SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TIMING ASSOCIATION'S MUROC REUNION
BURY MY HEART AT EDWARDS AFB or... the sands will come again.
By Cole Coonce
"We did it all, and we'll never see times like these again."--Dean Batchelor, The American Hot Rod.
At first I thought it was a mirage. Or an apparition. I was suffering
from an acute lack of sleep, my disorientation and sensory deprivation
amplified by a lack of proper coffee as well as the blinding reflection
of the morning sun as it bounced off of the milky-white, crystallized
floor of the dry lake bed. I shook my head, threw back the dregs of the
caffeine, and blinked. It was no hallucination. There I was at Edwards
AFB, deep in the heart of the cruel and unforgiving Mojave Desert, a
landscape that a French philosopher once called a "slow catastrophe,"
and three paces from my bones was the man who organized hot rodding
after WWII on this very same uninhabitable desert. That's right: Wally
Parks, President of the Southern California Timing Association in 1946.
Editor of Petersen Publishing's Hot Rod magazine in 1948. President of
the National Hot Rod Association during its birthin' in 1951 until
Dallas Gardner stepped in during the Reagan Years. And probably the
first man to call the linear pursuit of horsepower a "drag race," way
back in 1939 in the Racing News.
I was stunned and I was silent. I did not know how to approach the man.
Or, closer to the heart of the matter, maybe I did not know how to
approach the myth and the legend that is Wally Parks as he stood there
larger-than-life, towering over the proceedings at the most mystical
and legendary plot of real estate in these here United States of
America.
Ah yes, the mythology. There has been more history, folklore, and
mythology concocted at the Muroc Dry Lake than anywhere else on the
planet since the days of Apollo and Aphrodite making noise on Mt.
Olympus. For it was at this wasteland where the Muroc Racing
Association, predecessor to the SCTA, predecessor to the Russetta
Timing Association, predecessor to the NHRA, etc., etc., etc., began in
1932, hosting competition between renegade hot rodders from the far
side of the San Gabriel Mountains, men who would test their mettle,
bravado and mechanical acumen by racing hari-kari across the lake bed,
sometimes four or five abreast, kicking up such a furious tempest of
dust and debris in their wake that only the leader of the pack could
actually see where he was going. The other drivers? Well, crashing into
your colleagues and barrel-rolling, hobbling into the nearest hospital
in Palmdale, 30 miles away via an undulating washboard of a dirt road,
only to find upon your return--assuming you survived--what was left of
your race car had been scavenged and stripped down to the frame rails,
that was the price one paid for inferior horsepower out there in the
Mojave Desert during the years of Herbert Hoover and FDR. This, race
fans, was the true genesis of drag racing.
Beyond the isolation of this primeval racing on the lake beds and just
when we thought America had already made the world safe for democracy,
a funny thing happened beyond either pond that flanks these here
Continental United States--the Second World War. And not to trivialize
the battles Iwo Jima or Normandy, but the SoCal hot rodding community
also suffered a loss in the War. By virtue of eminent domain, the Muroc
Dry Lake, the birth place of drag racing, was claimed by Uncle Sam as a
"proving ground" for military aerospace research and development. The
pangs of this loss were mitigated by a couple of factors: The dry lakes
racers and the car clubbers were migrating to other lake beds, among
them El Mirage, Harper, and Rosamond where they continued "cuttin' the
crystals" during single-file "speed trials" (side-by-side competition
was now deemed entirely too unsafe at the dry lakes) nearly every
weekend; as well as the fact that at night the lakester guys and the
car clubbers were matching wheels at either say, Slauson Avenue or
Lincoln Boulevard or Glenoaks out in the Valley; or, as early as 1950,
they wuz' changing rear tires and gear ratios, pouring increasingly
generous helpings of nitromethane into the combustion chambers of their
flathead Ford V-8s and "draggin'" down at CJ Hart's chunk of airstrip
known as the Santa Ana Drags out in Orange County where, for once, they
didn't have to worry about outrunning the fuzz as well as the
competition.
And as Chuck Yeager banged through the palpitating turbulence of the
Speed of Sound over the hallowed ground of Edwards AFB (nee Muroc
Field) in October '47, teenagers continued racing across the alkali
crystals of the Mojave, or down the concrete banks of the arid,
withered L.A. River bed. Soon after Yeager's scrotal-squeezing
supersonic gonzo sleigh ride, President Eisenhower unleashed the
clandestine ramjet-propelled U2 spy planes, which would rocket through
the heavens over Muroc--50,000 feet high!--at a speeds in excess of
2,000 miles per hour, and subsequently blaze over the bleached bones of
the coyotes in Death Valley and ultimately descend, minutes later, 300
miles away into Nevada's notorious Area 51. At Muroc in 1959, NASA
unveiled its team of astronauts destined for the moon, the Mercury
Seven.
