SOCIETY OF LAND SPEED RACING HISTORIANS
NEWSLETTER 136 - November 5, 2009
Editor: Richard Parks [email protected]
President's Corner: By Jim Miller (1-818-846-5139)

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Some Names To Look For In This Newsletter:
 President's Corner, Editorials, Larene called this morning and gave me some bad news Walt passed away last Wednesday, Yes there are two Walt James, A Celebration of Life for Walt James will be held on November 21 2009, The following response concerns the timing tag that Walt James earned at a Russetta Meet in 1946, Editor: The following comes from Vicki James and concerns the passing of her father Walt James, Phil Grisotti is the keeper of most of the details of all that past life (for the Lakers Car Club), Si McCabe Roadster history by Bill Rudich, I would like to make a small correction to Dick's name spelling (Pickerel) is correct, Can anyone identify the Dragster on this cover of Rodding and Restyling magazine, The following is a letter from Ken Berg to Heidi Hornik at Baylor University regarding Catalogue Raisonne, Racing Clubs: Historians listed for each club, The International Drag Racing Hall of Fame based at Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing (Ocala Florida) has announced the induction to the Hall of Fame for the year 2010, Petersen Automotive Museum to hold garage sale and swap meet December 5 2009 VW 1 club run video for Bruce Cook last week at Maxton North Carolina, Thanks I'm not in tune to the drag race history as much as I am the road race stuff, I believe the Walt James' Russetta timing tag should read MOD instead of "VOD", Dear Ben Jordan You are a truly legendary Land Speed Record Holder, Moldy Marvin's Sunday in the Park is November 15, An interesting note to this that I have come across is that racers were given their timing disc after the run and it had the (speed, car number, time, date, location and owner or driver), The following email from SCTA President Roy Creel came in response to a request for a historian from the Super Fours to act as a liaison with the SLSRH Newsletter in doing more research on the club, It is that time of the year when we gather up the racing season's hottest memorabilia and sell it to benefit the Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary, We would like to thank Dutch Mandel and Autoweek magazine for their continued support of the Autoweek/CARA Auction, Gone Racin'…Blood on the Wall a novel by Deke Houlgate, Gone Racin'… The Salt of the Earth - Ab Jenkins' Own Story of Speed, Shows and Albums

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President's Corner:  
   Last week I went over to help Ron Main and his crew spruce up the Speed Demon before its trip to the SEMA Show. The car is going to be in the Hot Rod Magazine booth. I took along my camera and grabbed a few shots of the complicated machine. Here's a little info on the machine. The car started life as a lakester many years ago. It morphed into a streamliner and ran a few years with a Dick Landy built flattie in it. As the story goes Ron sold the car to Bobby Walden and at Speedweek he proceeded to crash it. That's when the car and I became acquainted. Rich Manchen is a fierce competitor and a gifted fabricator. Ron approached him about doing a rebuild of the wrecked racer. Rich asked me if I'd like to help him and the rest is history. It took months of busting rear ends and we got the car done just in time for Speedweek. Needless to say the car made history as the first flathead powered car to set a record over 300 mph. In '03 it ran an amazing 302.674 mph. Pretty cool! Once that goal was reached Ron went looking for other mountains to climb and that consisted of putting a little 2-litre Ecotec in the thing and grabbing a record at 343+ mph.
   For the rebuild after the crash the original front end was wacked off and a new one concocted with a wheel in front of a wheel. The chassis was also stretched two feet in the engine bay and a new rear added on. Along the way the cage was wacked off and a lower one welded on. The original body was trashed and a new one of carbon fiber was built along the same lines. I did the profile drawing, JMC_865, and Ron gave it to his aerodynamicist, A.J. Smith to figure out what the longer and lower car would do in the air. When we got close to finishing the ride I did the next two sketches for Mike Manghelli who did all the wiring. He had to order up all the electrical components and this drawing (JMC_866) was his guide to placement and length of wire runs. JMC_867 shows where all the switches in the driver's compartment were to be located. All this stuff is simple but paid dividends as everything went together without a hitch. It's funny because Ron spent a lot of money with the aero guy to determining the center of pressure etc. Rich and mine's guess was about two inches off and took us all of about 30 seconds to determine. Sometimes you wonder about all the hi-tech stuff when old eyeball engineering does the job just fine.
   The car underwent another rebuild and lengthening job a couple of years ago. The guys who did the new body charged about twice what my house cost but it seems to of worked as the car went over 400 mph with a small C (299") motor and is still stable as a rock. The biggest problem the car has encountered was tires. Thank god Goodyear and Mickey Thompson stepped up with some new rubber to eliminate that one. Here are some of the pix I snapped to show you up close how simple yet how complicated the new breed of LSR car is. JMC_868 shows the Rich Manchen conceived front end. Swing arms with a bolt on spindle are simple as is the rubber biscuits used to dampen the movement. A lot of attention was paid to the Ackerman and wheel alignment. Not the shock boot glued on the bulkhead to allow steering rod movement yet retain a good seal. Next up is the drivers view (JMC_869). With room at a premium the fire bottles were set up with a simple push to work. Electronic stuff is between them. The push button on the steering wheel is the air shifter for the tranny. Real simple. The red knobs on the outside of the bottles work the hydraulic jacks for those one hour FIA turnarounds. Not simple. JMC_870 shows a tank and plumbing nightmares.
   Next to the firewall is the fuel tank that follows the contour of the firewall under the seat. You burn a lot on a run so you have to built them weird shapes to hold enough. The Jesel stickered tank holds ice-water to cool the intercooler for the monster turbo. The big lid helps when you pour in a sack of cubes on your turnarounds. In front of that is the oil tank. Note the tubes holding it. They go to the front motor plate. When an engine swap is done the whole unit comes out together so you don't have to spend weeks reconnecting everything. Last up is the engine shot if you can see it (JMC_871). The new motor of choice this year is a short deck Chevy/Rocket block put together by Kenny Duttweiler. This thing kicks butt. At Speedweek in August the torque ate quick change lower shafts in about a run and 1000'and they went through four of them. They doubled the size and it seems to work as they ran 435.685 mph in September this year. All they have to do now is go both ways.
   The tank in the foreground is the intercooler for the monster turbo. The red bottle is for fires. In between are the solenoids on the air shifter. One coil per plug is the hot setup here and the mask on the intake is a Demon naturally. The two bars over the motor were added to keep the chassis from flexing due to the added weight of the extra four cylinders. Seems you change one thing and you have to change ten more to make everything work again. The bottom line these days to go real fast at Bonneville is a lot of planning, zillions of hours of hard work by talented people and wheelbarrow's full of cash courtesy of Ron and George Poteet.

