SOCIETY OF LAND SPEED RACING HISTORIANS
NEWSLETTER 144 - December 30, 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, Farewell to a local legend December 23rd 2009 by Mike Thomsen, I don't think you have heard but Phyllis died a couple of weeks ago, I could swear that your name was on the mass e-mail I sent about Phyllis around Thanksgiving time, It is my sad duty to inform the club that founding member John Cramer passed away last night, Lou Sattelmaier passed away, Connie Booth once married to Chuck Booth is battling a reoccurrence of cancer and their daughter Jennifer has asked that we offer up prayers, I just wanted to pass on to you my letter below to Jim Miller, Don't forget to look up Wendy Jeffries' Bonneville Racing News, We now have launched our website for Fairmont Butte Motorsports Park, Racing Clubs: Historians listed for each club, Sad times indeed for the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum volunteers, Mr Parks (I also sent this to the Hot Rod Hotline site) I am Dennis aXe Sylvia, Dear Supporters We now have launched our website for Fairmont Butte Motorsports Park, The Detroit Science Center has reached an agreement with the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (MHFA) to bring a significant portion of the Hall's collection of vehicles and displays to the Science Center, I started to read your piece on the Conze's - You seemed to left Ted Halibrand out of the paragraph where you cited all the names of the SoCal folks who had made major contributions to open wheel racing, Please Help Save the Oklahoma City State Fair Speedway Petition, I am Dennis Sylvia also known as aXe on the web, Gone Racin'…Dragster and Funny Car Memories Southern California in the Sixties by Don Montgomery, Gone Racin'… Hot Rod Memories Relived Again by Don Montgomery, BEETLEBALL Coast to Coast Inaugural Trophy Dash - a.k.a. PopSICKle 48

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President's Corner:  
I was checking out forums the other day on the net and ran across one labeled "Speed on Sand." Being someone that is always on the lookout for such stuff it was look a little deeper. Upon opening the forum the first question out of the box was, "Have there ever been races or speed record attempts on any of Europe's beaches like there have been in America at Daytona or at the Salt Flats? If not, where did we Europeans push the speed barriers?" Looking a little deeper here are some names of venues that were talked about in England and its neighboring islands. Birkdale Sands, Southport (north of Liverpool, England). Brean Sands, Burnham (west of Bristol, England). Magilligan Strand (Dublin, Ireland). Pendine Sands (west of Swansea, Wales). Redcar (south of Newcastle upon Tyne, England). Rossbeigh Strand (south of Dublin, Ireland). Saltburn or Saltburn-by-the-Sea (near Redcar, south of Newcastle upon Tyne, England). Skegness (east of Lincoln, England, on the Wash). Velvet Strand (north of Dublin, Ireland). Waterloo Sands, Wallasey (near Liverpool, England). Weston-super-Mare (west of Bristol, England and near Burnham on the Sea). Vazon Bay, Guernsey, Channel Isles.

We know about Pendine and Perry Thomas' crash in 'Babs' but the others I've never heard of. I kept looking and ran across this next.
"There were speed trials on Fano Beach in Denmark from 1919 to 1924. Malcolm Campbell went there with his Sunbeam racer in 1923. I think his best speed was 146 mph. A tire came off his car and killed a young boy and there are some reports that Campbell spent a bit of time in jail over this." Ol' Burt Munro set speed records on the sand in that other hemisphere (New Zealand) decades before he came to Bonneville. I'm sure the same thing happened in Europe and South America too, but who has any records of them? Yikes, there are all sorts of unknown stuff. But what about in America. We know about Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach and one on the eastern seaboard at the turn of the last century. The S.C.T.A. had a race at Laguna Salada down Mexico way about forty years ago and some speed records were set at Pismo Beach in the late 1930's. Past that it's a blank. The bigger problem is even if we find a race was held someplace, finding info on it is even harder.

The French claim that land speed racing began there, but what about this little ditty I found. In the book Transportation Progress written
by Arthur Pound in 1934 it says, "Of special interest is the sailing chariot, known in China, and brought to its peak in Holland, where one
designed by Simon Stevin, about 1600, covered forty-two miles in two hours (about 22 mph), carrying twenty-eight persons, and was used quite regularly." Who said land speed racers needed engines? The first steam powered vehicle was supposed to have run in 1784 and I bet somebody timed it. Around 1800 trains started showing up and in 1846 one ran 62 mph. Kit Foster's book on Stanley Steamers reports a month before Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat set the world speed record at 39.24 mph, the Stanley's covered a mile in two minutes, 11 seconds or about 29 mph. If we're serious, every one of these kinds of events or stunts should be looked into if possible so we can do a definitive study on the birth of our sport. Looks like the New Year will just give us more things to look into.

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Editorial:   
We have issues. One writer said that the editorials are long. He's right about that, they sometimes are. Jim Miller always seems to give just the facts and ends quickly, although I try and squeeze another hundred words out of him. Roger Rohrdanz, our photographic editor, will write a few captions, but getting him to utter more than 5 words is like pulling teeth. So that leaves me and I more than make up for the others who write or help put the newsletter "to bed" each week. My view is that you, the readers, can always cut out what you don't want, but if I cut the material down how will you know that I didn't overlook something important. The second reason is that many of you don't consider yourselves to be historians, but that's what this society is all about. It isn't a blog and it isn't an entertainment magazine. You signed on to read and to contribute to a historical review on straight-line racing and that's what we do here. If you are only reading, and worse, criticizing without contributing, then sadly you are on the wrong website. Each and every one of you is part of the process. You are part of the society even though we have no duties, dues or responsibilities. Jim, Roger and I need your input. We need to hear from you with what knowledge you possess. Maybe that's just a little, or maybe it's a lot, but whatever you know, add what you know to what we have already done.

On another issue, a reader said recently that the newsletter seems to have a slanted viewpoint. He said that there are only a few names that show up every issue and he mentioned Burly Burlile and his Volkswagens and Ron Main and his streamliners. I would add that Chris Brown at the Petersen Automotive Museum is a regular contributor too. Okay, the reader is right. They do write in and they share what they have and they are proud of what they do. Since I don't have a great deal of time to call and visit people to dig up a story, I have to make do with what is sent in to me and Burly, Ron and Chris keep the newsletter filled. Why don't I hear from YOU? What is wrong with your fingers? If you can receive the newsletter, certainly you can type out an email and send it to me or to Jim Miller. If I don't mention your car, roadster or streamliner it's not because you aren't important, but because you don't communicate. Miller asked me facetiously why can't I remember everything and cover all things. He said that to me after forgetting what he was trying to do. I've got to go over to Miller's house and see it for myself. I have this idea that it's a 1927 Burbank bungalow with a big back yard and one of those garages that are simply an enclosed carport. I'll bet that the insides of his home are filled, floor to ceiling, with books, photographs, computer gear and collectibles. It will be just like my house, only neater. The importance is not in the amount of records that Jim has accumulated in his life, but in his propensity to share his knowledge with others. I need the rest of the members to share what they have with us as well.

