NEWSLETTER 3 - October 18, 2007

Editor's notes: Welcome to a new member, Al Teague. Teague's streamliner set a record of over 400 and with the Summers Brothers had the fastest piston driven car in the world for years. The cars were in different classes. For years those were the two records that Bonneville racers were after. Records that last so long become mythic and even when they are broken, people refer back in reverence to the old marks. In February, Allen Welch died. He was Jane Teague's brother and Al's brother-in-law. There are a few men who have been everywhere, seen everybody and influenced everyone, and Allen Welch was one of those persons. I was always amazed at how many different people from all types of racing would make an effort to go over and speak to Allen. He was a quiet man and no one would guess at how important he was until you heard people speak about him. He was a man who was there in the beginning, who knew people and you could count on him to find parts, get in touch with someone or give you an answer to your question. Another one of those been everywhere, knew everybody and could give you an answer sort of guys was Barney Navarro. I called him periodically and he was always the same, fighting health concerns but always at his shop working on an order. They seem to leave us faster than we can get to them, in order to finish our story or interview.

From: Vic Enyart [email protected], Date: 22 Aug 2007, Subject: Barney Navarro
Just found out that Barney Navarro passed away. Vic    
Vic: Do you have any details of what happened and if there will be a memorial? Does anyone want to send in their memories of one of the original dry lakes and speed equipment manufacturers?

Please send me Ugo Fadini's e-mail address. I have tried to e-mail him several times over the past year, but could never get any reply. We used to be in contact. Of course, I got to know him and Mariatheresa in Gerlach. Charley Shaffer, Seattle
Charley and the readers: I keep about 2500 email addresses on record and will be glad to search my records for addresses for you. Some historians prefer privacy and do not want their email or other addresses divulged, while other people don't mind. It may be a benefit for some of our members, like Ugo to make his address known to the general public because he is a master model maker of vintage landspeed racing cars. Ugo is not a mass marketer like Mattel and therefore needs to reach as many people as possible. Some of our members write books or do other things that necessitate putting their email addresses or phone numbers out into the general public. If you would like your name, business, phone number, email address, home or business address or other pertinent data made available in the newsletter, let me know and I'll start a section called "What Our Members Are Up To." Perhaps something like this.
What Our Members Are Up To: 
Richard [email protected], 714-963-3557, no home address given. Writes articles on landspeed  racing for www.hotrodhotline.com, www.oilstick.com, DRIVE Magazine.

Editor's notes: The newsletter welcomes comments, suggestions, news, articles and stories relating to landspeed racing. It is the forum by which we communicate with each other and a source of news concerning our projects. The group intends to gather monthly in order to see the local museums, shops and other facilities that exhibit land speed cars and memorabilia and to seek sponsorship for a landspeed museum. Since many of our members live too far away to participate, the newsletter is our way of conveying the news of what we have done so far.

He told me of a couple backboard devices he and Brickey had fabricated from plywood, but they did not work. They had tried several other rescue extrication devices and they were not successful, and the cars continued hitting the concrete wall with great force. He asked me to give the problem some thought. By the time I returned to LAX I had a sketch of a potential answer to the problem. We fashioned some from aluminum sheet and shipped them to Dave for a test. They worked! For several years we continued to fabricate the devices, making modifications as the cock-pit configurations changed. When the Indy Racing League (IRL) was formed a trackside team was formed that supplemented the IMS crew, but also traveled to the other venues. IRL then began a process wherein they would send a skeleton crew to new tracks where they had races scheduled and they trained the local trackside crew plus a group of paramedics the track would hire as "free lance" EMTs to supplant the captive crew. We then started supplying these other crews with hand made product. The device is quite complex to fabricate and each was taking several hours to complete. We were really getting discouraged and ready to quit making them. We had a luncheon meeting with one of the IRL paramedics when he was in LA to work on an Indy Car test at California Speedway. I professed to him my discouragement with fabricating the Shoehorns. He had just completed one of the first Rapid Extrication training sessions when the science was in its early stages. When he heard my disappointment he urged me not to quit because, and I remember the words vividly, "The Shoehorn is the worlds only Rapid Extrication Tool..." I went back home and took a long, hard look at the design and figured a way to simplify the manufacturing process. We then found a local high production shop that wanted to become involved. Due to the IRL training program we have sold a limited number of units to race track crews all around the country...by word of mouth. One of the sales was to Rocky Mountain Raceway (RMR), a multiple use facility located in Salt Lake City. Dave Brown of IRL called me one day and stated I should call the paramedic at RMR because he had some exciting news about a rescue they performed. It turned out that they had rescued a Sprint Car driver who was diagnosed to have a "hangman's fracture" of C2, which usually results in instant death. He left the hospital a few days later under his own power. The doctor told him he was very lucky to be alive and that the back board the paramedics used saved his life. That is when myself and Jeff Midgley at RMR decided we should join forces and embark on making the Shoehorn available to local fire departments. So far we continue to supply several trackside rescue and contract ambulance services across the US. Recently the FIA purchased two units for use in their Formula One World Championship Circuit. We should have our first municipal fire department order in our hands. Our biggest problem right now is locating the financial support we need to get our world-wide manufacturing and distribution introduced and running up to speed. We have started a representative team consisting of off-duty paramedics and EMTs. We have yet to hear a negative comment about the device from any rescue professional in our 30+ year existence. We have been honored by the award of the very first IRL/Delphi Safety Award in 2005. We also were presented with the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association (AARWBA) Pioneer in Racing Award in 2006. Both are honors presented to a single individual each year, in recognition for their contribution to Motorsports. Hey! Richard, you are going to need to do a lot of editing! Bob Falcon   
Bob: It's worth doing the editing to learn more about the Shoehorn.

