SOCIETY OF LAND SPEED RACING HISTORIANS Newsletter #33.  Websites posting the newsletter are:

Editor's notes: I lost minimal information when my computer crashed again.  My brother set up a new computer with more memory, though who really knows how long it will be before it maxes out and starts to crash.  The new Juno 6.0 is slightly better than the new Verizon system and I am using both of them to try and get the newsletter out.  However, both systems are inferior to the OLD INFERIOR Juno 2.0, which no longer exists, because the vaunted ENGINEERS felt that they had to tamper with simple and sure in order to make something complex and unworkable.  No, Bob, I am not talking about you.  I am trying to remember and reconstruct the lists of people on the newsletter, but have not figured out how to create a LISTS in my address book that allows me to simply hit one button and send the newsletter out to everyone.  The best that I can do is cut and paste the email addresses and sometimes the system refuses to accept them that way. 

 A lot has gone by in the meantime.  Art Arfons and Willie Young have passed away.  Two giants of land speed racing.  As you send me names it becomes more complex to add them to the overall lists as I can only send out so many emails per day and the record keeping is eating up my time.  Tina Van Curen, the new owner of Autobooks in Burbank is offering to run the newsletter on her website and that will bring to 7 the number of websites offering to showcase our group.  At some point this emailed newsletter will have to become a website driven forum, because it will take up too much time. 

I'm hoping to get better and more effective, but the learning curve is slow for me and the computer crashes more and more frequent.  I was just starting to learn how to send photographs when the old computer just died.  My brother and Roger Rohrdanz have patiently spent their time trying to help me, but I know it is going to be slow at best.  The Newsletter is not a blog.  You must help maintain the standards of the Society by writing your memoires and any other research paper that you can.  Roger and I have done over 400 articles, but most of those do not concern land speed racing.  There are thousands of people that we need to interview in order to document their history.  The reason to submit it to this or any other historical group is to preserve what you have labored to create.  We need a photo archive as well.  Mary Ann Lawford at www.hotrodhotline.com and Evelyn Roth at www.oilstick.com are constantly after us to provide them with photographs and captions.  Some of our members are concerned that sharing their archives will dilute their ability to turn out books or articles. 

 Neither Jim Miller or myself want to cause you concern over that issue.  If you publish somewhere else that is fine with us, just so long as you let us know so that we can advertise your book in our newsletter AND buy a copy of your work.  We are all about COMPILING and we do not care where the information is available.  But please remember to support the websites.  They need material to draw the public to their sites and they need some advertising revenue to keep afloat financially.  They provide a forum for us that we cannot get as conveniently or as cheaply anywhere else.  I need each and every one of you to write your short biography.  It doesn't have to be long.  It can be just a page or three.  That should be the VERY MINIMUM for membership in our group.  You must at least leave behind to the next generation something about yourself and why you have such a fondness for land speed racing and hot rodding in general. 

 When you have done that, then contact one of the old timers and get their story.  Jim Miller and I just run out of time.  That's why we formed this group, to help get the work done.  CAPTION those old photos.  WRITE your history.  Then record those that you know.  If you are a docent, board member or volunteer for a car racing museum, invite us as a group to come and see your facility.  Our group can give you some publicity.  We need museums to see us as committed and the museums need us to help spread the message.  Jim, I need you to resend me your phone number.  I lost it in the crash.

