VIVA LAS VEGAS 2012 EXPOSED!

It's tense here in the bunker. Deadlines are bearing down with the weight of damnation. Coverage of my recent assignment to cover the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender is due, along with the latest book for Cartech Inc. Perfect timing for a computer crash, which played out in spectacular fashion, scattering photos and documents to the cosmos like connecting rods from an overdosed nitro Hemi with a shorted magneto. My computer guy was impressed. I've spent the last seven days in triage mode, scrambling to replace the dead and patch up the wounded, while this poor blog suffers heinous  neglect. So here ya go. Fresh meat.

Las Vegas is already plenty surreal without 50,000 foreign  invaders (that's the number I heard) struggling to  place drink orders with surly/cynic bartenders who trip over their own English, let alone Swahili, Greek, Mandarin Chinese or the dozens of other unidentifiable tongues we failed to decipher at the event. The result was, at turns, festive, confounding,  joyous, even terrifying, but always touching - these people had journey'd from every crook and nanny of the globe to celebrate Americana with genuine American rock and roll musicians and hot rodders. The admiration was mutual, if often misunderstood, but we all just went with it.

I flew in a day early and checked into the Palms Hotel. The joint was crawling with vacationing twenty-somethings from Iowa or Ohio or somewhere, affecting expensive looks modeled after their interpretations of Entertainment Tonight red carpet highlights: Neon teeth, monster spike heels, just-barely-there minidresses and the latest styles from Super Cuts were mashed up and paraded through the casino like living advertisements for what must be Earth's last Playboy Club, hiding behind rows of crossed-arm security goons. Really. Either these people had been sold an empty package, or I'm completely out of touch. Shut up. The only shards of reality were down-and-outers jamming crumpled dollars into slot machines, while omnipresent overhead TV screens flashed updates on the last minute Powerball fever sweeping the nation. I ducked into an elevator and shot to the 17th floor to barricade myself in my room, cranked the SPEED channel to full volume to drown out the incessant blaring of canned Techno Beat musak, and fell into a deep sleep.

The Palms valet team was baffled when this unbaffled Model A rolled up, triggering dozens of car alarms. It sat for a long time while they attempted to start it. Six hours later, still no dice. Other than this amusement, I couldn't relate to my surroundings.

In the morning I rendezvoused with Hot Rod Magazine Publisher Jerry Pitt and worker bees Brandan Gillogly and Jesse Kiser at the VLV host Orleans Hotel. We set up shop in the car show parking lot and established another booth in one of the Orleans ballrooms. Jerry was there to sell subscriptions. Hot Rod Deluxe was sponsoring the event and I was its lone representative, since Editor Dave Wallace was stuck on a train in Canada with folk legend Ramblin' Jack Elliot (don't ask). I received a mountain of praise from readers for work that Wallace mostly did on the magazine. It was too weird. I packed up my camera and wandered into the crowd, at least half of which seemed to have bought into media-induced imagery of rock and rod stereotypes. But they were all having a blast, if blissfully ignorant of what they were really buying. Luckily, there were plenty of bona fide rod and custom hardcores there with enough cool cars to keep me engaged. I've already submitted my report to the magazine (Hey Hot Rod: Sorry about crashing your photo site!), so will share photos here that I'm confident they won't run. Online Viva coverage has already saturated bandwidth with the most popular cars, but there was plenty to go around. Check out Hot Rod Deluxe for the really killer stuff. Here's my leftovers... (Copyright 2012 SGE, GBR, SourceInterlink)

  These guys (unknown to me) provided an appropriate background score during their sound check, while we set up our booth in this ballroom and I experimented with my camera's light settings. Obviously, the experiment was a failure, but we all enjoyed the tunes.

  L-R: Jesse, Jerry and Bill (SourceInterlink subscription sales guy from Florida) converted some tables and cloth into a Hot Rod Deluxe Superstore.

 The latest (May) issue (featuring Les Brusatori's Willys) stared back at me all weekend. Weird to be on this side of it. People snatched 'em up as fast as we unloaded 'em. Many boxes worth. Cool.