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Editorial:   
   I do a lot of book reviews and recently began to run them in the newsletter. I write a book review the way I would want to read one, to quickly see if it's the kind of book that I want for my library. I encourage our readers to add to their libraries on a constant basis. As historians, books are the life blood of our research. A good library is needed in order to learn and understand our hot rodding heritage. If we refuse to buy and read books, then the authors won't have a market and they won't do the research and the work to bring these books to us. Most authors won't sell enough books to break even and those that do barely make enough to cover expenses. If authors are unable to break even on their costs, they won't have the motivation to keep researching and publishing their findings and we are all the poorer for it. I write book reviews on any books that are given, sold or lent to me. I buy some books and some are sent to me. I return all books to the publisher if they include a prepaid pouch, because it gets expensive to do free book reviews, otherwise I keep them for my library or exchange them with other people. I believe that we should all set a budget for books, periodicals and other types of reading material. Buy a book a month if you can, or at least three or four a year. You need to support these writers, but you also need to grow and you can only do that by reading. Buy books on-line, through book stores, direct from the author or at used book stores. A great place to buy used books is at the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH) Literature Faire held during the summers in the Los Angeles area. Other good places are at the big car shows that have swap meets and used book vendors. Always buy from the authors if you can. The reason is that they need to have cash flowing in to offset the expenses they have incurred in writing the books.
   What is a good book review like? Well, I look at the book reviews in the Los Angeles Times that comes out in the Sunday edition and those reviews sometimes are as long as the book itself. They go on and on about the psychological aspects of the book and the writer and tell us more about the book reviewer than they do about the book. I'm not into that psychobabble. My reviews are usually about 900 words long and tell you what the book is about, how long it is, what the photographs are like and how the book is constructed. If you are going to put out some of your hard earned money to buy a book for your coffee table or library, then you want to know from my review what the book looks like and if it's the sort of book that interests you. You don't want to know my opinion or whether it will send you on a Zen moment where you can touch the clouds with your toes. You want to know how many pages and whether the binding is cloth or paste. You want to know how many black and white photographs there are and the quality of the pictures. You want to know how many color photographs there are and if there's an index. You want to know what the writing is about or if it's just a book of pictures and captions. You may want to know who is in the book and if there is any new material or if it is simply stories taken from other books. I tell you the size and shape and whether it's a pretty coffee table book or a serious work of history. Some of the books are masterpieces and others are simply Xeroxed copies of people's lives. Whatever it is, I tell it to you in plain words, just like a hot rodder wants to hear it.
   On another point, when you send me emails and mention someone, please give me a little detail, like their last name.  So it really helps if you always say, "Jim Miller told this to me." Rather than just, "Jim said this." I handle so many emails and phone calls that after awhile I can't keep all the names in my head any longer and have to write them down just like you do. I remember an occasion when my niece, Mari, and I were at a race and we were talking to my father and this man comes up and starts talking. He told us about the time 30 years in the past when he met my father and all of the things that happened at that early race. After about five minutes of non-stop talking and constant detail, he excused himself and left. I asked my dad how he could remember all the people he met at races in that time and my father simply remarked, "I can't." But, I said, he knows so much about you; don't you remember a little about the time that you met him? He said, "Nope, can't remember him at all." His memory was excellent by the way and even when he passed away at 94 he could remember the past clearly. The point is this, we can't remember everything that happened and even if we have good memories, we need help sometimes. So don't assume that Jim Miller and I can remember every fact and every event, because we can't and we need help. Little key words and prompts help us to recall events or at least understand what you are talking about. Names are another thing; how many times has someone come up to me and said, "You don't remember me, do you?" Well, hello, no we don't and now you have made us feel really small. Don't do things like that to us or to anyone else. Extend your hand and say, "I'm so and so and we met at the SCTA banquet five years ago, how are you?" That's a courtesy that Jim and I will thank you for.

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Larene called this morning and gave me some bad news, Walt passed away last Wednesday. His heart was getting weak, and was not nourishing the body as it should anymore. Walt will be missed by all Lakers that knew him when he was a member of the club. Remember his '53 Ford with the 354 Chrysler Hemi? We used to cruise Bob's Big Boy on Whittier Blvd with it, as well as run it at El Mirage. Anyone remember how fast it went? Then of course there was the Awesome Amarillo Armadillo aka, the Bonita Snyder and James '40 Stude that we transplanted his Hemi into. The speed was 125 mph at 10.54 in the 1/4 mile. There will be a service at the Garden Chapel, 212 Main Street, Vacaville, California, next Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 1:00 pm. Walt and Larene moved to Dixon, California many years ago. I think Walt was 72 or 73. Please include Walt and Larene in your prayers and thoughts. Jim Snyder
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I didn't know he was a Laker! David Parks
David, Jim, Warren and the Lakers car club: Walt and Dottie James are not the same people as Walt and Larene James. If you have any biographical information or obituary on Walt James the Laker member, please send it to me to publish in the Society of Land Speed Racing Historians Newsletter located at www.landspeedracing.com. Dottie's Walt James is going to have a Celebration of Life at the Petersen Automotive Museum on November 21, 2009 and as far as I know it is open to anyone, as long as they RSVP to Walt's daughter, Vicki James. I am very interested in publishing all the biographical information that I can on every land speeder who ever raced, even if all I can find is obituary material. I would prefer getting their life story while they are alive and well so that we can always add to it, but in many cases it is at funerals that I learn about people's lives. Please write your bio before it is too late and the only source for your life is from your friends at your funeral. Also, I need a Historian from your club to send me news and research into the Lakers car club.

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Yes there are two Walt James'! The one I'm referring to was born in Iowa, I believe, at least that's where we first met. Walt and my brother Ed (Snyder) went to the same High School, and our two families were good friends. We moved to Southern Cal, Fullerton to be exact, in September of 1957 when my Dad got an offer to work at Hughes, in Fullerton, and I was in the 8th grade. The James' followed us out a few years later. Walt's Dad, Bill James, took over a Richfield gas station on Valencia and Gilbert in Fullerton, and I hung out there until Bill could afford to hire me. Walt worked there too, and he taught me a lot about wrenching on cars. Fullerton Muffler was just a couple of blocks away, where the Lakers Car Club met every other Tuesday, and Walt and I joined the club. It's about 1960 now. I graduated from Buena Park High School in '62, and went on to Cal Poly Pomona that fall to study Mechanical Engineering.
Walt built a '53 Ford to run at El Mirage, with two 4-barrel Holley's on a 354 Chrysler Hemi, and I built a '40 Stude with a 258" Dodge Red Ram Hemi a little later. I forget how fast Walt's Ford went at El Mirage, but we sure had some fun with that car cruising Whittier Blvd! My Stude went 140 mph at El Mirage. Later Mel Bonita, Walt and myself went into a partnership putting Walt's motor into my Stude' and went drag racing. We ran it at Lions, Irwindale, OCIR, and even took it to the Smoker's March meet one year. We didn't qualify but I'll never forget being there! The Bonita/Snyder & James pearl yellow Stude was a fun car to drive. It weighed about 2200 lbs if memory serves, and our best was 10.50 and 125 mph. Neil Thompson drove the car once or twice. Ray Alley and Bob (last name unknown) set up a clutch-flight trans for us; I used the clutch to get off the line, then just push the lever one click at a time forward to shift into 2nd and again into 3rd. The car would carry the left front tire off the ground the whole way down the strip, at least that's what Walt always told everyone! I'll also never forget the wheel stand that Stude' did at Lions one night! That was awesome as they would say today! We designed a set of wheelie bars for it after that! By the way, Mel Bonita ran a '54 Ford with a 392 Chrysler and went 184 mph at El Mirage in the late 1950's. Walt was the engine man and chief mechanic project, and he did a fantastic job. Those were the days! Yes there are two Walt James' in the news both gear heads. Jim Snyder
Jim: Have I found the Historian for the Lakers Car Club? I hope you will add some more memories of the guys that you know and raced with, including yourself and share them with us here at www.landspeedracing.com. Can you tell us more about the James' family, Mel Bonita, the early day Lakers, Fullerton Muffler and the James Gas Station? It's hard losing just one Walt James, but now we find out that in a very short time we have lost two, very special, Walt James'.

