The birth of gearheads pushing to see if there are any limits. Do***ents are critical to our history. This is excellent writing. Seems you were reincarnated Ryan, what (if) were you before that created this caretaking p***ion of Hot Rodding ? How would you ( or can you) describe it........ @Ryan honestly.
First time at Paradise Mesa was about 1955 with my dad. We lived in Valencia Park which was not that far away. Bean Bandits, Chiefs and Prowlers along with the San Diego Roadster club were the dominate clubs. Lot's of motorcycles and quite a few sailors from the local bases were spectators. Our high school club, Piston Pounders, belonged to the San Diego Timing ***ociation. Rules were discussed at the monthly meetings. NHRA held a regional race there in 1951. Flag starter and Otto Crocker timing.
It’s just volume. Thousands of hours of digging through old paper, microfilm, court records, forgotten columns… to the point where it all starts to rot together in your head. You take in so much that you get sick of it, and then, worse, you start to forget it. This piece didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s fallout from a research project that’s been dragging on for the better part of a decade. A few years back, David Lucsko wrote a book called The Business of Speed. To me, it’s one of the most important things ever written about hot rodding. It breaks down how the whole thing went from kids in junkyards to an actual industry. The project I’ve been involved in runs parallel to that, but from a different angle. Less about the business, more about the people. The culture. The shift from something reckless and curious in the ’40s and ’50s into… whatever it is now. Lawn chairs. Safe conversations. Old farts with zero drive for breaking laws and sticking out. For the last ten years I’ve been buried in this stuff… newspapers, court records, all the paper trails that expose just how unruly this thing really was in the beginning. It wasn’t polite. It wasn’t organized. It was rebellion… not the safe, teenage kind, but the real thing. And the truth is, most of that work is mind-numbingly boring. Articles. Dates. Court records. Dates. Names. Dates. And so on... After a while, the numbers stop meaning anything on their own. You don’t want to record them anymore. You want to step back and look at what they add up to. That’s what this is. The painting the data makes when you squint a little. Sort of...
Almost like a drug you can’t get enough of. I didn’t know if you would reply or not since I asked about you. You replied in your own way about the p***ion, with a little numb mixed in.
My father was a San Diego Hot Rodder and made a career working for Cal Fire (CDF then). Hired in ‘58-or ‘59, he promoted to engineer in ‘61 and moved to brand new Station 32, Paradise Mesa although I think it was called Sweet Water Station. He was a regular at the strip both as a Hot Rod compe***or and spectator. The strip closed in ‘59. I found these in an old box of his stuff after he p***ed. I wish I knew more about why he kept them or if there was even a reason. They are proudly displayed in my case at home now.
Decades after this, the guys and gals that would street race still went out to Paradise Valley Road before it got torn up and replaced with South Bay freeway. I wanted to see where the old strip was and found this link. Enjoy. https://sandiegoracingmuseum.weebly.com/paradise-mesa.html
Otto Crocker, Bozzy Willis, San Diego Drag-Goons, nitroed too much, hospital for tired engines, jalopies at the drags! So much cool in one little book.
So well said. Can you imagine how many disagreements went on at the tech pits ? Breaking down that rulebook led to a lot of " interpretations". Not unlike today.
When they first started running that 3,000-foot strip, it wasn’t organized. Eight cars would launch at once, all headed the same direction like a controlled disaster. On the return, the fastest four lined up against each other, then the slower four followed. No timing slips worth trusting. No real records. And definitely no paperwork on the crashes, the injuries, or the close calls. But if you dig into the interviews, you’ll find plenty of evidence that things went sideways more than once. Between 1947 and 1952, forty-seven kids were arrested out there. Most of it tied to a series of police raids in 1950, when the authorities decided enough was enough. It’s the kind of detail that rarely makes it into the polished version of history, and it’s damn hard to piece together after the fact. Around 2008, I interviewed Jim Nelson and tried to make sense of some of it. I didn’t know half of what I know now, so I wasn’t asking the right questions. But one thing stuck. He told me, more or less, “We felt like criminals for doing what we loved. The city, the police, everybody was against us. We raced anyway.” Before that, most of my perspective came from Wally Parks. And Wally, whether you agree with him or not, was playing a longer game. He wanted legitimacy. He wanted acceptance. He was willing to sand down the rough edges of hot rodding to get there. Jim didn’t care about any of that. Or at least, I got that impression... Where Wally was building a bridge, Jim was lighting matches. Acceptance wasn’t the goal. Racing was. And if the world didn’t like it, that was the world’s problem. I wish like hell I had access to those two now... Cuz I would have much better questions and the confidence to try to get real answers.
The Jalopy Journal