Phyllis Devine passed away nearly a month ago and I'm sure that Bob Falcon mentioned it to me and that I forgot. Worse, I probably wrote about it and forgot that it's in a previous newsletter. But Phyllis was a special lady and a mentor in a way and therefore if I publish a second obituary or do a second editorial column, then bare with me, because this lady deserves all the praise that we can give her. Phyllis started The Alternate magazine about three decades ago. There are better sources than myself to speak of Phyllis, but I believe I have the basic facts right. She was devoted to racing, mainly oval track, and concentrated on the past, though she took all of my articles regardless of how modern they might have been. She was a committed historian who valued the past and promoted racing's golden years. She understood the value of heritage and honor. She was honest and forthright and her little magazine was a gem among all other publications. The Alternate was hardly a magazine, or a newsletter. It was raw and sort of plebeian in its simple construction. It was hardly as beautifully constructed as The Rodders Journal or hundreds of automotive magazines that you can find on the newsstands. Her circulation was around a 1000 or so and the first thought was, "What is this simple newsletter and what does it mean?" The Alternate was a simple, gray, folded newsletter, hardly fancy and the writing was terse and to the point. The photographs were grainy and difficult to see.

But it was a delightful publication. Phyllis put her heart and her soul into publishing it monthly and I know that it was a financial burden to her. If she broke even financially it was a miracle. She didn't charge for ads if you had a subscription and if you didn't buy a subscription, the ads were very reasonably priced. The membership subscription rolls were people whom we all respected. Once she sent me a group email and I looked at the individuals who subscribed and I was really impressed. I asked her if I could add her names to my email address book and she wrote back and asked me not to. Usually I don't inquire, but Phyllis is a lady I admire and so I deleted her list. Her stories and editorials were crisp, to the point and factual. She didn't accept negative gossip and she kept her magazine focused on saving the stories and biographies of her readers and of the racing world that she loved. Many people wrote for her, including myself, and her list of friends was huge. She influenced me right from the first time that I saw a copy of The Alternate. The Society of Land Speed Racing Historians Newsletter is eerily familiar to The Alternate magazine. Phyllis wanted to save the history and heritage of auto racing years before the SLSRH was conceived. She got the racers to write down their biographies and to tell their stories about events and races. I suppose that Jim Miller and I could have just as easily joined The Alternate and sent our material there instead of creating the SLSRH, but Phyllis could never have absorbed all that we sent her.

The Alternate was a dinosaur in a way, using a written format and sent by postal mail. It was a simple paper format, folded in two, then the various folio leafs were stapled together to form a booklet or pamphlet. Nothing fancy, but the content was pure gold and we were mesmerized by each issue that came out. I often asked Phyllis why she didn't expand and go out on the internet. Growth I thundered on to her, but Phyllis always patiently explained that her little paper served a need and that was to let people express their feelings and tell their history to others. Phyllis kept the newsletter personal and homey and warm. It was her baby, a special source of joy for herself and her readers. To receive The Alternate and to be a part of it was to be a part of a larger family. She understood her readership and what they wanted and so it stayed as it was, something very family to the 1950's, but a little outdated for the 21st century. There was no use arguing with Phyllis and besides, she almost always turned out to be right. For such a small publication with so few pages, the postage itself costing almost as much as the subscription cost of the magazine, the content limited, how could this newsletter survive as long as it did. Yes, the liabilities almost always seemed to doom TheAlternate, but it survived and thrived and it was due to the lady who lovingly put it together, week after week, year after year for over 4 decades or more. Phyllis was The Alternate and her passing leaves us all a little poorer. But she taught us well and today there are many among us who paid attention and learned how to publish a newsletter from the master herself.

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Farewell to a local legend. December 23rd, 2009, by Mike Thomsen.
There is some sad news in the world of racing today. Auto racing historian, writer, thrill seeker, and all-around good guy Crocky Wright has passed away. Crocky was a true character, I got to spend a few hours with him at a collectibles show earlier this year, and I truly enjoyed it. He liked to relay the story of being fired from his job as a tour bus driver at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, because he liked to take the buses around the turns a little too fast. Crocky liked to say he was the only person ever fired for driving too fast at IMS. He was an author who penned extensive histories of eastern U.S. racing, including a book about former Speedway ace Johnny Thomson and a history of the Nutley Velodrome. Another book, Fate Guides My Destiny, was very well received. He drove in thrill shows and performed stunts way past most people's "retirement" age. But perhaps he's best known for his tireless promotion of a driver from Indiana. From the time he first laid eyes on Tony Stewart, he knew 'Smoke' would be a star, and Crocky let everyone know it. The two became very close friends, and I know Tony will miss his biggest fan. RIP Crocky

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I don't think you have heard, but Phyllis died a couple of weeks ago. Here is my vintage address; http://openwheelracers3.com/Vintage.html.
The web site address is www.openwheelracers3.com. I do have most of my short stories on disc or on an alternate 3 tera bite hard drive. I started writing about 10 years ago at www.openwheelracing.com, then www.indyracereports.com and then openwheelracing.com now. We have our own OWR3. Sad but the other site owners have all passed on and their sites were really not their own but some one else had title. They were all lost with all their content, glad I saved my stuff. The last one lost in lieu payments a mere $35 payment and it wasn't even their own site. Weird why they do all that work and not own the website? The last one was done by John Levan and he surely had a minimum of 10 hours a day labor in it at 6 days a week, until he died. aXe
aXe: I hadn't heard about Phyllis Devine. I was told that she was in the hospital and was expected to be released. I will call Bob Falcon and see what he knows, since he keeps in touch with Phyllis and the family.
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This Week of Interest, December 8th, 2009 Posted in News, by Patricia Lee Yongue (Sent in by aXe, Dennis Sylvia)
Phyllis Devine, The long time editor of The Alternate: A Chronicle of 20th, Century Motor Racing, Grantville Pennsylvania, passed away Tuesday, December 1, 2009 in the Select Specialty Hospital, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Phyllis was a remarkable woman and a true friend. She shied, however, from accepting the public credit she deserved. One major service to racing history she performed was publishing the recollections of various American race car drivers of the early years before their stories were lost. She was brave, too, often printing articles in the little homespun "journal" she founded and edited for 21 years that rankled some readers who seemed less interested in racing history than in their version of racing history. She published racers and historians alike. I was delighted to see VT's Michael Lynch writing for her a few months ago. Although The Alternate dealt only with American racing history through 1970, Phyllis was happy to print my article on the French Bugatti/Alfa racer Helle Nice's American tour in 1930. She was implacable, however, when it came to the visuals I sent, one of which was a photo of the dancer-turned-racer in her tutu. That image, Phyllis said, was inappropriate! She printed the others. Surviving are: her husband, Joseph Devine, racing enthusiast and race car builder, a son, Thomas M. Gutzler and his wife, Grace Lynn, of New Oxford, 2 grandchildren, Jessica and Joseph Gutzler of Florida. She was preceded in death by son Wallace Gutzler. We will sincerely miss Phyllis-and The Alternate, truly a part of motorsports publishing history and our condolences go out to Joe and family. See http://www.velocetoday.com/archives/3983.
aXe: Thank you for the obituary even though it is a hard blow to our racing fraternity. There are so few good historical magazines, newsletters and websites on auto racing. We will truly miss Phyllis and her newsletter.