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A Celebration of Life for Walt James will be held on November 21, 2009, starting at 11 AM at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Please contact Vicki James at [email protected], to RSVP that you will be coming. From past experience the wing that is used will seat around 300 people, with room for 200 more to stand in the back or outside. Vicki needs to have a head count, so let her know if you are going to attend. Walt James was a great man and one admired by the Parks family. He was a leader in the CRA and other oval racing associations and the force behind the CRA Reunion. He also kept active in the WRA and could be counted on to race in the nostalgia leagues. He ran the Walt James oval racing track at Willow Springs and his Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot races were legendary. He was one of the main sources that I contacted when looking for information. I called Walt at least once a month and he always knew the answers. But more than that he was a man you could count on when things were tough and you needed a good word and a helping hand. Walt's loss has affected me more than just about any other racer in the last 25 years. He's a man we are all going to miss greatly.

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The following response concerns the timing tag that Walt James earned at a Russetta Meet in 1946. The email was sent to us by his daughter Vicki James.
Vicki: The date that your father raced at El Mirage would have been May or August 3 and not March 3, 1946. I don't know of anyone racing the lakes in March as there would still be mud on the ground and too slippery at 116mph. That was a very good time for that date. Keep sending in more history about your dad, especially about the dry lakes. The dry lakes and land speed time trials was a rite of passage and many men and later on, women too, went there to see what it was all about and to test their cars. If they didn't belong to a club they could pay a slightly bigger fee and race as an independent and all of the timing associations that I'm aware of had metal timing tags that they would issue to the driver as part of the entrance fee charge. To get a timing tag was a real honor and it normally had 4 cutout holes where you could insert screws and attach it to your dashboard. Anyone with a timing tag on their dashboard was considered someone special. Those timing tags today from that era are considered collector's items and are quite valuable.

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Editor: The following comes from Vicki James and concerns the passing of her father, Walt James.

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We do have charities set up in Dad's name that were assigned before hand, for the 'in lieu of flowers' deal: Dad was very active in the Castaic Lion's Club, of which he was a past President, especially with their scholarship program, so they posthumously named it in his honor, that is the main charity. Because of Indian Dunes, my sister, whose three boys all race motocross, aligned with Road2Recovery for injured motocross racers/riders. I chose the Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation as Sam not only attended Village Christian where Lee graduated high school, but he also rode at Indian Dunes. Sam has a wonderful program stressing the study of spine injuries. I will be setting up a display at the event for these organizations.
Or donations can be mailed to the following addresses:
Castaic Lion's Club, c/o the Lion Walt James Memorial Scholarship Fund, P. O. Box 312, Castaic, CA 91384
Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation, PO Box 3661, Princeton, NJ 08543-3661 (in memory of Walt James)
Road 2 Recovery, 3623 N. Scottsdale Road, Suite D-3420, Scottsdale, AZ 85255

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Phil Grisotti is the keeper of most of the details of all that past life (for the Lakers Car Club). Warren Bullis and I were talking about getting Phil involved in the process of documenting all that detail. He remembers things like who designed the Lakers logo to include the shape of El Mirage dry lake bed around the outside edge of the logo. Perhaps we can dedicate some time this winter to get these things written down. Jim Snyder
   Jim: I look forward to seeing what history the Lakers Car Club can come up with over the winter. Also, I would like all the Lakers to consider writing their bios for me and I will help you edit them.

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Si McCabe Roadster history by Bill Rudich.
   Previous owner of this roadster, Dick Pickerel of Southern California, made a living building racing engines and restoring vintage race cars. Dick also is a member of the 4 Ever 4 Club and like many people who work in the industry; he had the '29 for 30+ years, slated for a project. When Dick found the car, it had a 265 Chevrolet small block in it. That long storage served to keep the car from updates through the years and made it a lot simpler to restore. Dick was a friend of Multi Aldrich's widow and when he put a banger in the car she gave him Multi's No. 7 - 90 MPH Club plaque. Dick let a copy be made from the original plaque which is somewhere in Southern California on a car.
   In 2003 Cindy and I got the car in a complicated trade that involved both money and a restored 1935 Ford roadster which belonged to another car guy. The car was running with the banger but was not sorted out and the driveline and brakes were actually frightening. We began restoring it to how it ran on Harper dry lake in 1939 when it recorded 96.56 mph with original builder/owner Sylvester "Si" McCabe, a member of the 90 MPH Club, which was one of the founding charter clubs that formed the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) on November 29, 1938 along with the Knight Riders, Sidewinders, Throttlers, Idlers, Ramblers and the Road Runners. The banger is now in a restored early circle track car in Southern California again. Cindy found the Culver City Halibrand Quick-change in San Diego and that's typical of how difficult finding vintage speed equipment is today.
   We constantly remind ourselves that 96.56 mph in 1939 was incredibly fast and the hot rodder's running the dry lakes were fearless and determined to set records. We want to preserve a bit of that and so we have resisted updates to the car to keep it traditional. Several of the traditional aspects of this car are its SCTA pre-war Harper Dry Lake timing tag and the vintage (Duke) Hallock windshield. One thing we didn't get from Dick was the sheet metal sprint car nose. Maintaining focus during the re-build and using traditional parts and period equipment rather than update the car has been very important to us. Many friends urged us to update the car in small ways rather than stay with the basic late 1930's dry lakes car which was the vision. We won the 'Suede & Chrome' category at the Goodguys Southwest Nationals in November of 2007. Boy, were we surprised! See http://www.reddevilscarclub.com/rudich.htm for photographs of the Si McCabe roadster.  Bill Rudich

