Open House on Gasoline Alley (2)

Open House on Gasoline Alley

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 )

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 )

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 )

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 )

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

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.