Editor's notes: If you send me a letter and it looks like it might be of interest to the general readership, I will print it. So if it is personal, please mark your intentions in the subject box or in the email to let me know that you do not want your letter published. I use letters to generate public discourse on matters of interest to our group. One such question is what do we do with the huge volume of memorabilia and photos that are offered to us each year by people who want their life's work kept for posterity. We can only store so much and then what happens to this collection when we pass on.

Try as I might, I cannot get a readable print version of the .rtf that you sent. I tried it in a text editor and in Word, and one way gets about 4-print type, which requires a magnifying glass, and the other loses stuff on the right margin. So, if you can please send it to me as regular e-mail, please do. I also knew Stan Goldstein in 1996 and 1997, and kept in touch for a while but the old e-mail address I had for him does not work any more. If you could send me his e-mail address as well as Ugo's, I'd appreciate it. Thanks for putting me into the group. I'm sure I'll enjoy learning lots of history. Charley Shaffer    
Charley: I use .rtf (rich text format) rather than Word Document. Someone told me that when I do my articles that it takes up less space to do .rtf than Word Document formatting. I tried it out and the size of the folder dropped from 30 KB in Word formatting to 8 for .rtf. It could be that I am creating more problems than I'm solving by using .rtf to format things, if no one can read .rtf. Or it could be that .rtf is not the problem after all. Computer experts out there, who know what the problem is and why Charley and a few others cannot open and read my .rtf attachments, please let us know. It could be on your end or mine. There is a way to make smaller type larger and larger type smaller. I think you left click on the mouse, hit select all, then when the screen is darkened, you hold down the ctrl (control) key and rotate the wheel on the mouse up or down. Seems to work only on incoming messages. When you are finished you have to put it back in your normal size type or ALL incoming messages will appear larger or smaller. I've transferred you and one other person to the NO ATTACHMENTS email until we've figured this out. I will send out two separate newsletters, one with attachments and one without. If the newsletter stays small for that week, then everyone will get the 'no attachments' regular emailed version of the newsletter. If the news goes over 3 pages, then most of you will get the attachment version and the rest will get the 'regular email' version. Stan was with Craig Breedlove in the mid-1990's as team manager. I saw him at Black Rock in 1997 and he graciously let us use his motorhome. Since we were there 7 weeks, any relief from the sun, wind, heat or cold was most welcome. I have a ton of notes from that time and envision trying to do something with it, but since I was stationed far from the action, it might end up being more of a novel than a historical work.

A very extensive report. I have a suggestion: I believe that many on your list will attend the "Gas Up" on the 29th of September in Buellton. Why don't you make that our first get together? Dick Martin   
Dick: Good idea. Jim Miller, our group's acting President will be at the Gas-Up and so will many of us. Jim is also working on the Getty Museum in the SF Valley. I didn't know that there were two Getty's. We are asking the members to give us ideas where to hold our meetings. Someplace interesting where we can learn and network. This brings up another issue. Why should we meet at all? Is it just to schmooze and bench race or is there a more serious side to our efforts? The answer, from Jim, is that our meetings should have a definite purpose and that is to judge which group in Southern California will support our efforts to see a long-term commitment by a museum dedicated to car racing, specifically dry lakes racing, in the area. We have many fine museums and foundations that give us space in their facilities to exhibit landspeed racing cars and memorabilia. But they have little space for a large archive of material and people are approaching us to ask where they can donate their priceless hot rodding and landspeed racing objects. Then there is the problem of having curators who restore and protect priceless objects and historians to write on the culture. Perhaps we are spoiled by the Smithsonian in Washington DC, in that we want some building like that for landspeed racing and the hot rod culture.