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I would like to make a small correction to Dick's name spelling (Pickerel) is correct. I talked to Dick just this past week and we were talking about the #7 90MPH plaque and he said that he couldn't recall for sure but maybe the #7 was Karl Orr's and not Multi's. This kind of surprised me when he said that as he originally had said he got it from Multi's widow and I wonder if you can shed any light on this. As an aside to this whole story, Jim Lattin called me and told me that when Multi died his widow needed to clean out a shed and she asked all of his old friends if they would help and she gave everyone boxes of stuff. That actually makes me believe the account Dick told me originally, but again I would like to know if the #7 is Multi's or Karl's? Thanks! Bill & Cindy Rudich
   Bill and Cindy: The best source, besides Jim Lattin, is Jim Miller and his phone number is listed on our newsletters at our website, which is www.landspeedracing.com. We have made an effort to try and track down all the records that we could find on Karl and Veda Orr, because they were original members of the SCTA and were there at the dry lakes even before the organization was created in 1937. Karl and my father were close associates in the business of the SCTA. Another person that we need to spend more time on is Multi Aldrich, who was there in the beginning and stayed with land speed racing even after many of the other pioneers left it to go on to do other kinds of racing. Multi is one of those early pioneers who knew everyone and did everything. There are a number of people whose impact was pivotal and Multi and Karl were certainly vital to our understanding of the history of the sport. Call Jim and talk to him. He's probably our best resource for your question. As for your group, we would like to ask all your members to write their biographies and caption their photographs so that we can save a vital piece of our hot rodding history. Thanks again for your permission to reprint the story from your website.

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Can anyone identify the Dragster on this cover of Rodding and Restyling magazine? The magazine is the March 1956 issue, but I have reason to believe the photos are at Santa Ana in early November or prior to 1955. There is no information about the car in the magazine. See
http://www.kustomrama.com/index.php?title=Rodding_and_Re-styling_March_1955, Tom Householder
Tom: There are several sources to check this out. Leslie Long in Orange County, California has been tracking down the cars, people and times at the old Santa Ana Drag Strip for years. He doesn't have email, but perhaps I can find a contact point for you. Bob Frey, the announcer for the NHRA has a hobby; finding every time for every drag race ever held. Then there is the Santa Ana Drags and Main Malt Shop Reunion, held once or twice a year in Orange, California. The original members who raced at Santa Ana are dwindling rapidly, but Pat Berardini and Mousey Marcellus are still with us. Another early racer at Santa Ana was Don Montgomery, the author of some 8 excellent books on early California hot rodding, and who raced at Santa Ana. C.J. Hart and Creighton Hunter, the co-owners of Santa Ana Drag Strip have passed away, but many of their close friends are still around and Jack Underwood could possibly help you locate them. You should also send a notice to H.A.M.B. and to the 1320 club, which are drag racers from that period of time. This is a year or two before Don Garlits, but Don is a wonderful source of information and his museum is first class. Another source is Greg Sharp at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, who has a wealth of sources at his disposal. Our Society's President, Jim Miller, is also a great source for early day drag and land speed cars.

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The following is a letter from Ken Berg to Heidi Hornik at Baylor University, regarding Catalogue Raisonne.
Dear Ms. Hornik: After a long teleconference with Ms. Mathews this AM I've come to the Journal of the CRSA as a resource to feed my interest in 'catalogue raisonne.' I have seen the spring 2007 No. 21 issue and would like to acquire all other back issues available. I could join the association if desired, but as I discussed with Nancy my field is performance machinery, land, sea and air … seemingly not related to fine art. BUT we may have common ground in the sense that there are only a few big names involved, and thousands of pages of archives, and thousands of pieces of equipment, but unlike fine art, each piece of equipment is composed of thousands of parts and sub-assemblies.
It is my proposal to museums with which I'm involved that a Catalogue Raisonne be created for some notable person(s). Their works are wide-spread, much like fine art, some are held 'incommunicado,' some are fakes, some are iterations of an always-improving technology, the archives are poorly catalogued (if at all), and often discarded when the historian dies, persons in photos are not identified, and so forth. The Ethical Archivist knows these things need to be dealt with, but few, if any, museums have the staffing, systems, funding or an agenda to deal with them in the depth they deserve. What a shame! Well, you folks know all these things. I'd like to try to catch up to current knowledge on the subject, hence my request for copies of the Journal. I hope you can help me. Kenneth L. (Ken) Berg
The Motorsports Education Foundation, Mission Viejo, California. 949-830-6888
See http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/lasubject/records/id277.html.
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Ken Berg then writes to us:
   Gentlemen: Have auto museums got it backwards? New thinking on convergence of computer, archives, artifacts and education suggests that honoring the individual and their works, as is done in the fine arts world, is more evocative of high performance and the lessons learned, than merely offering a peek at a nice looking piece of machinery. Hyperbole? Sure, but it makes the point that by honoring the notable individuals (there aren't that many) in motorsports, we eventually bump into all the same people, machinery, places, events etc, as would be found in an encyclopedic directory of motorsports. The computer allows us to search and link ALL of the repositories holding materials concerning the subject person. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm going to pursue this with museums I'm talking to, and have sent this for your information and dissemination if you wish.
   I've edited the following email in bold so that it could be printed, if you like. As you see it deals with Catalogue Raisonne (CR) which has opened my eyes to see a new way of assembling motorsports history. Sure, there are biographies of a lot of racing notables, but CR suggests that there are greater depths to be plumbed, and wider connections to be made to illuminate the depth and breadth of individual careers. Ken Berg
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   The editor responds. Ken and the Readers of the SLSRH: Ken raises a very good point and one that our society needs to take us and discuss. As you point out, a Catalogue Raisonne has dealt mainly with Art and is a system of indexing. But Catalogue Raisonne or Systems are not new. Linnaeus created such a system for the plant and animal world that is still in use today. The ancient Greeks created systems for mathematics, science and philosophy, many of which are still used by our modern world. I don't believe that we have to cater to the rich and famous and standardize a system based on those who are famous. The Jay Leno car collection numbering system might be well funded by the famous comedian and car aficionado, but it's a cumbersome stretch. We do need a way to catalog and index what we have, but it's already being done that way, only by interested individuals. Pick a subject and then Google it and you will probably find a person or a group that is already doing what you propose. For example, if you want to know if VW speed records are being maintained, Google that subject and you will see that 1,730,000 sources for VW, VW speed, and VW records. Taking the Automobile by its components; speeds, parts, assembly, personages, engineering, aspects and miscellaneous, and then creating an index would put the number of resources in the billions. Such a comprehensive index as that, the dream of every automotive enthusiast, would take thousands of lifetimes to accomplish, even with computerization. At some point, we have to specialize, just as I had to limit the SLSRH newsletter to hot rodding, land speed racing and drag racing up through 1959 only (with exceptions). If I included all of drag racing, which is already being reported on by many fine associations, then the SLSRH newsletter would be so long as to be unreadable. The problem with indexing based on a famous man is simply that it won't be complete. I've known many men who have museums, but they collect what interests them and exclude any object that they don't like, or might come from a competitor. An indexer or systemizer must be above such selfish desires and give equal time and effort to all objects within a category. Since the category that we are interested in is automotive speed records, our organization cannot exclude some things and accept others. We must be willing to record everything that existed or will exist. Jim Miller represents the American Hot Rod Foundation (AHRF) and so far that is the only organization that has come close to reaching the goals that you aspire to.

