Faith Granger Interview

                                           

                                              Photo by Eric Callero


If you're just awakening from your 1999 New Years party hangover, welcome  back! Some fun stuff happened while you were out. For one thing, a whirlwind named Faith Granger blew in from Europe and made a grassroots hot rod film, named for it's central character: "Deuce of  Spades" - a traditional '32 highboy roadster. The car is owned by  Faith and she does work on it herself (including a total re-wire, during  filming). In my typical Forrest Gump fashion, I stumbled into the path of the storm and found  myself compelled to help out with one of the early US press releases of the film (Trivia factoid: I wrote and performed a guitar piece  for the soundtrack that ended up on the cutting room floor).

The calm before the mob scene at the Ionia Theatre's World Premiere of Deuce Of Spades

Photo by Kelly Lynne

This was a true grassroots effort, with Faith writing, directing,  producing, acting, building sets, editing, scoring the soundtrack, making sandwiches, recruiting volunteers and sacrificing untold credit cards in an attempt to bring the Golden Era of hotrodding to the big  screen. But she did it. The big screen premiere was front cover news, covered by all of the (previously skeptical) magazines, making the debut all the sweeter. Besides being booked at select theatres, the film has also been an instant hit on DVD, with sales outpacing most indie films sales records.


Curiosity got the best of me and I placed a call to Faith to find out how 
she was recovering from all the excitement.


Hey Faith. It's Scotty, checking in to see how you're holding up. What's
going on?

Hi Scotty. I am sorry I can not hear you well... I am  driving.

I don't hear any rowdy exhaust. Are you driving the  roadster?

No, I am driving a motor home! An RV, they call it. I bought it and am 
seeing aaaaall  of America!

What? (Lots of static and breaking up) Where are you?

I am somewhere in New Mexico, on I-40.

That would be America, allright. What's going on? Are the police  chasing
you?

No... I am on a ten months tour to promote the film! I am living in this RV
and a truck is caravanning with me, pulling the Deuce of Spades in an
enclosed trailer. We just screened the film at the Viva Las Vegas show and are on our way to Arkansas for the next show!

Okay, so much for recuperating... How'd it go in Vegas?

It was awesome! We now have a professional digital theatrical master of the
film and it looks killer on the big screen!

How did this tour come about?

The hot rod community has rolled up its sleeves and is bringing the film to the big screen in their communities. Basically we are bypassing the big movie studios system altogether! Car clubs are contacting me to get legal
permission to organize "Show and Shine and DEUCE OF SPADES screening" special events. I help them with advice and planning, give them legal clearance, and whenever possible, I also make a personal appearance with the deuce, introducing the film and doing question and answer sessions as well as signings after each showing. So far, the events have been a great success. Everybody is having a blast and leaving the events with a renewed passion for the hobby!

That's so cool that the grassroots nature of the project is keeping its 
momentum going! You know that's what I live for...

Yes, I know. It is the only way I would want to do this, myself! It is a very beautiful thing. The people are demanding it and promoters are giving
them what they want. Everyone is happy!

Wow. Could you have even dreamed of this, when you were growing up in 
France? Were you always into cars? And into filmmaking?

My grandfather was a car electrician who had a very successful shop in the
forties. I must have his genes, because I was always into cars and into 
mechanics, ever since I was a little girl. My father worked for the French 
embassy so we moved to Beirut, Lebanon. There were no road rules there, so he taught me how to drive when I was only eleven! Him and I used to tinker on his car all the time. I remember it had a double barrel carburetor (and I
took it apart more than once). I would read books about mechanics while in
class (I would hide them under my desk) and after tinkering with motorcycles a bit, I decided I was ready to try to tackle building a car. But with the war, we just couldn't get the parts to build the cool car I had in mind. So I had to put the idea of owning a hotrod on the back burner... For 30 years!! As far as filmmaking goes, I have always been very artistic but my focus was solely music. It was my deuce that inspired me to want to tackle
filmmaking next, because I wanted to bring the jalopies back to the big screen and tell their story.

And look at you now. First time filmmaker and you come out of the gate 
with a winner! Amazing. 'Faith' is SO appropriate...

(More laughter) The film is getting great reviews everywhere in the world!
I know the US media was very skeptical at first about my completing the 
film and whether it would be any good, but after seeing it, they have now
become believers: Quotes like "Best hot rod film since American  Graffiti" are not given to a film everyday. One editor kept saying "This film is  KILLER -
KILLER!"

So you're hitting it hard, all this year. What then? You know, if you 
survive this tour?

I might have to take a little break (Break?? What's that???). Assess if I
have the means and energy/health to tackle another one and sustain another three years of physical abuse (no sleep, no food, working on my feet 16  hours a day to film). The sequel has already been written and everybody is asking for a sequel to the film. We all want to spend more time with the characters we have come to love so much, Johnny, Art, Tommy... But if I am to make a sequel, the hot rod community better get fully behind me this time, cause last time it was so hard to get cars, I almost gave up. I will need real support, more cars, new locations and... A CREW! Yeah a small crew sure would be nice (laughs).  So I guess we will see what the Big Guy upstairs has in mind for me, for all of us.

Yeah, we'll see. And meanwhile, you're seeing  America...

(laughing again) Yes! When we picked up the trailer in Phoenix, there was a
big car cruise underway, downtown - their big annual cruise  - and these
muscle cars are doing burnouts! I am sitting in the Deuce of Spades, just
watching these wild burnouts by these muscle cars The crowd started to egg me on: 'Come on, do a burnout!', you know. My first one surprised the heck
out of them. You could hear the clapping and huge cheering traveling across
two city blocks! I did about 10 more after that. The cops were enjoying the show and letting us have our way in downtown Phoenix that night. Most
fun I have had at a car event in years! (laughs)

That's my America... Glad you treated them to a real 'traditional' 
burnout! Ha! Will we be having this kind of fun in the future, in your opinion?

I think people will always love old cars - probably only a total gas 
shortage would stop us from driving them. But I worry that the new  generation of hotrodders are too cliquish and scare many good people away. I love the old timers because they welcome new comers to the hobby with  open arms. And if our hobby is to stay alive, we can't discourage new comers from getting involved: The hobby needs new blood.. Who knows what the new comer may bring to the hobby? If I had let the nasty people on some  of those hot rod forums discourage me from contributing to the hobby (and God  knows they tried), the hot rod community would have been deprived of a great new hot rod film. So always be nice to new comers, cause they might turn out to be the chicken that will lay the golden egg. My film has already inspired so many to renew their passion and start to work on their cars again, drive them more, and even take the plunge on buying a new project... I get emails with such testimonies every day. Just as American Graffiti revitalized the hobby in the seventies, I believe Deuce Of Spades has the power to inspire many, bring back tradition and give the hobby the energy power boost it needs. Now what are you doing still reading this? Turn your computer  off, get back to the garage and start wrenching!

Yes maam! But first, if you were a car, what kind would you be?

(long belly laugh)... (catching breath)... Scotty! ... That was a dumb
question, man! The Deuce of Spades!

                                               Photo by Eric Callero
And that's when we lost our phone connection for good. She's out there somewhere, probably headed toward your town. Here's the latest tour itinerary from Faith's website:

To contact filmmaker about organizing a DEUCE OF SPADES screening in your town, please email FAITH GRANGER at faithgrangerfilm@aol.com (serious booking enquiries only please).

