DOG ON A STICK

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The wheels are falling off in Scottyville. I feel like a dog on a stick.

This is the fifth April in a row to end with a CarTech deadline. I really don't know how many more I can take. There are nine days left to do about thirty days worth of work. Time management is not my strong suit. Chained to the keyboard for several weeks now, the rest of my life is on ice. A few more days won't matter. It'll get done somehow. It always does. But it won't get done if I'm screwing around on this blog. I gotta stay on the stick. So I'll post some pretty pictures for you to look at until I get back. These are my favorites of the week. I believe Motormouth Ray turned me on to these. Or it could have been the weird guy in the rusty wheelchair that I met in the alley. I'm not sure.

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SQUIRREL AND TOOLBOX

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Next Week: It'll probably be even worse.

DOUBLE HEADER: MY ROYAL SUBJECTS and DISPENSING THE BLUES WITH SLEEPYTIME FAIRMONT

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MY ROYAL SUBJECTS

"The Author at Home", photographed by Saint Shellski in the reading room at the Sandra Bjerke Museum of Intercultural Relations in Medford, Oregon, 2012.  The museum was actually my home at the time. I was the caretaker.

The transition from Freelance Magazine Contributor to Contracted Book Author was a very surreal twist in an already well-pretzeled journey. The back story is a classic leap-of-faith adventure, more akin to a Hunter S. Thompson plot device out-take than the standard literary study scenario. The ensuing chain of events grabbed me by the nose hairs and dragged me through my own past to reconnect with characters first established in my lifeline decades before. Lance Sorchik, the late Just Steve Hendrickson, and Gerry Burger reappeared from the back pages of Rodders Digest magazine to kick my ass into authorship before I had a chance to question the proceedings.

Three weeks after signing with the publisher, I was slugging coffee at the Las Vegas Convention Center with my CarTech Editor, the mile-a-minute Scott Parkhurst. Talk about surreal. The day before flying out to Vegas, I was covered in mouse turds and rust dust, while stripping the interior from a '53 Chevy "Tin Woody" (in preparation for welding in a subframe) at my fab-grunt day job. Suddenly, I'm jawing with P-Hurst about possible book format structures, while my hot rod heroes strolled past the Cartech booth. I had lunch with Mario Andretti; digested it on a park bench while being serenaded with true tales of hot rod pioneers by bench-mate Alex Xydias; traded print barbs with Kirk Jones; and heard a million first-person accounts of drag race history from Dave Wallace Jr. That was the first day. The week ended at Silver Mountain Raceway, where Optima Jim, Kristin Cline, and a dozen other new friends and myself tortured a fleet of Lotus race cars around the road course until we wore ourselves out and capped the proceedings with an exquisite Italian feast.

The next day, I returned to reality for eight hours of grinding welds, then faced off with a blank computer monitor, balking at starting my first book project. Once I laid out the basic parameters and established some momentum, the crucial human element quickly crept in. The subjects of my writing had carried me through many a magazine feature challenge with their delight at being chosen. The joy I experienced in being trusted with their stories is a gift I cannot relay in words. But now it was different. My subject's reactions went from giddy to shock.

From where I sit, a book is just a longer magazine feature. It's wonderful to go more in depth and get more creative, but my job is pretty similar, no matter the format. So it caught me off guard when my potential subjects (who had responded to my magazine feature inquiries with equal parts jubilation and swagger) now met my approach with the still silence of a deer in the headlights. Crickets... I interrupted the vacuum with a follow-up question, like, "Is this a bad time for you?" More silence. Then, "You want ME (or 'MY CAR') in a BOOK?"
It's like they were questioning their worthiness. Like a book is a more serious document of history than an impulse-buy magazine off the rack. Because it costs more money and comes from a snooty bookstore, rather than a convenient store reeking of fluorescent-lit reality? I don't know. But once some momentum was established on the project, all was routine. Go figure.

