Yer right, Vic. At least I think so. Actually, the oldest son, Ian, seemed like a nice guy, as much as I saw of him sitting in the audience listening to his dad speak.
And the hits just keep on coming!
In St Louis, the cable company whose contractor, digging without a permit, ruptured a gas line, causing an explosion that killed one and injured 15, is now asking the city for a permit and requesting that it be dated retroactively (i.e. before the incident). Wonder who the stupid ones will turn out to be?
Mario Andretti? Young gun. I’m still a fan of Fangio, Moss, Hawthorn, those crazy guys from the 1950s 
Honestly…as a member of the younger generation, I think that history, and more specifically the history of American culture, isn’t really taught anymore. You can hear all you want about Vietnam; the Civil War; American foreign relations. But what about what came from these? Crosby, Stills and Nash would never have done Ohio without the Ohio State massacre; but while the protests are mentioned in history classes, the music never is. It’s possible to receive a very clear view of what was happening in the world at any time, but never how it felt; never who the cultural heroes were. Dan Gurney mentioned? Never.
And Joe, that’s actually Kansas City you’re thinking of, not STL. First, I live in STL and hadn’t heard about it (I actually still read the newspaper rather than watching the news, but I still think I have a fair idea of what occurs in this fine city). Second…the news stories say Kansas City. Oops.
http://fox2now.com/2013/02/25/official-company-in-kansas-city-explosion-lacked-work-permit/
And Jon, I -really- envy your experience as a marshal at Watkins Glen. Jackie Stewart’s been my driving idol since grade school and I would have killed to simply meet him. I attended the US Grand Prix at Indianapolis in 2006/2007 but it just wasn’t the same. Perhaps I was just born 50 years too late?
Robbie, you are so right. Because the story in the LA Times was slugged “Missouri,” my mind must have locked on that and free-associated with St. Louis, thinking (now there’s a dangerous concept) that Kansas City was in Kansas, which it is also, right? Anyway, the Times and other newspapers could use eagle-eyed readers like you to act as proof readers. Good catch.
Speaking of racing greats, a long time ago when I was visiting two of Road & Track’s contributing artists, I spent a week in Buenos Aires and interviewed Fangio in his office at the Mercedes dealership he owned. I neither speak nor understand Spanish, so my artist friend, Hector Bergandi, did all the translating. I remember that one of the questions I asked Fangio was, “How do you think the drivers of today would fare against the drivers of your era.” Ever the diplomat, he replied, “That was then, this is now.” I think (hope) I still have his business card somewhere.
Does the name Art Arfons, jog any fog loose? Craig Breedlove and Art fought the biggest battle of the 60’s, Gathering headlines almost weekly it seems, Now nearly no one remembers even why they remember their names…
I was waiting in the start line at Bonneville during speedweek a number of years ago, and a guy came up and liked our car, and we started chatting, he made a couple of suggestions, and 30min latter I had to suit up, we shook hands he wished me good luck on the run, I didn’t set any record that day, but it would have been special, I had been chatting with Art, who had stopped by speed week for the day, and I hadn’t even knew who he was at the time, If I had I would have offered to let him drive my car, wouldn’t that have been a hoot?
Joe Zullo said:
Who is John Galt?
Master Objectivist.
Joe there was a real man named John Galt in Canadian history, BION. Before RR’s and Dagney Taggart. Town named for him, Galt, Ontario. It’s in the Atlas.
Dave Taylor said:
Does the name Art Arfons, jog any fog loose? Craig Breedlove and Art fought the biggest battle of the 60’s, Gathering headlines almost weekly it seems, Now nearly no one remembers even why they remember their names…
Art moved into tractor pulls later in life. We used to watch him with his Jet turbine powered tractor at the National Pulls up in Buck, PA. While most of the conventional looking tractors were clawing their way to reach the finish line, he was actually still accelerating when he got there.
And I remember him and Breedloves battles for the LSR at Bonneville.
A few (? more like two decades) ago I attended the Mopar Nationals in Ohio. I ran into an old friend of mine (who sells repro Max Wedge stuff for a living), and he introduced me to a group of guys he was having a bull session with. Among them were these old geezers with names like Dick Landy, Ronnie Sox and Bill Golden… (no I don’t have pictures to prove it, I haven’t seen 'em since the big D)
My girls have no idea who they are/were because it just isn’t relevant in their lives, and I can’t for the life of me name that Japanese techno-pop group they really like, either. (On the plus side, they both really like Fleetwood Mac and Jimmy Buffett - so at least we don’t have to fight over the radio in the car)
I also once talked a guy in Oz through setting a Stephenson’s Reverse Gear over the phone (as well as resetting several Woolf and Hackworth gears and a sliding eccentric version)… but I don’t call folks who can’t “stupid”… unless they actually are 
Joe Rusz said:
Robbie, you are so right. Because the story in the LA Times was slugged “Missouri,” my mind must have locked on that and free-associated with St. Louis, thinking (now there’s a dangerous concept) that Kansas City was in Kansas, which it is also, right? Anyway, the Times and other newspapers could use eagle-eyed readers like you to act as proof readers. Good catch.
