Well we've finally finished scanning all the Gear Grinders Car Club Photo Collection. There were a shade over 600 of the coolest images covering a wide range of our favorite things, cars. A lot of the pictures required digging real deep to figure out who was who and most cases we've lucked out and found some of the answers.

Jumping right in, our first shot today (GGC_517) shows Rudy Ramos' July '48 Hot Rod cover car being driven by Roy Prosser at Carrell Speedway in '49. We've determined this pix was taken during a practice session since the car doesn't have a hood. Locking in the exact date is still a problem as these machines ran weekly so all we can do is enjoy. After lakes and circle track capers Rudy kinda settled down in the boating world with his Rayson Craft drag boats in the late '50 and built his empire around them. 

Another of the shots that is special (GGC_499) is this one snapped at Gilmore Stadium on New Years Day, 1950. It shows future Indy car star Duane Carter in the Speed Age Magazine Offy Powered Midget fitted with a muffler to keep the neighborhood residents at bay for a few more weeks. This was a preliminary heat race and snapped about 3:40 in the afternoon. As a side note we have another shot of Duane sitting in a midget pre-war that was taken in Denver. Behind him and up a driveway was the entrance to the first shop of some salt flat legends, Bill Kenz and Roy Leslie. Fast foreward to the early seventies and the driver of our team's Trans-Am car grew up in Denver and guess who his hero was, right, Duane. That got him interested in cars and lead him later in life to work for Shelby in the Mustang and Cobra days. After his racing career he became a movie stunt driver and producer. You never know where cars will lead you, right Don Pike?

Now we come to the other end of the spectrum and know almost nothing about about a picture. Take for example GGC_313. This snap shows a clapped out '36 4-door sedan turned into a wanna-be race car. All that is known about it is the location is El Mirage and it's '48 or '49. The event was a Bell Timing affair. I've talked to the former President of Bell and he said he has nothing left from the old days, not even rememberances. Oh well! 

Even harder too track down is info on the old drag race venues. This shot (GGC_306) was taken at Saugus. We know the track was really a landing strip used by crop dusters and was rented for the occasions. Talking to Louie Senter, he said he and Lou Baney would go up saturday and set up everything for sunday then go home and start again the next morning. Only timing lights a couple of flagmen and no insurance, how times have changed and how simple it was. At the end of the strip was a cross road and they had a flagman there to stop traffic, as a lot of cars couldn't get stopped and ended up crossing the road and landing in the field. Houses and a school now occupy the land. The funny thing now is when you talk to Louie, of some of the old time competitors they can't tell you where the tack use to be except up on the other side of Santa Clarita. Interesting.

Talking about drags, last week I mentioned Jim Seaton and his former Nancy 22 Jr. and custom Chevy. Here is another one of his toys (LAP_245) that you might recognize. It was snapped at Santa Maria leaving the starting line and was built by a Mr. Barris for Jim. It did double duty on the strip and in car shows and was a real beauty. And yes, it's still around today. If you have a August '61 issue of Car Craft look in it for a how to on the rear fender openings. We also have a few more clues about the couple of hundred drag shots we got from Mr. LaPolla so keep tuned.

For more drag race fun in the guise of TV Tom's Buick powered rail job check this shot (IVO_001) out. It was shot at a local park probably for a magazine story. The red and white '55 Buick Century in the background was Tom's daily driver as well as strip performer. Ivo's chassis builder Kent Fuller is still at it in between his shop moves and is almost finished with his flattie powered B-ville liner. Stay tuned.

Some old pictures are a lot easier to ID than others and this one from Richard Parks falls in the easy class. RPC_009 takes us up to Oakland, CA on November 13, 1932 for a AAA 150 mile non-championship race. The players are-  On the pole, eventual race winner "Wild" Bill Cummings in the Boyle Valve Special. Howard Wilcox, Bob Carey, Fred Frame, Lester Spangler, Bryan Saulspaugh, Ernie Triplett, Al Gordon, Kelly Petillo, "Wee" Wilbur Shaw way before he became Presdog of IMS, Louie Meyer, Mauri Rose, Louis Tomei, Chris Vest and Babe Stapp make up  the rest of the field. The little cars in the pit boxes on the right were the first real Midgets that spawned the new sport. When you start looking at the old programs you're gonna find a lot of drivers and wrenches got their start playing on a piece of dirt called Muroc.

In the quest to hunt out the obscure every once an awhile we find something really different. I know it doesn't show cars but to me it's a hot rod of a different kink. The SEP cover shows a make believe scene of the upcoming National Air Races held in Cleveland on September 3-7, 1937. All we have is the cover so I don't know about the editorial that was inside. Our buddies at Gilmore were big players along with Mobil and Champion and I can name a pre-war lakes champion that was inspired by these beasts of the sky. If you've seen the Rocketeer you know what I mean. We like to dig deeper in our research and this one was no exception. Clayton Knight who did the drawing turned out to be an airplane guy and was shot down in WWI. Later he teamed up with racer Eddie Rickenbacker and they did the commic strip and movie serial Ace Drummond.  Even later he helped form the Eagle Squadron for U.S. Flyers that flew for the Canadians and RAF during the big one.

All in all, it really amazes me when you connect some of the dots with the back stories, us car guys have invaded every form of business/fun there is on the planet and left our stamp of inventiveness on them all. I guess we're not just a bunch of grease monkeys after all.