Being a station wagon guy, this was a natural freshman project for me. Being citizens of a minuscule sub-niche in the hot rod microcosm, the wagon owners I approached were happily gobsmacked. Each feature felt like I was inducting Rodney Dangerfield into the Hall of Fame. Very gratifying, for all parties involved.

Talk about no respect. This one taught me some ugly and valuable truths about myself. I had pre-judged the rats, then realized I was virtually one myself. The result was a humbling education for me, and absolute validation for the rats. 

This was a striking change of scenery, from a couple of angles. As a grassroots-level high performance enthusiast, show rods had always served as mere background eye candy to me. Face-to-face with them, I fell hard for the combination of humor and creative craftsmanship. Another baby step toward awareness. But now I was dealing mostly with professionals instead of blue collar hobbyists. Most of these people were funsters at heart, but the book dealings were strictly business. No awe shucks posturing here.

Today, I'm less than three weeks from the final deadline for the latest top secret CarTech book. There's still about three months worth of work to do in that time. I have no idea of how that happens, but this is the fourth time in a row. I can tell you this: The subjects of this niche-within-a-niche-within-a-niche project are ecstatic to be involved, so I invited them to assist, which they are eagerly doing. So I now have a temporary staff of bona fide experts working for me and am officially spoiled beyond salvation. Today, I am a princess poodle. Next month, it's back to being a junkyard dog.

This spare time project covered the spectrum from corporate funded professional race teams to a race car built by working stiffs in a side street shack, from wrecking yard parts. My subjects came from every walk of life, from every point of the globe, and every point of view. Very exotic to this small town hot rodder. Another beautiful lesson in cultural exchange.

The best part of my job is becoming friends with my subjects. From the most obscure to the most famous, I searched them out because I was drawn to them. To call such people my friends now is the greatest gift, no matter how we connected. I remain the grateful Forrest Gump of hot rodding. The luckiest guy in town.

The above Cartech books are available at most retailers. View the entire CarTech library at www.cartechbooks.com. Racing to America is the first release from the Gosson Bros. Racing Library. Available at https://www.createspace.com/4338903 and/or  http://www.amazon.com/Racing-America-Global.../dp/1490539778 .

                                                                       

DISPENSING THE BLUES WITH SLEEPYTIME FAIRMONT

This is not Sleepy Time Fairmont. This is a self portrait by bluesman and artist Robert Crumb. Fooled you! That's pretty much the point of this tune.


The first time I heard Sleepytime Fairmont play the blues, I nearly passed out. It wasn't the exhaust fume breath or grinding breaks that threw me, as much as the truthful force pushing me back into my seat. I thought I was going to tip over. Sleepytime Fairmont is a veteran bluesmaster of a different kind. It's Matt Happel's four-door Ford Fairmont sedan, designed from the get-go to give goldchainers a serious dose of the blues. The really down and dirty kind of blues, that make you wish you'd never been given a drivers license.

Happel and friend, running some quick errands in the Fairmont. It's invisible to mortals.

Matt Happel has his act down. He's been converting junkyard cadavers into street sleepers for a few years now, with a focus on Ford's humble Fairmont model. Sleepytime Fairmont is just my private pet name for Happel's latest. I can't help but look up to people who do what I can't, and Happel falls right into that category. A lifelong sleeper fan, I haven't yet found the discipline required to build one. But as I age, my ego is slowly shriveling, so there's hope for the future. I've had a secret sleeper build in my head for thirty-plus years, so was naturally attracted to Happel's approach when I saw it on Dragzine.com recently. I'll share the highlights with you here, but go to www.dragzine.com for the extended play version. You'll like it.

Matt lives in Pennsylvania, which doesn't quite explain his penchant for Ford's Fox body platform. What's the attraction, Matt? "I was never a big fan of the Mustang, and because the Fairmont shares a lot of the same parts and such, I just always end up building Fairmonts." Fair enough, sir. These backdoor orphans are easy to find for couch cushion change.

This particular example was a Craigslist find, offered up by a college student ill-equipped to deal with the straight six' head gasket issues.