Gretsch Guitars was one of our co-sponsors. They also had multiple displays and even gave away a guitar.

             The outdoor booth. L-R: Stunned fan, Deluxe Gals, Bill, uber shooter Wes Allison, Jerry.

 Brandan and Jesse had driven the Sailor Jerry Model A tudor from L.A. as part of a Hot Rod video thing (or maybe it was for Roadkill?). The roadster guys are from Mackey's Hot Rods, who built the A-bone. We were supposedly going to lunch, but spent most of the day shooting cars. Fine by me.

With Jerry wheeling the Hot Rod dually, Brandan and I took window shots while Jesse risked it all in the bed (mostly standing) . We may have broken a few laws maneuvering through Vegas traffic caravan-style, but it was all in the name of photo journalism.

 I believe Chinese Fire Drills are legal in Nevada, as long as you're not downtown and the day of the week begins with a 'T'.

All I can tell you is that the Mackeys overtook us at high velocity. We're only doing about 50 here, but are less than a yard from the crosswalk at a red light. Excellent brake test!

 Brandan and Jesse striking a studly pose. We were rolling right along, when the road abruptly ended right here. So we headed back into town for tattoos (hey, we wanted to blend).

Genuine Las Vegas tattoo artists, loitering around the Sailor Jerry car and the Mackeymobile. We were inside, getting matching flying unicorns on our shoulders, in observance of a day of male bonding. Not really. But I think Mackey got a Sailor Jerry logo on his leg.


Oh yeah, the Viva Las Vegas show. Here's some random photos.

             That's right - it's Duane Eddy on stage at the car show, with Deke Dickerson on bass.

                                                         Followed by The Ventures.

Even with 60-some bands at this event, picking our favorite was easy. This uninvited act was set up at the edge of the property, employing a gas generator to make the guerrilla performance possible. If you're not hip to them, their name will be revealed in Hot Rod Deluxe soon. This was lauded as their last hurrah, but...

                                                       What? Oh yeah, the car show.

                                             Business as usual at the Hot Rod Deluxe booth.

Of course, we weren't the only booth there. Without a wide angle lens, this tiny slice of the vendor area is all I could catch. Hopefully, you get the general idea.

 Jesse took about a million shots for Hot Rod. His primary assignment was to record crowd reaction to the Sailor Jerry car...

                                                 Everyone seemed to find it interesting.

After the event, I had an extra day to kill before flying back home. I spent it in my room, with the SPEED channel cranked to full volume to drown out the still incessant Techno Beat musak that pervaded every square inch of the Palms Hotel. For what it's worth, the tourists from Iowa (or was it Indiana?) seemed to thrive on the stuff.

Champion Raceway Exposed!

We were diehard street racers. Clueless knuckledraggers, overdosed on adrenaline, testosterone, and our adolescent egotism. Teenage street punks, cashing in beer bottles for enough gas money to get us out to the suburbs, where we'd steal garden hoses from unlit backyards and siphon enough gas to fill our tanks the rest of the way, set for a night of action. We drooled on the latest drag cars at magazine racks around town, but our reality was too far removed for us to relate in any meaningful way. By the time I turned 14 years old (1970), I'd quit school and left home to street race full time. I had it bad. An extreme case I suppose, but I wasn't alone. Our little clique consisted of roughly a dozen such delinquents and we were a fringe element of a much larger underground web that existed across the valley and spread across the entire country. Big Willie Robinson and the Brotherhood of Street Racers in Los Angeles were the heroes we aspired to, but we made do in small town America (Medford, Oregon) with local heroes from Noel Black to Mike Gilhausen to Rotten Roy Wiltse. We had everything we needed. We thought.

While the "older guys" like Gilhausen made statements on the clogged downtown "gut" (bumper-to-bumper cruising, seven nights a week) with nicely finished and well tuned iron, our beaters kept a respectful distance. Mine was a 283/Powerglide package in a '58 Anglia. It was fast enough to get me into plenty of trouble and lose me lots of money. Of the hundreds of races that I ran on Medford streets, I only remember winning one or two. That didn't stop me from moving up to Portland and taking on the big dogs, where I was quickly humbled and limped home with my tail between my legs. I joined the Army for mechanical and machinist training in Kansas, wherever that was.

