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Some Names To Look For In This Newsletter:
President's Corner, Editorials, The November Meet has been canceled due to water still being present on the lake, Jim Kavanagh a Russetta dry lakes racer passed away this week, I think I misspelled Jim Kavanagh's name, Please post this link to event detail page for the movie Deuce of Spades, Bonham & Butterfield is delighted to be back at the Petersen Automotive Museum for another Classic California auction, A good online bike magazine is Tony Colombini’s Black Top magazine, I eventually got a nickname during my travels with the NHRA, I have been looking at your Bonneville photos, Marty: Jim Miller here from the S.C.T.A, This month’s Aussie Invader 5R newsletter, The Sam Auxier Jr Show Live Monday November 8 2010 7PM EST, Anybody out there have any information about an upcoming swap meet at The Pete, What is the day of this event?, To Harold Osmer: The idea to film the WHERE THEY RACED documentary excites me, Concerning Southgate (California) and Southern Speedway, Sam Auxier Jr Show "Interviewing the Greatest Names in Racing.", I actually track old airports as a hobby-but old airports are very closely intermingled with drag strips and even ovals, As you have probably already heard, the November El Mirage meet has been cancelled, Film Review; Deuce of Spades Written By: “LandSpeed” Louise Ann Noeth, Book Review by Franklin Ratliff; Athol Graham's City of Salt Lake, the new book by Harvey Shapiro, The following article comes from a 1990 issue of Sports Car International magazine and was sent in by the Fab 50’s a road course racing group that is honoring Phil Remington for his service to road racing.
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President's Corner:
For all you land speed racers, let’s look at a little of the workings of the S.C.T.A. when it comes to the rules. Once a year the rules are updated as they have been for the last 70 plus years. The process is simple in concept. If you see something out of whack or if you want a change in the rules made you can submit a rule change. Then the fun begins. All the change requests are kept in a computer database and after the cutoff date for submittal (September 1st this year) they are organized and distributed to the chairpersons of all the class committee's and to all the clubs for their input. After every group has it thoughts on each change debated and agreed upon there is a general rules meeting (held yesterday, November 7, 2010) and each change is again discussed and voted on (with tweaks) as a yes, or no, we want or don't want the change acted upon. All the approved proposed rule changes are then formatted and sent for final approval and acceptance by the S.C.T.A. Board of Directors (November 19) Board meeting. The Board then votes to accept or deny the individual proposed changes. After that the approved changes are posted on the S.C.T.A. website until the new rulebook is published with the new changes included.
I've included a copy of the 1946 rule book for your perusal from the Bob Wenz Collection courtesy of the American Hot Rod Foundation. Note that it's only five pages. By comparison the 2010 rule book has 240 pages in it. In '46 there were only four classes and that has evolved into too many to count. Motorcycles were not included in the early days so that has to be considered too. Consider the difficulty when crafting a rule that it has to apply in most cases to not a single vehicle but hundreds. Keep in mind that it's also the racers duty to find any loophole in the rules and exploit it to his or her advantage. It's also the rule-makers responsibility to keep the playing field equal for all competitors or as one sage says, same rules, more words. All I can say is it's a never ending task to do the job. The most important thing to keep in mind is that nobody gets paid for any of this; everything is done by volunteers because they love it
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Editorial:
The following correspondence was received and answered, but it represents a real point, even if it is posed humorously.
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Dear Editor: In the fist sentence of Jim's story, he may have wanted "but" in stead of "bet". Other then that, it all just rambles a bit and I loose interest. But this is a non-fictional document for recorded history. Interested Party
Interested Party: There is NO SPELL CHECK for our respected Society President. He could mean BET as well as BUT and I wouldn't put it past him to use BIT, BOT and BAT as well. I clean up some of his spelling, grammar and colloquialisms, but then I have to stop, because if I tidied up all his hot rodding usages, he just wouldn't be the guy we all know and admire. But thank you for checking. By the way, you meant to say FIRST, not FIST, THAN not THEN and it's INSTEAD instead of IN STEAD. I'm sure that you meant LOSE interest, for if you have LOOSE interest then your “better half” may want to put one of those police ankle bracelets on you. Damn these picky editors!
Dear Editor: Didn't you mean "Pesky?" Interested Party
Interested Party: Indeed, Pesky is the proper word usage here.
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We have a variety of writers, researchers, interested members and assorted historians who write in to us. Without these dedicated people we could not create a newsletter or record and save history. Every email is recorded, unless you tell me not to use it, or it has no historical significance. Some of what I receive is simply emails of greetings, but most of them have some knowledge to impart. Many people tell me that they have nothing to say or that what they know is of little consequence. That is not true, even though you may believe that. One of the goals as editor is to convince you all that you have a story to tell. Another goal is to convince you all that you can write and that you can record your observations. Beyond those first two goals we have not yet ventured, because 99% of you have yet to respond. But as more of you do find out that I am right and that you do have a message to give us, then we run into another problem, which is a minor one, but still important. Do you have the skills to write and record history?