Thanks to his hard earned wrecking yard connections, Happel was able to score this 5.3 liter LS and a 4L80E transmission from a 270,000 mile Silverado truck. The stock Fairmont 7.5 inch rear was swapped for a 8.8 incher, and the drivetrain was complete. A used LS1 intake with 80 psi injectors was force-fed by a 76mm turbo and the deal was done.

Beefy rubber on factory aluminum wheels are the only external visual hint of the evil within. Matt's little plan was working perfectly...

Happel scored a pair of used 235 drag radials for $26 and added another drag strip to the list of establishments he's been excused from. "When they asked me in tech how quick it was, I said, 'I'm not sure, but I know it'll be faster than your safety regulations allow.' I don't have a cage or anything." The ET slip tells the tale. Dragzine.com has details of the build. And Happel has a winning approach, placing yucks over bucks on the priority list. This is big time hot rodding for Joe Toolbox. And these are the best of times for junkyard zombies. (Photos courtesy of Dragzine.com)

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SQUIRREL AND TOOLBOX

We all read Anedia Martinsons' writings in high school (her Collected Poems of the Northwest Woods Creatures snagged a 1937 Pulitzer Prize, and was required reading in my sophomore English class), but did you know that Anedia was an early proponent of hot rodding, with a particular focus on supercharging? Her pioneering efforts (with an assist from Ed Almquist) in the field of high helix rotor design dramatically sped up the horsepower evolution. Martinson was also a respected cabaret singer, known in the Hoboken, New Jersey area as The Singing Bush (for her strikingly beautiful tail). Frank Sinatra often cited her influence on his vocal stylings. Alas, Anedia Martinson was snared in a hunter's trap in 1952. She would have been 97 years old, this Thursday.

The result of an oil burner explosion, The 37 Kid's Craftsman tote-along box may now be considered a radical custom. At press time, Kid is undecided on undertaking a complete restoration, a triage-style repair, or submitting the box for consideration as an entry in an upcoming industrial exposition at the Museum of Modern Art. Stay tuned. (Photo courtesy of The 37 Kid)

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NEXT WEEK: It's 50/50. If I survive another week of deadline fever, I might write something. If not, just know that I appreciate you reading the blog, and that I'm grateful to have enjoyed a good run. Tell the world I was killed by a bear.

HEROES COME AND GO. SOME GO HARDER THAN OTHERS.

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I could be any of these awestruck kids standing in the shadows of their heroes. Today.

Heroes. Their mystique offered me hope, inspiration, and indirect guidance. From Wild Willy Borsch to Big Daddy Don Garlits, these guys were just being themselves (for better or worse), but doubled as my unintentional better-than-nothing role models. So I glommed onto their shirt tails and rode along. Over fifty years later, I'm still swinging from their tails (I think I'm going to be a late bloomer). This may seem somewhat sad to you, but it was just what I needed. And I didn't go it alone. I had plenty of company in the pits and the stands, which was reassuring.

Today's kids are largely their own heroes. Marketing groups as disparate as the NHRA's and PETA's are frantically competing for the attentions of these future market shapers, and have deemed them the last vertical consumer demographic of our time. And so the creepy branding courtship has begun. But there's a hitch. These kids want to play it on their own terms. And as market researchers are learning, the kids have a big head start on them, with DNA that reaches all the way back to independent thinking. Good luck catching up with these guys.

Change comes hard. It will likely take several more generations to break the cycle of adrenaline addiction established with the invention of the wheel. So far, so good. 


New heroes come along every day, but only a chosen few receive anointment from the gate keepers of media. We have chosen to bestow the coveted SGE bump upon Canadian nitro racer Jordan Pawlick for his bravery, for being a deep thinker, and for having such a big heart.

Jordan Pawlick debuted the Nitro Militia Mustang at the 2014 March Meet. I don't think he even qualified for the field, yet he left the event as a heavy favorite. How is that even possible?

"Epic" is a battered old noun that has earned its cliche status the hard way. Running side-by-side with "iconic" and "hero" for decades now, "epic" was shuffling its way out the back door to a quiet retirement, when a newfound credibility arrived last month in the bed of a tired pickup truck and drove it back to the top of the charts. "Epic" owes Jordan Pawlick a big exclamation point of gratitude for the definition.