                      Keep updated at: http://www.deuceofspadesmovie.com/

Dave Wallace Jr. Interview Part 1

                     Dave Jr on the job at San Fernando Drag Strip 1962
                                        (Photo by Dave Wallace Sr)


The name has been around our scene for so long, it has insideously morphed into the landscape. The Wallace brand has been burned into most every story of substance that ever emanated from a drag strip. The words and images are now our subconcious wallpaper, parroted to every newcomer that finds a seat in the stands, stumbles into the pits, or squeezes in with the railbirds. Whether your favorite drag tale is a philosophical parable, a list of stats, the hot skinny poop on a behind-the-scenester, or a slapstick calamity, chances are, you stole it from Dave Wallace - Senior or Junior.

In the course of touching base with Dave Jr. on various magazine projects, I've come to realize what treasures he and his dad are. Last week, I made the mistake of asking Junior something about his dad and have been getting very little done since. I asked Dave to let me print some of our conversation here and he eventually agreed. It's more than some guy's memoirs. It's really the story of drag racing's reluctant maturation, told by someone who rode a typewriter right through the vortex while experiencing the same cultural twists as the rest of us.


For those who may not be familiar with your dad's work, can you give a little summary of his career?

Senior Dave spent 39 years with the post office.  For about eight of those years, from 1957 up to the summer of 1965, he moonlighted at San Fernando Drag Strip (later Raceway), initially as a ticket taker.  He recalls that it was around 1960 when manager Harry Hibler made him the track's "trophy man," whose duties included typing up class-record certificates on the spot, Sunday afternoons.  Later that evening, at home, he'd type up the list of class winners, complete with hometowns, vehicle and engine makes, final-round e.t.s and speeds, in triplicate or quadruplicate, using individual sheets of messy carbon paper between onion-skin pages.  Last but not least, the trophy man was expected to write a recap of the day's action and drop it off at the post office for a special delivery pickup around dawn Monday.  Dad was San Fernando's first trophy man who further enclosed fresh photography, thanks to an early-model Polaroid camera belonging to the real-estate developers who owned the land and the track (and adjoining San Fernando Airport).

Senior Dave certainly had the writing and photography talents to do magazine work, but neither the time (raising three kids, working two or three jobs) nor automotive interest and knowledge (never was a gearhead).  He got that gig only because the track owner happened to own the building that the USPS leased for the Panorama City Post Office - and because 100 percent of the weekly proceeds from 'Fernando's earliest years (1955, '56, '57) didn't always survive the car-club volunteers who originally staffed the pit and spectator gates.  One day while dropping or picking up the mail for the real-estate-development company he co-owned with Fritz Burns, the track's general manager, William Hannon, noticed Dad and the other clerks counting large stacks of bills at the end of the business day.  He asked whether any of those guys would be interested in a Sunday-only job that paid $20 (nearly the tuition being charged for three Wallace kids in Catholic grammar school).  Postal pay being way low at that time, all five clerks jumped at the chance to supplement their income.  All of them had the same initial question for Hannon:  "What's a 'drag strip'?"

Was it a blessing or a curse, working in the same field your dad was so well known in?

Blessing; no downside whatever.  I think he'd tell you that he never was "so well known," insofar as his writing and photography were confined to covering that one small strip, and only for the weekly drag rags.
 
 So then, did you just ride into the scene on your dad's coat tails, or work up from the bottom?

Hey, you said there'd only be SEVEN questions!  (Are we there yet?)

In 1961, when I was 11, Dad suggested that manager Hibler hire me to replace a flaky time-slip guy, since I was at the track every Sunday, anyway, applying Polaroid's pink "goop" onto the black-and-white prints magically appearing about a minute after Dad pulled them out of the camera.  The time-slip guy wrote 'em, then passed them out a tiny window to the lone security guard charged with both keeping the peace and passing out slips.  (His presence also discouraged speeding on the return road - grounds for immediate ejection.) 

            
               The San Fernando Timeslip Bunker (Photographer Unknown)


The time-slip guy sat in a partially-sunken pillbox, right between the push-down or fire-up road and the return road, about 100 feet downtrack.  As the pairs of cars staged, one after the other (no burnouts, remember), I'd write their respective numbers and classes on separate time slips, while listening to a war-surplus squawk box for the announcer's single reading of the previous race's winning e.t. and speed (single-lane timing, still), which I'd write on the appropriate driver's time slip.  Screwups could get ugly, because these slips were the only record of a run after the announcer cleared the clocks.  It might've been the most-intense, most-pressure-packed job I ever had at a drag strip - and I had just about all of them, except for manager and tech inspector - and I loved every second!  No seat since has compared with sitting that close to two cars launching, plus right in between wire-wheel cars being push started at speed, plus cars returning from their runs, all uncorked.  The pill box was sunken a couple of feet into the dirt, so my chest was about level with the asphalt - making my head just about level with the weedburner pipes on the fuel cars and the fenderwell headers of the gassers and stockers on the return road.  Good vibrations, indeed! 

Next stop was selling 50-cent pit passes into the hot-car pits.  If you didn't steal any of the money, Hibler moved you up to the main walk-through pit gate, which had the major benefits of a shade tree and water fountain, but restricted the view to the first 200 feet of track.  That's one of the reasons I started bugging my dad to let me take the weekly Drag News report off of his $25 day.  The only subject that ever came easily to me was English; in particular, creative writing.  I could - and often did - procrastinate a composition assignment until literally the 11th hour, even writing it on the ride to school or during the previous class, and still get a B, or better.  I was totally enthralled with the shows I was seeing every Sunday, knew all of the players, followed the rest in the drag rags and mags, and had watched my dad bang out a story a week for years.  It never occurred to this dumb kid that he could not do it.

                                    With Steve Sturgeon's T/FD 1964
                                             (Photo by Phil Tessier)

I was making 50 cents an hour on the pit gates, for a grand total of about three bucks a week, so I offered to write his story for $5 and nearly double my pay, plus move out to the starting line.  On Father's Day, June of 1964, when I was 14, Dad finally relented, so he and Mom could go out for a rare Sunday dinner (possibly to Van Nuys Bob's, a real treat for our family).  I was still slaving over the story on a yellow legal pad when they got home.  By the time he ripped my first manuscript out of my hands, had me decipher the scribbling, and typed it up, it was well past midnight.  He pronounced right then and there that, while my story was passable, my lack of typing skills was not. 

The first thing I wrote after learning to type, at age 14, was a feature about Top Gas Eliminator.  I submitted it to Drag Racing magazine, but it showed up in DRM's sister pub, Modern Rod, Nov. '64 ("The Great Gas Comeback").  I think it ran five pages, exactly as writ; not a single word was changed, giving my confidence the huge boost that you can imagine.  In the cover letter to the editor, I asked for 75 bucks if the story was published.  I'm still waiting to be paid, 47 years later.       

So, that same month, I enrolled in the only summer-school course of my brief, less-than-spectacular scholastic career:  Freshman Typing, courtesy of James Monroe High School (Sepulveda, California).  At some point after I turned 15 that October (1964), I took over the weekly race reports (three different versions: for Drag News, Drag Sport Illustrated and Drag World) and results lists, while Dad continued handling trophies and shooting photos.  We might've kept on like that indefinitely, working as a well-oiled team, had the family not driven across country in early summer 1965 to the folks' hometown of Southington, Connecticut.  Hibler agreed to use existing staff members to cover us for the either three or four Sundays we'd be gone.  Things went according to schedule until our second weekend back east, when a family friend offered to take me to Connecticut Dragway in the hot Corvair he regularly raced.  Enroute to the track, on a country road, he cut a blind corner at the same moment as a guy in a '57 Chevy coming the other way.  We collided headlight to headlight.  Police-estimated impact speed was 110-plus (i.e., each car doing at least 55 mph).  I got off the lightest of all five passengers involved, with smashed cartiledge in my right knee, but was unable to bend that leg into the back seat of a '64 Impala for another two weeks.  My dad dutifully informed manager Hibler of the delays early in each of those weeks, but when we finally got back home, Harry called to tell him that the guy who'd volunteered to be our summer replacement wanted to keep doing both of our jobs, so we were out - and stunned, and pissed off.  Although my dad had acquired another parttime job at Schiltz Brewery for more pay, fewer hours, and even FREE FUCKING BEER (to quote Bret Kepner's infamous "Breasts On Fire" spoof radio spot) and had been considering turning the deal over to me after I got old enough to drive myself and my little brother (ace Drag News-Drag Sport Illustrated salesman, Sky) out to the track, he was bummed on my behalf.

