Today, September 3, would have been my Dads 89th birthday, but he left us on June 22 of this year. He was a proud member of The Greatest Generation having served in the Army Air Corp during WWII. My Dads initial post war employment was in a So Cal Ford dealership working the parts counter. His unique ability to remember numbers coupled with knowing what the parts were made to do put him in high demand with the customers, two of which would prove fortuitous. Those two would be Bob & **** Pierson. The Pierson Brothers were in the dealership buying parts so often, my Dad eventually asked them what they were up to, and they told him. Wanting some of that action, my Dad was brought over to Vic Edelbrocks shop where he was introduced to Bobby Meeks. Although not having too many cubic dollars to spend, Meeks was able to find enough parts lying around the shop to put together a Flathead with my Dads help. This engine went into my Dads daily driver, a 40 Ford Sedan. The next step was joining the Coupes Club, aligning with the Russetta Timing ***ociation, and then off to the El Mirage dry lake for some fun. Over the course of 7 years my Dad set numerous records with his 40 Sedan, with the fastest run being 132.35mph on September 16, 1950. After getting out of the car in 1953, my Dad took the Flathead over to Jack Gardners California Roadster ***ociation car and they went out and won the championship in 1954. Another highlight from 1954 was my Dad being a part of Bill Stroppes Lincoln Mercury Team that competed in the La Carrera Panamericana. After crewing for a number of Midget & Sprint Cars for a few years, my Dad then left for a seat in the stands, most notably at his beloved Ascot Park to watch the CRA Sprint Cars. His later years found him retired and traveling the country in his motor home before settling into a life of ease near San Diego. Below are a few hastily compiled images. My Dad is on the right rear of the Lincoln during a pit stop I don't post much, but hit this forum daily. Thanks
First - Sincere sympathy goes out to you and all of the family, and friends. Second - Wow, what a life he had.
89 is getting right to the bottom of the 9th inning. A full life. And what a life! Sounds like he hit a grand slam in every at bat. He did what a lot of us can only dream of doing. When I read of such a wonderful like I'm reminded of saying I heard a long time ago. "Don't cry because its over. Smile because it happened". R.I.P.
Condolences to you and your family. Your Dad sure lived a great life, superb tribute. bakerracingpix.com was one of the few websites with period photos I found on the web in 2001, I always loved looking at those early pix. If possible please keep it running.
JalopyJoker & 3wLarry - thank you both Tman - Wow. All I did was sit down and start typing. thank you firingorder1 - My Dad actually skewed the family bell curve. My Great Grandfather lived to be 92 & my Grandfather lived to be 97. We're going to see about ****tering his ashes at El Mirage Jimmy B - thank you. I'm well aware of your website - it's outstanding. And I'll keep my site going for a long time to come
Got this image from a fellow h.a.m.b. member, would like to be able to have a couple replica's made for my brothers old friend who is a long time member of the S.C.T.A.
Wow, great life, great tribute, great job. Hope my son remembers me this way, when the time comes. Take care
The 1954 California Racing ***ociation Championship Car of Jack Gardner Sr. The flathead in this car is my Dad's engine from his '40 Ford Sedan Dry Lakes car
Your dad sounds like he was a great person;my condolences to you and your family. My wife's ex-father-in-law was in the Coupes club as well and ran at Russetta.He also worked at Vic Edelbrock's shop with Bobby Meeks and later with the Lincoln team Carrera cars.He p***ed away a couple years ago at the age of 86. Although he had several strokes years ago that destroyed his short term memory he could talk for hours about the "old days" My only regret is I never taped those conversations we infrequently had.If your dad had any old pics of the club Fran Hernandez was probably in them.His son Randy has put together a website with a bunch of old pics from the lakes;the East African Safari;Kar Kraft,where Fran supervised the building of the Boss Mustangs;the GT-40's,and the flip-top Mercury Comet that was supposedly the first funny car.
Thank you for the kind words. My guess is your wife's ex father-in-law probably knew my Dad. I've been in touch with Rndy. He had some of my Dad's Russetta Timing Tags which he mailed to me. Here's my Dad with Fran at El Mirage in 1949:
Learned about your family history through your contributions to the history of LA thread. Fantastic tribute to your dad, thanks for sharing.
B.H. Thank you. Your contributions to the History of LA thread are remarkable. I'm now inspired to look thru some more of the old family photos I have and see if I have anything to add to that thread.
These photos are from Karen Sue Boren and were taken by either Bill Boren (Karen's Dad) or her uncle, Jerry Keldrauk who were in the Culver City Screwdrivers from 1948 to 1953. The photos are of my late father who was a member of The Coupes club and I had never seen them before. The first image is more than likely from 1950 at El Mirage and the 2nd shot is from 1953 at the Saugus Dragstrip. The 3rd shot is from my Dad's collection and is from 1953. Special thanks to Karen for sharing these with me
Great pictures, thanks for posting!...I have never seen that building in the background in other Saugus shots, wonder if it was built before the track closed?