To a point, it doesn’t really matter if you have a basic knowledge of grammar usage or an advanced degree in English composition from Harvard. Here’s why; if you are an archaeologist and come across a rare document thousands of years old, do you really care whether the writer is literate or semi-literate. The relevancy is that you have found a document, probably the only document in existence. It could be a laundry list, a business document, a religious text or an ancient mother goose story. Rarity, it seems, is its own reward and the skill of the writer is really unimportant. But our sport is at best only 112 years old and therefore it is fresh in our minds, relatively speaking of course. So we have a lot of material and this is where it gets sticky. So many of you will not write in because you are afraid that your grammar, punctuation, spelling, composition or usage of English is not what you would like it to be.
I want you to think about this point; whatever you add, however you say it, is more important than how you say it. The Society of Land Speed Racing Historians is a group of volunteers and some of us are professionals and some are amateurs. I break it down this way; professional historians receive payment for their work, while amateur historians do it for fun. Professional historians are not necessarily better historians than amateur historians. I consider myself to be an amateur historian because I am not reimbursed for what I do, but I have a degree in History from the University of Hawaii. Jim Miller on the other hand does not have a degree in history, but I consider him to be a professional historian because he makes a profession out of his field. Is he a better historian than I am, or am I a better trained historian than he is? The answer is that we are different and neither of us is better or worse than the other.
I have this running feud with my spell check program. It wants me to change things to its way and I want it to adapt to my way. My spell check keeps telling me that hot rodding is not a word and wants me to change it to hot welding or hot roping. When Jim Miller sends me one of his articles and I run it through spell check, my computer has a nervous breakdown. It isn’t that Jim has his own world, his own language and his own ways of doing things. It is that my computer and the rest of the world has a real problem understanding hot rodders in general. We have our own vocabulary, syntax, grammar and colloquialisms. Jim loves to use ONE WORD sentences; especially bummer, rad or wow. My computer goes berserk and demands a noun, adjective or at least an adverb to go with it. Now here’s something that you don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing as an editor and most of the time I am faking it and making it up as I go along. You might think that I know what a split infinitive is, or get my object and subject in the right order, but I don’t. I’ve learned that a gerund is that ING that you add to the end of a word. I know that a prefix is something that is in front of a root and a suffix goes after the root. I know what plural means. But after that my knowledge drops off considerably and the best grade that I ever got in English was a very generous C by a very kind professor.
What I do know I learned by reading and by writing. People can get pretty good at all this grammar stuff by simply using it. If you are around people who understand how a language should look like and sound like, then it isn’t hard to learn it by “ear.” My father had the same problem and English wasn’t his best subject, but he learned and listened to people who did know language well and he became self-taught. So when you write in I look over your emails and if it has facts that should be saved, I copy and then paste the information into the newsletter, then I reread it several times and run a spell-check on the computer. If you have some colloquialisms that are unique to you I try and leave them alone, because that’s the way you talk and write and that is uniquely your own personality. That’s why I put the correspondence in this editorial from Interested Party, so you could see that he writes the way he hears words, not necessarily the way the grammar and usage rules would dictate.
I want you to be comfortable with the newsletter. We are serious people and we want to increase the level of respect in historical circles for what we are trying to do with the “people’s history,” especially as it relates to hot rodding. You aren’t going to be criticized for your grammar. Your language skills are uniquely your own and it is the facts that you give us that are important, not your style of speaking or writing. In some cases I will go through and change your misspellings or grammar mistakes. I try and leave your colloquial way of speaking alone. I don’t want to change what words you use or how you use them because that would be dishonest. But on the other hand I don’t want you to be ridiculed for the spelling and grammar mistakes. I make plenty of mistakes and people point them out to me all the time. I was never very good at conjugating a sentence and had to take Spanish to help me learn English; though I was worse than mediocre in Spanish. The bottom line is that I would rather have something from you that needs lots of editing than nothing from you because you don’t want to be embarrassed. I won’t let that happen to you; so write to me often.
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SPECIAL NEWS REPORT:
The November Meet has been canceled due to water still being present on the lake. While the lake has receded some, there are still large areas that have standing water and the base is nowhere dry enough to run a meet on. Kind regards, Miriam Macmillan. Secretary/SCTA
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Jim Kavanagh, a Russetta dry lakes racer passed away this week. No other details as yet. Glen Barrett
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I think I misspelled Jim Kavanagh's name. That is the correct form. He was just such a good guy and a true racer, Lakes-Bonneville-Drags and Sprint Cars. Tim Kraushaar
Tim: I’ve included Jim Kavanagh’s name previous newsletters and didn’t catch the error. Isn’t he close friends with Buck Smith? Can you send me an obituary for Jim?