I mention this in such detail because it led directly and ironically to be my Big Break.  Within a couple weeks, Hibler called the house and asked for Dave Junior, not Senior, for the first time ever.  To my astonishment, he revealed that the new guy couldn't handle the load - and that he thought that I could, without Dad.  He gave me about one day to think it over, because he needed someone that Sunday.  My initial inclination was to decline, out of loyalty to my dad.  Ironically, it was my dad and Ed Sarkisian, a drag-rag columnist who'd become my pen pal and long-distance mentor, who convinced me to reconsider, and seize the opportunity.  Dad even offered to drop me at the track Sunday mornings, then pick me up after the last of the trophies and record certificates were handed out, until I turned 16 and got my license. 

         

16 year old Dave Jr on the clock at windy San Fernando in '65 with friend.

It's been said that ya gotta be bad SOMEwhere, and this is where I sewed my bad seeds, from that eventful summer of '65 until either late '67 or early '68, when I quit - to go drag racing, of all things!  Y'see, track workers weren't allowed to make runs (except for Hibler, in disguise, but that's another blog post - which you ought to get HIM to write!), and I'd just bought a two-year-old Formula S Barracuda that had been a regular trophy winner for the guy who built it, the late Ron Neidorf.  In my farewell Drag News, I spouted this lame, if heartfelt, explanation: "The urge to race is stronger than the urge to write."  (Ugh!) 

That might've been the end of my automotive-journalism career right there, at age 17, but for the intersection of a broken output shaft and a chance encounter between my sister, working at Brownie's Snack Bar, and Ralph Guldahl Jr., the Lions PR guy and my first journalistic hero.


[To Be Continued ... some time when it ISN'T five o'clock in the morning!]                              

Gosson Bros Racing Exposed!

That's right, we're hanging it all out here, for your amusement. Future generations will need a document for reference and this interview will serve as that template! In other words, I've been too busy this week to contact any big shots for interviews, so I roped my brothers into filling in at the last minute.

                          Gosson Bros: L to R: Wayne, Mark and Scotty

But the Gosson Bros weren't always my brothers and I. Our dad and his brothers were the originals, tearing up untold miles of highway on wicked scary rat Harleys, tweaked in ramshackle little garages and driven hellbent for leather, no matter the weather or the destination (which was often jail). Their heyday was the 1940's, but by the time we caught Go Fever, it took four wheels to catch our eyes. Car culture ruled and we were its eager obedient slaves. Besides, who wants to do what their folks did, right?

Oldest brother Wayne is the ringleader. He's built literally hundreds of high profile rods and customs. Here's some that are mentioned in this interview:

I followed in Wayne's footsteps. My junk has all been street/strip beaters. Most famous are the 'Son of Godzilla' Morris and the 'BTU' '58 Anglia:

Youngest brother Mark followed in my footsteps, but went German in a quest to separate from the herd: He's best known these days for the 'Rubber Chicken' Bug and the 'Dub 'n' Aire' Karman Ghia:

The three of us sat down for a virtual benchrace session here at the expansive SGE facilities this week (on Wayne's birthday, actually), during a late-night break in the action. This was a 'virtual' session, as Wayne lives in a Nebraska cornfield these days. He was 'too busy' to drive to Oregon for a 15 minute talk with his brothers, so he phoned it in. It started off in typical fashion...


Allright you leakers, knock it off! Let's get started. hey, Hey, HEY! C'mon you jangleheads, this is serious. Focus... Wayne, let's start with you. Age before beauty and all that. What's your earliest memory of what you wanted to be when you grew up? And what influenced you into hot rodding?


Wayne: When I was 4 or 5 years old, I'd strut around with a grease rag in the back pocket of my little white coveralls and a little mechanic's hat on my head, just like my daddy. I had a [then new] sad-face Fire Chief's pedal car that I'd jack up and crawl under to "fix" it, just like dad did with our family '48 Pontiac. I was gonna be a mechanic when I grew up.


Scotty: Jeez, you were a little prophet! Our (only) sister Gaye and cousin Dianne were quite the cowgirls and influenced me. I figured I'd be a singing cowboy when I grew up. I was on my way too, when car culture, then the Beatles sidetracked me. Wayne, you mostly raised me, so you and your gearhead friends were my biggest influence, for better or worse. In fact, once Ma taught me my ABC's, I learned to read from your car magazines. Tagging along with you guys was 'it' for me! I was 'behind the scenes' at a pretty early age, gettin' the inside scoop on events most of today's adults would gasp at. I've been junk ever since.


Mark: Well, I always wanted to be an entertainer. Someone who could bring a smile to people's faces and make them feel better. I got into the 'freaky' show cars of the 60s and 70s, when they were built just for fun. No, they weren't realistic - some of them didn't even run. But they served a purpose - to make people smile! Unfortunately, the car people took them way too seriously and seemed to think it was a slap in their face and didn't see the fun side. Heck, it brought more people into the shows to see the 'real' hot rods, right? Anyway, that's what got me into hot rodding and the style of builds I do now: Kinda cartoonie, simple cars - you either like 'em or you don't. There's no half way, usually.




What was your first car, or the first one you got running, anyway? How 'bout your dream car - the one that's still eluding you?




Wayne: My very first car was a cherry-pie 28-29 Ford coupe that a boyhood friend of my dad gave to me when I was 14 or 15. My buddy Ken Bailey and I would ride the 11 miles on our bikes [the last 3 miles were gravel road] to unbolt parts from it, bring them back to town and clean and paint them in preparation for the day it came home. Then we moved to another town, 120 miles away, when I was halfway through my sophomore year of high school. When I got out of the Army 6 years later, I drove up to see the old coupe and it was gone..
First car I got running was my '50 Ford Crestliner.. Built a '53 Merc motor
for it, in dad's little one car garage as a Junior in high school.

Scotty: I'll never forget stabbing that motor: "Scotty, you get under the car and line up the motor mounts when I lower the engine with this chain over that tree limb". Limb broke halfway down and my (8 year old) life passed before my eyes!

Wayne: Yeah, sorry about that. But you survived. Ahem... My dream car
has always been a 33-34 Ford coupe and the dream car I still don't have is
[another] '57 Pontiac super chief two door hardtop.


Scotty: Hey, you can never have enough '57 Pontiacs (a family illness)... And I know you're still cryin' about that Model A coupe - ouch! But you're building your dream car now: the '34 coupe! Maybe if I live that long - how old are you again? Nevermind. Well, I had a couple of $10 specials (first was a '52 Merc 2-door sedan) that never turned a tire, before I made enough hay bailing money to buy my '53 Ford 2-door wagon from Jim's Better Buys, on the edge of town. Paid $75. I was 12. Two years later, that's right where it barfed out the rods, coasting onto Jim's dirt lot and coming to rest in a puddle of it's own smoking oil. That car was a good education, setting me up for more high performance pursuits, afterward.