Through all of this, there was Wally, always astute and alert as per
the trends of speed-addled youth, be it time trials at the dry lakes,
rumbles at the malt shop, or the draggin' at the strip. A man of epic
scope and vision, he was deftly plotting the co-option, development and
commodification of America's horniness for horsepower into what Parks
called in a April 1950 Hot Rod feature "Controlled Drag Racing," as
administered by his yet to be unveiled NHRA. (The birth of the NHRA
itself is part and parcel emblematic of how much mythology is intrinsic
to the history of hot rodding. To wit, in 1951 Parks asked Lee O. Ryan,
Petersen Publishing's GM, to compose a fictitious "letter to the
editor" expressing concern over the lack of direction in hot rodding.
In rebuttal, Parks proposed an organization "dedicated to safety,"
while providing the gearhead with a place to race, thus decreeing the
formation of the NHRA whilst simultaneously inviting everyone to join.)
Suffice it to say, what made Wally Parks' presence out at Muroc 1996
interesting was how the NHRA, which began as a nationwide extension of
the ethos of the MRA and the SCTA--y'know bitchen' trophies for the
industrious back yard tinkerer--has metamorphosized into an
organization that became a player and a schmoozer in the Multi-National
Corridors of Power in America. There are no luxury suites out in the
desert. There isn't even any running water. But as I stood there
blinking my eyes, there was Wally...
So the paradox is this: out of the ashes of the Dry Lakes rose the
multi-headed Phoenix which is Hot Rod magazine, the NHRA, National
Dragster, the Winston $1,000,000 series, and the "members only" glass
tower corporate suites that lease for $30,000 per event so's High
Society-types can watch the races on closed-circuit monitors while
sipping sifters of Napoleon Brandy and eating weinies on a stick. That
entire reality is of no concern to the lake bed Bedouins, however. This
is because the SCTA and the whole culture of the dry lakes has
continued to exist on its own terms for all those years since WWII,
albeit with a low profile. In fact, it has been flourishing out at El
Mirage with dyed-in-the-wool lake guys supplemented by refugees from
the drag strip wars, veterans of the 1320 who could no longer abide the
rampant parts attrition as well as the exorbitant costs of contemporary
drag racing. 13,000 gearheads descended upon Muroc on Saturday April
27th 1996, to symbolically reclaim Muroc, ironically a happening that
never would have come to pass without the clout, sociopolitical
machinations and handshaking ability of Wally Parks.
And like I say, while wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I stood in the
shadow of the exalted hot rodder who embodies the duality of man, the
avuncular and towering Wally Parks. I thrust a microcassette recorder
in his mug, and lofted a softball of a question like, "How does it feel
to be back on the dry lakes?" and away he went...
"We're all absolutely delighted," sez Wally, "that we've had a chance
to come back here, because it's been 55 years since the SCTA ran here.
I think having access to this place has got as much value for historic
reasons as it has for the satisfaction of running down the course. But
the thing we like most is the people who have returned here, who were
once up here, and the newcomers who come in to see it. We just think
we've got 100 percent success and we are very grateful to the Air Base
here and the commander for letting us be here.
"Our presence here," he continued reciting, his towering, lean torso
magnificently framed against blue skies and Jet Propulsion
Laboratories' rocket launchers burrowed into the nearby Rosamond Hills,
"ties in with research and development programs and their technology
and so forth, which is the spirit of Edwards AFB, the test center,
which is what this is all about: people testing new ideas. It may not
apply to aircraft but it all comes out of the same box."
Aahh, the Mojave Desert is the perfect backdrop for a powerful oratory,
and at 83 years of age, Wally Parks was showcasing his rhetorical
skills. But something was a little too perfect about this sermonizing.