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I could swear that your name was on the mass e-mail I sent about Phyllis around Thanksgiving time. But here is the whole story. I spoke with her husband Joe Devine Thanksgiving week and he informed me she was back in the hospital but was doing better and was due to be discharged in a few days. We chatted about her tribulations of being in the hospital then in a Rehab Center then home then back in the hospital and on and on. All of this started in early August. I had a phone chat with Phyllis one day in mid-November and she was getting her strength back then in a few days I heard she was back between the sheets. I called Joe again just after Thanksgiving and he related that she was all set to come home a "Poof" she was gone. The death occurred the day before I had called! When I tried to reach Joe again I received the message that the phone had been disconnected. After several tries at getting in touch with him I was resigned that it would be an exercise in futility when "Ka boom" he called me. He has been investigating methods so he can continue publishing The Alternate. He and a printer, who did the composition and printing are going to make a try but they need some editorial, copy fitting and layout help. I briefed Joe that in this age the editor and lay out person does not need to be onsite. But Joe needs to gain enough computer knowledge so he can manage the effort. He expects to have an answer to me after the first of the year, and I will be speaking to some possibly capable folks to fill Phyllis' shoes. I will let you know how things progress. Bob Falcon
Bob: And so you probably did. I have no doubt that if we search the back issues of the SLSRH that we will find that you did inform me and that I published your letter. That's the problem when you have an editor like myself with such a faulty memory, or perhaps more accurately, an editor who has stuffed so much information in his head that he can't remember what's there and what's not. It's also an indication of how important it is to have an index. But it just takes too much time to create indexes. I hope the The Alternate can be saved. It is a wonderful little publication. Phyllis accepted my articles as well and told me years ago that she wanted a story on Black Rock. I never got that to her and now I feel bad about that. She was a wonderful person and very fair and focused on accuracy and facts. She will be severely missed

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It is my sad duty to inform the club that founding member John Cramer passed away last night. I don't know any details. I received a call from Bill Romo this morning informing me. Bill told me there will be no services. Chuck Edwall
Chuck, Jack Dolan and friends of John Cramer: If you have a biography or obituary for John, or just a remembrance of his racing career or club activities, would you share them with The Society of Land Speed Racing Historians Newsletter at www.landspeedracing.com. I'm the editor and you can send your comments to me. I would like to have bios on all the land speed and early 1950's drag racers before they pass away. It's no fun learning about people after they have passed on. We have 40 bios on hand and that's really not enough. I want your bios and those that you know have raced in clubs for SCTA, Russetta and other timing associations.

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Lou Sattelmaier passed away, see http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=431332. Long time Drag racer, Lou Sattelmaier passed away Monday December 28, 2009. He was 74. He ran a gasser and Jet powered Funny Cars called Sonic Thunder, with a J-60 Pratt &Whitney engine at 6000 pounds of thrust. He ran a quarter-mile in 5.879 at 270.27 in his 1989 Ford Probe funny car. This report was taken from the HAMB and sent to us by Michael Kacsala.

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Connie Booth, once married to Chuck Booth, is battling a reoccurrence of cancer and their daughter Jennifer has asked that we offer up prayers to give both Connie and the family strength as they fight the battle. Let's all remember Connie as well as all other racers who currently are battling the big C. Betty Packard

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I just wanted to pass on to you my letter below to Jim Miller. Your help in putting me in contact with Jim is truly appreciated. Also, I am now collaborating on a collectors edition (read low production) numbered book on the history of VW's in land speed racing through a publisher in England based on a story I wrote for Hot VW's magazine back in the mid-nineties. The chronology you requested I am updating as we speak for the book and will forward a copy to you for the Societies files as soon as it is complete and the publisher gives me the O.K. Once the book is substantially making progress I will let you know so you can add the information to the newsletter. Have a great holiday and as always, I thank you for your continuing support of our small segment of the sport. Burly Burlile
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Merry Christmas Jim:
A few months ago you tried to help me identify the photo of a VW bug taken at El Mirage for my VW LSR history files. You were unable to find any reference to a car #28 in the 1963 programs available. Well I wanted to share with you my good luck. We have not only identified the event, but the driver and circumstances of the photo. The young man standing next to the car was Gary Enoch, later a very well known Formula V driver and the event was not an SCTA meet, but a Pacific Sports Car Club event which was basically a high speed slalom over a mile long and laid out across the dry lake bed and held once a year. The slalom course usually had a straightaway of about 1/2 mile and was preceded by and followed by curves to make the sports car guys happy.
Gary gave the photo to Darrell Vittone over 40 years ago who recently passed it on to Glenn Miller who passed it on to me this spring. When I finally got hold of Darrell, he remembered the name of the driver who also by chance happened to be a fellow I worked with at a VW dealer eight years after the photo was taken. In fact I even drove his FV at Willow Springs Raceway during a practice day once in the early seventies.
With a little help from ZabaSearch and just three phone calls I was able to locate and visit with Gary and renew an old acquaintance while eliminating the bug from any LSR history consideration. Your help was truly appreciated and I wanted to help close the file on the search.
As of a couple of weeks ago, a friend and I found a publisher for a collectors book we are writing on VW's that raced in LSR events (it took a couple of years to put the program together!) based on the history I have gathered and maintained over the past two decades. By chance would you know of any on-line source that might have early (1955 to 1977) daily results (both Bonneville and El Mirage) or records posted that I can access? I am in the process of updating all of my information since it is imperative that anything that goes into the book be as accurate as possible and the ability to see and review the daily or event information would be of great assistance. Have a great holiday and super racing season. Burly Burlile
Burly: I will be glad to do a book review for you. Check out the newsletters and read the reviews that I've done so far. You will see that the look of a book is secondary to the construction and research of the book. A good index is a must. Readers like to use books as a resource and that's why indexes are so important. Tables, graphs and photographs should be well documented, clear to read and captioned. You can never have enough captions. Readers can always skip what they don't like, but they can't read what isn't written.