Mark: '63 Rambler wagon. Mom bought me a TV for Christmas and said if I wanted something else, I could take it back, so I took it down to K-Mart and got my $99. I scoured the want ads and found the Rambler. Plopped down my 99 bones and drove it two miles home. Turned it off and she never started again! No one could get it to fire. I paid $25 to have the junkyard come pick 'er up. I guess Karma says, if someone gives you a present, just accept it and don't try to finagle something better.
First car I got going? First I had to decide what to buy with my paper route/Taco Bell money. It was a toss-up between a Pinto wagon and a VW.  I chose to look for a VW first because, with Dad being out of the picture, I knew that I would have to fix anything myself, and with no experience, I knew there were more books on how to fix a VW than a Pinto.   I found a 1965 VW Bug sitting in a field, cobwebs in the engine compartment, rats nests in the interior, the whole Mary Anne!  But in the tradition of the VW, I put gas in it, a new battery in it and drove it home. Later, as I drove it daily, it would become 'Beginner's Luck!' and then 'Beginner's Luck Volume II'.  Dream car? I'm building it right now - the 'Dub-N-Aire'......The one(s) I always wanted? Of course, a '57 Chevy or Squarebird and for something REALLY different, a first generation Acura NSX. Not very hot roddy, huh?


Scotty: Mom bought you a TV?!


Mark: We're running out of blog room here...


Wayne: Scotty, 'focus', remember?


Scotty: Yeah, but -




It's a miracle that you survived what car adventure?




Wayne: Miracle adventure. Hmmm... (looking up, scratching chin) Hasta be the summer of '66. I'd just graduated from highschool [by the skin-o-my teeth!] and left home to go live in an old classmate's parent's basement in my old home town. Had a '55 Ford tudor with a 272, 3-speed O.D. and a leaky rear main seal with a slippery clutch. Had no job, no money, sold cast-off batteries and radiators to buy beer, had my buddy's little brother steal gas for our cars [Danny had a '55 Chevy hardtop with a KILLER 301, 3 speed] and ended up in jail twice that summer. Went in the Army that fall.


Scotty: Yeah, good times (laughs). But that's just where you had to go, to end up here today. Me too: I started driving at 12. I drove everywhere loaded, until I got straight at 28. So, 16 years of driving drunk (or worse) with no license or insurance, but no legal trouble - that's a miracle right there. After that, my closest call was probably busting my trans into three pieces while crossing the finish line at the strip in the Morris at night. 127 MPH on slicks covered with trans fluid - I still can't believe I didn't hit anything. But I almost got hit several times by other racers who didn't know my flat black car was sitting on the un-lit track! That was hairy...


Mark: You and me Scotty, in a stock oval window rag top  Bug, with a 36 horse engine on the ¼ mile - racing against an 8 second dragster.   Man, what a head start we had! With me driving and you looking over your shoulder saying, "Nope, he hasn't left yet...not yet......still sitting there"
"Scotty, I'm almost at the finish line!!"
"Well he must've broke, 'cause he's sitting there.  Make sure you don't break out, or you'll........WAIT!!!  He's coming!"
By now I've already put the binders on so I won't break out, then I hit the loud pedal all the way to the floor (could you tell?) and you say, "He's coming, oh geez, he's coming!!!"
When he passed us, it was very exciting and scary all at the same time...but when we lost, 'cuz I hit the brakes, the crowd went wild!!!  I still haven't lived that down!!!


Scotty: One of the best laughs of my life! When that guy passed us, the wind almost knocked your Bug on it's side! I may have pee'd myself that night...




What's your favorite car adventure, so far?


Wayne: There are sooooooo many! I guess driving my '41 Pontiac from Omaha to the Bonneville salt flats for Speed Week and then from there down to the HAMB drags the following weekend, tops the others..I dunno. Driving my '50 Chevy sedan delivery to Oregon for my 30th class reunion, stopping at Bonneville, camping along the way, stopping by Sturgis on the way home is also cool.


Scotty: Now that's an adventure with some substance. Hmmm... I've been so lucky - I've had so many adventures... But the one that meant the most, was Bonneville '96. We got there with the Morris and the entire family was there waiting! I'm still blown away! We towed from Nebraska and arrived to find the event rained out - but we had a blast and didn't really care! That was one of the sweetest moments of my life. Probably the only time I really felt a part of the family, you know (we're not the tightest family in town).


Mark: Oh, all the times I've driven a VW to Bug-O-Rama (or tried to!) are way up there, but numero uno?  It has to be Wayne and I sitting in a Greek Gyros on a Friday night at 8:00pm in Omaha, NE eating dinner and trying to figure out what to do for the weekend.  Wayne says, "Well, tomorrow is the Lone Star Round-Up in Austin, Texas." 
"So, how far is that from us?"
"Dunno, about 900 miles or so...."
"So what are we doing sitting here? Let's go!"
We were on the road before 9:00pm! Tooling all the way down to Waco-land in a slammed, black primered turbo 944 Porsche.....luckily the primer made us invisible to the cops. Either that, or they just saw us fly by and said, "There ain't no way what I'm lookin' at can be real"! Driving until noon Saturday morning straight through with my big brother, who without knowing it, turned me into a hot rodder: When he was in the Army, he left his '57 Pontiac at our house and being a snot nosed little 7 year old, it made a great slide, from the roof to the trunk, to the ground...but don't tell him!


Wayne: Say what?! YOU did that?


Mark: Scotty made me! Tee hee hee...


Scotty: I took the heat for that one, since I was left in charge of the '57 while Wayne was in Germany. By the way, houses have 'roofs', cars have 'tops'. Kids... (shaking head) But man, I was jealous of you on that one, Mark.  You guys called about a dozen times with updates, rubbing it in. That was hard to take.




What car adventure is still on your list?




Wayne: I wanna run the "One-Lap of America" race with my son.


Scotty: I came this close (holding thumb and forefinger barely apart) to running 9s with the Morris! And I always wanted to run Pikes Peak with it, just to say I did, you know. I hope to drive to the east coast and back some day in something fun, taking my time and seeing everything I've only heard about.


Mark: Driving the Dub-N-Aire to Hot August Nights.  Who has ever driven a bubble top anywhere? I'll be the first!
I'd always wanted to drive the "Rubber Chicken" from Medford, Oregon to Omaha, Nebraska..but alas, bills came due and I had to sell it (has this ever happened to anyone else?)




Looking back on your car life, what's the real value of your experience?




Wayne: I've made my living as a mechanic all my life, so building hotrods was just a natural offshoot - a relaxing hobby that helped me in my work
life. Plus, I can charge my hotrod magazines off to expenses on my taxes!

 Scotty: (chuckling) Yeah, bonus! Working on cars for a living taught me a lot about acceptance and perseverance - tools I use everyday. Building cars from scratch has taught me to look before I leap (when I remember to). Racing cars has taught me meditative skills - gotta get my drag zen on, if I wanna focus to the best of my abilities.
A lifetime of car culture has taught me that there's hardly anything less important. The people in the culture are my mirrors, showing me how easy it is to be seduced by nuts and bolts as a distraction from the real priorities - the 'inside stuff', you know. Having said that, gearheads are mostly straight-shooting, stand-up people and most are dear friends.


Mark: Hot Rodding and cars in general have taught me to appreciate other people's ideas and learn from them and from other areas of my life.  To be open minded enough to "steal" ideas from the off-roaders, the drag racers, the soap box derby racers, the washing machine makers, all sorts of people have given me ideas (some of them even good!) for my cars.  I suppose the best thing I have learned is to be tolerant of all the different areas of hot rodding.  Seriously, who would have thought in the '70's that we would be clamoring for longroofs? Or having entire shows and books and magazines devoted to "unfinished" primered cars? Nothing stays the same in this hobby, I love how it continues to evolve.