I wasn't sure if I was interviewing the man who is not only the driving
force behind the SCTA's wistful return to its mecca, but also the
embodiment of laissez faire capitalism, or if I was merely on the
ass-end of a feedback-generated tape loop fed into a 10" speaker
implanted into a cryogenically-enhanced human body, not unlike, say,
the walking-talking Mr. Lincoln Exhibit at Disneyland. It was
weird--I've been dying to bench race with the Man, the Myth, the Legend
that is Wally Parks, a complex man, a man who personifies the dichotomy
of everything that is virtuous, controversial, banal, and perhaps even
disturbing about the Master Capitalists of America, be it Henry Ford,
Walt Disney, Dick Clark or Bill Gates. As sandstorms started to kick up
and pelt my face with sharp crystals of fossilized mud, Wally continued
riffing about America and "the pioneering spirit." Despite the dust
devils he never stopped talking. I have to confess at some point I
began to tune out Parks' monologue about the nobility of Muroc, as the
repetitive read-only memory functions of his speech were kicking into
high gear. I began to free-associate about Mr. Park's pivotal role in
the SCTA "taking back Muroc" (at least for one weekend), and I began to
wonder if this gesture was not unlike like a long-in-the-tusk mastodon
going home to his elephant's graveyard. The speechifying continued, and
as I dutifully held my microcassette aloft as I thought, "Who is this
guy? Who am I really interviewing? Machiavelli? Dwight D. Eisenhower?
Charles Keating? Charles Foster Kane?" As I write this, I am still not
sure...
As the interview with Wally continued, I was overcome by the swirling
dust and the heat. As the temperatures was climbing into the
triple-digit range, the sweat and the sand and the sun block coagulated
into this afterbirthish goop which seemed to gravitate from my brow
into the recesses of my eyes. I tried closing one, then the other, but
to no avail. I couldn't see anything beyond vague forms perpendicular
to the earth's curvature--one of which was talking non-stop
(Wally)--all of this entire tableaux more surreal and bizarre than your
typical mirage. Wally was either oblivious or just nonplussed by my
fevered perspiring and blinking, the loop tape continuing unabated. I
knew this was my only chance to heave a curve ball at the most
legendary figures in the NHRA. So as I wiped my eyes, I asked him, "Did
you derive more pleasure from your tenure at the SCTA or shaping the
NHRA into what it is today?" He answered, "Both, although it's apples
and oranges. One is a non-profit dedication and the other one is trying
to keep a big thing going..."
At that moment, with the loop tape mechanism finally disengaged, I felt
Wally and I were on the verge of a meaningful dialogue. I was poised to
ask him if he felt the longevity of the SCTA was perhaps due to a
reaction to the politics and fiscal policies of the NHRA. Fate
intervened, however. A senior member of Wally's entourage (I think it
was his sister-in-law) sought relief from the heat and the sand and the
noise and Wally, who had been extremely gracious and accommodating with
me, begged off further questions, and chivalrously went to assist the
member of his party in distress. I was that close to the truth.
*************
Before, during, and after Wally's discourse on the nobility of the
pioneering spirit, various lakesters, nitrous-oxide powered coupes,
land speed streamliners, and blown Studebackers began their procession
across the desert, hurtling across the lake bed towards the timing
beams, over a 1.3 mile course marked by scores of pylons. There were
hundreds of drivers were in pursuit of various Muroc speed records in
machines encompassing a multitude of engine, body, and chemical
combinations. Among them was Al Teague, windin' out his "Spirit of 76"
streamliner in second gear at well over 200 mph--this same
combustion-engined contraption clocked a Wheel-driven land speed record
432 mph out at Bonneville a few years back. Joaquin Arnett, who has
been tippin' the can since the late 40s, also showcased the home-built
"Bean Bandits" nitro-burning streamliner. There were a few vintage
"belly tank" lakesters--speed machines crafted out of fuel tanks from
P-38 Lightning fighter planes that were liberated out of aerospace
surplus yards. There was even an land speed entry from Guam.
All tolled, before the dust settled, fourteen drivers were initiated
into the Muroc 200 MPH Club. This included SCTA v.p. Mike Cook, who
raced across the desert in his blown Ford T-bird at 227 mph.
