bob Dylan and the Beatles, it is still hard to comprehend their achievements and therefore will always be, in my book, under-recognized. Just as an example, I have heard countless crew chiefs, race car constructers, designers, team managers etc., say that the impact that the GT40 program had on racing, just from a professionalism and development standpoint, is still being felt today and is somewhat responsible for the face of what is today's big time modern racing world. And I can see how that would not be an overstatement.

Never before had racing experienced such an absolute flat-out, cost-be-damned, approach to winning. Of course many constructers had come along before and had had the same passion and the same attitudes towards winning, but never before had such limitless resources been available. As we all know, the story begins with Henry Ford II deciding he had to win the LeMans 24 hours. How was he going to do that? Well, at the time the company dominating this most prestigious race was of course Ferrari. Being a famously impatient man, Ford went directly to Enzo Ferrari, checkbook in hand, ready to purchase Ferrari at any cost. He would soon learn that Enzo had no intention of selling his beloved company, no matter what the offer. Especially to some Detroit assembly line minded hot head who only wanted ownership of the company long enough to win this single race that had become an obsession to him nearly overnight. This was not Enzo Ferrari's style. Ferrari spent most of his time in this meeting talking about his creations like they were both his children and his great works of art. Money wasn't what drove Enzo. This was a passion that was in Ferrari's blood and, again, was not something that any person could just buy. Upon realizing this, Ford stormed out of the Ferrari offices and was heard to say,"Now winning LeMans will only be half of this. I want to crush Ferrari, crush him at his own game." It is interesting to think how two men could have had such equally monstrous egos that were so completely different.

And of course we all know how the rest of this story goes. Ford went out and bought a Lola Mk 6 GT, pulled the Chevrolet V8 from it, and began developing the GT40 around this basic platform. They would go on to have multiple LeMans victories in the 1960s and Henry Ford II would get his wish granted to him by doing exactly as planned- beating Enzo Ferrari at his own game by not only winning LeMans but the very coveted "manufacturers championship" multiple times as well. All done with an almost completely American cast, including Carrol Shelby and a good number of California hot rodders. A very proud time for the American motorsports fan.

Of course many other Ford accomplishments were discussed by myself and my new gear-head friend before the night was over. It was stunning to learn that this guy did in fact own 7 different 1960s Shelby Mustangs, as well as an original '65 427 Cobra, and possibly the most interesting to me from his collection... an original '64 factory A/FX Comet. Turns out his business is Mustangs and he owns over 1,500 1960s parts cars! Too bad I didn't know this guy when I was driving one of these everyday.

The real kicker came just before my new friend had to leave. He opened the trunk of his Shelby and pulled out a guitar case and asked,"Hey, do you think your boss would sign my guitar?" I said I was pretty sure he would. He pulled it out of its case and low and behold it was a 1950s Martin D-18. A very serious collector guitar. I noticed that it already had one signature on it... Merle Haggard. This guy not only was proving that he had very good taste in everything but that my idea of music people and car people running in very close circles is a nearly proven theory.

As it was approaching 1am I knew there was no time to get into the music talk. We had already burned down the gear-head speak with talk of Enzo, Henry Ford, Tasca, Mickey Thompson, Holman/Moody etc.,... if we had started in on Elvis, Dylan, The Beatles, Hank Williams, Haggard, etc., well, we'd still be sitting there.

( The photo at the top of this post is a rare shot of a Lola Mk.6 GT on the grid with a number two on its nose. These cars had relatively short careers and photos of them from back in the day are scarce. If you study the car even casually it is easy to see where a lot of the GT40 came from. )

Barber Motorsports museum delivers another gem ( The 1964 World Championship winning Ferrari 158 )

2009-03-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

Here's yet another reason to make the trip to Birmingham, Alabama and visit the Barber Motorsports museum. I was really in awe of this car. I'm not sure that I've stood in the presence of a F1 World Championship winning car before. I suppose I must have at some museum somewhere at some point, but it didn't come to me if I had. And if I had, I can't imagine too many cars in that category that would have as much of an impact on me as this.

This is the very car that carried the great John Surtees to his 1964 Formula One World Championship. Unlike today, where race teams build and use up to 6 cars per driver throughout a season, John scored most of his top finishes and ran the majority of his races in this car. The series that year went right down to the wire with Surtees finally taking the World Championship at the last race in Mexico.

This car was basically Ferrari's answer to the Lotus 25, using a semi-monoque chassis with a 1.5 litre V8 in the rear rated at 250 hp. All previous Ferrari's used the tried and trusted tubular space frame design. The car also featured a unique for the period direct injection fuel system much like the LeMans Mercedes Benz racers.

This was an incredibly clean and simply designed Formula car. As Enzo Ferrari was famous for not following trends ( and oftentimes scoffing at them much to the detriment of his teams success ) , he was also famous for jumping out in front when he finally did join in with what others had already shown to be a way of the future. This car was a spectacular example of that. 250 hp in a car that tipped the scales at under 1,000 lbs when fully dressed with a top speed of 165 mph. It is no wonder that with a driver as talented as Surtees, this combination clinched the 1964 World title.

Heads up

2009-03-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know some of you have already seen the car and the photo above. And for those who aren't in my immediate life circle, to recap, this is my first car and has supplied me with (mostly) trouble free transportation and a lot of fun since 1987. Yes, I agree that's a long time.

In a previous post I took us through the entire ride that she and I have been on and the recent facelift/transformation that the old girl received. I'm still very pleased with the results and stand by my decisions of going with period wheels/tires and the sometimes controversial matte-black paint scheme. For the record, I still am planning to lay out gloss black versions of the original optional SS stripe package. As my brother Rob pointed out, "That'll at least let people know that it is done."

Well, as Robert Earl Keen once wrote... The road goes on forever and the party never ends. The same could be said for vintage car projects, especially if they are yours and you spend a lot of time with them. And I spend a ton of time with my Chevelle, as it is my primary source of transportation. I should have know that this would happen, but apparently the paint job is not going to be enough. That's right folks, the engine is coming out.

Now don't completely blame me for this. As was earlier reported, I had a rather spirited drive with a friend earlier in the year that resulted in bent valves and pushrods. The key here is to never believe that you can't hurt something- no matter how well you think you know it or how many times you've beat it to death only to see it ask for more. That is certainly the case with my little 406 sb that lives between the fenders of the Chevelle, but nothing ( I don't care what it is ) likes to be over-revved. Consider this lesson now officially "learned" by yours truly.

So, here we are. Time to correct some issues with the way she's running these days. Now if it feels like I'm not appropriately heart broken over the situation, it's because I'm not. I built this engine many years ago ( I believe in '92 or '93 ) on a budget. The short block was actually constructed by my old friend Kyle Ray of R-n-S motors fame. A great Chevrolet performance guy in southern Indiana. The engine was built with great care, but couldn't be considered "Blue-printed". At the time I wanted something stronger than the original 350/270 that was equally as street-able, but would lay down respectable quarter mile times. In those days that meant somewhere in the 13s to me. Remember, when I installed this engine the first gen 5 litre Mustangs were kings of the street and if you could safely run in the 13s in street trim you were at least not embarrassing.

Fast forward nearly 15 years. Since the car has been under ultra mild 406 power it has never laid down anything better than a 14.00. In fact, almost every time I've ever made a pass in it I get a 14.0 something back. Should be bracketing it I guess. Anyway, I've always known that the main culprits in holding back the performance were the heads and cam. They almost always are. The heads were what I could afford at the time, which are stock mid '70s sbc head with 1.94/1.50 valves, standard three angle valve job, and Comp Cams roller rockers. The cam is a Crane (RIP) and I honestly don't remember the grind. I remember it is a dual pattern hydraulic grind with the lift being something like .497 on its highest side. So obviously there is a lot of room for improvement here. The engine has always felt fantastic as far as balance, always pushed perfect oil pressure, and appears to be in fine condition short block wise. But it's time to not only fix the car properly so I can enjoy driving it again, but to outfit the engine with the top end that I've always wanted for it.

This is where you come in. Any thoughts, opinions, feelings, criticisms, two-cents, that any of you have will honestly be greatly appreciated. I used to be very into the street/drag racing scene, and kept up on all of the latest heads, cams, intakes, carbs, exhaust, everything that made a street car go faster. But that was 15 years or longer ago and I know a lot of progress has happened. So you folks who are super up on this please chime in. I plan on knocking this out sometime in the next month or so, or as soon as the Bronco is finished and gone, so it's definitely on the table.

I'll just tell you what I have so far, what I have in mind, and we can go from there.

The car weighs 3,800lbs for starters. The engine is a 406 sbc, currently running 9.1 comp, Holley 750, Edelbrock Performer RPM, stock GM HEI, the current headers are shot and will be replaced during this BTW, 2 and half inch exhaust all the way out the back with flowmasters, 3,500 stall conv with T350 AT equipped with B-n-M shift kit and manual valve body ( trans is fresh ), 3.73 12 bolt posi. The rear susp is stock, the axles are stock, the driveshaft is recently rebuilt but stock, the cooling system is a four-core with a multi-blade flex fan. No AC but power brakes... and that's about all I can think of that might come up.

My plan right now is to upgrade to good quality high-performance heads ( Maybe Edelbrock RPM alum ) , a much more aggressive Comp Hyd cam, possibly larger than I have now tube headers, rebuild the Holley to match the new set up as well as the dist. , and leave the rest the same. My goal is to keep the car reasonable as a daily driver but run solid 12s. And that's it. That's the goal.

Seems simple enough I know, but I'm sure a lot of you out there will have plenty to say on the subject. And I say this for my own profit... bring it on!

PS The good news is I'll be doing this build and keeping you up to date throughout it and will post my first timeslips to see if I meet my goals. Stay tuned!!!

Odds and Ends...

2009-03-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Hello folks, and welcome back to the Steelworks blog. As I explained/whined about in an earlier e-mail, things have been a little hectic around here with the planning of our first large scale event. Fortunately, I'm coming up for air and am happy to be able to get back to a little gear-head journalism.

In feeling overwhelmed by the planning and sorting of this event, I found myself in my shop today taking a break from it all and just walking around looking at wall art, projects in various stages, parts, and all the other soothing and comforting things that make a gear-head's shop such a sanctuary. It worked. I calmed down, began to really enjoy the fact that we were experiencing one of the warmer days in recent weeks, had the garage doors open etc. It all started to feel right again... slowly.

Taking a true love of your life and mixing in a business concept with it is always dangerous. Especially when that love has been completely untainted by the outside world for as long as you've known it. This is yours and yours alone. Your feelings about it have never been affected by other peoples opinions. This is your escape, your expression, a safe haven, and now you're taking the leap into exposing it to the literal world. A world of numbers, dates, and deadlines. Very risky business indeed.

What if you ruin it for yourself? Did you ever think that was possible? No not really, but you never know until you've crossed over with it. What could be worse than having this great life escape represent something other than that for years to come? Yes, you can get over a lot with time, but do you want to have to? As all of this was going through my head the thoughts and feelings all felt very familiar. I have been in this part of my brain before on many occasions.

Music. That's what it was. This is something that I've been having to badminton around in my head for as long as I can remember. I do this with music. Of course, I set off on my path to make a living as a professional musician so long ago that all of my little self-preservation tactics have become firmly placed in the muscle-memory category and I'm barely aware of them any more. This is of course a great thing, as you are doing constant maintenance on your psyche and not even realizing it. Simple stuff, like developing a habit of listening to the music that most inspires you when you feel like your performances are falling off or you've been on the road too long, have played 3 shows that week and have 3 to go and don't know that you have anything new to say... and are wondering how the great ones always do. Being drawn to pick up your instrument to play some musical ideas that are completely different from what your job is requiring of you at the time, so as to make the stuff you have to play every night somehow seem fresh. Sort of channeling new-found energy from new ideas into matter-of-fact material that has become too familiar.

Of course you're doing all of these things and not realizing why, you just know it's feeling right at the time when you are. You can see it when you step outside of it of course, but you never want to be too aware of it when in the act or it won't work. I'm sure Stanislavski had a great way of dealing with all of this. Though I suppose there are those times when even your little psychological self-cleaning oven can't keep up with the sludge of whatever feels like a life-dirge at the time and you have to be pro-active. That's when I call in the reinforcements.