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Don't forget to look up Wendy Jeffries' Bonneville Racing News on http://www.roadsters.com/brn/. Wendy is at [email protected].

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We now have launched our website for Fairmont Butte Motorsports Park. Please check it out and bookmark it on your computer at www.FairmontButteMotorsportsPark.com. If you can get the word out to all of your members and/or even put a note on your website with a link to our homepage telling of the new website - that would be greatly appreciated. We need to get the word out so hopefully more people can send in letters/emails to the county with their support of the project before the next public hearing on Feb 6th, 2010. Please help rally your members - All of your support has been a big help - we are so close - one more huge wave of support should do it. Meanwhile - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each and every one of you. Thank you again for your support. Respectfully, Thomas E. Malloy

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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
Idlers........................................................................Michael Brennan
Lakers......................................................................none
LSR.........................................................................Mike Cook Jr
Milers.......................................................................none
Road Runners...........................................................Jerry Cornelison
Rod Riders...............................................................none
San Diego Roadster Club..........................................none
Sidewinders..............................................................Ron Main
Super Fours..............................................................Roy Creel
Throttlers..................................................................Michael Brennan

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Sad times indeed for the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum volunteers. The CEO of the Western Reserve Historical Society, has single-handedly taken what was at one time the third best rated automobile collection in the nation and is totally dismantling it. She is using the automobile collection as a cash cow to pay off debt incurred over the years by misuse of endowments and annuities entitled to the Crawford collection. Other properties of the WRHS www.wrhs.org are money pits as well as misspent funds many of which are unaccountable. Her three year contract is up this spring and she is desperate to eliminate a 5 million+ dollar debt. The volunteers have been told to review a handbook and sign an agreement that includes a "gag" provision limiting conversations about the Crawford such as the email I am sending you. Three of the volunteers, one an attorney who has been a volunteer since the beginning of the program, have received registered letters from the WRHS informing them they are prohibited from returning to the museum. She cannot see the value the volunteers have added to the collection as well as the invaluable good publicity and community involvement such as nursing home (Alzheimer's patients), local cruise-ins, and auto shows. None of these have any value to her. I have not signed the volunteer's handbook and as I write to you now I know of no volunteer who has. Many believe that the loud protests of the sale and dismantling of the Crawford collection has caused the closure of the Restoration facility and the "Gag" clause as a vindictive action by our administrator. I have enclosed several links to the Cleveland Plain Dealer articles regarding this starting back in August, 2009. Please read these articles and comments after them and please if you are inclined to post a comment at the end of the articles. My handle on the blog is HJmaniac. Also if so feel inclined can you mention something about this terrible situation in your newsletter as well.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/08/western_reserve_historical_soc_1.html.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1249720307121020.xml&coll=2.
http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/125067064055920.xml&coll=2.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/09/post_31.html
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/10/crawford_auto-aviation_museum.html.
http://topics.cleveland.com/tag/crawford%20auto-aviation%20museum/index.html.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/12/western_reserve_historical_soc_2.html.
By the way, they sold the Balenger Special at RM Hershey auction this year. I and a team of four other volunteers spent over a year freshening it up and it was displayed at Amelia Island in 2004. The Museum Director is basically ignored and has very little say in these decisions. I am not sure what the outcome will be but for now my involvement with the Crawford is limited to any research that Allan Unrein would ask me to do as a friend. The leader of the volunteer group does not want to break up the group and is looking for projects for us to work on. There are a lot of talented people on all levels to lose. Are you still emailing the newsletter? I have not received one in a long time and I would like to receive them again. I have enclosed a couple of pix of our Austro-Daimler Prince Henry that is in mid-restoration by volunteers but the CEO has put a stop to that project and all others also. Happy and prosperous new year, Mike Kacsala
Mike: The newsletter for The Society of Land Speed Racing Historians (SLSRH) is no longer sent out as an email, but it is available free of charge by simply going to www.landspeedracing.com where you can read the latest newsletter and all archived issues. I have some comments, but I prefer not to address them directly to the websites that you mentioned, but as a response or an editorial in the SLSRH. There are reasons for that, including possible legal issues, but personally I feel that the SLSRH is a forum for responsible researchers, historians and qualified people, both amateur and professional in the field of Automotive History and straight-line racing. This way, any comments that we make are strictly our own and not subject to oversight by other groups. But you may feel free to copy what we say in our editorials and readers comments and broadcast that to other websites and news sources. We feel that the members of the SLSRH contain some of the people in automotive racing sports who have earned a reputation and therefore we are cautious about how we react to situations in our field.
I do not know the CEO personally and will withhold comment on her actions, but other members of the SLSRH have held a fairly and uniform negative opinion of her. We have not heard from her, nor will we force her to comment on her actions. She is only accountable to her employers and board of directors. One of the reasons that we have formed the SLSRH is to search out and find suitable institutions that would take valuable artifacts and save them from destruction. In this regard, we have been rather disappointed. This is in no way a criticism of museum directors or their staffs, though in some cases their actions have been suspect. However, many directors, CEOs or administrators have excellent reputations. We have seen some outrageous conduct on occasion though. This is why, at the present time, Jim Miller and I, along with the some 700 members of the SLSRH have not given our recommendation to anyone. There are numerous individuals with collections that have come to us and asked us if we could take their collections, or direct them to a place that would take their collections intact.
What do these avid and committed collectors have in mind? They have assembled wonderful and historically important artifacts of immense value to the historian and researcher, but they have also put a great deal of their personality into the very collection they can no longer watch over. These individuals may have valuable cars, documents, photographs, memoirs, trophies, timing tags, tapes, collectibles and relics that historians need in order to tell the story of the automobile, auto racing and other related fields. Collectors have put their heart and soul into their life-long work and they want to be recognized; perhaps by a wing in a library or museum. But museums and libraries have limited space, already full to the rafters and budgets that have been savaged by cutbacks in funding. For as long as Jim Miller and I can remember, going back decades, the common practice has been to accept a collection, but only promise to keep it intact if a monetary endowment is pledged and even then the museums often renege on their commitments.
Some museum directors honor their words and refuse to break up collections, but directors are often fired and replaced by men and women who will sell off valuable parts of a collection. Directors and curators are constantly evaluating what they have in their collections and seeing how much room they have to exhibit their artifacts and how much money they have in their budgets. It's like a triage unit in a trauma center; the doctors take the most serious cases and make the non-emergent patients wait, even if they are in pain. So it is with a museum, where a prized collection comes in and if it is more valuable than the other collections already at the museum, then the more valuable artifacts stay and the other artifacts are sold. This means that on average, whatever you donate to a museum, unless it has immeasurable value, will be sold off. My father, brother and I have donated, lent or given numerous articles and we know that they will be sold off at auction, on eBay or at raffles. I have no illusions that most artifacts will end up that way. Once we have understood that horrible conclusion, and then we can at least say, "Sold off but not thrown out." There's a difference in that phrase. Collectors who buy valuable artifacts bring in revenue to the museum and will carefully look after their new purchase.
I always advocate that automotive relics, cars and valuables be left to family members, go to area museums or be sold to collectors with an impeccable reputation for keeping the objects safe into the next generation, AND allow historians a chance to research the objects. While I say this, it is important to add a caveat and advice to the Cleveland Museum. If they get a reputation for desperation and financial need, or even a crisis management style, donations of money and sellable artifacts and collections will dry up and vanish. Then it will become a downward spiral, selling off more cars and collections to pay the bills and debts, receiving less revenue and donations, forcing even greater sales. You see, governments generally practice zero accounting, so if the museum brings in more money through sales of donated artifacts, then the government reduces the money that they give to the budget. It becomes a losing proposition with no way out. Sales of a museum's donated items must be done discreetly, with agreement of the staff. To make a habit of selling off artifacts is the quickest way to send an institution into insolvency.
Without knowing the circumstances, neither Jim Miller nor I will criticize the CEO, even though the outward signs of discontent among her staff and volunteers speak volumes. The fact that so many people have spoken up indicates that things are not going well in Cleveland and thus if we were asked to make a recommendation concerning donating to the Cleveland Museum, we would have to refuse. There are some very well-run institutions around the country, with budgets in the black, little or no capital building debt, contented staffs and they are a huge benefit to their communities. The museum complex at Balboa Park in San Diego comes to mind. Another is the Don Garlits museum in Ocala, Florida and the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Miller and I look for these places and we do research to find out if they are worthy of endorsements and unfortunately, rarely do we give such recommendations. Large institutions seem to have deep pockets and we just naturally assume that they are financially safe, and then we see them siphon off funds from one area to pay for costs in another area. That's what the Los Angeles County Museum system was accused of doing by the directors at the Petersen. Are small museums any safer from this end rush to save one museum at the expense of others? Not really. We have known many small museums that go under financially and the courts sell off the assets to pay the debts, even when the museum doesn't own the artifact, but has merely borrowed the relics.
Bottom line, our goal is to save artifacts, cars, photographs, biographies and histories, relics and memorabilia wherever we can and sometimes that means we direct such objects to museums. But sometimes that means we direct people away from museums and libraries, because they have no intentions of saving the material, but piecemeal selling off valuable collections. It appears that your CEO has the backing of the board of directors and government officials and that your input has been rejected. There are few options open to you, but I have to raise them nonetheless. The first is to continue to fight for what you believe in. The second is to pay off the debt and try and stabilize the remaining artifacts and rebuild what has been lost. The third is to itemize the objects and where they have gone and try and keep these objects known to the general public and to researchers. The fourth is to let the museum fail. Collections are continually broken up and sold and become part of new collections. This is a poor choice for the city of Cleveland, which has fallen on hard times recently, but it may be a boon to another city that is growing and thriving. As a member of the SLSRH, and membership is free and open to anyone, you can use the pages of our newsletter to raise your cause and to have space in our editorials. We will be glad to air your views and the facts that you present. I'm a little hesitant to confront this CEO and her board at this point, because frankly, if she isn't listening to her constituency in Cleveland, Ohio, she isn't going to give a hoot what Richard Parks in California thinks