Speaking of racing greats, a long time ago when I was visiting two of Road & Track’s contributing artists, I spent a week in Buenos Aires and interviewed Fangio in his office at the Mercedes dealership he owned. I neither speak nor understand Spanish, so my artist friend, Hector Bergandi, did all the translating. I remember that one of the questions I asked Fangio was, “How do you think the drivers of today would fare against the drivers of your era.” Ever the diplomat, he replied, “That was then, this is now.” I think (hope) I still have his business card somewhere.
Joe, the drivers today would likely wet there astronaut undies if they tried driving one of those old front engines open top F1 monsters of Fangio’s era, sure they weren’t anywhere as fast as todays but the fact that your in a completely exposed position with other cars hurtling by within a few feet with no bodily protections at 150moh and the only roll bar was your head meant those guys of Fangio’s era had balls of titanium to drive those monsters flat out.
If any of you care to know what I am talking about with the old F1 cars of the 50’s watch the first half of this, Top Gear with a 1950’s era Maserati F1 racer:
Meaning no disrespect, Dave, Arfons and Breedlove were on the fringes of racing in that they were of the “What’s the fastest you can go?” school of motorsport. I know of them by reputation, but not personally, as our paths didn’t cross.
However, at Road & Track one of the six editors I worked under was Tony Hogg, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking Brit who loved to laugh and punctuated every sentence with, “You know what I mean?” Anyway, he told me about interviewing Arfons for a book he was doing, and the subject of adapting a J-40 jet engine to a dragster, came up. Arfons told him how he would lash it to a couple of trees and have plenty of tie downs to hold it in place. Until you hit the afterburner when, in Tony’s or Art’s words, “It didn’t matter for s*%&!”
Bonneville: most memorable visit was in 1970, I think, when “Dune Buggies & Hot VWs” where I was associate editor, was doing a story on the Volksliner, a streamliner powered by a VW engine modified by SCAT. The car was beautiful to look at but flawed, in that the driver, Phil Knight (no, not Nike founder Phil Knight) drove while lying on his stomach and peering through a periscope from an Army tank. Bad idea, 'cause you had no sense of what was going on around you. On it’s very first run at only about 100 mph, the thing rolled over (not a blow over, just a flop) and pretty well thrashed the bodywork. We hauled it to Salt Lake where one of the guys from SCAT’s folks lived, and pulled an all-nighter and part-dayer taping it back together. We took it back to the salt and ran it, but I don’t think it did 120.
I shot a great cover of it and titled it, “Bon Voyage, Volksliner,” which I thought was my oh-so-clever take off on a joke on TV that said, “Bon Voyage, Titanic.” Nobody got the joke.
In the 80s, I drove a Mazda RX-7 at Speedweeks, but got up to only one fifty something on a 200 mph record, as I recall. Don Sherman, or maybe Csabe Csere of Car and Driver tried the same stunt in an RX-7 a year or so later and had one helluva blowover that’s prolly on YouTube. As far as going fast on a dry lakebed, Porsche took a bunch of us to Black Rock Desert where USAC timed each of us officially in a 911 Turbo. But the surface was really heavy and I don’t think I got to 170–in a 200 mph car. Went faster on the road heading back to Reno.
What kinda car did you run on the salt, Dave?
Mik, although I was writing about drag racing back then–I was briefly the editor of National Dragster–I never met Landy, Sox and all. However, I can tell you how Landy got his nickname, “Dandy Dick Landy.” My Buffalo buddy, Eric Dahlquist, who got me my start in the biz, was Feature Editor at Hot Rod Magazine, where he was doing a story on Landy. At one point, Eric said, “That’s dandy, Dick,” and the title stuck.
Lastly, John, I know where Galt, Ontario is. Heck, I’ve been to Etobicoke and have a Rod & Custom Magazine cover (my first) to prove it.
Sorry for all them words.
Joe Rusz said:
Sorry for all them words.
No need to apologize. I always enjoy reading your stuff ;]
Joe Rusz said:
However, at Road & Track one of the six editors I worked under was Tony Hogg, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking Brit who loved to laugh and punctuated every sentence with, “You know what I mean?” .
Never heard of the guy but I like him from your description!
…(http://www.freethoughtnation.com/components/com_comment/joscomment/emoticons/funny/images/smile.png)…
@Joe I started on the salt wrenching and helping the Late Ron Hall on the Studebaker Avanti #1963. It was Studebaker powered R3 ( thats the 302 CI, w/a Paxton supercharger, factory setup, worked up by Andy Granatelli) After several years we got it up over 200 for a D/Pro class record.
During that time I linked up with Burly Burl of VW fame, and the yearly “Cruse Ins”. I started shooting the 360 deg, 7 ft long, circut panoramic photos on the salt for about ten years. Burly raced a VW for a couple of years, didn’t set any class records, but did have the fastest street legal, stock Super Beetle. Burly is still involved on the salt and has been the driving force to the 36hp VW racing scene thats getting really popular.