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Racing Clubs: Historians listed for each club
Eliminators………………………………………………….none.
Gear Grinders……………………………………………...Glen Barrett.
Gold Coast Roadster and Racing Club……….......................none.
Gophers……………………………………………………Michael Brennan.
Hi Desert Racers……………………………………......….none.
Lakers……………………………………………………..none.
LSR………………………………………………………..none.
Milers……………………………………………………...none.
Road Runners………………………………………….......Jerry Cornelison.
Rod Riders………………………………………………...none.
San Diego Roadster Club……………………………..........none.
Sidewinders……………………………………………......Ron Main.
Super Fours……………………………………………….Roy Creel. Super Fours - SCTA, club, written in Sept 2002. A brief history: Sent in by Roy Creel. The club was formed in Burbank California in 1977 by a small group interested in running "Vintage 4 bangers": (pre 1935 ford 4 cylinder engines). Charter members included: Wes Cooper, Kong Jackson, Milt Uhler, Carl Haack, Harold Johansen, Doug Boyd, Bob Evans and Pat Leighton. The club has had as many as 40 members, 3 SCTA presidents, and 3 season champions to date. Some of the more notable members also included the late Bruce Johnston, Ed Donovan and Mark Dees. The club still meets monthly in Burbank.

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The International Drag Racing Hall of Fame, based at Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing, Ocala, Florida has announced the induction to the Hall of Fame for the year 2010. The list of eight inductees is as follows:
John Buttera (Chassis & Body builder), Jack Engle (Cam Pioneer), Leroy Goldstein (Driver - F/C - T/F), Dickie Harrell (Mr Chevrolet), Jim Read (Australian Champion), Bill Simpson (Pioneer - Safety equipment), Bob Stange (Pioneer - Drive line parts), and Bobby Warren (Sportsman Champion).
The popular ceremony will take place at the Hilton University of Florida Conference Center on March 11, 2010 during the NHRA Gator Nationals. A cocktail reception starts at 6:00 PM with dinner served at 7:00PM. Be certain to reserve your table early. Corporate Table sponsorship includes seating for ten, listing in the program, and a copy of the annual DVD, at a cost of $1000. Additional seating is available at $100 each for each ticket. Call Peggy Hunnewell at 352-245-8661 or 877-271-3278 or fax 352-245-6895 for more information. The Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing is located at 13700 SW 16th Avenue, Ocala, Florida 34473.

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Petersen Automotive Museum to hold garage sale and swap meet December 5, 2009. Vehicles from Museum's collection offered in a No Reserve Silent Auction. Contact: Chris Brown, [email protected], 323-964-6320.

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VW 1 club run video for Bruce Cook last week at Maxton, North Carolina. Here's a link to the 1 club run we made. I was somewhat limited on what I could do because I don't have the camera software loaded on my computer, but still a great run. Thanks, Cody. See http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2irn095&s=4&hid=1&tag=bugkodee
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I will forward this to all of the racers. You were right when you said it was rainy, cold and windy. Talk with you soon. Burly Burlile
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Other websites:
http://www.burlyb.com/
http://www.cal-look.com/blogs/36-hp-challenge-land-speed-records-2009/
http://www.cal-look.com/forum/index.php?topic=14678.35
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4098537
http://www.ecta-lsr.com/events/2006/news0906.pdf.

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Thanks. I'm not in tune to the drag race history as much as I am the road race stuff. But I am learning a lot thanks to your site's efforts. The first thing to pop up was a photo of Leslie Long and Ed Iskenderian who I met in the late eighties at their local lunch counter hang-out. He owned the old Cal Sales distributor building. I was searching for old Doretti and Triumph history files. Ed was just super good in support of my quest. He introduced me to Max Balchowsky who I visited shortly thereafter.  I'm sixty this month and recall the early names like Garlits and Ivo but until recent years digging around for Balchowsky drag race info, I have really never paid much attention to drag racing. Chuck Porter and the general Customizing crowd were groups I followed in my early years. A relationship between Porter and Balchowsky has brought me back in touch with that era of my history. Bonneville has always been a casual interest. I am on the H.A.M.B. and recently have been in touch with Jim Miller. I think Leslie and Bob Frey will be my first delve into this as the documentation is what I am interested in. The R&R article included car references to Chuck Porter and Balchowsky as well as Russ Palmer which I hope along with the dragster ID will help ID the weekend at Santa Ana.  Tom Householder, www.Doretti.com.
   Tom: Please document your memories of the experiences that you wrote about in this letter. It will be informative to our readers, but more than that it may stimulate the memories of some of them and possible open up a lead to events you are researching. The more you share the more likely you are to hear back from someone with a breakthrough in what you are looking for.
Photos sent by Tom Householder

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I believe the Walt James' Russetta timing tag should read MOD instead of "VOD".  It would be a good idea to check with Jim Miller, but I don't recall a "VOD" class. Michael Brennan
   Michael: You are probably right, but it is a Russetta timing tag that Walt James earned in 1946 and therefore there could be a spelling error or Russetta could really have had a VOD class, whatever that meant. Walt is gone and few people are around from that era in the Russetta Timing Association. It could also be a "stamp mark" mistake where the V is supposed to be an M. Or it could be a Roman Numeral V meaning 5. I've known a few of the SCTA timing tag makers and they are very careful in making the timing tags. I believe that they have a punch and die set that they use. J. D. Tone could probably tell us the process and system behind the timing tags and whether the punch set was passed down from the 1930's or is newer. The lettering changes over time, so the uniqueness of the timing tags is time sensitive. It was a unique system, probably copied from the metal ID badges that were given out at the Indy 500. Bob Falcon, Jack Underwood or Jim Miller might have more history on this. One thing is known and that is that the timing tags represented a good portion of the cost of the entry fee. Another fact is that the timing tags were sought after by young men and cherished. The tags were affixed to the dashboards and identified the owner as a certified "hot rodder," and you can often see them displayed in the hot rod movies of the 1940's and '50's. In one movie that I reviewed there was a discussion among two groups of young people. The "good" teenagers explained to the "bad" teenagers that they couldn't street race, "Because if we did we won't be able to race at the dry lakes." Having a timing tag on your dashboard meant that you were several degrees above the typical young hot rodder. It was a mark of achievement. I've often wondered why the timing associations didn't give a simple "time sheet" like they do at the drag races, but from what I've read, the land speed racers simply wouldn't have accepted that. Getting the timing tag was worth the $1 entrance fee (later raised to $2 after the war), a goodly fortune at the time, and the all day drive out to the desert over rugged dirt roads to go racing. Finally, I could have simply changed VOD to MOD, and I do make editorial corrections all the time, but I try to limit what I correct. It looked like VOD, not MOD and it is better not to change the facts to suit my guess, since I don't know. This way we stimulate inquiry and responses and eventually find someone who's an expert and they will tell us. If I had changed it to MOD then I would have done so in ignorance and we wouldn't be digging deeper into the history of the artifact itself. What we really need to find is a Russetta official in charge of the timing tags and the punch and die set that they used and that would help to solve our question and perhaps raise new questions in turn.