When most people would just gather with friends down at the pub and thrash this stuff until it's been left for dead ( which I promise, does work ), I call on a dear friend of mine who is not only one of our greatest songwriter/performers, but also provides very solid and free psychotherapy. Now the funny thing is, I've done this enough times over the years that it has now nearly become a bit- it goes something like this; First, I get very down about whatever I'm doing at the time musically, then I phone ( that's the really easy part ). When the phone picks up I say,"Hey, tell me again why you love Bob Dylan." This gets a laugh every time because this person now knows this call and also knows where my head must be at. I get to listen to an inspired and well articulated case as to how and why music can mean so much, and that it always should. Soon I'm back in a great place with music, as I'm reminded of its beauty, why I got into this in the first place, and that there are much heavier, more talented, and more musical people who set the bar very high every day, providing inspiration and motivation.

Ahh, and all is right with the world once again. Again, it was a funny feeling to experience this with my love of all things vintage and speedy in the world of motorsports. This had never happened, but let me be clear... I certainly wasn't getting down about the work I was having to do in organizing what I know will be a glorious event, I just found myself bogged down in a lot of stuff that had to be done that didn't have anything to do with horsepower, speed, or automotive style. It felt like busy work. And I suppose that's what it was, very necessary busy work.

And I guess this is just what happens when you decide to get just a little more serious about one of your passions than you had originally planned. That's when the issue of balance can enter the picture. I do know this though; If I had not accomplished the task of being able to pay my bills with music, then music would not be as big and important a part of my life. I certainly would not have experienced the great highs with it that I have and I wouldn't have developed what is now a solid "in-for-life" relationship with it. Yes, my relationship with it can be challenging from time to time, but when it's working ( which is, fortunately, most of the time ) there is nothing greater in my life or that brings me greater joy.

Now, I have been around, and have had a great passion for, the old car world my entire life. If I look back at the trajectory of my journey with it, this next step is the natural one. This is where it should be heading. I'm too crazy about it to be casual, and what could be better than to try and go to this next level of involvement? I can't think of a single reason not to. As has been proven to me with my music, my passion will just grow stronger. So what if occasionally I have to ring a friend and ask,"Hey, tell me again why you think the sound of a 12 cylinder Ferrari at full song is glorious"?

I'll know I've done the right thing, because, as is the case with Bob Dylan, ... I already know the answer.

Time out of mind...

2009-03-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Five bits to the first bloke who knows the recording artist who I stole this post's title from...

Yes, it's all about time, and it often drives me out of my mind. But I don't think that has anything to do with what Bob Dylan was feeling when he named a record "Time out of mind..." , so I'll not try to co-opt any more of a connection than that.

Really, all I'm here to say is that I apologize to any and all who look forward to my miscellaneous ramblings that happen here nearly every week day. I've clearly been very lax this week and I can only just tell you the truth and say that other life happenings have been getting in the way. It happens to all of us I suppose- you wake up one day and realize you've simply taken on too much or are taking on too much. That's where I'm at. I've suddenly found myself trying to plan out the details of a motorsport event, be a touring musician who's rarely home, completely restore an old vehicle ( that resides at my home ), and be in the recording studio working on a new record with my boss... all at the same time. I need at least two more of me to pull this off, and hopefully they can be improved versions. Of course, if they were a true improvement on the current product they wouldn't let themselves end up in a predicament like this. At least I'd hope not.

So, all that being said, I keep finding myself getting home at well past midnight, knowing I have to be up early, and realizing that I haven't checked in with a new post yet. Now, I know this doesn't pass for a post- I just wanted to let you know that I hadn't fallen asleep at the wheel and run into a snow plow again ( with worse results ). I'm as gung-ho as ever to scratch out some kind of motorsport daily rant, its just simply been a bad week. So bare with me and please try and stick around... you never know when I may have to report on another instance of me trying to outrun a German engineered sports car with a 1960s drum braked American pony machine.

Stay 'tuned' !!!

1956 MV Augusta ( another gem from the Barber Motorsports collection )

2009-03-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Returning our attention once more to my visit of the Barber Motorsports Museum outside of Birmingham, Alabama, and one of my favorite sightings from the day. A very tough one, picking favorites from this astonishing collection, but being a huge fan of John Surtees, it was an awesome thing for me just to be seeing this bike in person.

As most of us know, Surtees is the only person to have ever won the world championship on both two wheels and four. On motorcycles, he won the 500cc category an incredible four times and paired that with winning the 350cc championship three times. He is also credited with being the first person to win the Senior TT on the Isle of Man three years in a row. That of course would be enough for most, but John went on to try his hand at sports car and Formula One racing. He, and all who witnessed him behind the wheel, would soon recognize that his talents quickly translated to his newfound discipline. Surtees would end up taking the Formula One World title in 1964 for Scuderia Ferrari, only four years into his career in auto racing.

By the late 1960s, Surtees would conquer most of his motosports goals and turn his attention to becoming a constructor. Surtees racing cars would gain immediate respect for their beautiful construction, reliability, and competitiveness.

Today I'd like to turn the attention to one of John Surtees' early winning mounts, the 1956 MV Augusta 500cc race bike pictured above. This bike is very special, as it was hand made at the MV Augusta factory for the sole purpose of being the best racing motorcycle of its time. Ridden by a young John Surtees, the combination of rider and machine captured the 500cc World Championship crown in 1956, and three more from 1958 to 1960.

The specs on this bike would be as follows; air-cooled, transverse four cylinder, four stroke engine producing about 55hp @ 10,500 rpm. It featured gear-driven twin overhead cams, four Dell 'Orto 28mm carburetors, and a five speed gear box. Weighing in at a touch over three hundred pounds, these factory race bikes could easily hit speeds of up to 150mph. Not bad for 1956! I can't imagine the sound this makes when ridden in anger.

Amelia Island

2009-03-06T05:00:00.000-08:00

Coming up soon on the '09 car calendar is Bill Warner's wonderful Amelia Island Concourse d'Elegance. Already in its 14th year, "Amelia" is going strong and is quickly proving itself to be the Pebble Beach of the east coast. Thanks to Mr. Warner's wide range of automotive interests and love of all things "motorsport", those who attend are treated to not only the best examples of European exotics and American pre-war classics but also to some of the best restored and most historically significant race cars in existence. Also of interest to lovers of speed are the intimate panel discussions and meet-and-greets with some of racing's greatest legends that have become a staple of Amelia.

This year will honor racing legend and commentator extraordinaire David Hobbs and will feature the west coast custom creations of Bohman and Schwartz. Also in attendance will be both Indy drivers and Formula one drivers, along with a collection of cars representing both, all from the great 1950s and early '60s era. Drivers in attendance will include Johnny Rutherford, Bobby Unser, and Parnelli Jones. Friday will feature an amazing panel of legendary 1950s California customizers Dean Jeffries, George Barris, Daryl Starbird, and modern builder Chip Foose.

Bill Warner has done a tremendous job building this into a world class event in a relatively short period of time, and with his history as a successful SCCA Pro-Racing driver and lover of "all things speed", he is definitely our kind of car guy. Make your plans to be there now on the weekend of March 13-15 and enjoy the experience that is Amelia!

LOOK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-03-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

I'm fortunate to be able to say that I've had very few instances in my life when I've been responsible for bending metal. Now that is certainly not to say that I haven't been in dozens of situations where I should have in a big way, and that it is an absolute miracle that I'm alive ( no kidding ) when I think back about these examples of stupidity and recklessness... but, it really is just dumb luck that it has worked out the way it has. Maybe in a few instances I developed just enough sense during the last millisecond that good decision making and a touch of skill saved me from disaster, but examples of that are extremely rare believe me.

In fact, I believe I can run down all of my fender benders pretty quickly; Well, the first, and far and away the most life threatening, was in 1992 when I was driving from Indianapolis to Bedford, Indiana in a blinding snow storm at around 3:45 am, returning from a gig with my then blues band "The Kings of Rhythm". I was driving my Dad's freshly re-done 1975 Chevrolet Cheyenne half ton pick-up that was nearly show quality and had around 70,000 one old man owner miles on it. I can still feel how like new that truck felt and ran. Anyway, somewhere around 35 miles north of my parents home I fell sound asleep and managed to drive downhill for about an eigth of a mile while the truck accelerated. Amazingly, I woke up just as I was about 20 feet from the back of a salt spreader/snow plow that was traveling about 35-40 mph slower than I was. I of course slammed into the back of this thing, rolling the front half of the truck up into a ball. The impact was so severe that the roof of the cab folded in the center, bringing the headliner down to within an inch of my head. The drivers side windshield pillar post folded inward and was up against my left shoulder when I came to ( which was about 20-25 minutes after impact ). This same windshield post provided me with a huge gaping gash above my left ear that traveled about half way around the back of my head. How this didn't end me I'll never know. The frame had bent downward just below the firewall, pitching the steering column down into my lap with such force that the steering wheel was bent all the way around both of my legs and had me pinned down into the bench seat so far that my but had started to make its way out the back of the seat between the seat top and bottom.

OK, maybe that was a little too much information. I do know that when I came to, it was dead quiet, snow was falling in my face, and every time I tried to move little cubes of safety glass would roll off of me. My face and head were all sticky ( I remember thinking this was probably anti-freeze as I could smell it around me ) as I had no idea of my injuries. I could see the snow plow off in the distance about 100 yards up the road from me and could just hear the engine idling. No one was around or on the scene yet. I was able to push down into the seat with both hands just hard enough to free my legs one at a time. At that point I crawled over to the passengers side door ( which was completely undamaged ), opened it, and walked out into the road. Being in shock, my first reaction was to start picking up all of the parts I could find in the road and in the median that belonged to my Dad's truck. We were going to need these after all to fix it! I clearly remember picking the grill up off the shoulder and finding it almost completely unharmed. It had one plastic tab broken off of it. I still can't understand that one.

The saddest part for me was looking in the back window of the bed topper and seeing my beloved 1964 Black Face Fender Super Reverb amp scattered all over the inside of the bed in a million pieces. Fortunately my guitar was in a road case and made it unscathed.

After I'd found everything I could that went with the truck, I walked up the road to apologize to the driver of the snowplow. When I reached the cab of the truck I looked up and saw that he was sitting in his driver's seat talking on the CB. I reached up, knocked on the door, and when he looked over at me he screamed at the top of his lungs and jumped about a foot out of his seat. You see, what I didn't realize was that my head had this huge gash in it and had been bleeding down over my face for 20 minutes while I was passed out in the truck. The blood was nearly solid over my entire face and most of my shirt was soaked as well. So, not only was this quite a sight for this poor guy to look over and see, but he had gone back to my truck right after the accident, looked at me slumped over and bleeding, and called into the police that there was a fatality!

Now hopefully that's as close as I'll ever come without going all the way into the ground. I can't imagine coming any closer. I just keep thinking about that windshield post going by my head. Crazy. The truck was totaled and I eventually healed up and grew the hair back on my head that hospital shaved off. Lots of ballcaps were worn that year. But I learned my lesson. I still get tired while driving, but with that memory always fresh in my mind, all I have to do is recall it for a second and I'm wide awake again. World's greatest caffein rush.

The others are, fortunately, nowhere near as dramatic. Oh there was the time I was hit by a fellow student in the high-school parking lot at a walking speed. The bad thing about that one was that my older brother Rob had been kind enough to let me drive his super cool and super minty red/red with white top '67 Tempest convertible to school that day. Wouldn't you know it. Kinked the mile long rear quarter in and was a chore to repair and make as straight as it was. Then I guess there is the dear that I hit at 65mph that wiped out the front end of an '85 Chevy pickup I was driving at the time. And that's all I believe.

I have no way of even beginning the task of laying out all of the close calls, and the shame and embarrassment might be too much for me. Lets just say I've been lucky. Running 135 for nearly 10 minutes on an open highway in my old Chevelle, only to get home and see that the front tire had split open and was showing radial chords... that was pretty stupid. Letting a 15 year old friend take 15 year old me for a ride in his Dad's '57 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider only to get the car airborne, land in the oncoming lane, run the car down through a ditch, cross back over the road while spinning out , and end up in a field having somehow passed through a row of full grown trees!!! all with no seatbelts!... that was pretty stupid ( and that poor defenseless beautiful Alfa, I should be ashamed of myself just for that ). Or the time I made a complete fool of myself during a track session at Watkins Glen in my '65 Mustang fastback trying to take the same line, at the same speed, as the early '80s 911 in front of me was. Of course I spun the car ( through traffic !!! ) and ended up backwards just at the exit of the turn... and I still had to drive the car back to Tennessee!!!!!! Brilliant!