I got Salt Fever, and had to go racing, Myself and two buddies looked in the record book, and found an open class with no record and set out to build a car to run in it. The class was J/Pro. ( J is the engine class, and “Pro” is the type, Pro stands for production). Joe knows this but for all the rest of you. Engine size classes start at AA and decrease in Cubic Displacement down to the smallest of “J” J size is 45 ci or smaller. In the production class, its basically "As factory built, and a 4 passenger car, Engine, tyranny, rear ends or other driveline swaps are not allowed, and the interior of the car must be in it. The only car we could come up with to fit the class was a 1949 Crosley. Any buddy that knows what a Crosley is will know that it isn’t much of a car to keep stock, and go for a Land speed record. Hence our name “Oxymoron Racing Team” We did set a “Land Speed Record” for our class of Just over 75MPH. Not bad for a car that has the aerodynamics of a refrigerator, and an engine so small you could literally reach in and pull the whole motor out of the car by yourself. As far as cars go that was the “Slowest Land Speed Record” that SCTA and BNI recognized on the books. There’s the Oxymoron “Slowest land speed record”. When Art was talking to me, here was one of the fastest men ever to drive a 4 wheel car, helping out a car that would set the slowest record.
Joe, somewhere in your R&T archives, is a couple of pics of our car, It made the mag for your B’ville coverage. It’s Cuda Slime Green (my buddies are MoPar guys).
We had a ball, Kept the record for a year and then a Honda cvcc (the one with a 3cyl motorcycle engine) took it away from us. Our car couldn’t come near his speeds. But we had set the slowest record.
The car was stollen and has disappeared off the face of the earth, we were going to donate it to the Crosley Museum, but we haven’t found it yet. Any body seen a Slime Green 49’ Crosley with “Oxymoron Racing” on the side?
Rooster: yeah, Tony was a pip. Super guy who had done so much in his life. He and our owners, John and Elaine Bond, used to go out for lunch at noon and not come back until 3, tripping and laughing up the stairs 'cause they’d had too mini martoonies. Ya couldn’t do that today.
Ah, Dave, now yer soundin’ like a senior citizen like me. I hate the Old Farts Rule stuff and geezer junk (I am not using explatives here, 'cause Bob will send us to detention). I am as old as I feel (16 going on 12), so no seniors stuff for me. Anyways, as they say, I could go on and on about cars, which have been my vocation and avocation. Ya just can’t get 'em outta yer brain!
On the Avanti: back in the mid-60s I thought they were cool and even considered buying one. But the Good Lord stepped in and kept me from buying that car, which I actually looked at at a dealership in N’Awlins, where I was in puppy love with a woman I wanted to marry, which is where God stepped in again. Anyway, interesting car designed by Raymond Loewy (sp?) who also did the iconic Coca Cola bottle. I went to the Avanti/Studebaker plant in South Bend and did a story, I guess, although I don’t recall what I wrote. And why!
Crosleys: never had any personal interface with them. All’s I know is that back in my boat racing days, there was a class of hydroplane that used Crosely engines exclusively. Its APBA designation was “Y” and because the engine displacement was 48 cubic inches, we just called 'em “48s.” The hottest 48 at the time (1960s) was a boat called Southern Air, owned and raced by Doc Moore from Hialeah, Florida.
BTW, sorry about your stolen car.
Gad, what intersting sh-tuff. I just love to revel in the past!
Yep,keeps drawing me back. Personal stories of times past. Great stuff.
@Joe, That makes two of us here that are members of the “Long Black Line” Fraternity.
I think that that VW streamliner went to Don Vescos’ shop in SLC. I could be wrong.
“Dune Buggies & Hot VWs” ?
That was the “cool” magazine back in my high school days, everyone I knew wanted the “Cal Bug” look, Joe knows what that was, still popular today. I always liked the VW kit cars of that 60’s/70’s era, which were essentially dune buggy’s with doors. I would still love to get my hands on a Bradley GT, a Valkyrie, a Sterling Nova, or a Laser 917 but they are as rare as hens teeth out here, they still crop up on Evilbay but the sellers are always 2000 miles away.
Victor, My friend Burly produced the “Boofu” coupe, Fiberglass body. There is a Bradley and a Valkyrie running around our town… I think the same guy owns them.
Hmmmm… Ve dubs!
My first car (in about '68) was a '56 Beetle. I upgraded the motor with a Porsce 1600cc that was a direct bolt-on. It had no heat nor chokes, I used Ether and two balls of string to start it :] That motor didn’t last long; one of the head bolts pulled loose.
I started to fix the Porsche but about that time one of the locals was running around in a V8 conversion, I decided that was for me, found a Pontiac with a good V8 and frame and cut the body off in my driveway with a circular saw and a steel slicing blade.
Had a welder come out and shorten the frame to fit the VW body; had the drive shaft shortened and balanced. Meanwhile I put a manifold with 3 deuces on it and a cam advance key. Never was able to get the engine running after that nor did I ever finish attaching the body. Sold it incomplete a few years later but never heard about it being finished.
The friend of my boss who inspired me; Vern something; crashed his on Elmwood Ave. taking out most of the front row of a car lot :0