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Dear Ben Jordan, You are a truly legendary Land Speed Record Holder. Your career was truly remarkable. Could you please send me an Autographed Photograph of yourself with your Bockscar Streamliner? It would be forever treasured and displayed in my legends of Sports Museum. Thank-you very kindly, Allan Brockbank, Canada
   Allan: I tried to reach Ben Jordan in Colorado a few years ago to see if he had any more of his self-published books for sale, but I couldn't find any trace of him and when I spoke to some of the local hot rodders, I was told that they heard that Ben passed away. I cannot confirm that though and you might want to follow up, maybe with the illustrator, Bill Ballas, if you can find him. Ben was born in 1916, so he would in his nineties if he is still alive. I will ask our readers to the Society of Land Speed Racing Historians newsletter and see if any of them have heard anything about him. Check the internet and bookstores to see if you can get a copy of his book titled Jordan Automotive Dictionary. 

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Moldy Marvin's Sunday in the Park. The date is Sunday, November 15th 2009, at Crescenta Valley Park, 3901 Dunsmore Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214. This event includes not only a Pre-1976 Classic Car and Motorcycle show but Amusement Rides, Mid Way, Farmers Market, Vendors and Live Entertainment! Show Hours are from 10 AM - 4PM, Registration Hours 8:00 AM - 10:00AM. Registration $ 20 per Vehicle includes 5 Free Ride Tickets! For more information please visit: http://www.MoldyShows.com or call (800) 880-6567 or (661) 944-2299. tha Moldy one

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An interesting note to this, that I have come across, is that racers were given their timing disc after the run and it had the speed, car number, time, date, location and owner or driver. For an additional 2 dollars and your timing disc, sent to the appropriate timing association you received your "award" timing tag through the mail about two weeks later. So you never received a timing tag at an event and as far as we know it was always an additional charge. Evans Speed Equipment still has stacks of the metal and paper timing discs and only the record runs and some of the fast one-way passes were sent in for the brass plaque. This holds true for SCTA and Russetta tags in the post war years, likely into the early 1960's but I'd have to ask Gene Ohly to be certain since he ran well into the '60's and in both associations.
   This Russetta tag, Walt James' tag, is very interesting to me, since I have an earlier tag, 1941, but it appears to be very similar to the winged tag we are accustomed to seeing. I wonder if Russetta started with the original design in '41 and then after the war they weren't able to get that produced again until a later date. Perhaps this was an interim tag until Russetta got back up to speed again, since they were barely established before the war, having only hosted the one race we know of in 1941.
   Another interesting point regarding this tag is that the arrow's shape and the logo font from this tag was carried over either to or from the paper membership card, so it appears that certain elements of the association's identification were traded back and forth between the different tags through-out Russetta's existence. In the waning years of their existence they even switched from the aluminum Cloisonn� tags with red enamel to brass tags with a gold brushed tone, similar to trophy work. Michael Brennan
   Michael: The brass, aluminum and other metals were available until war broke out in December, 1941 and then it would have been very difficult to find supplies of metal for the timing tags due to war rationing. The SCTA did continue to hold races up into the late spring and early summer of 1942, but gradually the mood of the country changed and it was seen as disloyal to use supplies that could go to the war effort. As long as our troops were still stationed in America the need for large amounts of metals was not critical, but as troops were sent to England, North Africa and the South Pacific, the SCTA and other racing organizations simply closed down their racing operations. They lost too many members to the armed services and they felt that their country deserved their loyalty, but many historians, for a long time, believed the cessation of racing was immediate. It wasn't, for racers agonized over what to do, but over time it became apparent that there was no alternative but to stop all racing. I called Bruce Geisler, an authority on SCTA and Russetta in the mid-1950's and he told me the following. The only race that he knows of that Russetta put on was on December 1, 1941 and he said that Russetta was organized as a club, not a timing association and that they were timing their own meets, just as five or six other clubs were doing at that time. He isn't sure whether Russetta allowed other clubs to participate or whether it was just Russetta members. He also says that Russetta didn't become an official Timing Association until May 2, 1948, and prior to that timed land speed events at El Mirage as a club. Since May was the first meet of the year typically, the actual incorporation of Russetta could have occurred earlier than that. The source for that statement, he told me, comes from Dean Batchelor's book, Dry Lakes and Drag Strips; The American Hot Rod. Geisler also said that he was a member of the Rod Riders car club, one of the members of the Russetta Timing Association and that he was one of those instrumental in the transfer of the Rod Riders from Russetta to the SCTA when Russetta closed down in 1960. I hope to learn more from Bruce, who has also been an official and past president of the SCTA.