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Bonham & Butterfield is delighted to be back at the Petersen Automotive Museum for another Classic California auction. Now, in its 8th year, this sale has proven to be a highlight of the auction calendar and is synonymous with the Southern California car culture. This year is no exception, featuring a collection of motorcycles and memorabilia from one of the most successful racers and stuntmen in the business, Bud Ekins. The sale is filled with a fantastic array of cars, motorcycles and memorabilia, with something for every motoring enthusiast. Public Viewing Hours.
Thursday November 11 - 1pm to 6pm. Public Viewing Hours.
Friday November 12 - 10am to 6pm. Public Viewing Hours.
Saturday November 13 - 10am to 12pm (Public Viewing Motorcycles and Motorcars only).
Saturday November 13 - Auction, times to be announced.
For more information, go to: www.bonhams.com/18419. Contact Phone: 323-436-5470. Denis LaBonge
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A good online bike magazine is Tony Colombini’s Black Top magazine. See http://www.blacktopmagazine.com/.
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I eventually got a nickname during my travels with the NHRA. Because I worked in Hollywood my nickname became "Hollywood." There was an older comedy movie where Hollywood was being invaded; it was in black and white. I forget the name but the Japanese saw Hollywood from their sub and yelled, "hollywoooood." That's how they say it to me. Mark Dawson
Mark and the Readers: Mark is the new general and operating manager for the Auto Club of Southern California Fontana drag strip and his bio will be available shortly at www.hotrodhotline.com, bio section. And yes, we love nicknames. When Ak Miller was alive he used to brand us all with his witty nicknames. Since he was the “Kid,” I had to wait until he was gone to appropriate that name, only to be told by Roger Rohrdanz and Jim Miller that I’m far too old for “Kid.” Instead they gave me Ak’s brother’s nickname, “Old Dad.” I’m flattered, I think. As for history, nicknames tell us a lot about the era and so if our readers have a favorite nickname for themselves or others, please send it in and add a bit of history to the name.
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I have been looking at your Bonneville photos. I have a dragster that I'd like to take to Bonneville and run in the Lakester category. Have you any idea of how big the fuel tank would need to be to get me down and back for one run? Marty Sinclair
Marty: I'm referring your email to Jim Miller and perhaps he can answer you. I'll also post it in the newsletter and watch each week for a response. If you run at Bonneville, rather than the other fine courses around the country, you have three options. One is to run at an SCTA/BNI meet. The second is to run at an USFRA meet and the third is to rent the lakebed and race as an independent. You would need to contact the SCTA/BNI or the USFRA to find out about their rules. In some cases you can register as an independent running without a club. In other cases you need to belong to a club within those two groups in order to be allowed to race. I suggest that you look for a club to join, because to land speed race you need a great deal of experience. It isn't like an 1/8th mile street legal drag race where the speeds are restrained. A rule book from either organization might tell you the size of the gas tank, but that is only part of your problems. While land speed racing is often far simpler to enter and enjoy, unlike some of the more expensive oval track racing, there is a learning curve. You can also reach Jim Miller at 818-846-5139 and I'm sure that he can help answer your question.
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Marty: Jim Miller here from the S.C.T.A. You might want to get a hold of an S.C.T.A. rulebook first as an NHRA dragster chassis won't meet our rules. We don't allow regular dragster chassis to be used because the tubing sizes don't meet our minimum requirements and they flex too much. We require 1 5/8 minimum OD and .095 minimum wall thickness for 4130 chassised cars over 175 mph. These tube sizes must be from in front of your feet to behind the cage. No step down in tube size is allowed in the driver area as done in the drag cars. Crashing a car at any speed is a big deal to us so everything is overbuilt as compared to rail jobs. You asked about tank size. That all depends on your tune. We know some folks who used 30 gallons and only got to the three mile. But way before you worry about that stuff think about what the car requires to go straight for five miles fast. What's a ring and pinion set of say 2.5 or lower going to set you back if you can get one for your rear end? Or how about over $800 each for a rear tire not counting rims. The list goes on and on. Lakesters are only good for running at the lakes (B-ville) and are purpose built. May I suggest a trip to Bonneville and helping on a car (everybody there needs help) to give you an idea of what's required before you ruin a perfectly good dragster.
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The Sam Auxier, Jr. Show Live Monday, November 8, 2010 7PM EST. Interviewed will be Funny Car driver Gas Ronda, Brent Hajek Motor Sports, artist Kenny Youngblood and Jim Amos.