The sharpest guy in the Ft. Riley motorpool was Tim Egan, from Wisconsin. And Tim was a kick in the pants to hang with. One night, Tim invited me along to a race. I hopped into his badass '62 Nova and we drove to the neighboring town of Manhattan, Kansas. That's where I was stunned to see my first genuine drag strip - and my life changed. I assisted Tim while he made some mid eleven second passes and was awestruck. Then the real show began: Grumpy versus Glidden, Big Daddy and Shirley, and many more! On a cow path track in the middle of Kansas, on a Friday night. Who knew? Not me. I thought this stuff only happened in magazines. But safe, legal drag racing had been hiding in plain sight (under my nose) all along. I can't begin to express the feelings of freedom and safety, but best of all was the traction! And never again would I race with one eye scanning the mirror for cops, kids, or dogs.

Soon after that fateful night, I read in Hot Rod magazine that the petition my friends and I had signed, requesting a legal place to race (back in '70), had finally landed on the Jackson County Commissioner's desk in Medford and - miracle of miracles - my hometown now sported America's only government owned drag strip! Amazing. By then I was living in Nebraska (of all places) and running my street car at the local (IHRA) track. Life got in the way, but two marriages, three kids and twenty-some years later, I hitched the hot rod to my beater '64 Chevy pickup and made the long overdue drive home to Oregon (via the Bonneville Salt Flats). I got my first look at the Jackson County Dragway in 1996 and made my first pass on it the next day. Just typing these words fills my soul with pride.

Since then, the County has signed several different managers to the strip at Jackson County Motorsports Park, which also boasts a small road course and a popular dirt oval. When AA/GS racers Bill Fitting and Jim Taylor took over the strip management with intentions of a nostalgia race series, I jumped in, as nostalgia drags are my favorite niche-within-a-niche. I was tech inspector until our first big event and the prospect of sending people downtrack at 200 MPH with my signature on their tech cards freaked me out. I resigned on the spot. Luckily, I was kept on as an announcer and enjoyed a couple seasons of learning the inner workings of a track, racing all the while, at every opportunity.

Bill and Jim are gone now and Redding (California) Drag Strip managers Bob and Joye Lidell have agreed to split their time between the two tracks, effectively saving the Medford track (now called Champion Raceway) from locked gate syndrome. If you haven't noticed, LGS is on the rise and likely threatening a track near you. There's only one known antidote:

 From the opening day of this facility, the grassroots efforts of the racers themselves have made it a success. That's more true than ever today. Last weekend, racers from Junior Dragster pilots to blown fuel Altered hot shoes cleaned up six months worth of Mother Nature's finest work with their own bare hands. No one complained. They were all just grateful to have a place to race this year. It's that passion to race and gratitude for what they have that keeps the gate open. And keeps city streets safe from mayhem, like me.

LGS affects a race track somewhere in the U.S. every 5.27 days. Support your local track. Race on it. Sit in the 'stands and sip a beverage. Urge local media outlets to cover the action. Support track advertisers. Tell your friends and neighbors. Racing is an integral cog in the evolution of technology and of our communities. Ask your friends in towns where tracks have shut down how that's working out for them...

   Street cars in action at Champion Raceway - the only alternative to racing on YOUR street...

Thanks to the Southern Oregon Drag Racers Club, Bob and Joye Lidell, the County of Jackson, and City of Medford. And special thanks in advance to the racers of Redding Drag Strip, for putting up with us stealing your track managers every other week this season!

2012 Grand National Roadster Show Exposed!

                                                             What the fuss is all about...




Now that our coverage of the 2012 GNRS has been printed in the May issue of Hot Rod Deluxe, I can finally show you what really happened there. Those who know me can attest to my disdain for car shows. While it's nice to take in the details of a car while parked, I've never understood how that can be considered an event. Cars were meant to be driven and in my opinion, are best viewed in their natural habitat - blasting down a city street or punishing a race track. End of sermon.