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The following email from SCTA President Roy Creel came in response to a request for a historian from the Super Fours to act as a liaison with the SLSRH Newsletter in doing more research on the club. Here are Roy's comments and the editor's response. The subject concerns a pivotal moment in the development of the SCTA and the formation of the NHRA.
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Surely you jest! As if I have a spare moment as SCTA president, a job which should be a hired position with a general manager. I don't think you have any conception of how much time this volunteer (SCTA) position takes. When NHRA boomed, it became a full time job for Wally (Parks). SCTA is now there. Maybe someday when I am older (I will look into the history of the Super Fours). Roy Creel
Roy: I believe that I wrote about this subject in one of a past SLSRH newsletter. And yes, I know EXACTLY how much time and effort the job of being an SCTA President takes. The history of the job of General Manager is fresh in my mind, although I was only 3 years old at the time. I remember my mother and father talking about this very subject on many occasions. It was an important thing to them back then as Dad could not work at General Motors when he returned from World War II because of malaria. Once he recovered, a strike shut down the plant and he was out of work. Then the job as General Manager came along and I remember that he told my mother that it paid $50 a month, which more than paid their rent/mortgage. Reading the minutes of the SCTA years later the stipend wasn't $50, but $300, which a year later was raised to $400, but that included the office rent, utilities, phone, stamps and expenses. Being frugal, I'm sure that out of that total amount he was able to support a family until the job of editor came about at Hot Rod magazine. Actually, my father resisted working for Pete Petersen for some time. It was Pete who came to my father, not the other way around. There was a conflict of interest at the time as Hot Rod magazine was started in order to promote the Hot Rod Show in 1948 and the SCTA was one of the biggest clients of Hollywood Publicity Associates, which Petersen worked for and got the contract to represent the SCTA. With the Show successfully completed, dad went to work for Hot Rod magazine in 1949. As for the job of General Manager, that job was proposed by Ak Miller, but it was my father who put Ak up to it. Like you, dad realized that being the President in 1946, the first year of the newly reorganized SCTA was a job that was full time. He and Ak worked to create the job of General Manager in 1947 and my father chose not to run for re-election as president of the SCTA, instead promoting Ak Miller for the job of President. Then Ak proposed the new job of General Manager and nominated my father. Several others applied as well, and the vote was close, but the club representatives narrowly elected my father. Ak, I believe, simply told the club reps that if they did not approve the concept of a General Manager that he would ask the clubs to do these jobs and that broke the ice. The reps knew the volume of work coming in and the secretary could never really handle this work. It consisted of writing, phoning and responding to thousands of inquiries, publicity for the SCTA programs and goals, liaison with the newspapers for a media blitz to fight against anti-hot rodding legislation, legal matters and much more. The SCTA at that time was the SEMA of today. The same thing happened with obtaining the Bonneville Salt Flats for racing. Again it was Ak Miller, Pete Petersen, my father and a few other stalwarts who prevailed over the rigidly narrow-mindedness of some clubs in expanding past the dry lakes in Southern California. The new job of General Manager and secretary of the SCTA changed the timing association for good and set it on its course today. There was still the original job of recording secretary, which I believe received a small stipend too, but that job was mainly to record the minutes of the Board and Reps meeting. I believe the job of General Manager dissolved shortly after my father left the SCTA to found the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). The NHRA was never intended to be a drag racing organization in the beginning. The NHRA was intended to take the SCTA concept nationwide, since the same people who resisted the creation of the General Manager's job, the Hot Rod Show, the BNI and the SCTA/AMA drag race at the Tustin Blimp Base fought against my father's efforts to expand the SCTA across the country. The NHRA evolved into what it is today, but the original intention was to create a national SCTA kind of car clubs to keep kids from street racing and to give them a hot rodding environment similar to the SCTA. I could never understand why the SCTA did not continue the job of General Manager, although what that job did do was concentrate a great deal of power in one man's hands. The SCTA was an egalitarian group and the thought of a strong man was anathema to their beliefs. To this day there are still a few of the old timers alive who remember those days and how the SCTA was split between my father's faction and those who opposed him. Maybe that is why the SCTA dropped the idea after he left. In my opinion the SCTA would be wise to consider bringing back a professional General Manager who actually runs the association, with the President of the SCTA returning to the job of presiding over the board and overseeing the GM. Having a General Manager dilutes the power and authority of the Board of Directors and the Club Representatives. The General Manager in effect does the job that the Board and Club reps are now doing. But to be truthful, there was only one GM of the SCTA who could successfully create that job, maintain order and discipline among the clubs and there may never be another like him.

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It is that time of the year when we gather up the racing season's hottest memorabilia and sell it to benefit the Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary. You can only bid online at autoweek.com. Bidding ends at 5 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 1. Don't call. Don't whine. Just give as much as you can and get some unique goodies. Dutch Mandel, Associate Publisher, AutoWeek Magazine

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We would like to thank Dutch Mandel and Autoweek magazine for their continued support of the Autoweek/CARA Auction. The on-line auction to benefit CARA Charities has begun. We have a fabulous collection of items, art work and one of a kind racing experiences for fans of all types of racing. The need in our communities is so great right now and CARA wants to help. We need your assistance to raise the funds. Please go to autoweek.com and click on the CARA auction site. Bid and win great gifts for the holidays. CARA Charities is also accepting donations at our office at 2915 N. High School Road, Indianapolis, IN 46224. Please help CARA by spreading the word and forward this email to all your friends and colleagues. Thank you, Cathleen Lyon, Executive Director, CARA Charities, 2915 N High School Rd, Indianapolis, Indiana 46204

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Gone Racin'…Blood on the Wall, a novel by Deke Houlgate. Book review by Richard Parks, photographic consultant Roger Rohrdanz
Blood on the Wall is a novel by Deke Houlgate and the background setting is the famed Indy 500 open wheel race at the Brickyard, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Houlgate has been a reporter, writer and public relations person since the early 1950's. Experts say that a novelist does his best job when part of the hero reflects his own persona. They also say that a writer should write on subjects that he knows best. Houlgate's alter-ego hero, or anti-hero if you wish, is Jack Allen, who is as flawed, but human as any fictional character. Jack is a reporter for that other paper, the poor cousin of the famous Times in Los Angeles. Blood on the Wall is peppered with characters, large and small, important and obscure, yet woven together in a way that makes them unforgettable. The plot isn't original, there are other novels with the same themes, but few blood and guts detective stories weave auto racing as seamlessly into the plot as this book does. It's possible to pick apart the characters, the plot and the loss of an adverb or two and feel that an adequate book review has been done. Normally a reviewer gives the pros and cons at the beginning, then a rating at the end of the review. I'm going to change that and tell you that Blood on the Wall is a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. Houlgate has a natural style and his hero, Jack Allen a panache that deserves to be serialized in future novels. What I'm not sure of is whether the author knows just how good a writer he is and how popular his hero can be. There are plenty of reasons to pan this novel. The author sometimes confuses background with preachiness. The chapters are short and terse, making Hemingway look wordy. There are characters that need more lines and description. The biggest flaw is that Houlgate stops short of telling us more about the real star of Blood on the Wall, the racetrack, reporters, participants and the race itself.
All these minor flaws are overwhelmed by the action and story. Blood on the Wall is a novel that is very readable and hard to put down. There are 36 chapters covering 169 pages and the action is continuous and orderly. The reader can put this book down at any time and then pick it back up and continue reading with no loss in concentration or plot development. I read Blood on the Wall from cover to cover in four hours and found the plot interesting, twisting and turning as a good detective story should be. The story follows Jack Allen as he leaves Los Angeles to cover the Indy 500 in the early 1970's. Jack says goodbye to Gloria, his drop dead gorgeous live-in girlfriend, as he heads for his plane. Gloria asks him if he will be faithful and avoid the crowds of young racing groupies and Jack avoids her question by asking her if she will stay away from the surfing boy-toys. For novel readers this is a dead giveaway that hanky-panky is right around the corner. For Jack, fidelity endures from the last kiss he gives to Gloria until he eyes Laura on the plane, a married woman with children who is even more gorgeous than his girlfriend. Jack goes from glance to lust to passion and not long after the plane lands, he and Laura find themselves entangled in bed together. Jack is a consummate professional and manages to break away from the lovely Laura long enough to track down stories, attend the press conferences and parties and get himself kidnapped. He breaks one story, finds himself embroiled in theft and drug rings and manages to save several people from doom. The characters peopling Blood on the Wall include Bob the Doorman, the unassuming and kindly old man, Barker and Torquemada, who admit him to the press room. Eric, Sylvester, Delisle, Janice and Eric are part of the Speedway and enmeshed in the stolen pin story. No sooner does Jack solve one problem than another presents itself.
The author introduces us to Nancy, the beauty queen turned weather girl, an old friend of Jack, the reporter with a girl in every town. Sparks fly, passion rages and yes, Jack double books two ladies for the same sleep-over. Randy reporters and roving sailors are nothing new to literature and we could easily dismiss this as an attempt to sell more books, but we all know men like Jack. Houlgate gives us a wide range of goofy and fascinating characters; Toad, Dinkus, Sheila the Femi-Nazi, hot-tempered Ruell, Fleming the thief, and Di Stefano the Las Vegas hood. There's murder, kidnapping, theft, lies, infidelity, sex, racism, Ku Klux Klan shenanigans, drug dealing, gang warfare, good and bad cops and many more plot lines. In the end the bad guys lose and the good guys win, but a few innocents get in the way of the turf wars. The Indy 500 is just as wild as real life and the fans drink too much, party too long, and fight too openly at the drop of a hat. Nancy leaves the scene, Gloria becomes a footnote and Laura is beaten by one of the gangsters. The book ends before the race begins for it is the event itself that has grown to legendary proportions and that's what Houlgate has so successfully portrayed in his novel. I would have liked to see Blood on the Wall fleshed out to around 220 pages and the women given more character. Everything seems to be written from a man's perspective. The victories and the defeats seem to come too easy, the women too willing to jump into just any man's arms and the outcomes barely in doubt. Nevertheless, Jack Allen is a reporter with a personality and a nose for news that is just too good to lose after just one novel. Houlgate has to continue the Jack Allen series and give him a Raymond Chandler edginess to him. Here's a chance to put another character up there with Sam Spade and the other old detectives we love so much. It would be a great loss if Houlgate ended his budding career in novel writing, because Jack Allen can only break more hearts and solve more crimes with growing legions of gorgeous babes ready to try and corral our hero. Blood on the Wall is published by Infinity Publishing at 1-877-BUY BOOK. The ISBN# is 0-7414-4019-9. Price is US $12.95. Rating is 7 out of 8 sparkplugs.
Gone Racin' is at [email protected].

