Previously I had mentioned that we had gotten a bunch of drag race pictures from Bill LaPolla. Some were ID as to the vehicle and some were not. The locations mentioned for some of the shots was San Louis Obispo and Santa Maria. Having never been to either place for a race a little hunt was in order to figure out locations and who the players were.

At the Society of Automotive Historians literature fair last weekend I came home with a bunch of magazines. Being the sicko that I am everyone had to be looked through post haste to see what was inside and the gods  were indeed kind to us. In the May '59 issue of Hot Rod was a little wright up about, you guessed it' the San Louis Obispo strip. In May 1957 Jack Hathaway, Jerry Gaskill and Dale Latham formed the San Louis Obispo County Timing Association (SLOCTA) and after hooking up with the Cal Poly car club, the Turtles, they talked the County Board of Supervisors into renting a portion of the county airport to play on. There were four pictures and five paragraphs of info in the magazine that helped us ID the location and some of the players. With that the first pix (LAP_004) shows some SLOCTA officials testing the timing lights before the meet started. The gent in the center is Jerry Gaskill one of the founders. A peruse of the cars in the background shows some of the street driven players. How many of them would you like to own? A check of the county airport history reveals nothing of the drag boys use of the place. Sad.

Next up is LAP_005 that features a rare '62 Chrysler 300-H. They only built 435 of these 413" Hemi powered beasts and we get to see one called Snorkasaurus I. Wonder if the name was derived from the bug catcher on the hood. 

The next shot (LAP_005) shows the Brocter & Bonthalt Class A Roadster scooting off the starting line at Santa Maria. I'm thinking the early day flagmen had to be pretty gutsy as the cars would get pretty close to them as seen.

Again more research will have to be done to figure out the histories of both these strips.

Meanwhile back to the literature fair, all sorts of interesting goodies can be found and all it takes is time to go through boxes and boxes of "paper". A couple of years back I found this great cover (JMC_1325) from a magazine called Motor Age. It's dated August '46 and shows that cars and gals and hot rodders moonlighting as gas station mechanics go hand in hand. Some of these magazines would feature stories on Indy of what our hop up artists were doing to make the cars go faster. Others like Ford Times had some stories about Hilborn's injection for flatties and one by Pete Peterson covered an El Mirage lakes meet. The moral of this one is look at everything old automotive because you never know what you'll find.

Right next to the above cover in our files was this Gilmore Oil Company foldout from 1932 (JMC_1331). It hyped the use of their Lion Head Oil and Blue_Green Gasoline in the just finished Sparks-Weirick speedster nicknamed the Catfish. Also of interest is what's on the bottom of it. It fills us in on long forgotten info from Oakland Speedway and Legion Ascot.

This sunday it was up at 5:30 AM to get ready for a little roadtrip in Dan Warner's roadster over to Montrose for a car show. Our friend Don Tubbs has been putting on the show that was having its 9th edition to celebrate the birth of our Country a couple of hundred plus years ago. The first shot (JMC_1335) shows Dan's black roadster. When we arrived fellow Trompers members waved to us to park with their club cars so we couldn't refuse. We happened to park next to Ken Sapper who owns Speedway Engineering. Both Dan and Ken can be seen cleaning up their rides.

JMC_1336 shows Don Tubbs, mike in hand giving us the lowdown on just one of the cars in the mini-cacklefest. The altered behind him was the first one to go over 200 in the quarter. It was fired up with alki and then switched over to 70% so everyone could shed a tear of joy. Mr. NHRA, Dave McClellan, was behind the wheel. Cool.

Ther were 200 rides in the show that ran the gamut from pre war Cads and Packards to muscle cars to rods and customs. Being on the lookout for any and everything rod is always top priority and Mr. Eyeballs didn't let me down. At the far end of the street was an old '64 Stingray fitted with whitewall slicks and a bulge in the hood. On the back window was an old San Fernando Drag Strip decal that said shoot me so here it is. Look for a bunch more of them on the site in the future.

Now for the best part. After the show we headed off to Sun Valley for some chow with the ladies. A backyard barbecue next to the pool was the order of the day. After some libations and the sun almost set the fireworks literally started. What a great way to celebrate the 4th but wait there's more. Around 8:45 we took off for my house. By that time is was starting to get dark and as we were zooming down the freeway everywhere you looked in the sky were fireworks. In one 15 second period I counted about 25 bursts that surrounded us. Most of them were illegal, shot off from someone's front or back yard, but that's why we celebrate our independence. After the 20 minute ride home in a serenade of light works, Dan dropped me off and sped around the corner. Just then the grand finally at the Starlight Bown about a mile from my house started and the sky was all red white and blue for at least five minutes straight. What a way to end the day. Thanks Dan, thanks roadster and thanks U.S.A.