What's the future of hot rodding?




Wayne: Future? (laughs). The twists and turns it's taken through the years
have gob-smacked me! I never would have believed the stuff that's already
happened with rat-rods, go-carts, the van craze. But they've all been
superficial and temporary. I say the future will hold quality hotrods being
built that actually are capable of driving across America to have FUN!  I
see a resurgence of actual driving events that may even involve camping with
teardrop trailers and multi-day events. With quality-built hotrods that
actually have paint and plating.

Scotty: Wayne, I hope you're right about a return to driving events. As for the future, jeez, I have my hands full with the present! I'm grateful we have SEMA, so hot rodding has a chance for a future. I suspect rodders will have to make some hard choices to ensure that happens. But I know that when I got into this as a punk-ass kid in the '60s, no one could've seen where we're at today. This looks like the golden age, to me: More knowledge than ever at our fingertips, along with the biggest aftermarket in history and factory gow ending up in wrecking yards, so everybody wins! Will it get better or worse from here? I dunno, ask Mark!


Mark: Future? No future, just a continuing road......Who knows what will be "hot"? We've seen the carb slowly dying and EFI's just a "normal" thing today.  We thought 20 years ago, no real hot rod would have EFI, or a "self-leveling" suspension. Heck, I remember when it was looked down on to have seat belts!  But hot rodders are a smart bunch (shhhhhh, don't tell anyone, they still think we're all Bo & Luke Duke types!) and want to be safe, smart and if you are being honest, even though breaking down on the road can make a great story 6 months later, no one looks forward to or wants to break down.  The future? Tuck away those 4 door Tempos, the Grand Caravans, the 3 cylinder Sprints and the Prius', 'cuz in 2035 they will be highly sought after!  Don't believe me?  Well I wish I still had that 1963 Rambler Station Wagon that was drug to the automotive grave yard....it'd be worth more than $99 today!




If you were a car, what kind would you be?




Wayne: If I was a car, I'd be a Duesenburg roadster.

Mark and Scotty: What?!

Wayne: Oh yeah! I'd sit quietly in my climate controlled garage being rubbed and petted, only going outside to run on the best days! What a life! Any scratches or dings would be fixed immediately on my fenders!

Scotty: Huh. Well, I'd be a Jeep. I believe it was Elaine Benis - spokesperson for our generation - who said (paraphrasing): 'Women are sleek, graceful, beautiful sports cars. Men are Jeeps. Not pretty, but they get the job done' That's me.


Mark: I'd be Red Foxx's "Lil Red Wrecker". Completely out of the ordinary, brings a smile to everyone's face, yet leaves you wondering......why? But you also notice that that it's built to work, and move fast, and look good, all at the same time. Besides, try to find a picture of it without a bikini woman rubbing up against it...that is SO me!!! (laughs)


One more note on the future: Wayne's son Jeremy and Mark's son Skyler have both done major damage in the hot rod world already and they're just getting warmed up! Watch out for these two... I have yet to produce any offspring, but would like to take this opportunity to tell you that Shellski and I are only seven months from announcing..........................
that we've gone another seven months without changing a single diaper! Thank you.


And that should be about as much exposure to the Gosson Bros as the Surgeon General should allow. I'm so sorry. Be sure to wash your hands after reading this.

Chad Reynolds Interview

Luckily for us fun seekers, the hot rod universe is heavily populated with colorful characters and Chad Reynolds has to be one of the most likable. The name was already very familiar to me when I heard him announcing at the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational in Nevada a few years ago. I hotfooted it over to the platform and found Chad to be one of those 'Hell yeah, let's do it!' kind of guys. I was instantly comfy with him. Since then, we've crossed paths online a couple of times, but Chad has remained a bit of a mystery to me. So when I asked if he'd be willing to do a SGE interview, I shouldn't have been surprised when he responded with, "Hell yeah, let's do it!"

Welcome to Scottyville, Chad. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. One reason why: You're known as a defender of grassroots hot rodding, due to driving the wheels off your '56 Chevy beater wagon, wrenching on a wide variety of cool tin, and your work at Bangshift.com.  Were you born with a silver wrench in your hand? Where did you start rodding and how did that bring you to where you are today?


I appreciate it, Scotty. I certainly didn't set out to be a fixture in the hot rodding community, it just sorta happened. I grew up in Northern California, at Fremont Drag Strip, and was born into this. It's genetic. Hell, my initials are CAR and it wasn't by accident. My dad raced all his life and still does, so growing up in a family that had a race car just planted the seed. My Grandpa Earl owned an auto shop that I spent most afternoons and all my summers at. Between him and my dad, I was hooked. Hell, I probably put 100,000 miles on a floorjack before I was 12.

My first car was my 1969 Camaro convertible, which I still have, and a little Mitsubishi pickup I got from my Grandpa. Both were street raced, cruised, and modified to the extent I could afford growing up and nothing ever stays stock for long with me. After going through school and working in the very lucrative high tech industry of Silicon Valley and the Telecom Corridor in Dallas, I was hit by the crashing economy and the fact that I was burned out, no matter how much money I was making. So I did the idiotic thing and started a hot rod shop. It's a bad idea. Don't do it. Seriously. The guys that make money at it are awesome, but I didn't. I did however, have a lot of fun. And that's how things got started to where we are now. After throwing together Rusty, my '56 Wagon, in 59 days and heading out on Power Tour, Freiburger and Kinnan decided they wanted to run a feature on it. We got to know each other and after hitting Drag Week in 2005 we all became friends. Hot Rod asked if I would announce on Power Tour. I said yes and it's been all uhhhh downhill? from there.

Freiburger left Hot Rod and asked if I would go with him to start Car Junkie TV and we were off. I'd been working at Spectre Performance running their race car shop and loved it, but when Freiburger called, I was in. Turns out, CarJunkieTV wasn't going to make it with the management team we had behind us and we lost our gig. With nothing else to do, Freiburger, Brian Lohnes and I decided to start BangShift.com. Ultimately, Freiburger had to go back to Hot Rod, but Brian and I stuck with it. Trust me, our families sometimes wish we hadn't, but it's really grown into something we are proud of and the growth still amazes even us. For those of you that are regular BangShifters, thanks! For the rest of you, "What are you waiting for?" It's going to be an exciting ride in 2011 and into 2012 as we have lots going on.

Sounds like quite a ride, just getting to this point... You pop up often in David Freiburger's stories, along with Keith and Tonya Turk. Have you guys all been pals since childhood, or does David just pay you to fix stuff as he tears it up? Do you see yourselves as the hot rod mafia, or are your adventures just a normal part of your everyday life?

 Freiburger is one in a million. We really didn't start hanging out together a lot until 2006 or so. At that point, we started doing lots of stories and I was helping out anywhere I could. I still show up anytime they need help and are doing something fun. That surprises people, because they think of BangShift and Hot Rod as big competitors. We're all friends and I love the magazine for sure.