You see, they'll just get worse if I keep going. But I think it proves my point- dumb luck, that's all it is in so many instances. Fortunately I don't have a story like the photos above depict, and I plan to do everything I can for the rest of my time to keep it that way. I feel like having made it through my teens and early 20s helps my chances greatly, and I'm sure used up all of my "get out of jail free" cards. I'm not saying I've completely grown up, I'm hoping none of us have, because I ( like you ) intend on continuing the hard use of my high-performance machines. I just hope the days of me getting chased down by the police for street racing ( only to have the officer inform me that my plate is for a completely different car than the one I'm driving, that it isn't registered in any way, is not insured, and that he just clocked me doing 70 in a 35 while trying to beat [ yet another 911 ] that new Porsche to the next stop-light ) are over. I hope.

You can only talk your way out of one of those per lifetime...

The above photos are of a Ferrari that I spotted on a car hauler in North Hollywood on a recent trip. This poor 512 bbi Boxer was either rear ended, or swapped ends and went "into the wall" backwards. What a shame.

And of course the James Dean Porsche at its holding cell after the crash. In this form the car would soon make its way out to the midwest to be shown to highschool students as a way to promote safe driving among teenagers ( nice visual aid educators! ). Within a few months the car would be stolen out of its transporter and would never be seen again. One of the all time great mysteries in the old car world.

Doin' the right thing...

2009-03-04T05:05:00.000-08:00

The final installment from Monterey 2003...

First up is a fantastically patinated Bugatti Type 35 grand prix car. If this was ever even "touched up" I wouldn't believe it. Wonderful stuff. Dig the bitchin' early ARCA badge in the grill.

Now finally the reason we all made the trip; Lets race!

A mouth watering parade of priceless '50s sports racing cars come through the good old Laguna Seca corkscrew.

Couldn't resist picking this as one of my all time all time favorites is leading the way through the corkscrew- The fabulous Cunningham C4-R. I know the red car well but for the life of me am drawing the biggest blank ( help anyone? ), I'm sure that's an Allard J2X coming in behind it.

Finally, a lovely gold C-type Jaguar leads the way for our first American born Formula One World Champion- Phil Hill driving a to-die-for Alfa Romeo 3000CM. This is one of four closed 3000s built and is the very car that Juan Manuel Fangio drove in the 1953 24 hours of LeMans. This would be one of the very last races that Phil would run in his lifetime. The following year, Phil would run his final race in this same car during the Monaco historic Grand Prix.

Doin' the right thing...

2009-03-04T05:04:00.000-08:00

It would appear that I can't stop myself, I hope that's OK.

We've now moved onto Monterey 2003;

Remember what I was saying about the comradery and spirit of early racing still being alive and well? Well, this is what happens when your Type 35 won't start after coming in from its track time and you don't have your crew nearby; a kind civilian, namely my friend Mark Lambert, will gladly step up and help a fellow car guy.

This was a real treat to see in the paddock, and talk about rare!, the Offy powered Scarab Formula One car of Don Orasco. Nine of these cars were originally built. This is one of three in existence.

Finally,a really important moment to me, and one that I'm happy to have caught on film. Tom Sparks visiting with his old friend Phil Hill. Just happened to run into him on the street! Tom and Phil go back to when Phil had a hot rod as a teenager. They came up together in racing and even moreso in the classic car restoration business. As I said in an earlier post, this guy is one of my biggest heros from any walk of life. I had a nice visit with him that day and it became one of the great highs of my life that he would remember me ( as Tommy's friend ) the next couple of times that I saw him over the years before his passing. Again, this is the stuff that our wonderful hobby/sport can make possible. It's always about the people isn't it?

Doin' the right thing...

2009-03-04T05:03:00.000-08:00

And even more Monterey '06...

Hard to say but I think this guy is a Bugatti fan. Nice collection and rig.

In case you were wondering about who won the very first Pebble Beach sports car race back in 1950, well it was none other than one of my real heros in life- the great Phil Hill. What did he use to accomplish this?, well, this very XK-120 that's what.

Period photo attached in case you were doubting it...

Doin' the right thing...

2009-03-04T05:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes half the fun is just walking the paddock, Monterey '06 continued...

Love the row of vintage Formula One cars, mid/late '60s Ferrari in the foreground, lovely looking front engine Ferrari Formula One near the end, and what looks like a 904 Porsche on the very end. The big boys play at Monterey!

My lord talk about curves!!! The row of 1950s sports racers is chilling. Is that a Conault in the foreground? Of course the Maserati 300S is one of the all time greats. The Ferrari next to it looks like one of the last TR250s, a '60 or '61? Hard to say what's further down.

This last shot can really only be Monterey. What an outrageous line-up of road going sports cars this is. What do we have here; a lovely open DB2 in the foreground, a very drab-patina'd pre-war Alfa... a 2300 I believe ( I spent a lot of time looking at this car, what a stunning survivor it was ), next we have the ubiquitous Ferrari 275- they couldn't possibly have left one of those out of this line-up, with non-other than a Zagato bodied DB4GT next door, and finally my all time favorite Ferrari... the 250GT SWB. Just breathtaking! Maybe I'll take a stab at the Alfa way down on the end as being a 1750.

Finally we have Jaguar E-type hanging with cousins Lister Jag etc...

Doin' the right thing...

2009-03-04T05:01:00.000-08:00

More fun at Monterey 2006...

Again, we have good friends enjoying taking in the times. This time it's my good friends Mark Lambert and Tom Sparks with a bird's eye view of the goings-on.

Spotted this in the paddock, one of my all time favorite little race cars from the pre-war era, or should we say ERA. That's right it's an ERA R2B. Check out the patina in that old green leather race seat! You can almost hear Alain de Cadenet exclaiming,"Fantastic!"

Doin' the right thing...

2009-03-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I must say, I got so fired up after writing out my post last night on Vintage Racing that I went back and thought about the many vintage events that I've had the pleasure of attending in recent years. Which ones were highlights, and which ones were super highlights. Those are really the only two categories.

In doing this the photo albums came out and I thought I'd just throw out some quick pics to share with you. I'll do my best to identify where need be. Enjoy!

The shot of the Edelbrock trailer and family racecar stable features quite a lineup for Vic Jr. and his daughters Cammie and Christi. These folks are super cool and know how to have fun. It truly is a family affair with Vic and the girls racing out on the track and Mrs. Edelbrock keeping track of lap times. The cars in this photo that I can make out would be the red and black original George Follmer '69 Boss 302 Trans-Am car, the '66 Shelby GT350 Mustang that Cammie races which is a former B-production championship car from back in the day, and finally the original Smokey Yunick '67 Camaro Z-28 that Vic campaigns. Vic can also be seen racing his silver blue '63 Corvette Z06 coupe ex-Bondurant 614 Washburn Chevrolet car as well. Taken at the Monterey historics in 2006.

The unidentified but stunning collection of cars featuring the D-type in the foreground was in Monterey as well in 2006. I love the mid '50s Ferrari sports racer parked next to it, and is that possibly a late Porsche 908 on the end down past the single seater Formula cars?

Lastly, here's what it's all about... old friends catching up. This time my pal Tom Sparks says hello to lifelong friend Vic Edelbrock. Tom knew Vic's dad from the time he was a teenager and remembers Vic Jr. being born. I guess you could say he goes back to the early days of hot rodding!

Do the right thing...

2009-03-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

I truly am a bit of a nut about vintage racing. And when I say vintage racing, I mean any and all kinds of vintage racing. It's the natural progression I think; to become obsessed with beautiful vintage high-performance racing machines, research them through books and magazines, pursue seeing them in person at either concourse events or in museums, and then finally- it's time to see them move and hear them run... hopefully in anger.

After all, it is what they were made for. This is their natural environment. I mean, who wants to see a D-type Jag with mirrors underneath it? That gives me the same awful feeling as seeing a polar bear in a zoo laying on a fiberglass rock in 90 degree summer heat. Gives me a strong sense that someone somewhere needs to be reprimanded in a big way for going against nature.

I'm not sure how we can help the polar bear but, fortunately for us, a whole lot of folks who feel like I do ( and I have a feeling a lot of you out there as well ) are doing plenty to help the wild English cat population- among other cantankerous species. I'm of course talking about vintage racing!

In my opinion, this is the single greatest movement that has happened in the old car world since the AACA decided to start preserving antique cars way back in 1935. In fact, I believe the first vintage racing organizations in both the U.S. and the U.K. were started around this same time, although the VSCCA is on record as being our first official organizing body which dates back to the 1950s. At any rate, it's a great thing that the cars on both sides of this fence began to be preserved so early in their lives.

Now when I say I'm a fan of all vintage racing, I'm quite serious about that. I don't know if it has something to do with my age (39) and the fact that I missed a lot of "golden eras", or simply the fact that I'm such a rabid enthusiast in general, but I just am. I have no less interest in going to Milwaukee to see the great Harry A. Miller meet than I do in traveling to Watkins Glen for the fall vintage festival or Limerock Park for the same, or Goodwood for the Festival of Speed or Motor Circuit Revival ( OK, those actually top the lot ), or Michigan for the wonderful Pure Stock Muscle Car drag race series, or to El Mirage or Bonneville, or to Jungle Park Indiana to see the old dirt trackers come together once again, or to Bakersfield for the vintage drag races at the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion. It all makes my heart pound.

You can look at these cars in books all day long, or even view old footage of them running back in the day... but to hear an old Offy fire up and run hard, or an early small displacement Ferrari 12cyl howl, or the wonderfully primitive rasp of a period hopped-up flat-head V8, or heaven forbid an early top-fuel Hemi running at full song on nitro, again... the heart pounds.

This is exactly what our vintage machinery should be up to when their owners have the chance. As I said early on, I'm 39 and was born right on the edge of when a lot of this stuff was being put away as no-longer-competitive. I can't imagine what a 16 year old kid must think of some of this stuff when they finally get to see and hear it. And isn't that the point? The celebration of it all, the education of the uninitiated, and the nostalgic trip back in time for the lucky ones who were there, back in the day, when it was simply the norm. Oh to have that stuff stored away deep in my memory! "I guess I just wasn't made for these times... " is how Brian Wilson put it.

But again, here we are, lucky enough to be living in a new kind of golden age. It almost seems too good to believe that we can go and see nearly anything from the past run as it did back in the day. Sure the community that supports it is coming from a different place psychologically than it was when it was "win at all cost", but a lot of the spirit is the same, a lot of the comradery is the same, and thanks to many, the lifestyle of it can still be seen in action. How lucky we are. Imagine; if you want to see Sterling Moss drive his old Mille Miglia winning 300 SLR, you actually can! Does anyone else find this amazing? You can go to the NHRA Hot Rod reunion and stand next to Big Daddy Don Garlits in the pits like it's 1965 and watch him hold the starter up to the front of his blown-nitro-burning-Hemi top-fuel sling-shot-dragster and experience the sensation of one of these firing up, then see him climb into it in his old racing suit, pull up to the line, and blast off in a cloud of rubber smoke... using the tires as a clutch, just like the old days. Again, amazing!

I have a funny feeling that we're going to look back on the 1990s and early 2000s as a golden era for these reasons. No one can say where the vintage racing world is headed. It does seem to split off into group after group after group. And maybe that's a good thing. Because as soon as something gets a little too competitive or historically inaccurate for some tastes, a correction is made and a new and safer playground is built for those folks. The same happens when there isn't enough competition for other folks. I think this is good for everyone involved. The more the merrier. You never know when you might want to go watch a pack of 300hp bug-eye Sprites on extra wide slicks battle it out after you've done a weekend with the VSCCA... and I'm not being sarcastic.

I have faith that some kind of balance will always be maintained in my favorite part of the motorsports world. It may not always be as comfy as it is right now, and most importantly, we won't have as many members of the original first season cast to help us with the reliving of the old days. But either way, it'll always be a great ride no matter what. The important thing is to get that old race car out of retirement 'cause time's a wastin'... do it now... do the right thing!