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Mr Parks (I also sent this to the Hot Rod Hotline site). I am Dennis aXe Sylvia. We have just in the past few months started a web site at www.openwheelracers3.com. In your article http://www.hotrodhotline.com/feature/friends/05conzebros/, which I stumbled upon while doing a George Benson search, you mentioned George driving a Roadster for Vince. When they bought the Chapman Roadster in Tucson I was the one doing the driving getting that car back to Vince's shop in Watts, California. That is a great article and would be a fine fit to our vintage page, could we get your permission to use it there?
You also mention the down tube car. I have some movies. I took them while testing that car at Whiteman field in Pacoima, California. Testing? Well they ran most laps with the car on the RR! George is now in the process of doing his racing history in book form. It should be out in at least late spring. I worked for George Benson about 7 years in the GMB shop in Campbell, California where around 30 Benson midgets came out of. Thanks for your consideration in the use of that fine article. aXe, aka Dennis Sylvia
Dennis: You may copy that article and add it to your website, as long as you mention the authors and www.hotrodhotline.com as the source. Also, you can do that with any other resource that you find at www.landspeedracing.com that bears my signature. If you want a book review, just let me know and I will do one for you. I met the Conze's late in their lives and had to rely on their memories and those of their friends, especially Rod Larmer. It is so important for people to start their biographies while they are still young and add to it as the years go by. Even a short journal would be great. The Conze's were a very important family in Southern California auto racing and I wish they were still around to tell me more about their fascinating history. I am glad you are starting your website. Send us your new researches as you find out more and we will post it and give you credit for the material.
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Many thanks for the privilege to use some of your stories and pictures. Here is the link to where the Conze article appears. I also added a link to your pages on the right hand side of that vintage page click on it to go there. Let me know if that is ok or if you would like it changed.
I remember going into the first corner at Ascot with Vince Conze and his buddy whose name escapes me now? He was a heavy set guy and he went way back with Vince, it seems. We saw Dick Atkins plow into Don Branson's car as it ricocheted off the wall and that day we lost both of them to that wreck. Sad day for sure. I knew Dick from his BCRA days and he used to come into the shop where I worked. He was trying to get a ride in a midget that we had. The previous weekend of the wreck I met Don Branson and we played black jack at Harrah's all night after the midget races at Lemon Valley speedway in Reno, Nevada. Thanks again, aXe
aXe: Be sure to write down your stories and all that you can remember. You didn't send me a link, but that's alright. All you have to do is tell us the name of the website and we can Google to find it.

