1 PM PST
Doug,
I acquired my love for auto racing in 1951 while living in Council
Bluffs Iowa. They had an old ¼ mile dog track that was converted to
"jalopy racing". I really got addicted to it. I came to California in
October of 1952 and settled in La Harbra (Orange County). We were about
25 miles north of the Orange County Airport where the Santa Drags were
held. It took a couple of years for me to find my way there.
I worked in Santa Fe Springs at the Productol Chemical Refinery where I
became acquainted with Bob James, a chemist there that had built a ½"
stroke by 3/8" bore flat head motor (324 cubic inch, I believe) and
installed it in a 1936 Ford coupe. It was a real ground shaker built by
Nelson Taylor and John Ryan in Whittier. After a ride down the street in
this car, the racing addiction returned and it wasn't very long before I
found myself at the Santa Ana Drags.
In 1959, I quit the refinery and went to work for Emil Grissotti, owner
of Fullerton Muffler. During the two years I worked there I went to the
1st Bakersfield National Drags and made the Santa Maria trip. At that
time we held the top time records in our roadster class at all the
strips in the LA area except Long Beach. We had exceeded their record
but had not torn down to claim it.
We were running a 300 cu. in. Desoto which was giving us top times
around 122 MPH and ET's in the high eleven second range. The first run
at Santa Maria re raise the record from 116 MPH to somewhere in the low
120's, I don't remember exactly. We were treated like Kings the whole
day. It was one our more memorable outings.
I am enjoying this too much and I am beginning to worry about it. It is
said that spending too much time living in the past is a sign of old
age! I do look forward to meeting you and spending time bench racing.
All those names that you mentioned , Hashim (I got to meet Ernie and
spend time talking with him at this year's Gas UP) Art Chrisman, Fritz
Viogt, Jazzy Nelson, Glass Slipper, Nesbitts Orange special...they bring
back memories.
Tom, Redding CA
ARDUNDOUG@aol.com wrote:
>
> Tom,
> Where were you living in 1960? You must have had quite a drive to get to
> Santa Maria. What MPH and ET did the roadster turn? What kind of power? A SBC?
> In the mid to late 50's there was a guy from the Valley (Madera, I think)
> named Hut Watkins who ran a fuel roadster sponsored by Ed Fant Buick and
> powered by a Nailhead. He ran ET's about the same as my fuel Flatty (10's on
> a good day at about 125-130). I always dreaded having to face him, but he
> never was at SLO or Santa Maria when I ran. I see him regularly at El Mirage,
> Bonneville, and the Reunions. I'll introduce him to you sometime.
> Also from Madera were a couple of guys with a DeSoto powered slingshot
> Modified Roadster with a shark nose made from a late 30's Willys hood. They
> were Milt Alley & Herb DeWitt (I think), and the thing ran pretty hard. I
> never had to run them either.
> Did you ever run into Harry Webster from Fresno? He had another slingshot
> 27 T Modified Roadster that ran 140+ at Kingdon (Lodi, CA) powered by Joe
> Boghosian's fuel Ardun. Boghosian is still building racing engines and is at
> the salt regularly, turning wrenches on the Indy Cammer SB Ford powered fuel
> roadster of Ron Van Natta.
> I remember once in the 50's when Webster & Boghosian took the Ardun and
> put it into a bone-stock 40 Ford sedan, adding only 8" slicks on the rear.
> The thing turned 118, phenominal for those days when George Santos (father of
> Rick Santos the "three-peat" Federal Mogul Dragster champ) and his Flatty
> powered steel 5-window Deuce were dominating "A" Gas at 106 in the 13's.
> As a side note, one of the "heavy-hitters" of the mid 50's was Ernie
> Hashim from Bakersfield, CA who had one of the first front-mounted GMC blown
> Chryslers in Calif. He was sponsored by Hylton Drilling Co. and the car was
> driven by Bill Replogle. It was a pretty basic, very short WB slingshot using
> what looked like Model T Ford frame rails.It consistently ran about 150 in
> the 1/4 mile.
> In the mid 1980's I was at an old-time-rodders-reunion in Paso Robles, CA
> put on by Chic Cannon (the NHRA Safety Safari guy from the olden days). Ernie
> Hashim was there and I had a long talk with him. Turned out that he had no
> pics of his old car. I just happened to have one taken in 1955 at Minter
> Field (near Bakersfield) at a meet put on by the Smokers. In those days the
> promoter always had a photo-op before eliminations with all the cars lined up
> at the starting line. I was there from San Luis Obispo as a spectator and
> snapped a pic and Hashim's car was the first in a line of about 10 fuel
> dragsters. The pic was taken with an old reflex camera using
> 2 1/4 X 2 1/4 film, so when I enlarged it 30 years later it was really clear.
> Ironically, in the picture are 3 Ardun powered dragsters. The rest include
> the Glass Slipper (Flatty powered), Art Chrismans old #25, the
> Nesbitts-Orange special, and a host of other then-famous cars.
> On a final note, the next pic took was the Top Eliminator race. The cars
> running for the top spot were not included in the photo-op because they
> weren't fuel dragsters. The race was between Fritz Voigt (later to be Mickey
> Thompson's wrench) in his Chrysler gas hemi dragster and Jim "Jazzy" Nelson
> in his legendary Flatty powered Fiat coupe. Jazzy got the "Flathead-Jump" on
> Fritz, made a little noise, Fritz smoked the tires, and we had a Flatty Top
> Eliminator.
> If anybody's interested I can post the photo-op lineup of all the fuel
> cars.
> .Ardun Doug in CA
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