More Jim Hall ( The Chaparral 2H )

2009-03-02T05:02:00.000-08:00

Built for the 1969 Can-Am season, the Chaparral 2H introduced a dynamic new design. Dubbed "The great white whale" by its competitors for its unusually long and narrow shape, the 2H featured a fully stressed fiberglass shell with only a small sub-frame to stabilize the load-bearing engine and transmission. The 2H's streamlined shape reduced drag and produced downforce for added tire grip. In addition, major mechanical components were placed in the rear to aid in rear weight bias. Additionally, an innovative ride-height control system automatically adjusted the suspension for changes in aerodynamic downforce at speed.

A major set-back occurred during development of the 2H when Jim Hall was severely injured in a crash in the Chaparral 2G during a race in Las Vegas. Hall's rehabilitation severely delayed development and testing of the 2H. Driver John Surtees was hired to drive the 2H but always felt uneasy with the unorthodox design of the car and its uncharacteristic driving style. Despite going through several modifications, the 2H never reached its potential. For the 1970 season the Chaparral team decided to shelve the 2H project and focus instead on the 2J.

"The 2H was a predecessor to the kind of cars people build today."- Jim Hall

More Jim Hall ( The Chaparral 2J "The Sucker Car" )

2009-03-02T05:00:00.001-08:00

As un-race-car-like as it appears, this angular, boxy car built for the 1970 Can-Am series was designed to create immense down-force independent of speed. With two 17" fans driven by a second engine mounted at the rear of the car, the 2J earned the name "sucker car' as it literally sucked air from under the car and forced it out the back, thus creating a vacuum that held the 2J on the track surface. This downforce increased grip to the tires independently of the car's forward motion, and allowed the car to corner faster in both slow and high-speed turns. To create a seal between the car and the road, sliding polycarbonate skirts were placed around the bottom edge of the car and maintained a constant gap to the ground. Theoretically, enough suction could be generated by the fans to hold the car upside down on the ceiling of a room. The airflow generated by the fans alone could propel the car up to speeds of 40mph or more.

In its first race, the 2J recorded the fastest lap at Watkins Glen, New York, and then earned the pole position in every other race it entered. In fact, it was so fast that the FIA officials banned the 2J at the end of the 1970 Can-Am season because the sliding polycarbonate skirts were said to be in violation of the "moveable aerodynamic ban" ; thus ending the car's career at its Dawn of Victory.

"If I come up with a better mousetrap that is within the guidelines of the regulations, than I ought to be able to use it." - Jim Hall in 1970 commenting on the 2J's ended career.

More Jim Hall ( The Chaparral 2F )

2009-03-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

Chaparral cars built the 2F to compete in the 1967 World Manufacturer's Championship races. The 2F was extremely fast and led or ran near the front of every race in which it competed. In spite of development problems with a new aluminum big block V8 and three speed Chaparral automatic, the 2F won the last race of the season at Brands Hatch, England ( The BOAC 500 ) winning against the full might of the factory teams from Porsche, Ford, Lotus, and Ferrari.

Like the 2E, the 2F featured a high, moveable wing above the inclosed cockpit chassis. To control the wing, the driver pushed a pedal with his left foot to hold the wing in a flat low-drag position when accelerating on high-speed straight sections. When cornering, the driver released the pedal, which moved the front of the wing to a downward angle to increase downforce and aid in deceleration.

"It was terrific to not go flying off into the wild blue yonder but just make a tiny, little jump and just come down again." - 2F driver Phil Hill describing a famous jump at the German Nurburgring that sent most cars airborne.

Jim Hall and his mighty Chaparrals ( Part two - The 2 E )

2009-02-27T05:02:00.000-08:00

Built for the new Canadian-American Challenge Cup, or "Can-Am", the 2E earned instant fame as the first car to carry a high wing which generated and applied downforce directly onto the rear hubs. This innovation dramatically increased grip to the tires. The added grip helped the car to corner faster, and brake and accelerate more quickly than its competitors.

Like previous Chaparrals, the 2E used an automatic transmission and did not need a clutch pedal. In its place, the Chaparral team installed a foot pedal to control the wing. With his left foot, the driver could hold the wing in a flat low-drag position when accelerating on high speed straight sections. When cornering, the driver released the pedal, which moved the front of the wing to a downward angle. This added downforce through the corners and provided drag to help slow the car. In addition, the pedal controlled the airflow in a tunnel at the front of the 2E to provide a balancing aerodynamic downforce on the front of the car.

"It was time to get the wing off the car and onto the suspension. No one seemed to agree with me at the time... I guess we eventually changed a few minds." - Jim Hall

Jim Hall and his mighty Chaparrals ( Part two - The 2 D )

2009-02-27T05:01:00.000-08:00

In 1966, Chaparral debuted the enclosed version of the Chaparral 2 for the World Manufacturer's Championship races such as Sebring, Daytona, and the 24 hours of LeMans. While finishing only one race in 1966, the 2D won the 1,000 kilometer race at the Nurburgring in Germany; a race many consider to be the greatest endurance race in the world.

Chaparral cars experimented with many different shapes with the 2D to increase airflow and decrease drag. Many of these designs would be signs of things to come in the many aerodynamic advancements used in future Chaparral designed race cars.

"The 2D was basically a closed version of the Chaparral 2 with some more advances made in cleaning up aerodynamic drag and getting higher top end speeds on the faster circuits. We continued also to run our proven 327 ci aluminum Chevy V8 with great success." - Jim Hall

Jim Hall and his mighty Chaparrals ( Part two )

2009-02-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

Yeah I know. My consistency is leaving a lot to be desired around here. My travels over the past several days have made it extremely difficult to produce something for every day of the week. I hope you'll forgive me. I enjoy my little daily motorsports scribing and look forward to that part of the day when I sit down and put everything out of my mind but the subject at hand. The problem of course comes when "that part of the day" gets eaten by outside forces that I can't ignore. That's how we end up with a spotty week like we've had around here. The upside is that, thanks to this trying schedule and my crisscrossing of the country, I get to do one of my favorite things here, and that is to report on something from the road that I found pretty special.

As I wrote about briefly in a previous post, I had the good fortune to visit the Jim Hall wing of the Midland, Texas Petroleum Museum last week and it really was a thrill. Like I said, I'm a big fan of Jim Hall, his accomplishments, and how he went about achieving such success. To me he is the best kind of example of the American spirit. Fiercely independent, mountains of bravery, infinitely creative, and completely unaware of boundaries. Some would chalk this up to his Texas roots and I wouldn't immediately argue with that, but I do like to think that these are the basic qualities found in any pioneering American.

In many ways, Hall's timing of entry into racing was spot on. For starters, the American racing enthusiast had been enjoying the success and spirit shown by Briggs Cunningham with his all American effort on the international racing stage, but were very downcast by the fact that Cunningham was pulling back his involvement in racing more and more by the early 1960s. Not only that, Cunningham had mostly turned his back on racing American based entries and had turned to the European manufacturers to provide him with competitive machines. So when Jim Hall decided to change his position as a Formula One driver and Lotus pilot to an American manufacturer and racer of highly competitive American sports racing cars, the U.S. racing fans couldn't have been more excited. Of course we can't not mention that Dan Gurney would soon be doing the same, but the history books will show that Jim Hall was there a few years earlier and with groundbreaking innovation that no constructor would approach until the 1960s were over. Indeed, Jim Hall would leave a heavy stamp on international sports car racing and Can-Am before it was all said and done.

In fact, any single achievement made by Hall would have been more than enough for anyone else. How about the first use of the wing in racing? If we just take a moment and try to imagine the impact that that single development has had, well, it's really impossible to put a value on that. Next up for me would have to be his tire development that he went to Firestone with. The concept of eliminating as much slip angle as possible by way of using a tire with a wider contact patch but shorter sidewall basically gave us what is still to this day the shape of any high-performance or racing tire. To think that the classic upright Dunlop racing tire of the '50s and early '60s was the only game in town until Jim Hall came along is staggering. And lastly, his work with aerodynamics in developing various downforce and low pressure techniques in race car design are at least the equal, if not more so, of his other accomplishments. His use of underbody skirting and air-channeling bellypans helped dramatically to his two Indianapolis 500 victories as a team owner and car designer. Now of course all of these Jim Hall developments are commonplace in nearly every form of auto racing, and yes, eventually all of these ideas would have been found out. But to have one man from Midland, Texas, with no connection to any constructor, be hit with all of these ideas, have the talent to develop them into real working and advantage producing race components- all in less than 20 years, is quite remarkable indeed.

That is some serious spirit folks.. whether it be a Texan thing or an American thing, again, is of no consequence to me. I'm just glad, for all of us, that he came along and was inspired by the world of speed and performance as it related to the automobile. We're all a good bit better off for it. And I guess it is that much sweeter that it was all done on our own soil isn't it?

Now lets take a closer look at some of the great Chaparral cars created and raced by Jim Hall...

The Chaparral 2; The car that started it all.

The Chaparral 2 was the first car designed by Jim Hall and Hap Sharp and the first to be built in Midland. During the '63, '64, and '65 road race seasons, this car notched up 22 wins in 39 races against the best of the international competition.

The Chaparral 2 boasted a new approach in frame design. The semi-monocoque chassis was inspired by modern aircraft design and was molded from fiberglass reinforced plastic. Since the engine was mounted just behind the driver, the car's designers were free to shape a low, sleek front end fitted with a V-shaped lip spoiler. The design kept the car from lifting at high speeds. In 1964 at Laguna Seca, the Chaparral 2 introduced an automatic transmission, which eliminated the clutch pedal and freed the driver's left foot to be on the brake pedal at the same time as the right was on the throttle. Roger Penske was heard to have said at the time,"I believe Jim designed the Chaparral 2 with the automatic so that us drivers would have our shifting hand free to wave at other drivers when passing them."

Jim Hall and his mighty Chaparrals

2009-02-24T05:04:00.000-08:00

Jim Hall and his mighty Chaparrals

2009-02-24T05:02:00.000-08:00

Jim Hall and his mighty Chaparrals

2009-02-24T05:01:00.000-08:00

Jim Hall and his mighty Chaparrals

2009-02-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes things just go your way. Of course, you can't bank on it but it sure is nice when even the little stuff just seem's to hit like a song. This happened to me this morning.

I stopped off on my road trip last night in Midland, Texas for an overnight rest. Being a Jim Hall fan, and fan of the golden age of sports car racing in general, I knew about the small museum in Jim's home town of Midland and had always wanted to see it. I hadn't really gone to any great lengths to have this time out that I would end up in Midland for my overnight stop, I just kinda looked at the map, thought about my schedule, and casually assumed I would be able to stop by one way or another. Midland is a small town and I figured if I didn't stop there I could at least try and make it through in the daytime while the museum was open.

Well, as you can see it all worked out. The crazy part of this story is this; I took the second exit of three just by chance and drove into town to look for a decent hotel. Because Midland is so small, and they have so few hotels, I guess they feel they can fleece the friendly traveler and ask $149 for a single room at a mid-level hotel- because that's exactly what they were doing. Just based on principle I walked out of the first two I tried, even though they both told me I wouldn't find a better deal. They were kinda right too. I drove all the way back out to the Interstate and got a room at a Comfort Inn. The price, $135.00. Unbelievable!

Anyway, it was up early the next day to locate, and make a quick visit to, the Jim Hall Museum( actually it is a separate wing of the Midland, Texas Petroleum Museum ) and get back on the road. Again, I had been hearing about this place and was excited to see it. On my way out I went by the front desk on the off chance that maybe they knew of it and could point me in the right direction. When I asked, the girl looked at me strangely, pointed out the window behind her, and said,"You mean that place." That's right, I had taken a room at the only hotel in town that had an actual view of the museum! Unbelievable! - but this time in a good way.