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Anybody out there have any information about an upcoming swap meet at The Pete? Bob Falcon
Bob: According to this website; http://www.petersen.org/default.cfm?DocID=902&CalendarID=805, the Petersen Automotive Museum's swap meet and car show is scheduled for December 4, a Saturday, 2010.
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What is the day of this event? I would like to see if I can get my father there. Thanks, Otto Ryssman Jr
Otto: Turkey Night is on Thursday, Thanksgiving evening. This event started in the 1930's at Gilmore Stadium, I believe, and then J.C. Agajanian brought it over to Ascot and was a staple of Southern California racing until the track closed in the '90's. Toyota Speedway at Irwindale is now the home of the famed Turkey Night race. Hope you see you there if you can make it.
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 To Harold Osmer:
The idea to film the WHERE THEY RACED documentary excites me. I am very pleased that you are the driving force behind this project. So Cal was the epicenter for racing as well as companies that designed and built racing products. This documentary is so important now because as you know most of the tracks have disappeared and many of the “hardcore” racing manufacturers that started the whole “speed” revolution have either changed their direction of product emphasis or have ceased building race parts. I will be at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale as we will be running at least one full midget as well as a Ford Focus midget for a young driver. My son, Michael Lewis will also be participating in the Ford Focus event as he is driving for Kevin Gerhardt’s Western Speed Team. I would love to participate and be interviewed for your documentary. Our Nine Racing midgets have raced and won at Ascot Park, Saugus, Orange Show Stadium and Toyota Speedway at Irwindale through the years. Please feel free to call upon me for any ideas, assistance or help. It is important the story of what occurred here in Southern California be told and you are the best person to be doing the story telling. Take care, Steve Lewis
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Concerning Southgate (California) and Southern Speedway. I recently became employed at a steel forge company on Firestone Blvd in Southgate. I can look down the LA River and see the old railroad bridge that shows up in the background of many old Southern Speedway pictures. Do you know the address of the Roadrunners clubhouse in Southgate? I think that is the one shown in the picture of your father, AK Miller and Vic Edelbrock fixing the roof. I'd like to check and see if it is still there. I sent some pictures recently of Santa Ana drag strip, to Jim Miller and one other gentleman, but never heard back so I hope they were received. There is a good picture in one of Andy Southard's coffee table books, in color, showing the drag strip beginning right at the head of the runway, and across from the small ex-military airport complex. Dan MacPherson
Dan: I may have been to the clubhouse as a young boy in the 1940's, but I cannot remember where it is now located or the address. We have some records and sometimes it shows up in the minutes from that time period. I'm sending a copy of your email to Jim Miller to see if he knows and also to confirm that he received your email with the photographs of Santa Ana drag strip. Thanks for your efforts in trying to track these sites down.
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Sam Auxier Jr Show at http://zeusradio.com/station/RacersReunionRadio/. "Interviewing the Greatest Names in Racing." Call In 1-877-500-9387, Sam 3. Archived Shows http://racersreunionradio.com. Monday November 8th 7-9PM EST. Presenting Hajek MotorSports "Bonneville to NHRA," Brent Hajek; "A/FX to Funny Car Legend" Gas Ronda; "Renowned MotorSport Artist" Kenny Youngblood; "Drag Racers Notebook" Jim Amos
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As you have probably already heard, the November El Mirage meet has been cancelled. The lakebed is still too wet. Visit the SCTA website for pictures. Reminder, the Safety Seminar that was scheduled for El Mirage on Saturday afternoon will be held on Saturday MORNING at 9:30am in Westminster. This will be valuable information for all racers and crews. Here is the link to the flyer: http://www.scta-bni.org/images/Safety%20Seminar%202010.pdf, CLICK FOR MAP: Here's hoping we have a good wet winter to heal the lake and we have a great track for next season. Jerry Cornelison, Secretary for the Road Runners
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 Film Review; Deuce of Spades. Written By: “LandSpeed” Louise Ann Noeth.
French-born, Beirut-raised Faith Granger fell down the hot rod rabbit hole a few years ago, bought a dingy old deuce and became so enamored with the American performance and custom culture that she decided to make a film about it all. Never mind she never made a film before in her life. Or used a film camera, or knew how to edit, or any of the movie stuff you need to know if you have the notion to be a filmmaker. As far she was concerned it, she would learn what she needed to know and do it all herself if it came down to that. Damn near did.