My younger brother Mark, on the other hand, is a major show fan and has even done hard time as a show promoter himself. He talked me into joining him at the 50th annual GNRS at San Francisco's Cow Palace several years ago and I actually enjoyed walking among the many iconic show cars I'd only read about before. Meeting some of the famous builders/owners was also a rush. The experience gave me some appreciation of the fabrication and design skills involved and exposed me to the passion required to take a concept sketch to 3-D realization, just like with a hot rod. Shortly after that trip, I became a member of some show car build teams, myself. And just last year, I began work on a book about show cars. So when I got the 2012 GNRS gig, my first move was to invite brother Mark along. The only way I could afford to pay him back.

The drive from Oregon to Los Angeles was a mind numbing affair, but for a quick stop to shoot a historical show rod for the book project. Two days after blowing town, Mark and I jangled into L.A. at sunrise, road weary and anemic, thanks to limited sleep (in the car, at some of California's edgiest truck stop parking lots) and our strict peanutbutter & jelly diet (banker's orders). The following are my photos of the adventure (Copyright Gosson Bros 2012) that SourceInterlink chose not to print. I believe you deserve to know what they've been hiding. The deeper question is, why? More will be revealed...

First stop was the Petersen Automotive Museum, where we dragged ourselves down endless hallways littered with amazing machinery. We somehow stumbled into a "Forbidden Zone" (according to Petersen security personel), triggering a Code Red status throughout the facility. There were some tense moments before we finally spotted an opening and bolted to freedom down the decrepit streets of the City of Angels. The angels we saw on those streets appeared drawn and broken, but supplied a nervous color, enhancing our tourist experience.

                                      Brother Mark, soaking up some culture in front of the Pete.

                                         In the parking garage.

            Some people! This guy took up three parking spaces, right next to ours. Jerk.

            Gosson Bros tourist snapshots at the Pete. They made us delete our shots of the Forbidden Zone.

 We waited for a thousand forevers at this parts counter before realizing it was only a display. Very funny... All we needed was a u-joint and some blue LocTite.

Nothing could be more conspicuous than a pair of small town Oregon mossbackers trying to negotiate the labyrinth of freeways to Pomona. Traffic was extremely dense, but we didn't see a single Smart Car, or even a hybrid - just regular gas suckers, most with only a driver at the wheel and no human passengers. We arrived at Pomona extra crispy and camped out in a killer parking space we scored near a port-o-potty. Sweet. This was livin'! We both felt like James Brown, once inside the gates of the L.A. County Fairgrounds. Here's a small sample of our favorites, sprinkled among the seven main buildings.

Every available inch of asphalt on the Fairgrounds was covered with local rods and customs that cruised in for the show. Space was so tight, some had to park sideways!

                       
                        This guy had a great spot and nobody parked anywhere near him. Go figure...

I ran into an amazing number of people I knew, all of us a long way from home. One example: These are old pals from New Jersey.

This car represents some of my homies who were there working the show. They know who they are - do you?

  The NHRA Museum (next door to the show) had us over for dinner and their salute to Dean Moon. It was    a grand celebration and we were honored to crash the party...

Brother Mark saved our seats next to (personal hero) John Peters' Freight Train - that month's HRD cover car.

      Minutes later, the evening's speakers arrived and a mob scene ensued. No one complained though...

 Can you name the following rod and custom pioneers? Post your guesses in the COMMENTS box. Hint: These first two characters go by "Chico" and "Shige". I want one of these shirts SO bad...

We ate everything that wasn't nailed down (thanks to Greg and the Moon Men!), hopped into our transportation module and hightailed it back to God's country, where we jumped back into the frying pan of everyday life. Love the road, love coming home. It was a great honor to hang with these amazing people and get their insights into the evolution of the hot rod revolution. Mark and I are now more inspired than ever and full of dangerous ideas...