Mr. Parks; I am somewhat interested in the Society. While I am not a Historian by any standard, I do know that the roadster I currently run set the B/FR record at Bonneville in 1958. I also have a Half Moon Bay program from Oct. '58 in which it is pictured. Naturally I am interested in my cars history. Perhaps the Society will be of some help in the future? Rich Fox  
Rich: Everyone is welcome. Maybe our name is confusing to the normal hot rodder?

Would you kindly add me to the distribution list for the News Letter. I heard about it from Bill Hoddinott today. As Chairman of the Speed Record Club, I will make sure the word gets out to our members. Many thanks. Mike Stanton
Mike: I added you to the list. Welcome. Tell us about the Speed Record Club.

Your LSR historical newsletter sounds interesting and I would like to be added to the list of subscribers if I may. Coming from Ohio, our contact with the sport depends mostly on the LSR list, what can be gleaned from the news media, and various other articles in magazines and books. We do make that annual trek to the salt in August to race, but my appetite for LSR related material just isn't satisfied with that. Thanks, Don McMeekin, McMeekin Bros LSR       
Dear Don: Welcome. I'm enclosing an attachment with newsletters #1 and #2. They should tell you more about what we are trying to accomplish.

Barney Navarro note. In 1963 I was part of the crew for a car that was going to race at Bonneville. The car was a '63 426 Plymouth provided by Yeakel Chrysler Plymouth. It was prepared and driven by Bill Likes. The original intake manifold had two 4-barrel carburetors mounted on two diagonally opposed plenums. Barney Navarro modified the manifold by removing the tops of the intake plenums and rebuilding it to accept four 4-barrel carburetors. The car ran great, but we were about 4 mph short of the record.   Roger Rohrdanz

Editor's notes: The editor's brother, David, suggested that the name Society of Landspeed Racing Historians is too pretentious. In a way he has a valid point, for few of us are trained historians. A historian is usually someone who is trained to record and preserve history and the text and artifacts. Historians are sometimes preservationists and curators as well. But someone could also be called a historian if his passion is history and conserving it. We don't have to be professionals that are paid to record history to be a historian and many of the members have very extensive private collections. Jim Miller and I left the issue alone until we had a large enough group to start a discussion about the proper title of our group. We don't want to drive people away from us because they think of us as pretentious and snobby, but on the other hand our goals are the preservation of landspeed history and we are historians, amateur as well as a few professionals in the group. Is there a better name for us?

Landspeed Louise asked a question about the Honorees at the up-coming Gas-Up Party on September 29, in Buellton, California. She wanted to know which of the honorees had passed away within the LAST 12 months. I misunderstood her and sent out a list to you all asking who was deceased. Someone said they thought Joaquin
Arnett of the Bean Bandits had died. I called and spoke to Jim Jensen who is the vice president of the Bean Bandits and Joaquin is fine. He's suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's and is in a nursing home. Jim says that Joaquin is fit and healthy and can remember the past, though he can't remember the present. Jim owned the engine that was in the streamliner that Sonny Arnett was driving the day he died at El Mirage.

Glad to see you have so much distinguished participation on the Society already! Some very famous names. It does me good to see Wally Parks on the list, because he has had an influence for the better on my whole life; since the time about 55 years ago when I was in junior high school and I first noticed a copy of Hot Rod Magazine (WP then editor) had hit the magazine racks in the school library. I flipped through it idly and that was the beginning of something that has brought me (along with millions of other kids) endless enjoyment ever since. For several years after that the best time each month was when the new HRM appeared in the library, and I devoured it along with Model Airplane News, which had already been a favorite. I never had the money or time to delve far into hotrods until about 16 years ago when I scored an early retirement, but I could follow them all down through the years, and read all the literature. I could and did, however, enjoy every sort of motorcycle in existence and continue same to this day. I'm sure Wally has heard every kind of praise and flattery there is at a thousand banquets, since he founded the NHRA which has been a tremendous sporting and commercial success ever since. But here I want to document a little something that my late friend Clem TeBow said about Wally a few years ago. It was my good fortune to meet Clem in 1999 through an intro by Ardun Doug King, and enjoy Clem's friendship for a few years up to his passing. Everyone here knows that Clem and Don Clark were pioneer racers and speedshop operators as C.T. Automotive beginning around 1950. Starting with a teensy-weensy ad for mail order Flathead stroker kits in HRM and becoming one of the leading shops in a very short time. Anyway, here's what Clem had to say, in his inimitable wit and delivery, when there was some mention of the life and career of Wally and NHRA: "Bill, the world would be a better place if Wally Parks would live FOREVER!" Clem said it all that time! Bill Hoddinott

Arnett is in a rest home with Alzheimer's. E. Rick (Rickman)

I had the honor of writing Barney's story in the April 2001 issue of R&C. I found Barney and his wife Donna a joy. In fact, Donna and my wife Bev went shopping while I interviewed Barney. He, like so many hot rodders that competed in the Indy 500 made it exciting. No Offy for him. Barney turned the mundane Rambler six-cylinder into a 700 horsepower sequentially turbocharger monster. I will miss him. Too many of our legends are leaving us. Listen to their every word while you can.     Dick Martin

Please add me to the list. Glen Barrett   Glen: Welcome. You're added to the list.