Keith Turk is an interesting duck. He's another guy that would give you the shirt off his back and knows I would do the same for him. I met him on the same Power Tour in 2005 and since then, we've done a lot at Bonneville together with the Camaro. Keith runs the ECTA, is in more 200mph Clubs than any other human, and makes me look like I'm backing up, with regards to talking. He'd argue otherwise, but his opinion is wrong. Keith and Freiburger have been racing together for years and I've loved working on the Camaro with them. I was lucky enough to get into the car a couple years ago and try for the 200mph Club at Bonneville, but we just didn't have the combo we needed for me to make it. I do have the distinction of driving the Camaro faster BACKWARDS than either of the Turks or Freiburger! Not a good distinction, but I'll take what I can get. My goal is still to get into the 200mph Club at Bonneville in the Camaro, but we'll have to see how budgets work out this year. I've had offers to get into a couple other cars and go for it, but it's not the same as doing it in the Camaro that I have worked so hard on with those guys. I can't forget Tonya either. She's like the hot den mother for all of us and treats us so well. She really is the organization behind all the racing efforts and is one hell of a driver! You tell her to shift at 7005 RPM and she does. Nobody does what they are told to do in a car better than Tonya.
Our adventures are real. We don't make this stuff up. The truth is, we do the same things that all of the hot rodding world does, or wants to do. We just happen to have had a camera pointed at us a few times. I'll admit that we get to do things that I would have only dreamed about 10 years ago, but the truth is, any guy or gal can go out and have the same fun we are. In fact, Freiburger and I have been trying to make a new TV show that would show just that. We'll see.

Hey, I'd watch that! Right now, I'm really smitten with Bangshift. How did that site come about?

Well, like I said earlier, it started out when CarJunkieTV folded up and Freiburger and I had no jobs. Brian Lohnes had been doing some freelance stuff for us at CarJunkie and so the three of us decided to start something up on our own. We started off as 'Freiburger's Junkyard', so that we could keep hold of some of our CarJunkie traffic and take advantage of David's good name, but we knew all along we were going to have to change it and the BangShift name change was going through right when Freiburger decided he needed to take the opportunity at Hot Rod again. We hated to see him go, but he encouraged Brian and I to stick with it. Everyone in the industry thought that we were nuts and told us we couldn't do it and we're proving them wrong, day by day. It's really been amazing and our growth speaks for itself. Plus, we have the best sponsors in the business and are getting more and more, every month.

Brian writes his fingers off daily and I'm working all the behind-the-scenes stuff and writing when I can. This year is going to be quite a bit different for us though, because we have more and more great contributors, like Cole Coonce who you just interviewed. Cole's bringing our content to a new level. We've also just started running tech stories for the first time and have a bunch more in the works. In fact, I'm leaving for the dyno shop after this interview. We've partnered with Westech Performance Group and are doing some great stuff this year.


Really. Tech reports from Westech dyno? Damn, you guys are livin' large! But the Bangshift webcast of this year's March Meet came across as charmingly grassroots, with you running off camera every few minutes to kick a phone pole or something to re-boot the hook-up. And the chat crawl under the video felt just like sitting in the stands, listening to dozens of conversations at once - just like being there. I found myself stuck at home, so your coverage of the event was a Godsend to me! Thanks for all of your work, putting that together. Will there be more live event coverage. or did this one sour the whole concept for you guys?


God no, we'll be doing lots more! This was our 3rd March Meet and we'll be doing our 4th LIVE broadcast of the California Hot Rod Reunion this year. We have several other events planned for this year, including the National Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green and the PSCA Street Car Supernationals in Vegas. There are several other events on the schedule, but we haven't announced them yet. Some nostalgia, and other street car stuff. But we are also working on some Pro Touring/Autocross events as well. It's going to be a riot.

Our broadcasts have gotten bigger and bigger each year and we've reached over a hundred countries and streamed almost 20 million minutes of video around the world. It's been great. And the interaction with the racers and fans at home have made us heroes in the nostalgia drag racing scene. Companies like Mickey Thompson, Safety Sentry, MSD, and Chris Alston's Chassisworks have been big supporters of our live broadcasts, which has helped us get sponsors like AFCO and Aeromotive on board, as well. We're also working with Don Schumacher Racing again to plan for next years PRO Winter Warmup in Palm Beach Florida, so you can expect lots of great racing with BangShift.com this year.


Okay, I'll expect it. Back to cars for a minute: Your '56 has soaked up gallons of well deserved ink, but is it your only car? What's your real daily driver? What's in the works and what you like to be driving?


Rusty is not my only car, although for a long time it was my daily driver. I have to be honest, I haven't driven the car in over a year now, because of plans to do some cool little changes to it. Don't freak out though, it's going to still be the same car, just some tweaks. I'm hoping to get started on them later this year. That car is great to drive and we put over 75,000 miles on it from the start of the 2005 Power Tour until last year. It drives great, looks great, and scares the shit out of people which is just what I like. Plus, at 70mph it makes a great spark show on the freeway after letting the air out of the Ridetech suspension and laying the front bumper on the ground! Definitely fun.

I also have my first car: My 1969 Camaro convertible. It's sort of apart in the garage right now and is getting some suspension help, along with an M20 Muncie and Gear Vendors combo, soon. Then we'll be driving it again. It's actually a clean car, which is weird for me. You can check it out on BangShift. The car was originally an NHRA Stock Eliminator car and the previous owners have contacted me via BangShift about it now, but it will never go away. Ultimately, it's the one. I'd live in it before selling it. I have lots of fond cruising and street racing memories in that car. You'll see it cruising this year again.

As you saw on the site a few days ago, my back-half Nova drag car is getting the engine worked on right now, then we'll get that thing back up and running this year. My real daily driver is also one of my current projects. It's my '66 Bel Air wagon that you saw on Freiburger and I's TV show and at CarJunkieTV. It's currently stone stock, including some patina, with a 283/Powerglide combo and a 10 bolt. It's getting a 383 that was in the Crusher Camaro along with a 700r4 and a 12 bolt. We're also going to do suspension, brakes, and some interior cleanup. Plus a big stereo. I like my music like I like my cars...LOUD! The '66 is bitchin because the dog, kids, surfboard, and wife all fit in it perfectly and it looks way cooler than any new SUV. If you put the back seat down, it holds 4x8 sheets of plywood and we're going to set it up to pull the trailer with the Nova on it, too. I've got too many cars, which is just enough. I can't bring any more home until these are all working though. I wish we could afford a house with land, so I could build a shop. Daphne hasn't parked in the garage since we met (laughs).

What would I like to be driving? Any of my junk. I love my cars. If I had to pick one thing besides mine, it would be a Pro Stocker. I've had my Pro Stock license since 2001 or so and want to get in one again. I can't think of anything else that just makes me want to jump in. The truth is, I get to drive a lot of cool cars and I like all of them. Hell, I even drove Ridetech's Mustang at the Goodguys Editors Challenge and loved it. AND IT'S A FORD!!! Haa Haa. I'm a GM guy, but if you like your Ford as much as I like my Chevy, we'll get along just fine.


You have a Pro Stock license?! Oh God... Sorry Chad, but the thought makes me a little queasy... Speaking of pros, what's going on over at NHRA? Where do you think this is headed? Are we seeing the last gasp of pro motorsports? Is it even relevant anymore?


Uggghhhh. I hope not. I was asked to announce at the Winternationals for NHRA this year and did. I really love NHRA drag racing and the chance to announce at Pomona couldn't be passed up. They are trying to make some changes to the live program and I hope they get what they need out of it. I'm not sure that I'll be a part of that, which is unfortunate, because I think I can bring something to the table they don't have now, but I do wish them the best. There are a lot of great characters at an NHRA race, not just John Force. When the economy turns around it will be better for them, but I think there will always be a place for them. Ultimately, grassroots racing is what we are all about, but I would drive an NHRA Pro Stocker at the big show any time. In fact, my lotto winnings would go towards driving my own Pro Stocker. NHRA is made up of some really great people, but sometimes they seem to have a hard time all getting to the same place. I will support them to the end though. It's what I grew up with and I believe there will always be a place for the big show. Honestly, we have to remember that half of the guys out there racing at the Texas Raceways of the world are out there because they "someday" want to be John Force. Or because it gets them that much closer to being the same as their heroes. That will never change.