Pawlick towed his trailer through ice and snow from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to southern California this March. He parked it behind fellow Funny Car racer Jason Rupert's shop and began pulling parts from the trailer. Those cardboard boxes contained most of the pieces of Jordan's Nitro Militia '71 Mustang Funny Car that he would race to a most unlikely result, five days later at the 2014 March Meet in Bakersfield, California.

The self-styled Renaissance man found it more realistic to haul the pieces than ship them over the border. Jordan, a former crewman/driver on the SinOil Top Alcohol F/C, had bought his ex-Del Worsham Funny Car (built by Grant "King Kiwi" Downing) previous to the event, but had yet to take delivery. So he showed up with everything but the body, chassis and rearend, and went to work. Jason spent most of the next week building the engine and fabbing related parts at Jason Rupert's shop.

Miraculous to everyone but Pawlick, the chassis and body were delivered just in time to install and test-fire the engine, then the car was towed directly to the starting line. Covered in sweaty greasy fingerprints and a fine coating of Famoso pit dust, the newborn colt took its first wobbly baby steps in front of thousands of instant fans (well aware of the circumstances) who witnessed its transformation into a purebred stallion by the finish line. Blower builder Brad Littlefield was involved in the pre-race and pit thrashes, and reports, "Jordan slept in the trailer for no more than a few hours every night, while he thrashed to complete (the car). His crew flew in for a long work day, one day before heading up to Famoso. Jordan was still building his car in the pits at Bakersfield when the race started, and fired it up for the first time on Friday night." Jordan got in a couple of test runs - one a "slalom course deal around the cones", according to Littlefield. But a 6.00 at 248 showed on the scoreboard after his second full pass.

Jordan was stoked to be invited to an Elapsed Times magazine feature photo shoot in Los Angeles after the March Meet, but his truck broke down en route and Jordan had to pay out of pocket to have the race car towed to the city.

Pawlick plans to run at an IHRA race in Edmonton and at the Hot Rod Heritage Series race in Mission, B.C. this season. Chances are, some other event opportunities will pop up in the meantime. Jordan can now be assured that the entire global SGE Nation will be cheering him on, no matter where he may decide to saddle up his nitro pony. Jordan Pawlick is an epic hero. An iconoclast for the new generation.


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But my generation revered more heroes than just the racers, hot rodders, and other nefarious characters that I looked up to. And even the most mainstream heroes seem to have gone underground now, virtually vanishing from our national conscience. What ever happened to those icons of our pop culture childhoods? I sicked the vaunted SGE Research Team (Motormouth Ray) on the story, and present the findings here for your consideration.

Cinderella is coping with reality as best as she can, and is actually aging quite gracefully so far, being pickled in alcohol.

Snow White is one of us, living from paycheck to paycheck (when Prince Charming goes to work anyway), with some crucial help from Government Assistance.

Little Red Riding Hood's adventure continues, and will no doubt become more complex when the inevitable litter of wolf cubs are delivered.

Sleeping Beauty, still catching major Z's, and still beautiful, even while snoring and drooling. Her Prince has been holding this vigil since he was sixteen years old. So these two have enjoyed some solid sack time.

Things didn't work out so well for The Little Mermaid...

Barbie's on the other side of 50 now, but is still living fabulously.

Tweety Pie hit 70 last year and is feeling it. He's still one step ahead of Sylvester though.

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Our local heroes remain the most personal to us, even when their accomplishments are celebrated on the national stage. One such example is the storied Marty Strode, of Portland, Oregon. Strode's adventures on dirt and asphalt are legendary, but may ultimately be overshadowed by the craftsmanship performed in his rural shop. His restorations of vintage race cars are well known, but we take a particular pride in presenting Marty's current chassis fabrication exploits. This guy is more than a hometown hero. Marty Strode is a national treasure.