Committed to a very cool concept, Granger made the film with her own money and damn little of at that. She happily shepherded the project forward doing everything herself before a variety of film industry techies and professional actors got wind of what she was up to and started to volunteer time, equipment and services. “The film is a pure labor of love and to retain the integrity of my artistic vision, I knew I would have to do it myself and keep investors, corporate funding and the film industry basically out,” she noted, “Which meant going out on a limb financially and dumping every last dime I had (and quite a few I don't), into this film.”
After a short time looking at the previews, photos and commentary on the Deuce of Spades website, most any rodder will get caught up in the adventure. Frankly, I was bummed that I couldn’t help, but living 1,800 miles away from the production made it impossible. If you wander around her website, you’ll find the links to her previous music career and realize the girl has most certainly reinvented herself. We should all have such style, panache and courage to do the same when our lives get boring, mundane or too hectic. We all dream, but damn few of us throw ourselves into making reality out of the adventures of the mind. Deuce of Spades is the ultimate “home movie” that is without exception worthy of the big screen.
Mega faceted Granger invited me to her artful, southern California home in late May for a private screening Deuce of Spades. The sound wasn’t done, but being a creative sort myself, it was easy to get past the “in-production-so-to-be-fixed” glitches. What I saw was an extremely rare vision into hot rod yesterday told in dramatic fashion. I’ll not a be a spoiler and give away anything to decrease your viewing moments except to say the film is diligently well-researched in terms of period clothing, scenery and even language. Watch for phrases no longer used today, but highly relevant to the well-paced storytelling.
A slice of hot rodding life carved artfully right of the 1950’s that even includes a few very recognizable land speed racing and customizing personalities playing themselves in the modern-day era segments. “With over 90 minutes of period footage showing the 50's, the film aims at bringing the old jalopies back into the spotlight, “stated Granger on the website,” Resurrecting the "good old days" of hot rodding and bringing a slice of Americana back to life. It is my tribute to all the hot rodders who were a part of it.”
The early portion of the plot mirrors Faith’s real life experience -- the acquisition of a ’32 roadster that set her on course to produce the film. The plot unfolds from the curiosity of a modern day female hot rod enthusiast who buys a roadster of unknown origins and finds a letter behind the upholstery dating back to 1955 while restoring the car’s faded glory. The storyline pivots when she opens the sealed, stamped, but unmailed letter to find a gold ring on a chain accompanying an emotional, heart-wrenching declaration from “Johnnie” to “Betty.” Here begins the hot rodding hunt to uncover why the obviously important letter was never mailed, the hot rod’s peerage, its builder and owner and his girl. This is NOT a chick flick. I can attest that story will ring true for not only those involved with the hot rod crowd, but surely resonate with the general public as a pointed human interest docudrama focused on a fascinating segment of American culture.
“What amazes me about Faith is that she does every aspect herself,” noted devoted land speed racer Dan Warner who plays himself in the film, “She did the make-up, set the scene, shot the scene, set-up the sound, does the editing, wrote the script. It is a story to touch everyone in the family; she has been faithful to the period and does a wonderful job for someone who is relatively new to the hot rod scene. And she lives the lifestyle: drives her ’32 all over town, wears the clothes, she is immersed in the culture.”
Warner added that he has spoken to other rodders who provided their hot rods for the film and they all say the scenes are period correct, right down to an authentic vintage timing system. “She has done lots of detail work,” said Warner who got involved through land speed racer and historian Jim Miller that helped with the film’s historical vehicle background and technical correctness, “You won’t find any modern items in the background.” With a feigned look of innocence he concluded, “I can talk the lingo now, I know what “b roll” is and I have “footage for my reel.” This could be my break out role, at age 68, for a short but blazing acting career.” Granger’s devotion to authenticity began with her own hot rod. She went shopping with a long list and eventually found her heart’s desire in a low mileage, fenderless high boy on an original frame. Under the chopped windshield were many original parts, black body paint with a red grille, guide lights. She had to have red steelies with beauty rings.
She also wanted a drivable car with an old-style bench type seat and steering wheel that still needed finishing touches and work. She hoped for and got a rumble seat set–up without the rumble seat, authentic Buick finned drums, tri-power and an engine fitted with a race cam. Remarkably, she got it all and it is this car that is rolling star of the film. The entire cast was unpaid, comprised of professional actors, land speed racers and hot rod customizers including Gene Winfield and Bill Hines. Because Granger plays the hot rod girl in the film, she was did pay a couple of folks to run the camera, but only when she was in front of it. A throw of the shifter also goes out to the volunteer main cast Timothy Luke who plays Johnny Callaway, Alexandra Holder as Johnny’s girl Bettie Thompson, Kyle Clifford, Jordan Warren, Gary Miller Youst, Nathan Ramirez, Carol-Lynn Campbell, Kristen Findley, Alana Stites, Peggy Sue Honeyman Scott, Wes Kemp and Frank O'Leary.