As you can see, this is a small but impressive display of the great cars that Jim Hall's genius gave us. I try not to throw genius around loosely, but if anyone from this era of motor racing qualifies it would be Jim Hall. Don't take my word for it though, check out some of these quotes;

"The Chaparral was the greatest car that I ever drove anywhere, at anytime during my career." - Phil Hill

"It was absolutely fantastic. I could drive his (Jim Hall's) cars deeper into the corners and come out faster than in any other car that I drove at the time. It was just bloody amazing!" - Sir Jackie Stewart

"We never knew what would come out of his shop. Every time we came up with a new idea, we'd find out that Jim Hall had already been doing it on one of his cars." - Bruce McLaren

"There's no question that with Jim's mechanical capability, plus the fact that he was a great race driver, he helped set a trend. He probably started the greatest movement in auto racing with wings and wide tires." - Roger Penske

I feel like that should cover it in case there were any doubters.

With this post I'd like to just throw up the photos that I have to give you a feel for the display and the cars in attendance. I'll happily get into more specifics on both Jim Hall and his Chaparral cars in the next post.

Enjoy!

On the Road... (Part One)

2009-02-23T05:06:00.000-08:00

On the Road... (Part One)

2009-02-23T05:05:00.000-08:00

On the Road... (Part One)

2009-02-23T05:04:00.000-08:00

On the Road... (Part One)

2009-02-23T05:03:00.000-08:00

On the Road... (Part One)

2009-02-23T05:02:00.000-08:00

On the Road... (Part One)

2009-02-23T05:01:00.000-08:00

On the Road... (Part One)

2009-02-23T05:00:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are. Day one of the real drive out west. The past three days have been mostly short jaunts. Last Thursday had me leaving Nashville for Springfield, Mo. to play a show there that night. The GTI worked flawlessly, of course, and gave me a real appreciation for how far the car has come in the years since I owned and drove them. Even as nice as my '91 was, it was nowhere near as fast, quite, and solid feeling. The turbocharger on the 1.8 is really the business. The car runs and drives a lot like my '91 when your foot is out of it, but when you want the HP to bump, just press a touch more and the whistling little turbo kicks in and you're off... feels smooth as a turbine, and sounds like one too. What a great great modern car, and so much car for the money. I'm a fan for sure. If there wasn't a Mini Cooper S, this would be the only choice in the high-performance box'y hatchback, in my opinion.

The next two days of driving consisted of a run from Springfield to OKC, and then on to Dallas. Short drives that we're mostly uneventful... except for this amazing discovery out on I-35 between OKC and Dallas.

I'll be honest with you, I really didn't think things like this existed anymore. I've seen a few of these advertised over the years in Hemmings, but I thought they were mostly picked over and gone. This place had a lot of life ( parts and restorable cars ) left in it. I didn't see the yard until I was mostly past it while making my way down 35 towards Dallas running about 78mph in a 70 zone. Fortunately I was making good time and was able to take the next exit and run back to give this place a quick once over. When I did get back there and began to pull in to the long drive that bordered the yard I quickly realized that there was a pretty good bonus going on behind me- an eight mile drag strip was running about 100 yards away and it was packed with weekend drag racers lining up to do their 7,000 rpm burnouts and eight mile blasts. A nice back-drop to this boneyard from days gone by.

As you can see in the photos, this really is an astounding place. How very unfortunate that it wasn't open. I would have gladly paid the $5.00 to walk the yard and really take in what treasure was hiding away there. I never thought I'd get to see '57 and '58 Chevys in mostly complete condition sitting in a wrecking yard. This is the kind of stuff that my Dad got to experience. And because this was south Oklahoma, these cars were in remarkably good condition body-rot-wise.

So there you go... discovery number one from the great spring road trip. For the record, I've stopped off for the night in Midland, Texas.( Come on sports car guys, who is from Midland? That's right, Jim Hall and his wonderful Chapparel race cars ). Fortunately there is a museum located here that is dedicated to Jim Hall and his accomplishments. Of course I'll be visiting it in the morning and reporting back for tomorrow's post... so please, check back for that, and as always... stay 'tuned' !

On the Road...

2009-02-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

We all have our favorite "Road Trip" stories. Some are focused on a harrowing incident, like limping an uncooperative old machine many miles to an exit or shop for repair. Or maybe a full on break down that involved the better part of a day laying on the ground fighting a mechanical problem with limited tools. Then again some are all sunshine and rainbows. The road trips when it all goes right. The weather holds out, the car couldn't be happier and wants to keep on going even after it's back in the garage, the friends who were scheduled to be on the trip all make it without exception or complications.

It's hard to say which is more satisfying. I suppose the really memorable ones contain just the right amount of all the above. I'm pleased to say that I've had a couple of those in my life, but I've also had the others in extremes.

I'd have to say that possibly the worst road trip I may have experienced would be the time a limped ( literally ) a 1991 VW GTI from Los Angeles to Nashville during the height of summer. I had spent the better part of 4 months out west doing some music work and had stumbled across a dead mint, low mileage, one owner, red with grey little 5spd GTI. It was a loaded California car that looked and felt new. I was already a GTI owner, having owned an ex-SCCA solo car, a red '86, for a few years at that time, and I was hooked on these little German anvils. I made a nice deal with the owner and decided I'd drive it home when I left town later that month.

Well, the car couldn't have been better driving around the Hollywood hills. There were several nights driving home, dead tired from a full day in the studio, when I would suddenly get a huge second wind and go up on Mulholland drive for a good 45 minutes of winding switchback fun. I can still feel how tight, whisper quiet, and rattle free that little car was.

Yup, it was a great one... until about 80 miles outside of LA at around 10pm when I was on my way home. Suddenly out of nowhere, it began doing what can only be described as the exact symptom you'd have if someone where sitting in the passenger seat next to you and turning the key off and on off and on. It would only do this under high vacuum situations, as the problem would go away if you put a load on it ( perfect problem to have when you're heading out across a dead flat interstate for 2,200 miles ).

I limped it along bucking and snorting like this for a couple hundred miles and finally pulled off for the night. The next morning I spent the first hour of my day inspecting everything under the hood. Looking for any kind of bad vacuum hose or leak of any kind. I tried to locate what grounds I could see and read if they were corroded or not. I found nothing glaring. In fact, everything looked great.. just like a low mileage car from a perfect car climate would.

So, I fired it back up and got in to see how it would behave for day number 2. Would you believe- perfectly fine for the first half of the day. But, when it came back it came back big. I was struggling to stay out of peoples way in the slow lane ( traffic moves along notoriously well out in the wide open sections of I-40 ). I finally got to Alb., NM and found a German car shop. They couldn't take it until the morning. So, without putting in much of a day of driving I got a hotel and waited for morning.

The next day it was off to the shop. Of course on the way there it wouldn't act up. When I dropped it off I explained the problem but that it was behaving. he said the would use it as the parts runner for a while and get it to act up. I remember not liking that very much. Around 2pm I got a call from the shop saying the car runs perfect and shows no problems when hooked to the diagnostics. Come and get it and that'll be $280.00.

I understood their side of this but I also have to say they were pretty uncaring about the old "just passing through" tourist. Bed side manners are so important.

So it was back on the road... and within a few hours back to the bucking and snorting. I somehow made it to Nashville and thought to myself,"I'll never ever do that again in an unknown car."

For the next couple of months I tried everything imaginable to fix my sick but minty little teutonic box. New ignition switche, clean all grounds, made sure of zero vacuum leaks, replaced the crank sensor, replaced the distributor, replaced the computer... nothing, unchanged. I kept it for the better part of a year, just using it in town where it was mostly fine, and then sold it to a German car dealer and never heard of it again.

So why, might you ask, am I going on about a little cross country journey that I once took in a car so unruly that it would have made Jack Kerouac decide to stay home on the couch???,,, well, starting at 8am tomorrow I will be setting out on a cross country drive for the first time in few years ( at least with me at the wheel ), and you know, I couldn't be more excited. It really is a great love of mine, and hey, they can't all be bad right?

The only potential problem I see is the fact that my choice of transportation is a frighteningly familiar one... are you ready for this???... a pretty little silver VW GTI!!!! ( Cue Horror film soundtrack ) . But really, I mean, it couldn't happen AGAIN could it? ... really, could it?

We'll see, and you'll find out. My route will take me to the 3 shows I have to play for the tour this weekend on Thurs, Fri, and Sat., ( Springfield, Mo. , OKC, Ok. , and Dallas ). Then it's on the road to LA. I can't promise I'll be able to check in everyday ( internet can get hard to find out in the wide open west ) but I'll do my best.

PS... the photo is not of the "lemon" but my old faithful track-day/race school car, the ex-SCCA '86 GTI. A car that also drove its way out west and back and never even thought about a hiccup, had 280,000 miles on it when I sold it, and would have happily still done a full day on the track in July heat.

The Mille Miglia

2009-02-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

Just as the approach of the month of May means "Indianapolis" to the American speed enthusiast, the coming of March means the "Mille Miglia" to the Italian speed enthusiast.

Now run as strictly a historic event, the Mille Miglia ( Italian for 'thousand mile' ) was once an annual flat-out speed contest for the greatest drivers of the day.

First run on March 26, 1927, the great thousand mile race started in the small northern town of Brescia, wound its way down to Rome and back to Brescia in a large, almost figure 8 shape. The entire race was run on public roads that ranged from mountain passes to narrow country two lanes and ran through several small villages and towns. In the tradition of the great Targa Florio, the Mille Miglia was a serious test for man and machine.

Looking over the entry lists from the 24 years that the race was run you'll see both the greatest driver's names and the greatest manufacturing marks in our sport's history. Nuvolari, Varzi, Fangio, Tarrufi, Ascari, Moss, Collins, were all there. In spite of the fact that the grid was usually dominated by the great Italian manufacturers like Alfa Romeo and Ferrari, what most consider the greatest Mille Miglia drive ever, and easily one of the greatest drives in the history of motorsport, was accomplished by Stirling Moss in a Mercedes.

In 1955 Moss and his co-pilot, the great motorsports journalist and historian Dennis Jenkinson, covered the thousand miles in an astonishing 10 hours and 8 minutes averaging just at 100mph for the entire race. Unfortunately, two years later the race was stopped for good when Ferrari pilot Alfons de Portago and his navigator were killed, along with 11 spectators, in a high speed accident near the town of Guidizzolo. In 1977 the race was revived as the Mille Miglia Storica, a several-day historic event for 1957 and earlier sports and racing cars.

The 1st annual Music City Motor Jam- June 27, 2009

2009-02-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

Well I have to say, I'm beyond encouraged by the e-mails I received regarding my mention of my upcoming event. If even a third of those who reached out for more info decide to attend, I'll be pleased as punch.

Because I've spent some time getting back to folks to answer various questions about it, I thought I would use up one perfectly good post and do a quick bit of event promoting, lay out all of the details, and get it out of the way now so we can get back to the entertainment on Wednesday.

To recap, the event is called the Music City Motor Jam and will take place on June 27th of '09 in the Nashville,Tn. area. It is a single day event, is open to pre-1973 special interest cars and motorcycles, and will consist of many activities. There are two levels of participation that will be available to people and tickets for both are limited and will be sold first come first served.

Level number one would be for people who are interested in having complete participation in all of the activities for the full day of the event. That package, and the day's itinerary, is as follows; A scenic driving tour/rally-run will kick off at 10:30am from the historic Loveless Cafe just outside of Nashville. The grounds of the Loveless Cafe offer a pleasant mix of 1940s Route 66 American diner with equal touch old rural south. The Cafe will be open and is famous for its charm and quality southern breakfast offerings. And for those who are interested- the Loveless general store will bring back the memories with its Waltons-like wood plank floors and penny candy. Registration will run from 9 until 10:30 am and a light breakfast of donuts/danishes/bagels, and coffee, will be complimentary. When registration is complete, the scenic driving tour will begin its first leg of the day.

The Loveless Cafe is perfectly situated less than a quarter mile from one of the treasures of the south- The Natchez Trace Parkway. This will provide the driving tour participants with the first opportunity to bring machines up to temperature and stretch their old car's legs, all while touring what is unquestionably the most beautiful stretch of scenic road that Tennessee has to offer. The Parkway is a registered National Scenic Byway, protected by the U.S. Parks dept., and gives the traveler an endless winding ribbon of perfectly groomed roadway and matching scenery, complete with historical land marks, points of interest, and scenic overlooks.