Editor's notes: The Newsletter will be a weekly one and will be published on Wednesdays. Check with your internet provider and make sure that the newsletter is not stopped by spam filters.

You might (or not) be interested in this for the Newsletter. Or you might already have received it. Regards, Bill Hoddinott
From: Benn Karne,
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007,
Subject: New! Bonneville: Wide Open Bonus Edition Hello Bonneville: Wide Open Aficionados (and Friends): Many who have purchased our award-winning documentary about the hundreds of people who annually attempt land speed records on the salt flats have asked us to come up with more about Bonneville, Speed Week, and those who participate. Finally able to answer that call, we've professionally manufactured a Bonus Edition of Bonneville: Wide Open that doubles the total footage over the original film. The Bonus Features include extended interviews with racers, complete rod cam runs, interesting and fun Bonneville stories, and more. The film itself incorporates technical improvements, including full chapterizing and a selection menu to enable one to go straight to favorite parts of the film. The new DVD is now packaged in a full-color cover and full-sized DVD case. Now you can get 1 hour and 45 minutes of Bonneville drama for the same low price of $25 postpaid in the USA ($27.19 in CA with tax; $29.00 to international destinations). Just go to www.BonnevilleWideOpen.com and follow the links to the Buy Now button. We'll ship your Bonus Edition of the DVD normally within 2 business days of receiving your order, via USPS first class mail. Best regards, Benn Karne p.s Give your old version to a friend, or better yet, maybe you can get a tax deduction by donating it to your local library p.p.s. If you run a retail operation, we'd be happy to quote quantity discounts.

Kimberly Kelly set Two New GoldWing Bonneville World Land Speed Records. Watch us on TV. 8 September, 2007, 2-3 pm ET on NBC Jeep World of Adventure Sports. Thanks. And thanks for helping Dave Koehler on Prostrate Cancer. Kenny Lyon 310-637-6094.  See www.worldofadventuresports.com, www.goldwingracingproject.info and www.projectgoldwing.org.    
 Kenny: Thank you for the report, and let us know what Kimberly does in the future.

Thanks for the fast reply. This is a great thing and we need to keep it going. There is much history out there and we need to show the new people where LSR came from. I wish I could make the monthly meetings but they are something over 350 miles each way. Guess I will depend on the newsletters. Thanks again for what you do. Glen Barrett             
Glen: The group is young and the first order of business is to establish a newsletter. We are not sure what will happen next, but Jim Miller is working on a schedule for us. He is trying to get a tour going of the Getty Museum near Universal Studios. We need a museum or a repository of some sorts for the collections of memorabilia, photos and other relics of hot rodding and landspeed racing before they are lost to time, fire, decay and neglect. Then it will be up to future historians to sort it all out and write on what happened. We can help the future historians along by recording the past and saving the artifacts. But we can't do that unless each of us writes and helps us to find a place where we can store artifacts indefinitely. Our members are expected to at least write their own biographies. It doesn't matter whether it is short or long, as long as each of us has recorded what we know and what we experienced. Then talk to someone else and record his or her life story in landspeed racing. Someone said, "but his story has already been written." Not true. It might have been recorded from one writer's perspective, but there is always something that can be gleaned from another writer's questioning of the subject a second time. Don't worry about the meetings, we might even hold one in St George, Utah, one of these days. We are not just a Southern California group. We follow landspeed racing wherever it occurred.

Members:

Jonathan Amo, Brett Arena, Henry Astor, Glen Barrett, Warren Bullis, Gary Carmichael, Jack Dolan, Ugo Fadini, Robert Falcon, Rich Fox, Glenn Freudenberger, Bruce Geisler, Stan Goldstein, Walt James, Wendy Jeffries, Mike Kelly, Mary Ann and Jack Lawford, Dick Martin, Ron Martinez, Tom McIntyre, Don McMeekin, Tom Medley, Jim Miller, Don Montgomery, Mark Morton, Louise Ann Noeth, David Parks, Richard Parks, Wally Parks (in memorium), Eric Rickman, Willard Ritchie, Roger Rohrdanz, Evelyn Roth, Ed Safarik, Frank Salzberg, Charles Shaffer, Mike Stanton, David Steele, Doug Stokes, Bob Storck, Al Teague, JD Tone and Jack Underwood.

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