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Gone Racin'… The Salt of the Earth - Ab Jenkins' Own Story of Speed. Book review by Richard Parks, photographic consultant Roger Rohrdanz

The Salt of the Earth - Ab Jenkins' Own Story of Speed, by Ab Jenkins and Wendell J. Ashton, is a small paperback book that has seen at least 3 printings. For land speed racers and fans, this book is very special and has taken on a special meaning. The book measures 5 � inches in width by 7 � inches in height, with 130 pages on high quality glossy paper. There are 70 black and white photographs, but none in color, since the book precedes color photography. The photographs are old and somewhat dull and grainy. This doesn't take away from the value of the book because of its historicity and originality. There are three letters, three charts, one map and one drawing of Jenkins' famous Mormon Meteor. The book has a Prologue, Foreword by W. D. Rishel, Preface, 13 chapters and a first class Index with over five pages. The Index is better than any that I've ever seen. Rishel first saw the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1896 and is a legendary figure. He wrote the Foreword in 1939, long before many land speed racers were even born. The Salt of the Earth - Ab Jenkins' Own Story of Speed is not only a classic in the way that the Bible is revered among Jews and Christians, but it has a story to tell that is fascinating. Or at least it is to those who love land speed racing. The book is self-published by the late author and by his son, Marvin Jenkins of St George, Utah through the Dixie College Foundation. Their address is 225 South 700 East, St George, Utah. Or contact Autobooks/Aerobooks at 1-818-845-0707.

The Salt of the Earth - Ab Jenkins' Own Story of Speed tells the story of pioneers in the taming of the West and the taming of speed. Those that grew up and knew Ab Jenkins and those that made the Salt Flats famous, marveled at their accomplishments. These men were accepted as human, with frailties and talents, driven by a need to tame speed. Today, we look back and can barely comprehend what those pioneers went through, because it seems so impossible a task for any man to accomplish. The Bonneville Salt Flats was known for some time. Pioneer scouts had seen the broad expanse of salt a decade or more prior to the trek of the ill-fated Donner Party in 1846. The salt caused delays to the wagon train, which helped to put them behind schedule and thus face destruction in the snows of the Sierra Nevadas that marked them for infamy. Trails were blazed to the north and to the south of the barren wastes. Rishel set out to cross the desert in 1896 to chart a course across the salt pans for an intercontinental bicycle race. Rishel returned to the lakebed in 1907, this time in a Pierce Arrow. Teddy Tetzlaff discovered for himself the unique qualities that the salt desert provided in his speed runs of 1914. Rishel and Tetzlaff set the example that inspired Ab Jenkins to take his need for speed to the salt. Jenkins was of Welsh descent, barrel-chested, square-jawed, powerful and optimistic. He became a tireless promoter of the salt flats and of his native Utah and the pioneers who settled there.

The Salt of the Earth - Ab Jenkins' Own Story of Speed relates Ab Jenkins life that was centered on the Bonneville Salt Flats. He did far more than set long distance records and speed runs. The book isn't big enough to tell his entire story, but it's a start and it will enthrall you. I've seen the Mormon Meteor, or what is called car #3. The car is huge and powerful, a roadster grown up on steroids. But there is nothing ugly about this car. Its engineering and design proved to be very aerodynamic and the records that Jenkins set over 70 years ago are still standing. But perhaps it is the man himself that is unique. Racecars can be designed and built today that will break old records, but can we also design and build men to equal what Ab did? On oval courses at the salt flats, Ab would set records of one, three, six, twelve and twenty-four hours at a time. He set records for 50 all the way up to 5000 Kilometers and from 50 to 3000 miles, all in one effort. While endurance racing has been around for ages, LeMans and Sebring come to mind, they are team efforts. Ab was the team. Occasionally a driver such as Babe Stapp would take over for an hour, but Ab would usually drive the distance. I've talked to big time endurance drivers and they tell me that there was no one like Ab Jenkins. Danny Oakes, the famous Midget racer, told me how he used to hire out as a car company driver in endurance runs. The big cars would usually break down long before the tests were over and the drivers would alternate after only a few hours. Ab drove 24 hours or more, straight through, and the Mormon Meteors hardly ever gave him any trouble.

Had Jenkins preferred to bask in the glory all by himself, there was no one to stop him. But he was a man driven by a cause and that was to shout to the world about what a great place Utah and the Bonneville Salt Flats were. He wanted the world to know, especially the Europeans who were always looking for a better place to run their unlimited land speed cars. Jenkins was elected the mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah and used his position to promote the state of Utah as a place to visit. His efforts paid off when Brits such as Sir Malcolm Campbell, Captain George E. T. Eyston and John Cobb came to the salt flats and set their records. He was even prouder when the racers went back to Europe and told everyone what a special place the salt flats were. A group of Southern California land speed racers from the dry lakes came to see him in 1948 to request the right to hold their racing events on the salt flats. He encouraged them and in 1949 they conducted the very first Speed Week land speed race under the sanction of the SCTA (Southern California Timing Association)/BNI. The Bonneville Salt Flats are now home to two organizations, the SCTA and the USFRA (Utah Salt Flats Racing Association) and a total of 4 events are held there annually. The salt flats are also used for individual time trials and for movies and ads. Utah and the Bonneville Salt Flats have grown up and no one would be prouder than Ab Jenkins and his son Marvin. Gone Racin' is at [email protected].

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