The Deuce of Spades DVD copies can be ordered from www.deuceofspades.com. Note: Photojournalist Louise Ann Noeth is the authoress of the award-winning book, “Bonneville: The Fastest Place on Earth,” a complete historical review of the first 50 years of land speed racing. Out of print since Speedweek 2010, Noeth has a limited number of a special edition with 100 autographs from land speed racers. For more details and to order, go to: www.landspeedproductions.biz.
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Book Review by Franklin Ratliff
Athol Graham's City of Salt Lake, the new book by Harvey Shapiro, is not only an excellent biography of Athol Graham but also the story of the many people who came to be either associated with the car or affected by it. Technical insight and perspective on the project is provided in chapters by land speed racers Tom Burkland and Waldo Stakes. Although beaten to 300 mph by Mickey Thompson in Challenger 1, Graham was only the second American to run over 300 mph. This was at a time when the only other drivers to go over 300 mph had been Sir Malcolm Campbell, George Eyston, and John Cobb in the enormously expensive behemoths "Blue Bird," "Thunderbolt," and "Railton." It is difficult today to appreciate the impact of a completely unknown hot rodder coming out of nowhere on a shoestring budget and running the same speeds. In November of 1959, Graham, after a trial run of 277.56 mph, clocked runs of 305.84 mph and 308.608 mph for a two-way average of 307.254 mph. After fixing problems and making modifications, Graham came back in December of 1959 and clocked runs of 303.183 mph and 344.761 mph. The only drivers alive at the time who had gone faster were Mickey Thompson and George Eyston.
Shapiro has written two previous books dealing with the land speed record, Faster Than Sound (a history of the land speed record up through The Blue Flame) and Man Against The Salt (a biography of Art Arfons). This new book is based on firsthand accounts from interviews with Zeldine Graham (Athol's wife), Robert Graham (Athol's older brother), and other members of the Graham family. It is 197 pages divided into ten sections for a total of twenty-eight chapters illustrated with many B&W photos of the car, Athol, and Zeldine. The section titles are The Nature of Man, America enters 'The War,' Assault at Bonneville, A Life Ended Too Soon, Suddenly a Widow, Who are the Grahams?, She kept the Secret, Still in the Game, The Graham Kids, and Why did Graham's car fail? Each of these sections is devoted to specific aspects of the Graham story as well as to the land speed racing of that period. America enters 'The War' and Assault at Bonneville is an account of the 1959-1960 period when five cars challenged the World Land Speed Record.
One of the most touching accounts in Shapiro's book, detailed in the three chapters of Section VII, She kept the Secret, is the story of Otto Anzjon, an 18-year old mechanic who had helped Graham build the car then rebuilt it after the crash. Anzjon later died of leukemia but not before getting to rebuild the car and drive it at Bonneville. The three chapters in this section are "Hang In There Lady", "From Norway-To-Utah", and "From The Ashes." These chapters deal with Otto's family and the rebuilding of the car. The story of Otto Anzjon is concluded in Section VIII, Still InThe Game in the chapter "Atta Boy, Otto." To order a copy, send a check or money order for $20 to Harvey Shapiro, P.O. Box 1243, Centerville, MA 02632.
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The following article comes from a 1990 issue of Sports Car International magazine and was sent in by the Fab 50’s, a road course racing group that is honoring Phil Remington for his service to road racing.
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Phil Remington can design, build, repair, patch together, and generally fix anything on a race car, from the manifolds on a Scarab to the sweeping tail of a Ford Mk IV at LeMans. Preston Lerner visited Mr. Fix-it at the All American Racers shop in Santa Ana, California, where "Rem" was fabricating a brake cooling duct for Toyota's IMSA GTP car. Written on the occasion of Phil Remington’s 70th birthday. Article by Preston Lerner, July 1990 edition of Sports Car International Magazine. Photography by David Gooley. Period photos by David Friedman.
A couple of years ago, Woody Allen made a movie called Zelig about a guy who always managed to be on the scene whenever history was being made during the twenties and thirties. He could be found hobnobbing with Adolf Hitler at Nuremburg, Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge at the White House, Pope Pius XI at the Vatican, even Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium. Wherever the crossroads of history happen to fall, Woody Allen’s Zelig was there. The motorsports community has its own version of Zelig. His name is Phil Remington, and his hard-to-believe career provides continuing proof that fact is stranger than fiction. When West Coast hot rodders started tearing up the dry lakes before World War II, he was there. When Sterling Edwards won the first bonafide sports car race staged on the West Coast after the war, he was there. When Lance Reventlow ran the first American Formula One car at Monte Carlo, he was there. When Carroll Shelby's Cobras crushed all comers from Riverside to Daytona, he was there. When John Holman and Ralph Moody were dominating the Southern stock car scene, he was there. And when Dan Gurney's All American Racers finally won Indianapolis 500, Phil Remington was there.
