Just curious (Phx. hist.)

My number one mentor... Miss him everyday.

 

Here's some other cool threads if you haven't seen them yet.

Bee Line.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=310242&highlight=beeline
Bee Line.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=273525&highlight=beeline
Central.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=380278&highlight=beeline
Piranha.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=441268&highlight=beeline
Deer Valley.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=542480&highlight=beeline
Dennis' Pictures.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=542628

 

I found this in an antique store. Arizona Racing News, November '72.

 

Article on drag racing by E.H. McIntyre.

 

Ads.

 

More ads.

 

Dirt.

 

Last one.

 

WOW! I'm the E. H. McIntyre. Haven't seen one of my 'ON DRAGS' columns in years. I'm shocked and smiling. I remember selling the ad to John Scott and then preparing it. Back in the day when 'cut and paste' meant just that.

Ernest H. McIntyre, editor
GASSER Magazine
www.GASSERmagazine.com

 

I figured it had to be you.

 

An article we ran years ago when we were a black & white publication. Ernest McIntyre, GASSER Magazne.

 

^That's pretty awesome.^ I guess I'm really missin' out by not reading your mag. You don't happen to know where Lopers Willys "Ole Hoss" ended up do you? I heard it was seen in Texas in the '80s.

 

No but I wish I did. Ernest

 

So did you cut up the Arizona Racing News? I'd love to have a copy. I have NONE of my regular columns. I so wanted to write for Drag News at that time but was scared. I went to their offices one-time (back in '69) and was too afraid to talk to them. Stupid. I miss my days at Valley Speed. There's a story, I tell you what. LOL

Ernest

 

Nope, its still in tact. If we ever meet up, I can let you borrow it for as long as it takes you to copy or scan it or whatever. I might even decide I'm not all that sentimental about it and just let you have it.

 

Here's another Bee Line video.

1970 AHRA Winternationals.

 

This is a story relayed to me by hoof22 on here. He has a buddy named Dan that grew up in Phoenix and hung out with the rodders in the area.

First off, it relates to the bike mentioned in Crower History here-"Introduction to Fast Machines" http://www.crower.com/crower-history .

The stroker Harley was Dan's bike and he called it "The White Elephant". Bruce built the Merc powered deuce to beat Dan, as they regularly raced out on Black Canyon Highway. Dan says, regardless of what the article states, he never did get beat by Bruce, or any body else, though they tried many times. They were racing once when the Highway Patrol raided the action, Dan rode off into the desert, laid the White Elephant down and stayed flat on the ground till the cops finally left. He says Bruce got away as well.

Since Dan and Bruce both ended up in the service in the Korean War within weeks, he thinks it was the last time he saw Bruce. Dan left for Korea in 1950, moved to California after that and lost touch with Bruce.

Another name he mentioned was Bill Hickman, who had a hopped up '31 A roadster that was fast. His family owned Hickman's egg farm, which is still in business today.

I believe this is the same Bill Hickman (from the Hickman's family farms website, vintage photo gallery)

Bill Hickman Sr. in his Standard Oil uniform playing with his dog, Sparkplug.


Cecil Quaintance is standing on the left side of another worker, at the actual Standard Oil station that Bill worked at in Glendale.


I still don't have anything concrete on the location of Crowers shop, Dan thinks it was in the back of a gas station on Central ave, about '48-'49.
I think I'll try finding it in a phone directory in the library one of these days.

Thanks hoof22 and Dan.

 

Here are a couple more links to check out:

Jim Baker's Then & Now, Arizona drag racing.
http://www.dragracingonline.com/columns/baker/xiii_1-1.html

Arizona Racing History/Phoenix midget racing history.
http://arizonaracinghistory.com/azmidgets

 

These were taken at Manzanita Speedway probably in the winter of 1969 since it is a daytime show. the Late models raced on the half-maile while the Super Modifieds were on the quarter-mile track. Photographer Bill Toops was the publisher of Arizona Racing News which later became Western Racing News. His company Pueblo Publishers also own the Glendale Star and Peoria Times weekly newspapers. Their son Roger was a top-ranked super modified driver in the early eighties.

 

Neat stuff. I remember buying a set of Casler headers for my GTO at Goosic on Indian School in '75. It was before I even had my drivers license. Had to have my parents drive me there to buy them.

 

Funny, read the whole post thinking... where the Hell is E-man.... Poof there you are.. Cheers ps: I lived there in 02-04

 