By mid-day, the tour will make its way to its first destination for a lunch stop and private car collection tour. This will consist of a one and a half hour stop at the secluded Vintage Classic Garage. A quality catered meal will be served to all participants in air conditioned comfort and the complete Vintage Classic collection will be on display for all to see and inspect. The collection features something for every motorsports enthusiast; from a full array of '50s and '60s sports and racing cars with Lotus, Jaguar, MG, Triumph, and Porsche, strongly represented, to big full bodied American special interest cars from similarly early years. Add in with that a nice mixture of automobilia and a huge, secure, adjacent parking area for the tour participants to meet and greet all of their fellow travelers, and their rides, and we're sure the mid-day stop will not disappoint.

From there the driving tour continues on with its last leg, traveling over to nearby historic Franklin,Tn., a town famous for its southern charm, small locally owned boutiques and shops, and historically significant southern architecture in its mansions and plantations. Continuing on the Tennessee backroads for the latter half of the afternoon, the tour will finally join back up with the Natchez Trace for its last installment of scenic driving.

Finally, the tour will head north to the big city... Nashville, with its ultimate and final destination being the wonderful Lane Motor Museum. One of the more fascinating and unique car collections on the planet, the Lane Museum is a Nashville motorsport treasure. Housing over 150 unique cars and bikes from all over the world and from any and all eras, the Lane offers a very unique experience for any motoring enthusiast. Upon arriving at the Lane, the tour participants will be directed to a secure parking area within the structure of the Museum which will house and display their cars for the evening. The museum will be privately available to all participants at this point for touring and inspection with ample time to take in the many unique automotive displays and vintage vehicles throughout the building. One of Nashville's most noted jazz combos, the Jody Nardone Trio, will be providing soothing sounds throughout this time, and a cash bar will be open and available.

At approximately 6:30 pm, dinner will be served. The tour participants will be able to dine in a private, elevated, and partitioned off seating area that is part of the main floor of the museum, enjoying a clear view of the collection as a dinner backdrop. The relaxing music of Jody Nardone will continue on through dinner providing light entertainment and a relaxing audio bed. As a portion of the proceeds generated by the event will be helping to fund the "On Track" youth in motorsports educational program, a short presentation will be made by both myself and Henry Astor as the dinner is winding down. Items that will be going to auction to assist in the funding of "On Track" during that weekend will be on display and will include NASCAR memorabilia, Goodwood Festival of Speed items, signed collectables courtesy of the BBC show "Top-Gear", a new Fender acoustic guitar signed by dozens of Nashville's most famous country music performers, and our featured auction item... a brand new Fender Eric Clapton model black Stratocaster guitar courtesy of and signed by Eric Clapton himself. In addition, all tour participants will be automatically signed up for the evening's raffle where additional music memorabilia, concert tickets, automotive products and collectibles, will be raffled off at random.

At 8:30pm the evening's live music entertainment will begin as some of Nashville's top talent take to the stage. Participants in the full day's activities will enjoy a bird's-eye view of the stage from their private VIP viewing area, which will be complete with its own bar. As the night continues on and the acts progress from one to the next, it will ultimately open up to a Last Waltz-style all star jam session, closing the night out on what we're sure will be an unforgettable note.

This full day participation package will sell for $175.00 per person. Again, ticket availability is limited.

For those who can't get away for an entire day and would just like to enjoy part of the evening's activities, the second level of participation is probably for you.

Beginning at 6pm, the Lane Museum will be opening up its spacious back lot for a cruise-in/show and shine. Participation in this is not limited to any particular type of vehicle. In addition to the Lane Museum's enormous ex-US military amphibious machine on display, cruise in participants will also enjoy seeing(and hearing) a display of vintage dragsters, all parked right among the rest of the cruisers. Although the museum will not be accessible during the dinner hour, a limited number (200) of cruise-in participants will be able to both, park in the show and shine/cruise-in lot, and enter the museum for the evening's live music entertainment. The cost for this will be $35.00 a person and there will be a cash bar available once in the museum.

Lastly, for those who would only like to attend the cruise-in/show and shine, the entry fee will be $10.00 per car. Again, the rear lot gates at the Lane Museum will open at 6pm.

Tickets will be available on line by going to astormotorproductions.com

On behalf of myself and my business partner Henry Astor, we hope to see all of you at this first annual Music City Motor Jam!

Dean Jeffries- Part II (cont.)

2009-02-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

Again, thanks to Adam Pepper for the Mantaray/GT40 shot

I shot the Pebble Beach photo there in 2003. You can just spot Dean's #109 roadster as the 3rd car back.

Dean Jeffries- Part II

2009-02-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

And we're back as promised with part two of my Dean Jeffries post.

I'm hoping some people were taken enough with my description of the book to go out and get it or at least get it on order. I took some time and sat down with it again after writing about it last week and it continues to be a very nice piece of work. But, onto my visit with the great man...

As best I can figure, this was in the spring of 2000 that I had the opportunity to meet Dean and spend some time with him at his shop. Once again I have to credit my friend Tom Sparks for making this happen. He and Dean go back to when they were teen-agers, and knowing how I am about the early days of any kind of motorsport, Tom knew it would be a thrill for me to get to meet him. He was right of course.

I had made a trip out to So-Cal with my VW GTI to deliver flat head parts to Tom for my engine that he was building and decided to stay for a week or so. We had made the rounds of the usual museums and cruise-ins when Tom suggested we look up a few of his old pals. Some calls were made and our first day out would be Tony Nancy in the morning and Dean Jeffries in the afternoon. How's that for a hot rod legends itinerary?

We left out fairly early that day and drove over to Tony's shop. To say the least I was excited. Tony was one of the more mysterious figures from early hot rodding and I truly didn't know what to expect. I had heard stories of his great generosity and kindness, but also a good number about his tendency to boot people out of the shop that weren't to his liking. Unfortunately I would never know which way that day was going to go for us, as Tony had to leave the shop at the last minute for the first half of the day and had left word by way of a note taped to the shop door. Not only did we not get to visit with Tony that day but, sadly, I would not get another chance to meet him. He passed away just a few years later.

So we picked ourselves up from the disappointment of not getting to see Tony and just drove on over to the Jeffries shop to see if he was ready for visitors. What will seem amazing to the custom car lovers out there is the fact that Dean's shop is not only not a private and secluded place that only a choice few know about, it is in full view of the 101 as you make your way around the backside of the Hollywood hills. From your place in traffic you can look off towards the hills and see his shop and his huge billboard with "Jeffries Custom Auto" written in big cursive sweeping letters. And if there were any question as to which Jeffries this was, the futuristic multi-wheeled Mad-Max looking movie vehicles parked around his lot took all of the guesswork away.

We pulled up to the door and Dean was just inside and walked out to greet us. Tom introduced us and I have a crystal clear memory of Dean looking at me like I was an alien because I knew who he was. He asked if we had a friend other than Tom in common. I said no, and he went on wondering why a guy my age would know who he is, what work he's done, and would be interested in seeing his shop and meeting him. It was something far beyond simple humility... he just didn't understand.

That being said, I could never exaggerate how generous and kind Jeffries was throughout our entire visit. At this point in his life he would have probably considered himself semi-retired, but he had multiple projects going and was in the shop working at 9am. He did have stuff to do, but you wouldn't have known it by the time he took with us. Of course, he and Tom are old friends and that made for a nice way to get to walk along through his shop as he showed Tom all of his projects. Friend to friend.

As you can see by the photos posted above, I was rather taken by a particularly interesting project that Dean had going at the time. Now believe me, there was a lot to see in his shop, and especially in his office that was his kind of 12'x12' scrapbook with walls covered floor to ceiling with hundreds of photographs of all of the hundreds of cars he had built and/or customized over the years. But I was not at all prepared for his GT40.

I, like most anyone else I'm sure, had no idea that he had been involved with the GT40 program for Ford. It may not have even come up had he not shown me his race engine collection. We walked into a small side room just off of the main floor of the shop, and he had several 1960s Ford racing engines on stands hanging around. I remember that he had two 289 based engines with Hilborn injection, a side-oiler 427, and the crown jewel... a 255ci 4-cam Ford Indy racing engine. I asked him what the story was with these and he very casually stated that he had worked for Ford when they were racing sports cars in the '60s. I didn't catch on immediately. When I asked him about that he responded by saying,"They gave me one of the race cars when we were done with the program... it's right in here." We then walked into another room and there it was- Ford GT4o #109. As if these cars aren't rare enough, GT40 #109 is one of 4 roadster versions that they produced, and only one of two to still exist today. In fact, the other surviving roadster is said to be in a nearly unrestorable state.

Jeffries could see my fascination with the car and took extra time to show me around it and tell me about the car and its history with him. He also told me of his plans for it which were quite interesting. He stated that for years it had been languishing in his back room at the shop ( actually it had sat outside for most of the 1970s up against the outer back wall of his building... laying up on its side !!!! ) and he kept threatening to run it into some kind of hot rod or futuristic custom car, but all of his friends kept talking him out of it. He said that he never really knew that it had any value until an investor in England heard about the car, contacted Jeffries, and offered him 5 million for the car sight unseen. Jeffries said that the day that call came in he began a proper restoration on the car as soon as he hang up the phone. Fortunately he was able to complete the car in time for a GT40 display at Pebble Beach a few years ago that I attended. With the exception of the original LeMans winning cars, the Jeffries GT40 roadster was the star of the show. Interestingly, the car had very limited race history as it was used mostly for testing. Even more interesting is the fact that the engine that they were trying to develop along with this car was none other than the 4-cam Indy race engine. Though it never went onto international endurance racing success, the 4-cam spent more time in the chassis of GT40 109, so that's what Jeffries has back in it today.

Before we left I got to spend some time in his office having him show me all of his old photographs of his many creations. They were all there; The Mantaray, The Green Hornet "Black Beauty", The Monkee-Mobile, photos of the James Dean Porsche ( which Jeffries lettered with the words "Little Bastard" on its tail ). Many cars in various state's of build. Some just getting pin-striping, some getting a classic flame-job, but all receiving the timeless touch of a great artist and gentleman, Dean Jeffries. I guess you could say it was a day well spent.

PS... As for the photos above. I shot all of the older pics showing the GT40 under restoration, but the very nicely shot and framed photo of the Mantaray with the restored GT40 in the background was done by Adam Pepper (Thanks for that Adam).

Dean Jeffries- 50 Fabulous years in hot rods, racing, and film

2009-02-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

If and when I find something that really knocks my socks off, I hope it's OK that I use this forum to endorse it. There's nothing in it for me other than feeling like maybe I turned someone onto something that they otherwise might not have found. I know I'm always curious about what other gear-heads are watching, reading, following etc. It's a big old world out there and a lot of stuff gets released daily and can sometimes fall through the cracks. Especially motor-books, as they aren't likely to hit the NYT best sellers list very often.

This fresh off the presses release from Tom Cotter ( of Hemi/Cobra in the barn fame ) is one that I wish would hit the best sellers list. In the book, Cotter does so much good in so many ways that it's hard to know where to start.

Dean Jeffries is probably not a household name to a lot of gearheads who aren't die hard custom car or hot rod fans. But he should be. Dean has always been the kind of guy who was too busy with his head down in his shop to really attract a lot of fame and attention for his work. He chose to let his work do all of the talking. Unfortunately, over the years there have been many points of interest in the Jeffries legacy that have been turned and twisted and just flat out wrongly told. And again, because of Dean's personality, he didn't pay much attention and wasn't really interested in speaking up and correcting people. Well, that's where this book comes in.

In a completely neutral and direct way, Tom Cotter finally corrects all of the false information that has surrounded some of Dean's most famous work. He simply gives you the facts; backed up by shop schedules, timelines, photographs, and finally Jeffries' own memories, and lets you see the hard evidence that a lot of so called "Barris productions" are in fact the creations of one Dean Jeffries.

Of course no one is here to criticize the great work of George Barris or any of the fantastic custom cars that he created. We all know of the groundbreaking custom work that came from that shop, and how it continues to influence today's builders. It just comes back to the two radically different personalities we're dealing with here. No one could possibly deny, Barris included, that there has ever been a better self promoter in the hot rod and custom car world than George Barris. And good for him. It made him the household name that he is today and is directly responsible for the additional success that Barris Kustoms has enjoyed beyond what the cars were saying. But you have to remember that, all the while, there was Dean Jeffries... head down, working away.