It sometimes seems as if the man has been everywhere – Formula One, Indy cars, endurance racing, Can-Am, Trans-Am, NASCAR, GTO, GTP. Once, he even made an around-the-world promotional trip for Ford as chief mechanic, fabricator, and all-purpose nuts-and-bolts wizard with a pair of new 1958 four-wheel drive trucks that he'd disguised as '57 models by rigging them with aluminum skins and headlight conversions. "We had to be able to look 100 percent, appearance-wise, all the time," he says. "If those trucks got skinned up or damaged, we had spare sheet metal to repair them. We had paint, thinner, a compressor, and welding outfits so that we could fix anything." And make no mistake: if there's a piece of an automobile that Remington can't fix, then he can make a perfect copy to replace it. If he can't copy the piece, then you'll have to wait until God creates another. "He's the best fabricator in the world, and that's not his strong point," says Carroll Smith, a longtime racing consultant who worked with Remington on the Ford assault on LeMans. "His strong point is his incredible intuitive feel for machinery. When there is a problem, by the time other people realize it, he's already made six fixes."
Back during his days as director of research and development at Shelby American, Remington was responsible for hundreds of modifications to the all-conquering Ford GT40s, Mark IIs and Mark IVs. On the sketches for these fixes, there used to be a legend: "Draftsman: Remington. Designer: Remington. Engineer: Remington. Approved: Remington." Just call him the last of the soup-to-nuts mechanics. A generation later, Remington's still at it. When we caught up with him at All American Racers shop in Santa Ana, he was fitting an air scoop to a carbon-fiber rear brake on the latest Eagle GTP car. The new configuration of the redesigned rear suspension was making things difficult. The hours passed without much in the way of discernible progress, but Remington remained imperturbable, jaw set, eyes steely, face impassive. The man looked implacable, and it was clear that the air scoop was going to break before he did. There was no wasted motion while he worked, no tapping his feet to the rock 'n' roll playing on the radio, no breaks for coffee, no time devoted to gossip. Hour after hour, he trimmed and eyeballed and cut and massaged and measured and did whatever it took to get the damn air scoop to fit. "Phil's like a machine," says one former coworker. Says another, ex-Shelby team manager Al Dowd: "We called him Super-Twitchy Phil. He was a little hyper. He couldn't sit still at all. He'd work so hard and so fast, but he always got it right."
The roster of people Remington has worked with during his career reads like an Automobile Racing Hall of Fame. Naturally, some of them shared their expertise with the young Remington, but mostly, he mastered his trade the hard way. "I learned to do metal work on my own," he says. 'Well, I'll build my own car,' and I just started building it. I learned to weld by trading an intake manifold for a welding outfit when I was 17. I guess I'd have to say my expertise is being able to do a lot of things that other people can't do." Born in 1921 in Santa Monica, Rem - as he's known in the trade – grew up in the cradle of hot rod civilization. As a teenager, he was a member of the Santa Monica Low Flyers, and rival hot rod clubs, he became acquainted with many of the people who would dominate the post war west coast scene – Phil Hill, Ritchie Ginther, Jim Travers, Frank Coons, Stu Hilborn, and Vic Edelbrock, just to name a few. After serving as a B-24 flight engineer in the South Pacific, Remington returned home after World War II and headed straight to the dry lakes of California. With an ultra-modified Model A fitted with a flathead V8 Ford, he set a class record by running 136 mph and change at El Mirage. "He was always a little bit ahead of everybody," Travers recalls. A blown-up photograph of Remington in his car is one of the few racing mementos displayed in his house.
Remington later hooked up with Travers to work for millionaire sportsman Howard Keck, who was running a trio of midgets at the time. Unfortunately, Remington was hit by a truck while riding a Triumph Tiger motorcycle, and he spent a year in the hospital. "The left leg was terribly damaged," he says. "They were going to take it off at one point, so I called my mother and got her to bring me some clothes, and I bailed out." Although he walks with a slight limp, he still has his leg. When Remington got back on his feet, he joined well-known Indy car builders Emil Diedt and Lujie Lesovsky in their shop in Los Angeles. Their so-called Flexible Flyer proved to be a fiasco, but the team produced a bunch of successful specials. The most notable was a tube-frame, fully independent Ford 60 one-off for Sterling Edwards, who used to win at Palm Springs in 1950, generally considered to be the first official sports car race held on the west coast. After building intake manifolds for Eddie Meyer, Louis' brother, Remington moved to San Francisco to help Edwards in his quest to get his attractive sports car into production. Besides building a few prototypes for the young millionaire (and making what he believes may have been the first fiberglass automobile body), Remington ran Edwards' racing program. When he could find the time, he also did a little racing of his own, at least until he totaled a C-Type Jaguar at Pebble Beach after clouting a Jowett Jaguar. After he became convinced that Edwards wasn't going to get his sports car off the ground, Remington returned to LA and did a stint with Stu Hilborn.
