Ryan submitted a new blog post: Tom Cobbs: Misc. Bonneville & Mammoth Lakes Continue reading the Original Blog Post
Kind of amazing that the salt scene looks so similar today in photos. Watching @BigJoeArt tackle a couple thousand miles to the salt , and now back, in his purple roadster the motorcycles, for then f1’s the camping and the groups of friends all look very similar. dig it.
Thanks for the next batch of these amazing photos. After the terrible loss of Chris Raschke, it got me to thinking about how special Bonneville is and has been for all these years regardless of how dangerous it is every time you get behind the wheel on the course. I guess the take away is how important these photos are to the keeping of the events of the past part of it's history from disappearing forever.
Thanks Ryan!! I finally have a photo of Tom’s pit tool box!! As soon as the shop get organized I’ll make an exact display of Tom’s garage in Santa Monica.
Just amazing. It'is a time capsule .just got to go out to bonneville for the first time .I will be going back next year..
It’s the life force of many race teams. Tom has so many books and special tools. I literally own the contents of his entire garage.
Hello, In the background of the above photo seems to be the Owens Dry Lake Area. The washed up shoreline is seen in the far background and it is miles wide plus far away in the photo. But there, the big Triumph “desert sleds” were gathered, the whole valley could be seen in the background. The Number plate seems like the similar ones we used for entering the So Cal District 37 races, which included a large area from the city up into the desert areas, near the large central mountain range of California. When we were racing out in the So Cal desert areas, the motorcycle race courses were closer to metropolitan Los Angeles but in the Southern reaches of the Mojave Desert. Parts of it spread out towards Las Vegas and the northern side continue up into the flat desert scrub areas of this barren area of inland California. But, as one goes by the open Owens Valley area, it is hot and dry to the east. To the West are the tallest mountains in California, topped off by Mt. Whitney. It is easily seen from the highway or where the desert race bikes were ridden. The fun thing is that there is no one out there to tell you to tone down the straight pipe exhausts and a full bore run down the flat dirt roads can be had. With caution of course due to the loose nature of the gravel and loose dirt covering the surface. The farther up into the mountains away from the Highway 395 are the communities of Mammoth Mountain and June Lake. There, one gets super hot in the summer, but 12 feet of snow during the heaviest snow fall in the winter months. Plus, that valley with Highway 395 running through this valley, there is the road from it up into the mountains and the final result is the famous Yosemite Valley on the other side of the tall mountain range. Jnaki On our last family road trip together in 1958, we drove down/up Highway 395 through the towns of Bishop, Lone Pine and up into the Crowley Lake/Mammoth Mountain areas. It was to be our last vacation together. My brother was driving and I was close to getting my license, so we no longer wished to go on those vacations, especially having to sit in the back seat for those long distances. Plus, our dad’s Buick did not have A/C and we drove straight through the desert regions to reach the cooler mountain cabin for our week long stay. It was a high desert drive in the Owens Valley area near Mt. Whitney and Mammoth Mountain range. To the East of the huge mountain range, are the wide open spaces for paved or dirt encased roads. Plus there are tons of acres of open desert scrub areas to ride motorcycles in events or individually. YRMV
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