While the eclectic assembly of speed machines continued kicking up
gigantic rooster tails of dust, their clockings were announced over
Channel 1 on citizen's band radios, which were employed in lieu of a
public address system. It was an interesting counterpoint, the
juxtaposition of low-fidelity c.b. radios against the various satellite
communication systems and megawatt transmitters deployed by the Air
Force. Out of earshot of the "p.a." and beyond the pylons, I
encountered a messianic figure trekking across the desert in
flip-flops. It was Robert "Jocko" Johnson, inventor, bohemian sculptor,
and mechanical visionary. (In 1959 at Riverside, CA, Jocko stunned the
world of hot rodding with an 8.35 e.t. in drag racing's first
full-bodied streamliner, a clocking 3/10ths of a second quicker than
any other Top Fuel dragster. Before he could improve on this outrageous
performance, the streamliner subsequently self-destructed at Lions Drag
Strip.) Out at Muroc, Jocko was on a mission whose dual agenda was
thus: a) to show Alex Xydias (proprietor of the "So-Cal Speed Shop" in
Burbank) a brand new pocket-sized centrifugal force-powered
supercharger, a device Jocko designed to replace the relatively bulky
and inefficient GMC "roots" design; and b) to get a sno-cone and beat
the desert heat. He invited me over to his tent for tacos later that
evening and I graciously accepted.
That night, after consuming more than a few of "Jocko's tacos" and
discussing Jocko's plan to unveil a streamliner propelled by an
18-cylinder, 25 cubic inch radial motor--capable of 400
horsepower(!)--out on the salt flats, it was time to explore the
"proving grounds," as it were. As the racers put their exotic machines
to bed, the campfires, the Coleman lanterns and the barbecues provided
the sole source of illumination, besides the constellations and the
orbiting satellites (which, out in the Mojave Desert, are visible to
the naked eye). I wandered through the pits, blown away by the massive
proportions of this congregation of motorheads who had migrated to this
uninhabitable air strip in the Mojave Desert. And as I waded through
the nomads camping in the barren flats of the Seventh Circle of Hell, I
overheard a campfire conversation about Project Mercury ace Gordo
Cooper's appearance on a "reality-based" teevee docudrama about the
Paranormal, riffing about his brushes with alien spacecraft while in
astronaut training. The winds began to howl, I looked up at the stars
and the satellite space stations and continued walking.
I heard music over at another campsite and I followed its beck and
call. Dusty Springfield was singing "Son of a Preacher Man" over a car
stereo ratcheted into the door panels of a not-exactly-cherry flamed
'52 Chevy sedan, while a couple of "Go Cat Wild!" retro-rockabilly
greaser-types, twenty-somethings who had complete and utter distaste
for contemporary fashion and values, were engaged in a high-octane
bench race session. At that moment I knew the Muroc Reunion was a
metaphor. I stood off in the shadows, eavesdropping as these
reactionary rodders debated the fall and debasement of the late Dean
Moon's legendary speed emporium, "Moon Special Equipment," recently
rechristened "Mooneyes" by its new Japanese proprietors, and which may
or may not be a bastardization of the translation of "Moon." At this
point, I piped in from the darkness and suggested there is still a
decent cam-grinder in the employ of "Mooneyes."
"The issue is just because one good cam-grinder still works there,"
said one lanky car clubber with a thick Cockney accent, "doesn't mean
that it isn't the biggest sell out in the history of (expletive) hot
rodding, man."
"Dean Moon was a genius," his friend burped, "but it makes me want to
puke that people are trying to make money off all that dashboard crap
they sell behind the counters of these so-called speed shops."
"What people are building today holds absolutely no interest to me,"
returned the Brit, spilling his can of libation. "I came from
(expletive) millions of miles away to live in this country because I'm
a (expletive) hot rod freak, right? And when I got to this country I
was so (expletive) disappointed because the entire (expletive) place
had sold out. And everybody is driving Japanese (expletive) cars.
"I came to (expletive) America and I came to Muroc today because I
thought it was the last bastion of hot rodding," the emigre gearhead
was gathering steam now, double-clutching his soliloquy into overdrive,
"and I think that this is (expletive) great today because shit like
this rolled up (points to a '32 Model A D/Gas lakester) and made me a
believer that hot rodding is still alive. (Screw) all that painted
chrome and shit, this is a proper hot rod (points to the '52 Chevy
sedan). You know what? I hate all this 'family values' and wearing
shorts with flames on it, like 'blar,blar, blar' and 'blar, blar, blar'
and 'Excuse me, you can't have no beer on that site.' 'Ex-cuse me?'
y'know-what-I-mean? I ain't got no kids, I don't want no (expletive)
kids, I don't want to be in an environment where I have to watch my
(expletive) behavior because there might be kids present, I want to go
and hang out where the is some old (expletive) proper hot rods, man."
"Our ancestors," his pal extrapolated, "much like him, left Europe to
do what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it. He came over here,
and he found he can't do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it."