Like we said, the man was everywhere. More to the point, he was wherever the action was the hottest. In 1957, he contracted with former Indy winner Pete DePaolo, who ran Ford Motor Company's quasi-factory racing program, to make an around-the-world trip with the '58 trucks. By the time he returned, Ford had quit racing, so he rejoined Lesovsky and worked on Indy roadsters, midgets, and dirt cars. And then, in 1958, he got the call to work for Lance Reventlow in building his fearsome Scarab sports cars. Remington arrived too late to work on the prototype, but he helped build the second and third sports cars and was in the inception of the Formula One car that appeared in 1960. Later, he was primarily responsible for the last of the Scarabs – a trim and neat rear-engined sports car that remained competitive for over three years. Although it achieved its greatest success with a small block Chevy in the engine bay (and A.J. Foyt in the cockpit), the rear-engined Scarab was originally equipped with a small Oldsmobile V8. To pump some extra power out of the motor, Remington fabricated a series of ever-more-elaborate crossover manifolds that not only worked effectively, but looked extraordinary. "I'd love to have one of the manifolds just to look at," says Warren Olson, who was the general of the Scarab operation. "It was just a work of art."
Remington doesn't often brag on his own work, but he can't resist crowing just a little about those manifolds. "First, I built one with 40 millimeters on it," he says. "Then I built one with 48 sidedrafts, and that ran pretty good, so I built them another one with 58 millimeter Webers. I started off with 1.75 inch tube and I hand-bent it into an Ess shape. Then I took the big end and put two wedges in it and made it out to be about two-and-three-eighths for the Weber. The Esses interlaced both ways and went into two flanges. Boy, it was a lot of work making those things, but it put out some real good power on the top end." In fact, the 298-pound engine was rated at 300 horsepower. If you look hard enough, you can find former coworkers who aren't members of the Phil Remington Fan Club. After all, he tends to be stubborn when he thinks he's right, and he's stepped on more than a couple of toes over the years. But nobody - not even his worst detractors – criticizes his work. And when your craftsmanship is as exquisite as Remington's has always been, there's never any shortage needy of people clamoring for your help. As soon as the Scarab operation folded in 1962, for instance, Remington landed on his feet with the Cobra program. In fact, when Shelby started leasing shop space in Venice from Reventlow, Remington more or less went with the building. As he puts it, "I just changed payrolls, I guess you could say."
A few weeks later, when Billy Krause broke a rear hub carrier while leading at race at Riverside in the Cobra's maiden race, Remington was the guy who picked up some forging blanks from his friend Ted Halibrand and made a set of new ones. These served as the prototypes for all future rear hub carriers which, by the way, never broke again. From Cobras, Shelby and Remington together segued into the Ford LeMans program. Although these years have been the subject of countless books and articles, the full extent of Remington's exploits will never be known. This much is clear: Remington solved the coupe's recurring brake-cooling problems by stealing the intakes off a C-47 he saw taxiing outside his office window. And he's the guy who chopped the long tail off the experimental J-Car at 2 o'clock one morning to turn the slow-moving breadvan into the invincible Mark IV. "Without him, it would have been an unbelievable failure," says Pete Weismann, who worked as a Kar Kraft engineer on the Ford project before becoming the nation's leading authority on racing transmissions. "He's the master. Whatever the engineers dreamed up, he was the one who made it work for them."
Remington's last job for Shelby was preparing the unsuccessful car raced by Peter Revson. After a brief stint in Charlotte, N.C., building Ford Talladega Grand National stockers for Holman and Moody, he returned to LA in time to help get Gurney's McLeagle Can Am car off the ground. Since then, Remington's had a hand in virtually everything to come out of the All American Racers shop. And at the age of 68 – he could pass for about 50 – he still puts in 60 hour weeks in Santa Ana and then accompanies the team whenever and wherever it goes racing. "It gets a little old," he admits, not sounding entirely convincing, "but everything on the car is kind of a prototype and you have to keep changing things at the racetrack all the time. The crew is busy doing their mechanical stuff, and they need a lot of advice sometimes if they think that something's wrong or something's cracked. "I'm thinking about retiring more and more," he says. But don't expect him to disappear anytime soon. When an Eagle finally wins a GTP race, Remington will probably be there, too.
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