Well, I wonder if NHRA should just handle the pros and stop pretending to value the sportsman racers - cut 'em loose to start something of their own? What about Joe Toolbox, the grassroots racer/hot rodder? Is there any future for knuckledraggers like myself, who source most parts from wrecking yards and scrap piles? You live in the eye of the storm, there in L.A. - are people there selling off '32 roadsters to finance solar powered hovercraft?

 Joe Toolbox is who we are. I'm broke man! Brian and I go to the wrecking yards, buy stuff at the swap meet and all that. Sure, we CAN get parts from some great people for our projects, but we haven't really done that up to this point. This year we will be getting some stuff in so that we can do more tech stories, but for us, and all the guys you REALLY like in magazines, that isn't what it's all about. You've seen the junk I've built from nothing. Hell, Rusty was a wrecked cop car and a '56 Chevy Wagon with no floors when it all started. Doing stuff for cheap is still what we are all about. But sometimes we have to do projects that aren't junkyard, as well. You'll get plenty of both this year on BangShift.

If I ever see some jackoff selling a '32 to get a Prius or some electric crap, I'll gladly buy it. That way, they get the hell out of our hobby. There are more Prius' here in SoCal than I could ever have imagined. I still don't think they are the way to save the planet, but whatever. My thought is that if all the mindless boring people are buying them and that makes the government happy, it's good for us, because they will stop paying attention to us. I have a tech story we are going to do later this year that addresses old cars and emissions, then we can talk more about the subject. Until then, know that California is still a great place for hot rodders, even if we are the State that seems to have invented SMOG laws.


Hey, I'm not blaming you for the smog laws! I blame Cole Coonce and his ilk... (Just nerfing you, Cole)... Okay, last question, Chad - I know you're jonesin' for a dyno hit... If being 'Chad Reynolds - Hot Rod Hero' wasn't such a full-time job, what else would you be doing with your life? Didn't you ever want to be a cowboy or astronaut or baseball player?


Cowboys ride horses. And while interesting, one horsepower just doesn't cut it.

Astronauts may go fast, but the acceleration ain't all that. Try launching a Pro Stocker. Or a Top Fuel Car. Sign me up, when they leave on a .400 Tree.

Baseball? Isn't that the thing with the stick and ball? Have they started putting engines and tires in those games? I didn't think so. If it doesn't make loud noise or smoke the tires, I really don't care. Seriously, remote control car racing is cooler. If it is car related, I'm on it. The rest, while interesting, has little or no merit.


I know he was being kind by calling 'the rest' 'interesting'. He only left here a few minutes ago and already, I can hear the operatic soprano scream of a tortured smallblock wafting by on the breeze. It sounds decidedly Westechy to me. Wear some ear protection, Chad!

Cole Coonce Interview

When Hot Rod magazine added Cole Coonce to the staff in the 1990s, it not only caught my attention, but changed how I read magazines forever. I really didn't think it could get any more personal than reading features by Gray Baskerville and Ro McGonegal, but this guy's style hit me right where I lived: Here was the edgy immediacy of Hunter S. Thompson, enhanced with a wordcraft worthy of a Kurt Vonnegut eyebrow arch. What fun! What grabbed me the most was how Coonce raised the bar by going under the surface. Intrigued, I seeked out a couple of his long-play stories in paperback: 'Infinity over Zero' (guerrilla documentation of the Land Speed Record wars pitting the U.S. against Britain) and 'Top Fuel Wormhole' (a hilariously twisted psycho analysis of Nitromethane's allure). At that point, I was officially junk. Inspired (and yes, influenced), I set out on my own automotive journalism quest. At this point, I'm still in first gear, but by God, I have Cole Coonce on my blog. Who'da thunk it... He crashed through the front window of the SGE office in spectacular fashion and dusted himself off. We performed the secret automotive journalist handshake ritual and got down to it.

This is quite an honor for me, Cole. Thanks for dropping in.

Glad to do it (shaking glass shards from hair).

Were you born a journalist, or if not, how'd you get into this stuff?

I got into journalism because I was turned on by two art forms when I was a mere guttersnipe: Drag racing and rock 'n' roll. I saw The Beatles at Dodger Stadium when I was four years old. I saw my first Top Fuel dragster when I was five. I had an uncle Rick who was the drummer for The Grass Roots, who had many Top 40 hits and ended up on American Bandstand. His brother was a dragster driver. Because of their influence, and the fact that I could see them both on their respective stages on any weekend in Southern California, I became consumed with both music and drag racing. I read everything I could on the subject, whether it was Rolling Stone or Drag News. In my opinion, both race reports and rock criticism were also art forms and every bit as valid as the scenes they covered. I didn't figure I could drive a Top Fuel car, but I reckoned I could write about it.

Wow, you had a killer pedigree before you ever wrote your first words!

 Well, writing about something is only as valid as what one is actually writing about. Dragstrip journalism was at its most crucial when the drag racing itself was very dangerous, exciting and unpredictable. You couldn't wait to get the next National Dragster or Drag Racing USA because you knew there was going to be something in it - a speed record, some weird bondo-beyondo streamliner body shape, a macabre crash, some violent and catastrophic explosion - that hadn't ever happened before. I'm of the opinion that most of the interesting stuff in both music and drag racing has already happened. By extension, most of the interesting writing associated with those forms has also already happened.

And you were first exposed to those bare knuckled glory days of racing at five years old, when I was literally drooling on the pictures in the magazines.

Initially. Then in the late 1960s, my uncle Phil Coonce drove a Junior Gas dragster at Lions Drag Strip and San Fernando Raceway. I thought everything about that car and all the other dragsters of the era were pure magic. I've always loved front engine dragsters, especially the Top Fuelers. That's what myself and other school kids drew on our notebooks. When the rear engine dragsters hit, I think kids stopped scrawling fuelers on their book covers. Funny Cars maybe, dragsters not so much.

Have you built or owned many hot rods? Whatever happened to the '71 Grand Prix that was a regular character in your books?

Honestly, I've never cared about production cars, even muscle cars of the 60s and 70s. I've been obsessed with Top Fuel dragsters. Everything else is kinda boring, really. But to answer your question, I no longer have my '71 J Series Grand Prix. It was my daily driver for years, but 8 MPG while sitting in LA traffic is a kind of political statement with minimal practical returns. I sold it years ago and bought a Japanese shitbox from a yuppie nurse in Van Nuys who wanted an SUV. Nowadays, I drive a late model six cylinder Chrysler coupe. I think the suspension needs work.

 Is there anything on the streets that you're into at all?

As far as what I'm actually into? What forms of transportation stir my manhood? Chevy Volts and bicycles. Fossil fuels are as archaic as the dinosaur bones they're extracted from.

(thoughtful silence from Scotty, as Cole watches traffic distort through the broken window)... You mentioned music being an influence, earlier. Are you a musician yourself? And does music and car culture meld into one for you, or exist in separate realities?

I was a musician... When the Sex Pistols, the Ramones and the Clash hit all those years ago, I realized I couldn't just write about music, I could actually play the same stuff these guys did. Ten years later I formed a band that was equal parts Black Sabbath, Funkadelic and Blondie.

This was 'Braindead Sound Machine'?

(surprised) Right. Although we had a reasonable success, I stopped playing when I found myself caught in a record deal with a company who wouldn't release my band's second album, nor let us out of our contract. I wrote a book about that whole experience: 'Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby'.