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1) Please let Louise Ann Noeth know that we have some photos of Ab Jenkins and the Mormon Meteor here at the A.F. Gilmore Co Archive.  It would be my pleasure to assist her.  Thanks, Brett Arena    

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2) Sorry about that...I meant to say Phil Hill.  Phil Remington still works at All American Racers as far as I know.   Dick Martin

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3) In 1994 when Gary Cagle died I wrote an article on him for BRN.  I don't have a computer file on it but I bet Wendy would send you a hard copy.  Also I did a 7 part article last year with Bill Hoddinot on my racing history and I would think that Wendy and Bill could send copies of this as well.  They are both members of the History site we are all working on.  Thanks for the request.  Glen Barrett  
   Glen, Wendy and Ed: Do you have the Bonneville Racing News and the SCTA Racing News on a website so that we can go to back issues to read previous articles.  It would really be helpful to have an index that organizes the BRN, SRN and the SLSRH Newsletters so that our readers could see what was done and what needs to be done.  Also, several recent inquiries have come up regarding old records.  Does the SCTA or BNI have all the old records?  Are they available?  What about the records of the other sanctioning bodies?  And the early dragstrips?

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4) I have all Land Speed newsletters stored in their entirety and exactly as you sent them if you would like me to send back to you. Please let me know.  Tom McIntyre       Tom: I have all the back issues and so does several of the websites.  What was lost was the information that was going into issue #33.  Issue number #32 contained most of the material and very little was lost in the computer crash, but the worst problem was finding the list of members and their email addresses.  So the most important thing is for our members to look over the list of members and tell me who might be missing.

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5) Date: 5 Dec 2007 From: Goebel, Charles  Charles.Goebel@da.ocgov.com, Subject: Death of Willie Young, Hi Richard, Willie’s son, Chris, called and indicated his Dad died yesterday in Texas.  I know you will want to get the information out.  Please give me a call at 714-336-4512 so that I can give it to you.   Thanks, Chuck Goebel        Readers: Chuck Goebel is a longtime friend and drag racer who has been very helpful in keeping the history of that sport alive.  Many of you already know him.

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6) From: Tina Van Curen <tina@autobooks-aerobooks.com,  Subject: SOCIETY OF LAND SPEED RACING HISTORIANS Newsletter #32.  Hi, Doug Stokes sent this to me.  We would be very happy to post the newsletter on the Autobooks-Aerobooks site.  Do you have a site we can link to?  Thanks, Tina Van Curen, Autobooks-Aerobooks, 818-845-0707      Tina: I'm making an exception and publishing your email address and phone number since Autobooks/Aerobooks is a business and needs all the contacts with groups that it can.  It is also important for you to let us know what books on hot rodding and land speed racing you have for sale so that we can also be your customers.  Many of us do book reviews and will be glad to help you out.  Please feel free to add the newsletters to your website and we will add it to our masthead.

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7) I think you need a break Richard. Look at me...it's what? almost three in the am and I'm working on the Blackie Gejeian story and I have to be to work at 7.  Take a break.  That is what I need to do.  Is it worth it?   Dick Martin       Dick: A great break for me would be for a computer to actually do what I want it to do.  Let us know when your story will be finished and where we can get a copy of it.  Someday you will have to do an index of your articles and post it for the rest of us to see.

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8) This is typical and not a huge problem ... computers are the work of the devil in fact.  Bob Falcon   Bob: Amen.

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9) Been there, done that.  Should it be the hard drive and depending on whether the disk is corrupted or not, I have an A-1 retrieval company in Huntington Beach.  They are expensive, but very good at what they do.  Also, should you not be able to retrieve all of your data, I have archived Newsletters 25-32.  I will be happy to send them back to you, should you need them.  Also, redux, not to be a naysayer, but why didn't you back up the data on your machine?  I didn't and that's why I spent a lot of bucks to get it back.  I got back more than it cost me and the retrieval costs are tax deductible.   Bob McMillian     Bob: My brother says that it's possible to plug in the old computer alongside the new computer, using a second power strip and that way I can download the information off the old system and then cut and paste it onto the new system.  If that doesn't work then I will try other methods.