I don't think it can ever be determined, exactly, how so many of Dean's creations got credited to Barris. They just did. And once those stories took off, they became part of the history of hot rodding and custom car building. Throughout this wonderfully comprehensive look into Jeffries' life, we not only experience the record being set straight, but we get to ride along as Cotter takes us through the life and times of this phenomenally talented artist's life.

It is truly awesome ( in the most literal meaning of that term ) just how many things Dean accomplished, how many varied parts of the car world he was involved in at one time or another, and how incredibly humble and carefree he is about it all. To this day he has an almost,"Well, anyone would have done this had they been put into the positions I was. I was lucky." His attitude goes beyond understatement.

Even for the folks who are familiar with Jeffries, there are some guaranteed surprises. His involvement in the film industry was a much bigger part of his life than I certainly ever knew, and I know that his direct involvement and influence on the Ford GT40 project will come as a surprise to many. His early days working for Barris are wonderfully well documented and photographed, thanks to Barris and his love for the media, as many crisp color photos are used throughout. The look into the immediate post-war So-Cal years of custom car culture is fantastic as well. The shenanigans and comradery that went on and were a daily component of this very small world are wonderful to read about. It will definitely make you want to travel back to that much simpler time as you read along.

And right there in the middle of it was Dean Jeffries. A guy who really had it all. So much talent, so many different abilities, it feels in the book as though it may have been hard for him to stay with a single goal for very long. Movie star looks, the obvious customizing talents of striping, painting, and metal working, an expert race engine builder, and many say the driving talents to have been a champion on the biggest of racing stages, Dean Jeffries lived many lifetimes. And thanks to this wonderful new book by Tom Cotter ( complete with a touching forward by collector/preservationist Bruce Meyer ), we can finally all be brought up to speed on this amazing man's life, and Dean Jeffries can finally have his record shown and set straight... its been a long time coming.

PS... tune in to Monday's post where I will take you through the day that I was fortunate enough to spend with Dean about 10-12 years ago. I'll post some photos from the experience and tell some tales of what I learned from, and about, this great man.

The Automobile driving museum

2009-02-12T05:00:00.000-08:00

On a recent trip to southern California I finally got around to visiting a place I'd been hearing about, but not really believing, for a long time. The Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo,California.

Located out near the LAX airport, the museum is right in the heart of a vast warehouse district. The streets are wide, straight, without much traffic, and actually allow the museum to do the unthinkable; take visitors for rides in various classic cars. You see now why I never quite believed this?

But it is true. You can schedule a visit to the museum and put in a request for a classic car ride. Between a very large open lot that is accessible from the rear of the building, and the surface streets that surround the museum, staff members can give people just enough of a driving experience to have a feel for what these old machines were, and are, like to drive and ride in. Nothing against '65 Mustangs ( I owned one for several years and it remains the most enjoyable car I've had ), but we're not just talking about a ride in a '60s drop-top pony car, we're talking about fully restored pre-war full classics... and they have many to choose from.

Some highlights would be the Stutz DV32 boat-tail speedster on display that had conquered the Great Race, a fantastic Oxblood Packard Darrin, 1916 Packard Twin 6 convertible, a really lovely '36 Packard V-12 convertible sedan... just to name a few. Fortunately for me, my friend Mark Lambert, and pal Tom Sparks, this month's featured display is one on the great LA custom bodywork shop, Coach-Craft, and included a few of their unique pre-war custom creations. An added bonus was having Tom there to tell us stories about when he worked there as a young man right after the war.

The folks there were more than generous, friendly, and helpful with answering any and all questions. No, we didn't get to go a for a drive in any of the cars that day, as a wedding was setting up during our visit, but you can be sure that I will next time. Because they keep just a few cars in rotation at a time, you don't exactly have your choice of what to take out, but thanks to the great collection they've assembled there aren't really any dogs.

So, next time you fly into LAX, plan to set aside a little time to visit this unique museum and its collection. I mean really, when was the last time you rode in a 32 valve Stutz?

You can never have too much...

2009-02-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

... of a lot of things. A few that come to mind off the top of my head would be; Garage or shop space, horsepower, good ideas, energy, and of course, time.

You can never have too much of that. Yes, you'll hear people say,"We have more than enough time." But can that ever be true? I don't think so. And it seems that every time I hear that, it's coming from someone who is about to embark on some type of home repair... and we all know that it never turns out to be true in those instances.

Why am I rambling on about this? Well, I guess it's my way of soft-pitching a flimsy excuse as to why I've been "out of the office" around here for almost a week ( a terrible example to give the kids ). Pretty lame I know, because we're all busy and this definitely doesn't make me special. But what I've realized during the past several days is that the very thing that has been the biggest 'time vampire' around here and has been responsible for interrupting my daily post schedule, is the very thing that I've yet to post about. And I've been meaning to for some time. In fact, it tops the list of motorsports activities coming up this year that I'm most excited about.

Let me rephrase a bit. Excited?, yes. Anxious?, that's more the feeling, but maybe not in the way you might think. You see, I have gone and done something that I've been wanting to do for quite a few years now and am learning, as you do in times like these, that you really do have to be careful what you wish for. What could this be you might ask? Well...

On June 27th, 2009 my business partner Henry Astor and I will be putting on a day long motorsports event here in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Why would I take this on? Because, it will be fun- of course! Sure it's a big job to organize and promote something like this, but I'm more than confident that the payoff will make it all worth it.

In a nutshell, we're hoping to bring together between 50-60 pre-'73 special interest cars and bikes ( and their owners ), for a day of scenic driving, top quality catered meals, live entertainment, and just good old motorsport-people comradery. And therein lies the payoff; getting lovers of cranky old interesting machinery, like myself, to get their vehicles out for the day and have a pleasant time with like-minded folk. What could be better?

For those who have an interest in participating, please feel free to check out www.astormotorproductions.com for more information.

The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green Kentucky

2009-02-05T05:00:00.001-08:00

The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green Kentucky

2009-02-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have wondered about the Corvette museum in Bowling Green, I thought I'd take a post and fill you in as best I can.

Lucky for me I'm about 65 miles south of this place and can not only visit it often, but can also take in the various motorsports events that happen throughout the year in Bowling Green. One of the towns main attractions for me is the time capsule straight out of the '50s quarter mile that they have there... but that's another story.

The Corvette Museum gets two thumbs up from me. I really enjoy this place every time I'm there. Of course they have many great cars on display, but they do a nice job of giving the cars a natural environment backdrop in several different theme'd rooms. My favorite of course is the Corvette race cars from all eras that are displayed in formation all around the rounded back wall of the museum complete with racing scene murals painted behind them. With a revolving door of cars coming in and out throughout each year, it pays off to go back and visit periodically. In fact, I stopped in on a whim a few years ago and got to see the restored "Purple People Eater" while it was there on display. A great car with great history; a '58 or '59 Fuel Injected big brake car that driving ace Jim Jeffords from Chicago drove to two SCCA B-production championships in '58 and '59. He even took the car out to the west coast races in the late '50s to run with Bondurant, MacDonald, and the rest of the So-Cal big boys. In addition, I can't remember a time I'e stopped in when they haven't had an original Z06 in attendance. Last time it was the white ex-Mickey Thompson car that not only road raced but took to salt at Bonneville.

A very nice theatre is also there showing a very well done documentary film on the history of the fiberglass bodied mark. Looping all day long. Of course you have many engines on display as well as a Corvette hall of fame featuring tributes to the men and women who helped make the car what it is today.

But for my money, the most important thing in the entire building is an old yellowed piece of paper. It sits in a glass case, well lit for all who want to press their noses. It is the typewritten letter from Zora Arkus Duntov to Chevrolet Chief engineer Ed Cole entitled "Thoughts pertaining to youth, hot rodders, and Chevrolet". The letter is dated December 16th 1953.

The nut shell of the story is that Zora had just returned from Speed Week at the Bonneville salt flats and was blown away by the size of it, the number of competitors, and the great advances being made in performance by young hot rodders. But mostly, Zora was concerned with the lack of Chevrolet presence out on the salt and hot rodding in general. A brave and persistent Duntov ( who had been hired as an assistant engineer just months prior ) outlined for Cole his thoughts on the matter and they are nothing short of brilliant. Zora had an amazing ability to see into the future and read how Chevrolet could be a part of it.

By first outlining to Cole the size and influence of the hot rod movement, he then went on to explain the natural progression that would inevitably take place with kids who grow up on Fords and Ford performance and how they'll of course gravitate to purchasing new and newer Fords as they age. He pointed out that it was in no way more complicated than the simple fact that Ford had made a great V8 with interchangeable parts that the high performance aftermarket saw as the most obvious choice to build hop-up parts for. Therefore the kids were given no choice but to go with Ford.

Where Zora would eventually go with this is nothing short of a turning point in high-performance history as big as we would ever see in our lifetimes. And I really don't think that is an overstatement. Zora mapped out reason after reason why Chevrolet needed to immediately begin development of an OHV V8 engine. His guidelines for what he felt this design had to contain and achieve is a spot-on description of what the Chevrolet small block V8 would come to be known for. He stressed the following; it had to be lightweight, it had to be simple in design, it must be fuel efficient, and it must make good power for its size and take to modification exceedingly well.

As we all know, Cole listened and the rest is history. In 1955 the brilliant and timeless Chevrolet small block V8 was introduced in 265 ci form and would go on to be possibly the longest running unchanged V8 design in automotive history. Of course to us it's the holy grail of small sized V8s for building obscene amounts of reliable power at a very low cost. No matter what your allegiance, I think it can be agreed by most that it has had the largest impact on hot rodding, racing of all kinds, and motorsports in general. I honestly can't imagine how different our sport and hobby would be had they not gone ahead with Zora's plan. Obviously something else would have come along but it's hard to imagine that it could have been done as "right" the first time.

P.S. If you'd like to read Zora's letter in its entirety, go to the Corvette action center website and check it out.

Ol' Yeller's revenge

2009-02-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

OK, so I started to feel a little bad for calling Max Balchowsky's wonderful American specials "purposely ugly." Even though it's absolutely true that they were, for the most part, and that he did do that on purpose. In his defense, he did finally settle the score all the way around by ultimately building a lusciously beautiful sports car and proving that he could achieve total perfection, all the way around, if taken to the mat.

What came on the So-Cal sports car racing scene in 1959, courtesy of Mr. Balchowsky, was the stunning Ol' Yeller III. This car is so attractive that it feels a bit strange that it too was labeled with the mutt level dog title. I mean really, look at that body; hints of Ferrari Testarossa 250, a bit of a Maserati 300S mouth, and a D-Type Jag faring... the car really had it all. And thanks to yet another super tuned 414 ci nail-head Buick V8 ( Balchowsky's trademark ) that was nestled down into a tube frame that Max drew out in chalk on the concrete floor of his shop, this car went like the proverbial 'snot'.

Many a Ferrari, Maserati, and Jaguar were humbled by this fine American special, and many would agree that it was the high water mark in the Max Balchowsky Ol' Yeller series of sports specials.

The 1951 Troutman-Barnes special

2009-02-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about 1950s sports car racing in the U.S. was the phenomena of the American special. Without question these were the hot rods of sports car racing. I refer to this as a phenom because I truly believe that the idea of building your own sports racer from scratch and having it be competitive could have only happened during this time period. Before the war the machinery that race constructers were building was simply too sophisticated and beyond the scope of most any production vehicles in technology, materials, and performance. In other words, there was nothing to borrow from. Pulling parts from the Ford parts bin was not going to help you compete against a Bugatti Type 35 or a pre-war Alfa Romeo. And by the time the 1960s came along, race car technology had become more and more reliant on wind tunnel testing and aerodynamic development, which, because of its huge expense, forced the sport into accepting the pursuit of big time sponsorship as part of the game- an unavoidable component of big time racing that is felt now more than ever. So once again, the backyard racer was pushed out of the big leagues.