"It's not a case of that exactly," the Brit resumed. "It's a case of
indoctrination. It's a case of the asses who run the magazines these
days--the writers are getting paid wages by the suits who run the
magazine to say what's trendy because the advertisers tell them to. So
he has to say what is trendy, and it's like 'new-(expletive)-stalgia!'.
What the (expletive) does that mean?
"Street rodding, as far as I'm concerned, means conforming to the rules
the magazines have put down. Y'know: it's easy to have a 350 Chevy with
this person's steering column, and this person's (expletive) tie-rod,
and this person's (expletive) blah-blah-blah. That's not, as far as I'm
concerned, what hot rodding is all about, which is hauling shee-it out
of a (expletive) junkyard and building a car on the jeeg."
"Real hot rods don't have tan interiors," one of his pals summed up.
"You can build an old-looking car out of new pieces, but that doesn't
make it an old hot rod. Old hot rodding, truly, has disappeared. I
think an article, really a lament, on the decline of true hot rodding
would be a cool thing because nobody wants to do it--they're scared to
do it, they don't want to put that in a magazine because they are
supported by the people who are selling the parts."
I reckoned he was correct, no magazine would publish those sentiments.
I also told these adrenaline-addled hell raisers that most of their
heroes--Alex Xydias, Stu Hilborn, Joaquin Arnett, etc. were in their
seventies nowadays, and were probably trying to catch some shut-eye.
The most reverent yet politic gesture these hep cats could make would
be to turn down their stereo, put out their campfire and go to sleep...
The next morning, after a handful of test runs down the parched mud
where NASA, the JPL, and the Southern California Timing Association
pulled off their bizarre romantic visions (indeed the only place that
could not only tolerate but actually nurture their dreams), the winds
kicked in with a ferocity that rendered further speed record attempts
futile. As the mother of all sandstorms blew fiercer and more
torrentially, the desert rats collapsed their tents and loaded their
belongings into their motor homes, trailers, and deuce coupes and began
their journey home. But for one weekend this procession of the
Timelords of the Apocalypse, a gathering of tribes seriously in touch
with the soul of the Universe, got to play in their Garden of
Eden--never mind that the only foliage in this Garden were a few
sandblasted Joshua trees out by the rocket launchers.
As the timing officials announced the cancellation of the speed trials
over the c.b. radio, I closed my eyes. I could see the plume of thick,
charcoal-black death smoke, emanating off of the horizon on the desert
floor. And I got the chills as the stinging pricks of the torrential
sands continued to dig into my face. Aerospace. Jocko Johnson. Wally
Parks. Project Mercury. Rockabilly Anarchists. Sonic Booms. The SCTA.
Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Drag Racing. Mach One. The Bean Bandits.
They were all the same thing, big chunks of the Southern California
Experience, just expressed in different ways out at Muroc. It was all a
twisted, glorious manifestation of what the Mercury Seven called "Go!
Fever," a sickness that starts out innocently enough as an intellectual
exercise to debunk physics via downforce (with a co-efficient of drag)
or propulsion or torque, anything man, just hit the throttle!, a fever
so mesmerizing that its victim becomes caught up in his quest for
speed, speed, and more speed, until the rational and linear thought
processes have been superseded by raw desire, damn the torpedoes and
damn the consequences, I want to live man!, even if it means dying, so
turn up the boost and gimme some nitro! The quote that defined the
existence of these veterans of the dry lake sandstorms was spit out by
Jocko Johnson. Over turkey meat tacos the night before he said, "The
more creative you are, the closer you are to God."
Anybody who tells you that soulless corporations are a necessary
ingredient to the pursuit of horsepower has never stepped foot on the
fossilized dry lake beds of the Mojave Desert. Those who have seen and
tasted the elements of the dry lakes--sandstorms, whiskey, rocket
engines, nitromethane, and maximum velocity penis-shaped land speed
vehicles--as they coalesce on a lunar landscape in the Mojave Desert,
will tell you this: The sands will come again. Just ask Jocko. Or Wally
Parks.--FINI
(Author's note: I must acknowledge a serious debt as per literary
sources that informed this article. These include: The Nearest Faraway
Place by Timothy White (Henry Holt and Co. Inc.); High Performance by
Robert Post (John Hopkins University); and The American Hot Rod by Dean
Batchelor (Motorbooks International).)
CLUTCH DUST VAPORIZES INTO THE ETHER: THE COLE COONCE READER