Here is some clarification of the open-wheel history here in Phoenix. Jimmy Bryan and Bobby Ball never competed at Manzanita. Both drivers had already taken to the road to find their fortunes in the Big Cars. Ball debuted at Indy in 1951 and finished fifth in the Blakely Oil Spl that is shown on another post in this thread. Bryan made his 1st Indy start the following year after failing to qualify in 1951. Since Manzanita didn't have it's first race until 1952 and Ball and Bryan had already graduated to the big time, neither driver would ever race at Manzy. And, since at the time Manzanita was racing Jalopies the duo would not have competed in that class of car any longer. Ball's career ended before Manzanita really got rolling when he was critically injured in a URA Midget crash at Carrell Speedway in Gardena, Ca. in January 1953. Ball passed away 18 months later and became the 1st fallen hero of Arizona auto racing and the 100-mile race at the Arizona State Fairgrounds was named in his honor. The race in Bobby's honor was moved to Phoenix International Raceway and remained the premier race on the Phoenix calendar until corporate sponsorship became more important than remembering honored heroes of the past.
However, they did compete regularly at the South Mountain Speedway at the south end of Central Ave many times. SMS was a regular stop on the URA Midget circuit. After the World War II all of the best open-wheel drivers were competing in midgets including Ball, Bryan, Bill & Eli Vukovich, Johnnie Parsons, Jack McGrath etc and made many starts at SMS.
Manzanita was the training ground for Bill Cheesbourg, Roger McCluskey and Wayne Weiler to name a few who went on to Indy careers in the 50s and early 60s and then produced some of the finest dirt track drivers of the 60s, 70s and 80s with the likes of Gene Brown, Jerry McClung, Bob Heubner, the Shuman brothers and Lealand McSpadden.
Unfortunately (for those who don't live in Phx and might not know) Manzanita was closed and held it's last race on Easter Sunday, 2009.
The track has systematically been razed over the past 2 years by the crane company that now owns the land. The track itself is still there but all of the grandstands and buildings are in the process of being torn down.
Racing on the one-mile dirt track at the Arizona state Fairgrounds continued until 1963 when Rodger Ward won the last USAC-sanctioned race on the old track. Both Ball and Bryan raced on that track with Bryan's legendary 1957 "through the fence" win.
Major oval track racing them moved to the newly completed Phoenix International Raceway. Although there were no more races held at the Fairgrounds, the track remained until 1965 when the Veterans Memorial Coliseum was built and the the track plowed under to make room for paved parking.

 

^That's a lot of info, thanks.^

 

Yep, that's good stuff. Got any more? How is it that you have made such study of the good sport?

 

sorry to interupt all this useful info but i gotta say this thread is freakin fascinating. i've been in the valley since 92, been to speedworld 1000's of times, got pissed off at the grumps at lopers, been to a central cruise or 2 and i had no idea about 90% of what is posted here. thanks for sharing all this info, now i've got lots of stuff to keep an eye out for while i'm driving around. i may have missed it if anyone mentioned anything about but does anyone know if Bill Rowe is still around with the Krazy Horse Willys?

 

Not mentioned yet and as far as I know still around. Lost a little of it's charm though, I think about 10? years or so ago it got a repaint, IFS and possibly tubbed. Can't blame him to much though, as it was the thing to do back then. I know his son at least would like to see it put back the way it was. That's one car that really use to get my attention at the track, wish I had some pics.

 

No stories about Von Dutch when he had a shop here in the late 60's?

I met a custom painter named Tweety at the first car show in the colisseum in '69. He bragged about how Von Duch worked for him and I thought, yeah, right, what would Von Dutch be doing in Phoenix? Years later it was all confirmed in Ganahl's Dutch biography.

 

Might be a bit O/T, but does anybody know if Goosics 18th st and Indian school location became Mini Sports in the eighties? Just looking at the adress tells me that it's the 51 freeway now, but just curious. I also thought that Crower's place was the location of Schriner's sausage on 7th st, or was there a previous location for Crower? It sucks being right in the age group I am right now at 46, because I came of age just a little too late to know of the really meaningful hot rod history of this town, but have lived long enough to have contributed to the last 30 years worth... Maybe another ten years from now I'll feel my era will be worthy of calling "history"!

 

I do know that Von Dutches shop was down just south of the river bottom in the county land adjoining Tempe East of Mclintock road. Lot's cool car related businesses down there back in those days. I believe he was kicking around down there from about '68 or '69 until about '77 or so. The gent pictured a couple of pages back, Lee Lebhart, was long time friends with Von Dutch, and once took me with him on a quick visit. He was a complete trip for just the five or ten minutes our paths crossed, as he alternately hugged and cursed at Lee.... Sometimes all at the same time! I have to admit that at the time, I really didn't know I was meeting a legend, even though I had heard of him. You gotta remember the time though - he had been out of the spotlight for many years by that time. I don't rememeber to many details of the shop though though, at 13 years old or so, I was just kinda freaked out by the guy himself.

That little section of town was quite a place back in the seventies and eighties. It always stuck me as the section of town where you could get ANYTHING done, And I do mean ANYTHING! Being county land and not city, it was kind of a safe haven for businesses that would have a hard time getting legal in the city proper. Our Reddi Strip shop was there, for instance. Tons of wecking yards with lots of older stuff down there too, because until the 202 went through, nobody cared about that strip of land. Oh, I didn't mention the "brothels"... Even into the late eighties, there were lots of "private nude dancing" kinda places that were offering a little bit more as far as services, once again courtesy of being in lightly patroled county land! I had a small Volkswagon repair shop right on Mclintock just south of the river bottom with a partner from about '82 - '85, so I kinda added to the area's history as well. Sorry, rambled a bit there!

 

Nope, no big details on Von Dutch here yet. I know he is supposed to have done a lot of striping on the booths and/or walls in the now closed Minder Binders in Tempe in exchange for his bar tab. His old bus is also back here and last seen getting a restoration by Steve Kafka.