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Dear Supporters, We now have launched our website for Fairmont Butte Motorsports Park.  Please check it out and bookmark it on your computer at www.FairmontButteMotorsportsPark.com. If you can put a link to our home page via a short article on your website telling of track website that would be greatly appreciated. We need to get the word out so hopefully more people can send in letters/emails to the county with their support of the project. Every letter/email counts. Please help rally your troops to link to website and write letters before the next public hearing on February 6th, 2010. All of your support has been a big help - we are so close - one more huge wave of support should do it…Meanwhile; Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each and every one of you. Thank you again for your support. Respectfully, Thomas E. Malloy, Fairmont Butte Motorsports Park

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The Detroit Science Center has reached an agreement with the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (MHFA) to bring a significant portion of the Hall's collection of vehicles and displays to the Science Center. The Hall was formerly located in the Novi Expo Center in Novi, Michigan. Cars, exhibits and other displays began arriving at the Detroit museum last week. Among them are Art Arfon's "Green Monster Cyclops," a Kenny Bernstein Funny Car and Sebastien Bourdais' Championship Indy Car. "The Detroit Science Center is the ideal location for the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America to call its new home," said Hall of Fame President Ron Watson. "Both institutions seek to inspire and educate by showcasing technology and engineering. The vehicles in our collection are a testament to this shared mission." "We are honored to welcome the MHFA to the Detroit Science Center and to share its wonderful collection with our visitors," said Detroit Science Center President & CEO Kevin F. Prihod. Admission to the MHFA at the Detroit Science Center is included in Science Center museum admission. The MHFA will honor its new class of Inductees on August 25, 2010. The 22nd Annual Induction Ceremony will be held at the historic Fillmore Detroit. MHFA, PO Box 194, Novi, Michigan 48376. Email; [email protected].

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I started to read your piece on the Conze's. You seemed to left Ted Halibrand out of the paragraph where you cited all the names of the SoCal folks who had made major contributions to open wheel racing. Bob Falcon
   Bob: Not on purpose. Chalk that up to inexperience as a new writer just learning the field and the fact at that time that I didn't have a group of people, including you, to go over and review what I had wrote. I'll also add that even what I have learned since then that I've probably left out many more deserving people than I've mentioned. History is always incomplete and even the best historians and writers fail to see the overall picture. That's why the Society that we have formed is important, so that people can read, then write in and comment. This is considered good journalistic and historical practice, to have what we have researched commented on. We don't take this commentary or attack as a negative, but as a positive, to push truth and facts ahead, continuing to weed out what is not correct and increasing our knowledge of what is correct. Ted Halibrand left a very important footprint and he should not only be remembered, but continually brought back into the discussions so that we can see just how important he was and those that worked for and with him. Since my knowledge of Halibrand is weak, I am relying on you and everyone else who had contact with him to write about him. Send us all that you know and I will publish it in the newsletter.

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Please Help Save the Oklahoma City State Fair Speedway Petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/saveosfs/petition-sign.html.

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I am Dennis Sylvia also known as aXe on the web. I was born and raised in Santa Clara, California and lived in that same house for about 48 years. We moved to Texas in 1992, and though we miss California, we do not miss the influx of people since we left. Texas was one of the fastest growing states when we got here. Today it is nothing like what we found when we first got here. We were in the second to last block south of town then, with nothing but wild fields and lots of trees, green almost all year long with 30+ inches of rain on average per year. There are trees and wild flowers for miles now and more housing tracks then you can count. Yes there is a big spot missing with Phyllis Devine's passing, but the vintage car racing, I think, is growing with no let up in sight. At least the oval part is, though I am not into much of the other auto and bike stuff. Did you know Don Radbruch? At 15 I was in charge of gear changes, brakes and general cleanup of the midget he drove at the Oakland indoors track in 1959. Here is a picture of Ollie Johnson, Harry Stryker, Dennis Sylvia (myself) and George Benson. George drove for Ollie that night and we won the little 500 at San Jose speedway. aXe (Dennis Sylvia)
aXe (Dennis): Thanks for identifying yourself. Too often our readers write in and begin telling us a story without any background and it takes us a while to understand what the subject is. Much of the racing scene has left California and eastern tracks and moved to Texas, the Midwest and other rural states to get away from large population centers and restrictive zoning ordinances. I never met Don Radbruch, but he was a major writer, historian and researcher and contributed articles to The Alternate and for other magazines. He passed away and left a void in oval track journalism and history.

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Gone Racin'…Dragster and Funny Car Memories, Southern California in the Sixties, by Don Montgomery. Book review by Richard Parks, photographic consultant Roger Rohrdanz

Number Seven in a series of excellent pictorial books by Don Montgomery is called Dragster and Funny Car Memories, Southern California in the Sixties. It has the same high-quality style that the author's other books contain. Don began collecting photographs and history for books on the 1940's and '50's Southern California hot rod culture and in his last two books he has branched out to include fuel altered drag cars and now dragsters and funny cars. Dragster and Funny Car Memories, Southern California in the Sixties is a hard cover book with 192 pages. The pages are heavy bond, high quality, waxed paper, which makes the black and white photographs stand out. The cover of the book is his standard red with gold lettering, but it is his red, white and black dust cover jackets that make the book visually stunning. Keep the dust cover jacket and don't abuse it or throw it away, because it gives the book that simple, but effective hot rod look. Montgomery writes the text and self publishes his books, creating an assembly line of books from the copious amount of photographs that his friends lend him. He also writes the captions to the photos in a clear, informative and tidy manner, which hot rodders like. Don has gathered 397 photographs, all in black and white and they are very clear and readable due to the high quality of the paper. Dragster and Funny Car Memories, Southern California in the Sixties measures 8 � inches in width by 11 � inches in height. The pages are woven into the spine of the book for extra durability. The price is forty dollars plus shipping and handling and you can order directly from the author or from the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, in Pomona, California. Call the museum at 909-622-2133 and place your order by phone. The ISBN# is 0-9626454-6-X.

Dragster and Funny Car Memories, Southern California in the Sixties is composed of a dedication, table of contents, introduction, acknowledgments, five chapters and a profile of the author, but no index. Montgomery has not created an index for any of his books so far and it forces the reader to scan thoroughly to make sure nothing has been missed. Even without an index, Montgomery's books have been well received, often prompting an author's delight, a second reprinting. His books have a liberal amount of text to explain the story while the photographs are exceptional and wide ranging. The author is often envied by other writers for his networking skills in finding collections of photos and background material. Montgomery is now well-known among Southern California hot rodders, many of whom have gone on to success in drag, land speed and oval track racing. His list of acknowledgments reads like a who's who of drag racing. Some of his sources were participants, others were photographers and writers and he knows many that were track managers. They include; Don Prieto, Bob McClurg, Bob Muravez, George Schreiber, Jim Nelson, Tom Hanna, Steve Gibbs, Frank Pisano, Doug Thorley, Holly Hedrich, Bob Spar, Ted Cyr, Art Chrisman, Don Blair, Ed Osepian, Dode Martin, Gene Adams, Roy Fjastad, Kent Fuller, Doug Kruse, Don Hampton and many more early drag racers, officials, photographers and writers. But perhaps the best source for this book is Don Montgomery himself. He was in the action from the very beginning and he knew the people whom he was writing about. You get the feeling that Don could continue to write about what he knows and turn out a book a year into the foreseeable future.

