Words: Richard Parks Photos: Roger Rohrdanz
The public was invited to a fund-raiser for the Alex Xydias Center (AXC) at the Robert E. Petersen Garage to celebrate the 95th birthday of its founder and namesake. Alex spoke for a considerable length of time, because he has lived a full, exciting and eventful life. There isn’t much that Xydias hasn’t done in his life. He was a dry lakes racer, and active in the Southern California Timing Association as an official, driver and car owner. He founded the So-Cal Speed Shop and sponsored a number of dry lakes, Bonneville and land speed racing cars under the red and white colors of his business. His famous belly-tank race car has been seen in numerous ads and magazines. He left the speed shop business behind to work in the automotive racing media and to take video films of every sort of motor racing.
Xydias was approached by Pete Chapouris to reopen the old So-Cal Speed Shop and turn it into a successful franchise operation under the guidance of Chapouris and Tony Thacker. Xydias is a guest speaker at numerous events and his informative style is still full of humor, wit and humility. He has known the titans of the automotive world and car racing. Xydias has also been honored in the SEMA Hall of Fame, Dry Lakes Racers Hall of Fame, Hot Rod magazine Hall of Fame, Route 66 Hall of Fame, the 2008 Robert E. Petersen Lifetime Achievement Award and Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame; he is also a board member of the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, presented by the Auto Club of Southern California.
More than that is the fact Alex Xydias is simply the friend of all hot rodders he has met and helped. NHRA founder Wally Parks considered Xydias to be one of his closest friends and confidants. It is just such loyalty that makes him one of the most beloved hot rodders of all time. When Alex was asked to head the AXC, a division of the Fairplex Learning Center, he readily jumped at the prospect of leading this fine organization, which trains young people in jobs within the automotive world. We need more groups like this to teach the arts of repair and construction, which have been seriously ignored by our school systems. Vocational courses are greatly needed in a society dependent on the service trades, and the automobile is a vital component of our everyday life and existence.
The Birthday Bash attracted over a hundred fans and friends of Xydias. I met Carl and Cathy Olson, Jim Miller, Darren Krohn, Gale Banks, Thomas Seymour, Robin and Orah Mae Millar, Augie Esposito, Lee French, Jimmy Shine, “Uncle” Joe Benson, Bruce Meyer and many more. Carl Olson was a talented drag and land speed racer with many trophies to his name and earned the “Red Hat” emblematic of the Bonneville 200 MPH club, a prestigious and difficult club to enter. Jim Miller is the historian for the American Hot Rod Foundation (ahrf.com) and President of the Society of Land Speed Racing Historians. Orah Mae Millar is the widow of the famous CARtoonist Pete Millar. Her daughter, Robin, along with Orah Mae, continues to keep the drawings and art work of Pete Millar available to the public and put out a great newspaper with Pete’s drawings. Bruce Meyer began collecting and restoring old hot rods and race cars before that became a popular thing to do; his collection is amazing. Bruce is also a board member of the Petersen Automotive Museum (PAM). They all came to wish Alex Xydias a happy 95th birthday and to support the AXC.
The fundraiser was for the future home of the “Pete Chapouris lll (PC3) Welding & Fabrication Garage” at Alex Xydias Center (AXC). The “T” roadster belonged to Pete Chapouris lll.