But for a short period of time between these two movements, highly modified American V8s were able to produce enough reliable power that, when placed in a smartly constructed chassis, could run with the most exotic machinery Europe had to offer. Many famous names and famous cars surface when thinking of this. Of course the Ol' Yeller cars of the brilliant Max Balchowsky come to mind immediately. True American ingenuity packaged in a purposely unattractive wrapper that showed their tail-lights to many a Ferrari back in the day. Then of course you have what were probably the finest built and most beautiful of all American specials... the jaw dropping and highly competitive Scarabs built and financed by Lance Reventlow. On shear beauty and craftsmanship these are hard to beat with any competitors offerings.

One car that filled the gap between the Ol' Yeller and the Scarab would be the lovely little Troutman-Barnes special. A truly magnificent American special that I've always felt never really got its due respect. Of course if you were around the Cal-Club, and later the early days of the west coast SCCA, race scene, then you would have definitely known and respected this car.

Working on the car in their spare time in Troutman's one car garage, Tom Barnes and Dick Troutman took the knowledge they were gaining as full time Kurtis-Kraft employees and turned it towards building a sports car. Some of the advanced features that they built into the car include a fully independent front suspension of their own design, a hand formed aluminum body laid over a tube frame ( also of their design ), and home made rack and pinion steering. Although a Merc flat-head was originally run in the car with period speed equipment, it was later fitted with a more competitive 335hp Thunderbird engine complete with Hilborn fuel injection. Its final incarnation, and most competitive, had it running a trusty small block Chevrolet V8.

American race driver Chuck Daigh drove the car in numerous races with a fine first place overall in the 1957 Santa Barbara event. Having Daigh in the car with Troutman and Barnes as its overqualified crewmen, this 3 man team was the picture of efficiency and soon attracted the attention of an aspiring American race car constructor... the aforementioned Lance Reventlow.

In 1958 Troutman and Barnes sold their special and went to work full time for Reventlow Automobiles, where they would go on to design and construct the fabled Scarab race cars. And who do you think was right alongside them, helmet in hand, waiting to hop in and win race after race in the new Scarab sports cars...? well none other than their old pal Chuck Daigh.

Springtime for Hot Rod

2009-02-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

Knowing Nashville weather, I'm sure it will leave as quickly as it arrived, but for most of the day today it truly felt as though spring had sprung. Even the smell was in the air as I spent the day outside enjoying mid 60s and sunny. When I got up today and realized what the weather was going to do I was immediately excited because mid 60s and sunny means one thing to me... a shop day with the door open.

That would be the overhead door. It doesn't sound like much to some, but after having spent the past few months working out there with the place closed up, heater on, and no windows to tell you if it's still light out, having the door up and open is completely transforming for my little shop. The added bonus also being the fact that with that simple move the shop feels twice as big. And as you can see by the photo taken tonight of what it looks like when everything gets put away at the end of the day, it's nice to at least 'feel' like the place is roomier. Even if it's just for the day.

Unfortunately it sounds as though the cold hasn't given up completely and will be returning tomorrow. Oh well, like I said, it was a nice thing to have for a day.

Lastly, I want to thank all of the folks who chimed in on the race driver trivia. I'm sure it will sound trite and corny, but there really is nothing better than running across like minded folks who speak the same unique language that you do. I might go as far as saying that it's heart warming. It also gives me a good chuckle to know that I'm not the only maniac who has spent way too much time collecting way too much information about this sport and hobby that we all love.

Speaking of comedy, I only just realized that all of the photos that I posted were labeled with the drivers name! This would only show up when they were clicked on and enlarged but either way it certainly takes some of the sport out of it. Apparently not everyone was enlarging the photos, as I didn't get an immediate 100 point score from the downbeat, so it didn't completely give it away.

To quickly summarize, we had 6 photos of race drivers mostly in cars that they had great success in. We had of course the great Juan Manuel Fangio in the iconic 1957 Maserati 250F that he won his 5th and final world championship with, we then had the great Sir Malcolm Campbell at the wheel of "Bluebird" running on the sands of Daytona... a car/driver combination that would establish an amazing 301mph land speed record in 1935 at Bonneville, followed by the great John Fitch at the wheel of the beautiful Cunningham C4-R. The next page of course showed the famous photo of Barney Oldfield at the wheel of Henry Ford's 999 racer with a young Ford standing nearby. The next photo up surprised me in that no one even took a guess at this ( what happened to our drag racers out there? ). Admittedly, it's probably the most difficult of the bunch because of the style of shot and how little information it gives you, but anyone who knows drag racing should know this car and its driver... the late great Big John Mazmanian and his incredible blown small block candy apple red '61 Corvette. This would have to go down as one of the top five most beautiful full bodied drag cars of all time. Sometime in the future I'll try and post some full shots of this car in all its glory. Just stunning. I had the pleasure of seeing this car in its restored condition at the Wally Parks NHRA museum some years back and it's everything you'd think it would be, as Mazmanian was famous for building race winning machinery that was equally show winning. And last up, another solid axle Corvette. This time a 1959 fuel injected big brake example being driven by none other than Bob Bondurant. BB had tremendous success in this car in the hard fought Cal-Club/SCCA Corvette racing scene of the late 50s and early 60s slugging it out with guys like Dave MacDonald and Andy Porterfield. Amazingly, this car still survives to this day and is vintage raced regularly by Monterey Historics founder Steve Earle. And as we all know, Bob Bondurant is alive and well and continues to run one the finest high performance driving schools in the country outside of Phoenix,Az.

Again, I hope you all enjoyed participating. See you tomorrow!

Race driver trivia... Part two

2009-01-30T05:02:00.000-08:00

Race driver trivia... Part one

2009-01-30T05:01:00.001-08:00

Race driver trivia...

2009-01-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

OK, today's post is going to be rather short and will ultimately involve you a lot more than me. In going through some of my archived racing photos, I came upon some of my favorites and wanted to share them with you. As you can see they are posted, but I'm hoping that someone out there can single handedly identify each one. I'm not saying it should be a piece of cake but I will say that each one of these guys is a giant and should be considered as famous and important a driver as has walked our planet.

So, with that, let the games begin. Oh, and please identify the cars as well... it is a partnership after all.

The 1960 Cunningham LeMans Corvettes

2009-01-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

I'll admit, I have a soft spot in my heart for this story, and for many reasons. The first being the simple fact that this is a classic American tale of great passion, and triumph against all odds. The other stuff is a little more personal as I grew up with, and would later restore, a 1960 Corvette that belonged to my father for many years. Having had a good bit of seat time, and even more passenger seat time, in our family Corvette, the news of what Briggs Cunningham and his heroic and talented drivers were able to do with what was already dated equipment in 1960, has always been an awe-inspiring thing for me.

Briggs Cunningham was one of the lucky few who was able to dream big and then go on to use his nearly infinite resources to help see his dreams come to fruition. One of the greatest sportsman our country will ever know, Cunningham would accomplish many of the ambitious goals he set for himself in his lifetime. A highlight would have to be winning the America's Cup in 1958 aboard the Columbia; a sailboat that he helped design, build, and would skipper to victory.

During this same time, Briggs would become increasingly driven by his ultimate goal... to guide a sports car racing team of his design, made up of American drivers, driving American cars, to an overall win in the coveted 24 hours of LeMans international endurance race. Having had many wins behind the wheel of various race cars since before WW2, Cunningham was uniquely qualified to carry out this task. He obviously had the funds, but he also had hands on experience with not only winning races, but with car set-up, race strategy, and also with identifying talented drivers.

Soon after the war Cunningham began his quest to not only conquer LeMans with this "All American" team, but he was going to do it in the most difficult way possible... with a car of his own design and manufacture. This idea came to him after having fielded two Cadillacs in the 1950 running of the French classic. Amazingly, the two cars finished 10th and 11th overall with nearly factory stock drivetrains, although the 11th place car was the fabled "Le Monstre" which sported a crude but effective early version of a low drag body.

Inspired by the success of this first attempt, Cunningham was sure that, given a proper race car, the goal of winning LeMans was within reach. A series of cars were built and fielded over the next several years starting with the Cunningham C-2R and ending with the sleek C-6R. Throughout this time the best finish by a Cunningham team car at LeMans would occur in 1952 with Briggs at the wheel of one of his stunning C-4R roadsters. Amazingly, Cunningham drove the first 20 hours of the race single handedly and without a break before finally handing over to his co-driver.

Briggs Cunningham would stop racing cars of his own manufacture after 1955, deciding instead to compete in a wide variety and style of car including the British Jaguar. As the end of the 1950s approached, Cunningham was contacted by Chevrolet Corvette designer Zora Duntov. Duntov and Cunningham had become good friends from seeing each other at LeMans and Sebring each year. Duntov knew of Cunningham's original goal of fielding an American team at LeMans and felt he had the answer with the Corvette.

After some discussion it was agreed that Cunningham would compete at LeMans in 1960 with a team of three identical 1960 Corvettes that Duntov would supply, and the Cunningham team would be supported by Chevrolet thanks to Zora Duntov's "back-door" assistance program. By 1960 all of the major American manufacturers had been banned from involving themselves in any kind of factory supported racing programs, so Duntov had to deliver all of his assistance to the Cunningham team in total secrecy.

The three cars supplied to the Cunningham team were remarkably stock examples and would be placed in the GT category at LeMans. The cars were 315hp fuel injected 283s with standard 4spd Borg Warner transmissions and 3.55 posi-trac rear ends. They were equipped with oversized heavy duty vented brakes, heavy duty springs and suspension components, quick steering adapters, and oversized fuel tanks with top mounted racing gas caps. Halibrand knock off wheels were used to facilitate quick tire and wheel changes in the pits and each car had a different color treatment over its headlights so as to be easily identified from the pit area. Small aerodynamic aids were also put in place such as a hood mounted air dam. The standard instrumentation was also replaced with large, easy to read, Stewart Warner racing gauges. I'm lucky to be able to say that I've had the pleasure to sit in friend Bruce Meyer's #2 1960 Cunningham Corvette. Knowing these cars the way I do, I was absolutely astonished at how stock the interiors were in these cars when raced. The seat, shifter, pedals, and door controls were all factory original with the only real noticeable racing modifications being a slightly undersized steering wheel and of course the SW gauges. Other than that, it was like any other 1960 Corvette inside. It is also interesting to note that most of the other equipment, like the steering mods, suspension mods, oversized brakes and fuel tank, were all available from your local dealer at the time if you knew which boxes to check when ordering.

Briggs Cunningham would go on to compete in the 1960 LeMans 24 hours with his three Corvettes ( as well as with one of the new Jaguar E2As- the very first E-Type to compete at LeMans ) and with 5 of the best racing drivers our country had to offer at the time. Namely, John Fitch, Bill Kimberly, Fred Windridge, Dick Thompson- the flying dentist, and Bob Grossman.

Early on in the race the Corvettes would astonish the international crowd by setting a blistering pace and showing themselves to be among the fastest cars in the race by blazing down the famed Mulsanne straight at speeds in excess of 150mph. Of course weather, slower traffic, and various failures would begin to take their toll on the team of Corvettes. Before long 2 of the 3 were out of the race and the lone #3 Fitch/Grossman car was all that was left for the Cunningham team to hang their hopes on. Unfortunately, after having set such a high standard throughout the entire race of laying down consistently fast laps without any incidents, the #3 car began to overheat as the result of a blown head gasket. Because of the LeMans rules that existed at the time, cars were only allowed a stop into the pits for fuel or coolant every 24 laps. This was certainly not going to help the cause of the Cunningham team's overheating Corvette. So, with a little on the spot emergency ingenuity, it was decided that the #3 car would come into the pits on every lap and the team would pack the Corvette's engine compartment with ice and then send it back out and on its way. This continued on for the last few hours of the race as Briggs and the rest of the team scrounged the area for ice wherever they could find it.

Incredibly, and as a great testament to the speed and driving skill of Bob Grossman, the team Cunningham #3 Corvette finished the 1960 24 hours of LeMans as the winner of the GT class and a very respectable 8th position overall. A Corvette would not finish this well again at LeMans until exactly 40 years later!

Oh, and the average speed of the #3 Fitch/Grossman 1960 Corvette for the 24 hours???... 97 mph!... and that's including all of the pit stops for ice.

( The photos above are of course the Cunningham Corvettes, followed by two photos of Bruce Meyer's beautifully restored Cunningham #2 LeMans Corvette. One shows it on display in the Petersen Museum, the other of him taking it up the hill at a recent Goodwood Festival of Speed. )