I can relate.

At that point, I was so appalled by the music business that it affected my ability to listen to or play anything. I've always been fascinated by sound, but couldn't stomach hearing another power chord or snare drum. But I craved the sound of something loud and pure and at that moment in history, the vintage Top Fuel scene was making strides in California. As a kind of catharsis, I hit every nostalgia drag race that ran, from Bakersfield to Sears Point and from Pomona to Tucson. Just standing next to those beastly nitro burning machines as they thumped and whomped filled my soul with fulfillment, if not nourishment. I was being cleansed of all the bullshit I put up with in the music industry.

Still relating, big time.

Vintage drag racing wasn't a very big scene at the time, but it made me very happy. I felt like it was the world's best kept secret and I just wanted to tell anybody that would listen about this stuff, so I approached the publisher of a local 'zine, Full Throttle News, about doing race reports on this indie drag racing scene. That led to writing for Super Stock & Drag Illustrated as well as other mastheads, both in the drag racing world and beyond. I collected all of those race reports and dragstrip features into a book - a collection called 'Top Fuel Wormhole'.

A masterpiece, in my biased opinion. But speaking of 'mastheads beyond drag racing', I've spotted your byline in such diverse locales as Gearhead Magazine, RAZOR Magazine, LA CityBeat, LA Weekly, Wired, Bikini, Bicycling Magazine, Grand Royal Magazine, Men's Journal and... help?

I don't remember what all else...

Well, you have a quite an online presence too, with your Nitronic Research site and Drag Racing Online, among others.

Yeah well, getting back to drag racing and rock 'n' roll: There is some crossover between the two scenes, I suppose. But, for a multitude of reasons, I consider both of these scenes slowly dying, so the crossover is getting more fleeting every day. But for me, one scene led to the other and the actual intersection was pretty small.

Same here. But my experience took place pretty anonymously, far from the big stage of the LA Basin, where you live every day. Do you hang much with the race crowd there, or do they see you as a pesky journalist they have to watch their words around?

As a journalist, you try not to become too chummy with your subjects, but after a while it's inevitable. So while some of my friends are more drag strip journos - Dave Wallace, Mike Bumbeck, Jeff Burk and Darr Hawthorne - I do socialize with some of the drivers.  I would be remiss in not saying that my girlfriend (Mendy Fry) is a nitro Funny Car driver. But as far as 'hanging with the race crowd', whether it's LA or anywhere else, I've never been interested in any public figure who figures they have to watch their words. I'll interview somebody like that only if I absolutely have to, but that's not the individual I seek out to document. When it comes to racers, those who are guarded and watch their words, give milquetoast interviews because they think that's what their sponsors want. Nothing could be further from the reality: Sponsors want representatives who generate eyeballs, because that means attention is indirectly being focused on their product. If you can't generate attention, you can't generate a return on investment for your sponsor's patronage.

That's another reason I was drawn to the more independent and alternative 'nostalgia' scene. These guys said what they felt without any filter, and emotions often run high in the heated contests of fiery machines and the daredevils who drive them. That makes for interesting quotes: dragster drivers cursing a machine that just tried to kill them, or the driver in the other lane that jacked her or him around.

There's a misconception that Kenny Bernstien and John Force nurtured, grew, and took drag racing to some supposed next level by using up precious broadcast time to thank their sponsors when they climbed out of the car, instead of motherfucking the guy in the other lane. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every idiot could see who the sponsor was and it's not like one is listening to the radio, for fuck's sake. For all practical purposes, drag racing is dead and with this formulaic interview style, these guys helped kill it. So it's not that racers are afraid of what they might say to me, but more that I've never had any desire to interview somebody who's going to give me the Kenny Bernstien boilerplate of banality and sponsorship recital.

I think everyone would agree with that. The last realistic racer interview I can remember was with Al Hoffman and even that seemed watered down. Who's the biggest 'character' you've dealt with?

(instant response) Brent "The Mad Rocket Scientist" Fanning. Absolutely out of his mind - or wants everybody to think he is. A very free thinker and a remarkably resourceful human being. After his Top Fueler failed to stop at the end of the dragstrip, a friend of mine helped him extricate the race car from out of the woods and asked Brent if he ever thought about quitting. He answered, "Quit? What for? We're out here making memories!" I understand he's playing professional poker tournaments now and I keep looking for him on television.

Ha! The Fannings are heroes to me. I've been impressed since they answered some flakey NHRA decision by popping a parachute packed full of cow manure at 250+ MPH. The Safety Safari wasn't amused though. The outlaw spirit lives on... And who was the biggest pain in the ass?

(even quicker response) "Jocko" Johnson. He threatened to sue both Hot Rod magazine and myself, based on a feature he described as "pulp fiction". Drag racers are tough guys, mad geniuses and bad asses, but man do they have frail egos! Jocko was upset because I said one of his streamliners "laid an egg". It ran once in competition and qualified dead last, before its owner, Don Garlits, had it mothballed because he said it actually went through the timing traps with the back tires in the air.

Bwahahaha! I've dealt with Jocko and Donald, too... But we have to wrap this up. Ready for your bonus question? What's the future of hot rodding/motorsports/transportation/print media/America/Planet Earth?

Today's consumers care about iPads. They don't care about cars, except for the ones with holographic gauges that that resemble an iPad app. And the only magazines people will read is on the holographic iPad-like dashboard in the car that Google designed that drives itself. I'll let you do the math on the ramifications of such a future as it relates to hot rods and car magazines. But I will say this, the sooner America embraces such a paradigm, the better chance it has of staving off its own obsolescence, and the better chance Planet Earth has of not choking on its own exhaust.

Damn man, do you realize you just addressed six subjects with one answer and nailed every one of 'em?! How'd you DO that?

That's the one question Coonce didn't answer. I turned to see him stepping into  an adolescent-drawn rickshaw at curbside and he was gone. I thought I caught a whiff of nitro in his wake, but it was probably just another flashback.

America's Coolest Station Wagons in 3-D!!!

It's true! My advance copy of the wagon book arrived this week. I actually held it in my hands for the first time, after a year and a half of wondering what the finished product would look like. It looks good (in my biased opinion). It feels nice in my hands and even smells good!

When I build a car, I'm constantly pushing it out of the shop to get some perspective on it. I'll walk around it a few times, checking my work for flow and balance, then roll it back inside, knowing what I have to do next. I have no such luxury while writing. I can see the text, or the photo captions, or the images themselves (one at a time), but this old wind-up computer isn't equipped to show me the big picture and I don't do my own layouts anyway. That's done back at the CarTech offices in Minnesota, as they're not ready to trust me with that make-or-break aspect of the creative process yet. So imagine my relief to open my copy of the book and find surgically clean editing by Scott Parkhurst and tasty layout and design work by Monica Seiberlich. I didn't realize how stressed I was about this until cracking the book open, browsing a few pages, then closing my eyes and deflating into my chair for a good five minutes, before continuing.

That was two days ago and I'm still grinning. I'm happy to report that the paper is high quality, the images reproduced beautifully, the font is easy on the eyes and it reads well. Like the cover, the interior layout is crisp and bright, evoking an upbeat energy that enhances the text nicely.. Being trusted with the wagon owner's personal stories meant that emotional connections were inevitable, rendering me instantly biased.  So I'm too close to the text to judge it. You'll have to do that for me.

It's been a long twisted road from racing the backstreets and working the wrecking yards to authoring my first book. Who knew you could get here from there? Not me. This book should be on the shelves of your nearest bookstore by April 15th. Check it out and let me know what you think, okay?
Thanks,
Scotty