An addendum to this post if anyone is interested. I found this email my Dad sent me a number of years ago with a brief note on how he got into the Hot Rod thing. The email is reproduced here "as is" Thank you for letting me self indulge It really all started sometime in 1948 when I met Bob Pierson. I was working in the parts department at the George M. Sutton Ford agency in Inglewood, Ca. Shortly before that I had bought our first car, the 1939 Ford Fordor Sedan, that became the 190a car. Bob was trying to find parts to further his ventures into "go fast land", and was running an Edelbrock engine in his 36 three window coupe. I decided to also delve into the land of quickness, and started a slow plan to build an engine for the sedan. It needed it badly, due to lack of proper maintenance and some neglect due to cir***stances during WWII. And we needed reliability for our everyday driver. The block was a new 46 Mercury 59A. The crank was a new 46 Merc also, so the stroke could be 1/4" longer. It was bored to 3 5/16. Pierson then convinced me to let Bob Meeks do all the work. That was the most significant move I ever made. When Meeks first got the block, the first thing he did was to check it for perpendicularity of the crank centerline to the cylinder bores. It was NOT correct enough for the intended use. So, he called me and told me to correct the thing we had to go to .030 over 3 5/16. Since I had not yet sent the pistons, we were still ok. Meeks then went ahead and cleaned up the bore, and I provided the valves, Lincoln V12 valve springs, and went thru magnaflux of four sets of rods (32) to get one set of 8, which were the best to use. I also sent Meeks all the timing gears and crank, and rod bearings, and seals. We also used the adjustable lifters that were a must to keep valve clearances tuned without a major job each month. The cam used was a Harmon-Collins, designed for performance on the top end, of the Ford flathead at that time, which was between 4000 and 5400 rpm. If anybody tried to turn them any higher, good luck............The 3 main block, and the crank flex would cause disaster. Bob balanced all the rotating components, and was ready to ***emble the thing when I ran out of money. To help me, he took everything home with him, and finished all the ***embly at his home in Lennox. To this day, I'm indebted. Soon after, Pierson had space at his house in Inglewood, and with Bob and ****s help, the new engine was installed, and fired up. Minor tweeking, and fussing, and off we go to "test" the thing. When the test run was over, we had gone from Inglewood to Ventura and back. During the early spring of 49 there were many, many, surprised challengers on the streets of L.A. since ours was the really first quick sedan to exist. Lots of others couldn’t conceive that a car that size could "haul ***" as we did. I joined the famous Coupes Club, at the time, and was the club rep. in the sedan cl***. And then the 49 Lakes season started. The car was driven to the lakes, converted to alcohol, run in cl*** compe***ion, turned fast time, converted back to gasoline, and returned to everyday life. Six times in 49 that happened. We trophied each time, and won the cl*** championship, going from No.190 in the ***ociation to No.15 for 1950. We started the 50 season the same way, with one minor change, to a triple carbureted Edelbrock manifold. Early in the season of 50 I made a change to the fuel system, and failed to purge the lines from the tank to the carb. inlets, allowing aluminum chips into the needle seats. Almost disaster......... At the end of a downleg run, the front needle hung open after I shut off, and with 7 lbs. pressure on the lines, it dumped raw alky down into the ignition as I coasted down to turn around speed. When I went to light it up, I really was, with fire under the whole front end. Fortunately I got it out, and saved the car. However, that was the terminating factor in using the family car for compe***ion, and the birth of the Tudor. That also created another new engine for the Fordor, much milder, but still strong, which lasted until it's sale in 1954. Brother Ardell and I took the Tudor apart in his backyard in Encino, gutting that ugly dude of everything we could find on the inside that would not disqualify us, and would remove weight. All side gl***, division bars, 1/4 windows, window regulators, etc. were thrown away. The dashboard, seats, door inner panels, all floor panel insulation, everything went. To replace the side gl***es in the 1/4 panels and doors we used 1/8" Plexiglas screwed into place. And I found a tow bar!!!!!!!!!!! It was made for towing solid axle cars, and hooked to the draglink on Fords, and worked like a charm, although a pain in the **** to hook up. I also changed to an early Ford "top loader" ****** case, and used Lincoln Zephyr gears for the lakes runs. For headers, John Kopp welded flanges onto 40" long 2'' diam. flex tubing for me, and we tied them out under the front fender wells with plumbers tape. To say they were loud is being naive............. The first meet that we ran after the changeover, we ran almost 7 miles an hour faster, and turned all heads, even Meeks. He very subtlety asked us to ease up so we could get points each meet and clinch the championship points again. The other objective was for Edelbrock equipped cars to win every cl*** they could that year. My memory tells me that of the 11 cl***es of cars run in Russetta Timing meets in 1950, Edelbrock cars won 7. We won the cl*** A sedan championship in 49,50,51, and were leading in 52 when I parked the car after Don Corwin got upside-down in Towles coupe. Don had been driving the Tudor for me shortly after we returned to the lakes in 1950. My mom asked me to find someone else to drive it, and I did. She worried enough about me and my brothers during WWII, and to add to that wasn’t the thing to do Then in 53, Don returned, we changed to gas for one run at El Mirage, went drag racing, and then in 54 into Gardner's CRA car, and you know the rest.
Great reading. Growing up in Inglewood I knew this was going on but just to young to participate. Our first "new" car, a 55 Sunliner was purchased from George M. Sutton.
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