Drag racing may owe its origins to sunny Southern California, but it has become a national and worldwide sport. Montgomery covers it from a local California perspective, but recognizes and applauds the competition, skill and quality of the drivers and race teams that 'invaded' California to do battle for the title of best in the sport. His preliminary chapter is a short seven pages, but well done. We are given a taste of what is to come as the author describes what led up to the frenzied racing in the 1960's and the wars for local dominance among the racers and the sanctioning bodies. He gives a brief overview of the famous Southern California drag strips, including Bakersfield. Many of the racers had once raced on the dry lakes and at Bonneville and were now making a name for themselves on the paved quarter mile tracks. Dragsters and Funny cars were not uniform as they are today. Owners, builders, mechanics and drivers were experimenting with radical and wild designs to become more aerodynamical, lighter and to develop power and tire traction. A breakthrough by one team would spell constant success until other race teams copied or improved on the technology. Growth in the sport came at a dizzying rate. Nothing stayed the same for very long. Speeds got faster and faster and elapsed times became quicker and quicker. Top fuel dragster drivers included Mickey Thompson, Don Garlits from Florida, Ted Cyr, Bobby Langley, Don Prudhomme, Tom McEwen, Chris Karamesines and many more. Leland Kolb, Tommy Ivo, Eddie Hill and the Warren/Coburn team ruled in Top Gas. Garlits retired after a long and lustrous career and opened up a drag racing museum in Florida, saving and restoring cars years before it became popular. Hill won championships in drag boats and cars. Thompson went on to success in motorcycle racing promotions until his life was taken in a hired assassination. The Funny Cars were truly funny looking in those early days, but their speeds and times were anything but humorous. They were built for speed. Racers such as Randy Walls, Doug Thorley, Paula Murphy, Hayden Proffitt, Big John Mazmanian, Dyno Don Nicholson, Jungle Jim Lieberman with his sidekick, Jungle Pam in her hotpants on the line, thrilled the throngs of spectators.

The names leap off the page as Montgomery tells their stories and the photographs take us back to the days when we were all young and anything and everything was possible. The world of drag racing was fierce, but unusually friendly, as competitors would often help each other. Many of these cars have been restored and are on display in museums, such as the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona, California, or the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Private collectors and old racers are finding their cars and restoring them for nostalgia racing or simply for car shows and cruises. The reunions and numerous car shows are bringing back the old racers and their stories are beginning to be told by men such as Montgomery. Sadly, many of the famous old dragstrips did not survive the transition into the 21st century and were torn down to pave way for housing tracts and malls. A few race tracks have opened recently at Irwindale and Fontana, but the glory years of drag racing in dragsters and funny cars is over. You can still taste the glory years at the NHRA races at Fontana and Pomona and in books, like Montgomery's. These men and women would set the stage for a prolific growth in Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Car for those to follow. John Force, Joe Amato, Shirley Muldowney, Kenny Bernstein and other modern drivers would someday eclipse the records of those who came of age in the 1960's, but never take away their achievements as pioneers of the sport of drag racing. Gone Racin' is at [email protected].

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Gone Racin'… Hot Rod Memories Relived Again, by Don Montgomery. Book review by Richard Parks, photographic consultant Roger Rohrdanz

Don Montgomery is a tireless compiler and publisher of hot rod photographs and history. He has self published a series of hardbound books dealing with the car culture throughout the Southwest United States. Hot Rod Memories Relived Again is a hardbound book measuring 8 � inches wide by 11 � inches in height with Montgomery's normal red, white and black dust cover jacket. Take precautions to protect the dust cover jacket as it enhances the overall look of the book. Hot Rod Memories Relived Again is a full 176 pages in length with 367 black and white photographs and ample text. Some of the captions are very detailed, though many of the people are unknown. There are no color photographs and there is no index. Without an index it is hard to find out just who is portrayed in the book without reading every page. The quality of the photographs ranges from fair to excellent. The writing is crisp and well researched. Montgomery has a large group of friends who raced at the dry lakes of Southern California and who were showing off their cars on the streets. He is a master historian and voluminous publisher of hot rod books. Hot Rod Memories Relived Again was published in 1991 by Don Montgomery Publishing and you can contact the author to see if he has any copies. His phone number is 760-728-5557. You can also check at Autobooks/Aerobooks at 818-845-0707, or the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum bookstore at 909-622-2133, for copies of the book. The ISBN# is 0-9626454-2-7. Montgomery wrote the introduction, dedication and the six chapters. His photographs come from his own collections and his friends and seems inexhaustible.

Montgomery has a system for producing his books on hot rodding, but he likes to joke that when a book runs out of room he starts another book. This has obvious merit, since it allows him to use up photo collections from various sources and get them on record before they are lost forever. Montgomery deserves our gratitude for preserving the early history of hot rodding in all of its variety. If you look at the people that he has access to, it becomes very apparent why his books are so popular and well received by the public. In Hot Rod Memories Relived Again, he acknowledges help and photographs from the usual list of well-known suspects. There is Don Waite, Bob Atol, Jim Carnahan, Bill Yates, Al Barnes, Bob Wright, Tony Baron, Jim Berger, George Bentley, Jim Gustafson, Roland Mays, Cal Tanaka, Doug Hartelt, Bill Phy, Fred Larson and many more. Doug Hartelt spans the time between the dry lakes time trials and the first official drag strip at Santa Ana. Gene Ohly and Barney Navarro are famous names from the past. Barney is still working in his shop in Los Angeles. Dave Marquez was a driver who made the roadster class famous in drag racing with his #880. The car is one of the 75 all time greatest '32 Ford Deuces, but no one has been able to find out where the car is and Dave has since passed away. Joe Reath, Alex Xydias and Don Blair were famous for their speed shops. Doane Spenser created what many feel was the most beautiful '32 Ford Deuce roadster ever built. When you have the quality of friends that Montgomery has, you can see why it is so easy for the author to make such high quality books.