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10) From: Goebel, Charles, Date: 7 Dec 2007  Hi Greg (Sharp) and Richard, Following is the obituary for Willie Young written by his son, Chris Young: "WILLIE YOUNG, Died December 3, 2007 in Arlington, Texas at 85.  Born June 24, 1922 in Denver Colorado.  Enlisted in the Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor to fly P47s in New Guinea.  Returned to drive the Kenz & Leslie Streamliner from 1951 – 1953.  1952 – Became first Anerican over 250 MPH with two-way average of 255.41 MPH at Bonneville.  Was a charter member of the Bonneville 200 MPH Club.  Retired FAA Air Traffic Controller 1977.  Hobbies were restoring vintage pleasure aircraft and building and flying remote control aircraft.  Chris specifically asked that NHRA and “the racing family” be advised of his Dad’s passing."  If any further info is needed, please advise.  Thanks. Chuck Goebel        Chuck: Thanks.     Readers: Does anyone know Chris Young and can they contact him and get more information on his dad?

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11) The following is off the 1320 Club Blog/website: 

(A) This is early Art Arfons stuff.  But, he went on to much bigger things in land speed racing.  Last night, I was at the Peterson Automotive Museum and his last LSR car was on display as we drove into the entry garage.  I thought is was rather disrespectful.  I met him many times.  He drove on the Mobil Economy Run, as I did and was there when we were at Bonneville with the rocket car of Tony Fox.  I met his daughter at Bakerfield when I was the Grand Marshall a few years ago and she called her Dad, back in Ohio so I could talk to him.  I don't think he remembered me.  I will always remember him.               Paula Murphy

(B) Standard1320 Art Arfons--Prop Car, Dave, Bob and all -- The Green Monster Baloney Slicer edition  preceded the car in Al's photo by a year and did indeed rely on Ranger engine power.  From past Group postings, here's several photos of it that I've saved. The final one shows it's ultimate demise at Chester, S.C. after making an ill fated attempt to once again become an aircraft.     David Maset
 

(C) You're right, Bob. They did have a prop-driven car, but this ain't it.  If memory serves, it had a Ranger engine.      Bob Brown
 

(D) Great photo - amazingly crisp for that era.  I don't see a prop anywhere in sight.  The tailfin may have been confused for one, but if you look closely thats all it is.  Of course that engine was built to drive a propeller, but not in a dragster.  Musta been cool to see this thing run down the strip.  I'd say the Arfons boys were second to none in the area of innovation.  Who knows if this thing had really been a winner, dragracing today might look entirely different.                         Bob Brown
 

(E) This shot was taken by the son of the guy who owned Des Moines Dragway.  It is the same year Ron Johnson was there with the Big Wheel car.  CRS stole the year from me.    Alan Homer

The Standard 1320 Club is DEDICATED TO THE GOLDEN YEARS OF DRAG RACING 1955 to 1971

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12) Last Saturday, the So Cal Chapter of The Society of Auto Historians honored me with the presentation of their annual Valentine Memorial Award in the Periodicals category for 2007.  This award covered published works that appeared in 2006.  Our piece that was published in the racing nostalgia pocket magazine, The Alternate, covered the establishment of events that led to the popularity of Midget Auto Racing.  Contrary to the rumor based, popular opinion, we covered the vision and organization skills practiced by Dominic and "Pee Wee" Distarce in Los Angeles starting in 1933.  They began the practice of weekly scheduled Midget Auto Races on neighborhood small racetracks.  This practice proved to be very popular in the depression era search for family entertainment.  Dominic's daughter, Nikki Hull, gave me access to her fathers scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings of Midget racing events from 1933-1935, and Phyllis Devine of The Alternate was kind enough to print the work in her magazine.  Attached are pix of the award.     Bob Falcon        Bob: Congratulations.  The Valentine Award has been given to Landspeed Louise and maybe others of our group.

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13) I've added this to the website at www.oilstick.com.   The more people that know the better chance of getting the trailer and car back.  Wish he had given us the license plate number as well.   Hopefully it will give people a heads-up.  See http://www.hamptonblowers.com/stolen.html.  Evelyn Roth      Evelyn: Thanks for the update.  Hampton lost a gem of a car and if any of us can help him, please alert the police.