If you've been following along, you're probably as amazed as we are at the speed of Marty's construction of Jim Lindsay's Blown Fuel/Modified Roadster. That's either Jim or one of the neighbor kids in the chair, getting a feel for what's to come this August on the salt.

Jim has to sit up front because this (soon to be blown) flathead has stolen his seat. Marty says a tin nose for the roadster is next to be scratched off the To Do list hanging on the shop wall...

... said proboscis will provide aero shade for Jim's expansive office.

The mono-nostril nose that Marty will be building from.

The long and short of it. Lindsay's roadster, next to Lonnie Gilbertson's Hit and Miss Special lakester.

Marty whipped up the flathead-powered '40 pickup in his spare time. Besides parts chasing, its duties will also include some high sodium pushing, come August. Be there and catch Salt Fever!

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If you haven't already figured out why the Pacific Northwest is said to be permeated with a "rugged individualism", here's the very definition. Local native Sherman Parker scratched out a dusty living for years in various body shops before finally scoring an acreage in Southern Oregon's Applegate Valley. He built a house for the family and a shop. Then some more shops, which he stocked with a mix of antique and (mostly) home built machinery. As happens, word got out on "The guy who likes old cars and parts", and they began to take over the property. It could be said that every community has a character like Sherm, but on second thought, I doubt it. Sherman is definitely a staple of our local hot rod family, and I apologize to you and Sherm both for taking so long in getting around to doing this feature.

Sherman Parker in his natural habitat. He has a well founded suspicion of the media. Wise man. I stopped by his place last Sunday morning to pick up some wishbones for my Model A project and Sherm kindly granted me permission to snap a few images of his world. I visit often, but am usually in a hurry. Shame on me. This is a place to savor.

I'm not sure how many acres Sherm owns, but this fifty foot stretch of the driveway is the clearest spot on his land. Heaven on Earth.

Just a reminder to myself that the Model A will be needing a driveshaft pretty soon.

This Hemi roadster project is temporarily on hold. Please hold for the next available parts. Sherm has been hammer forming these custom dashes from heavy gauge steel for a while now. They're everywhere. 

The laidback grille and '37 Chevy headlights on the '36 roadster are noticeable. The rest of the work (including a 2 1/2" sectioning) is more stealthy. This project sent Sherm off on a '36 Ford styling tangent that has only gathered steam over time.

If not a '36 aficionado, you might miss the tons of work here. Strap on your drool bib before comparing this to a stocker. Yes, Sherm built the decklid hammerform. And the tools to make it.

Of course, the '36 got one of Sherm's signature dashes. He's building a '34 roadster now that employs '36 "Big Rolls" everywhere. It's killer. You'll have to trust me on that, as I didn't get photos.

I didn't even know about this '37 Chevy, hidden in a back room of the main shop. Ooh la la!

We all tend to carry emotional attachments to cars from our influential years. In Sherm's case, that means mid-50's F-100s. This is the latest. God only knows how many he's built. Extensive sweat has dripped onto this one (understatement). Look and learn.

Miscellaneous shots of the main shop area, taken while Sherm shared some secrets of metalworking eighty year-old tin. He humbly confessed to not knowing everything (but he knows almost everything).

Oh yeah. I went out to Sherm's for wishbones, didn't I? More on these guys in next week's blog.

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SQUIRREL AND TOOLBOX

We hear a lot of smack talk these days (mostly from domesticated Parrots - consider the source) about how flying squirrels ain't what they used to be. No matter what side of the debate you're on, you have to admit, this took some doing. Who'da thunk that some day a squirrel would land on the stump? We're very proud of the SGE Squirrels and take this opportunity to remind them: A grateful nation salutes you! (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Another from the extensive Kiwi Kev collection. Heroic tool boxes? You know it. White porcelain covers the tool storage unit in Kev's garage/showroom. Are you surprised? You shouldn't be. (Photo courtesy of Kiwi Kev)

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

Anonymous super hero (the best kind) from the dawn of the industrial revolution. Very rare. (Wood carving courtesy of Sir Isaac Newton)

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