Chapter One is called Hot Rods on the Streets and discusses why the young hot rodders of the 1920's and '30's developed the hot rod culture. They took old Fords and Chevy's and turned them into works of art. They cut, chopped, channeled and customized the cars to suit their tastes. They revved up the engines and got more horsepower out of their cars than the police were able to get from the best stock cars from Detroit. These young men and women developed their own language and culture and the hamburger stands became their special headquarters. Montgomery breaks hot rodders in the 1940's into three categories; racers, street rodders and street rod-racers. Chapter Two is named Hot Rods and Street Racing. Hot rodders were constantly being castigated by their local communities for using the public streets to go racing on. More responsible hot rodders traveled to El Mirage dry lake, near Phelan, California in order to do their racing. Eventually, drag strips closer to these young hot rodders would open up and take away the urge to go street racing. Chapter Three is titled Clubs and Associations and discusses the groups that were involved in hot rodding. Some of those groups, such as the Road Runners and Sidewinders, are still around today. The group photographs are priceless but many young people are not named in the photo captions, which is a great loss.

Chapter Four is called Speed Equipment Shops and talks about the places that were famous for speed equipment in the Southern California area. Bell Auto Parts was the center of hot rodding and racing since the 1920's, until Roy Richter passed away in the 1980's. Louie Senter's speed shop; Ansen's Automotive Engineering was another famous place. Don Blair's Speed Shop vied with Alex Xydias' So-Cal Speed Shop. Montgomery lists auto stores like House of Chrome, muffler shops like Smitty's and machine shop's like Cook Machine Shop as some of the places to find the best parts and service. Some of the manufacturers of speed equipment were; Navarro, Webber, Moon, Pink, Donovan, Carrillo, Potvin, Evans, Schiefer, Thickstun and Iskenderian. Chapter Five is titled How Fast Were They and tells the story of how early hot rodders souped up their cars and recorded fast times at the dry lakes. Speeds and acceleration times in the 1940's are equal or better than most of the modern stock automobiles of today, which means that the young men of that era really knew how to develop horsepower. Chapter Six is named Street Rod of the '40's and explains the terms used to customize and build up the stock cars of that time. Montgomery explains the terms; Carson tops, lowering, De Soto bumpers, fender skirts, ripple disc hubcaps and much more. Hot Rod Memories Relived Again is a delightful book and a must for any serious historian and lover of early hot rodding. Gone Racin' is at [email protected]

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Press Release: December 26, 2009
BEETLEBALL Coast to Coast Inaugural Trophy Dash - a.k.a. PopSICKle 48

On December 19^{th, 2009, drivers Jim} “Jimbo” Ferguson and Nick deAvila, along with support crew members Greg Urrutia and Jeff Copelan, completed the first documented non-stop transcontinental crossing of the U.S.A. in a Volkswagen Bug in a record establishing time of 43 hours, 53 minutes and 36 seconds. The Beetleball GT-40 Bug team left New York City at the site of Ground Zero across the river from the Statue of Liberty and covered a total distance of 3036 miles from start to finish.

Departing at 11.11 A.M.. in cold but clear weather, the GT-40 Bug soon accessed Interstate 80 and headed west managing to avoid severe weather which closed in behind them along the whole route and soon devastated the east coast with record snowfalls. The 1970 Bug, painted to resemble the historic Gulf logoed Ford GT-40 race cars of the early seventies and carrying race number 6, was equipped with a Gregs VW built mildly modified single port 1600cc engine which ran flawlessly throughout the entire event managing an average of speed of 66.7 miles per hour at approximately 24 miles per gallon. The Bug was also equipped with an auxiliary fuel tank giving the Bug a total capacity of 25 gallons which helped minimize fuel and relief stop delays. Other than running out of fuel on the initial leg, no other traumas were encountered, no “legal issues” cropped up, and other than some dangerous encounters with black ice and strong winds, the cross country drive was fortunately uneventful.

A short video of the drive can be found on You Tube at: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6xZd5kjn3w&feature=player_embedded

along with a detailed photo journey at:
http://ultimateaircooled.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=6268.0

Beetleballs website is located below:
www.beetleball.com .

Patterned after the infamous 53 hour cross country drive from NYC to LA of Erwin “Cannonball” Baker in 1933, the Beetleball effort can best be compared to the more recently cloned Cannonball Run challenges of the seventies for high powered sports cars memorialized by the movie Gumball Rally. That record was first set in 1971 at 35.54 hours by Dan Gurney and Brock Yates in a Ferrari and is currently held by a Jaguar XJS at just 32 hours and 51 minutes.

The Beetleball “PopSICKle“ 3000 will be added to the annual VW driving activities these folks make available through the Beetleball Rally Endurance Series which includes the similar one day “ Beetleball 24 “ run from the Canadian border south to the Mexican border through California each summer. Further information on all of these activities can be found by contacting Jimbo at [email protected] .

For additional information regarding this press release please contact:
Greg Urrutia at
[email protected].

Prepared by Burly Burlile 
[email protected]

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Land Speed Racing Websites:
www.hotrodhotline.com, www.landspeedracing.com

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Members:

Jonathan Amo, Brett Arena, Henry Astor, Gale Banks, Glen Barrett, Mike Bastian, Lee Blaisdell, Jim Bremner, Warren Bullis, Burly Burlile, George Callaway, Gary Carmichael, John Backus, John Chambard, Jerry Cornelison, G. Thatcher Darwin, Jack Dolan, Ugo Fadini, Bob Falcon, Rich Fox, Glenn Freudenberger, Don Garlits, Bruce Geisler, Stan Goldstein, Andy Granatelli, Walt James, Wendy Jeffries, Ken Kelley, Mike Kelly, Bret Kepner, Kay Kimes, Jim Lattin, Mary Ann and Jack Lawford, Fred Lobello, Eric Loe, Dick Martin, Ron Martinez, Tom McIntyre, Don McMeekin, Bob McMillian, Tom Medley, Jim Miller, Don Montgomery, Bob Morton, Mark Morton, Paula Murphy, Landspeed Louise Ann Noeth, Frank Oddo, David Parks, Richard Parks, Wally Parks (in memoriam), Eric Rickman, Willard Ritchie, Roger Rohrdanz, Evelyn Roth, Ed Safarik, Frank Salzberg, Dave Seely, Charles Shaffer, Mike Stanton, David Steele, Doug Stokes, Bob Storck, Zach Suhr, Maggie Summers, Gary Svoboda, Pat Swanson, Al Teague, JD Tone, Jim Travis, Randy Travis, Jack Underwood and Tina Van Curen, Richard Venza.

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