Went to every event from 69 tru the 73 PDA meet, at which time I shipped overseas. And I mean every race.. seemed like I was there every saturday night...Sunday during the winter for the winter series..The main problem here, is separating memories from The County from stuff that happened at The Beach or even the few times I went up the 605 to the 210 to the Miller Brewery, excuss me, I meant Irwindale. (That hurts in a way, I like MGD, and I'll drink a Miller Lite if someone hands it to me, BUT, I will NEVER buy a product from Miller.)
 

Wednesday Nights

I guess I consider The County my Home track, even with Lions being closer to home. It was 15 miles to The Beach and 23 miles to The County. I made my first pass at OCIR in the spring of 72, and it was ugly, blew away the tires, then missed the 2-3 shift. By the end of November, I had it figured out, best pass ever in my old Plymouth was a 14.23. I loved Wednesday nights. Drive the car to the track, my girlfriend would crawl under to drop the muffers off the headers, (even then, I believed in equal rights for women) she had the smaller hands and could reach the top bolts on the flange easier than I could. The other nice thing about Wednesdays, was you could have a "ride along". Needless to say, she enjoyed that. But her dad got transfered that summer, so by the end of August, I was going to the track by myself again.
 

The Brotherhood

One other thing that may have been seen it the pits at The County in the early 70's, was alot of "cut-off" Levi jackets with "The International Brotherhood of Street Racers" logo on them. By the Early 70's, Street Racing had again became a "problem" in Southern California. (Gee, I thought that's why we had a NHRA and AHRA) Heck, people were making more money in a single run on the street, than a Top Fueler or a Funny Car could earn by winning the Saturday Night Show. "Big Willie" Robinson and Mike Jones got together, and the "Brotherhood" ran after hours. Some of the BEST racing happened during thoses 1 AM  events. By the time "The Brotherhood" opened their own track on Terminal Island, I was out of the country.
 

Show Offs

Other "off the wall" Ideas from the early 70's. The "High Rollers" event tagged in with one of the Saturday night fuel shows. Nothing but Mark IV's, Eldorados, and a few Mark III's. I loved Jungle's car, beautiful paint work, with "endless lines" pinstriping. Let's see, Maz, Lou Baney, Ed Pink, Keith Black, Jungle, don't remember them all, but sixteen cars made the call for round one. And then there was the "Scrape Racing" event.. again tied in with a fuel show. BEAUTIFUL low riders, lights in the wheelwells, drop the Hydralics, and put down a wall of sparks. Different metals caused different color sparks, and believe me, that was an unreal show.
 

The "Clutch Incident."

So, how did I spend most of my time in the "Hot Car" pits? I think the term is "Gopher" I got to lug 5 gallon pails of water through the Hot Car Pits, wiped tires as the cars rolled to the line, fetched oil, rolled tires from the tire truck back to the car, drained the "puke tank", after they made us vent the breathers to a catch tank. The stuff that needed done, while the guys "worked" on the cars. 

I was standing at Ed Well's car with Dave Beebe, when Larry Bowers launched the clutch- a photo that eveyone has seen. Car was pitted at the end of the second row, closest to the gravel parking behind the finish line stands. We heard the motor freewheel, heard the "POP" of the clutch letting go, Dave yelled "heads up", we all ducked, piece landed about twenty feet away, understand that piece broke some cat's leg. It was about a week later when I first saw the photo of the clutch coming out of Larry's car. 
 

The Flying Hawaiian

Everyone knows that Roland's (Leong) first Hawaiian flopper flew in the lights at Pomona at the '69 Winternationals. The car had two major problems, it was a full size Charger body, and had no rear spoiler to speak of, let's just say it was a perfect wing. It was also one of the last Logghe stage 1 chassis. Larry (Reyes) came out of his flight okay, looking back on it all thirty years latter, I kinda wonder if the impact would have an effect as to Larry's career ending crash in the Super Cuda?

Allan had the field covered by a tenth, needless to say, even with some new car bugs, they won. By Saturday night, they had already figured out that a slot was needed in the middle of the spoiler. I understand that the chute didn't blossom at Irwindale, do to lack of air. Saturday night was "The Hang Ten Funny Car 500", like I said, things blur thirty years down the road. The one thing I do remember vividly, is that again, the Hawaiian had them covered by over a tenth, best run of the night was a low 7.3, and remember that the bump for the sixteen car field was in the upper eights. They won on Sunday also, down at Carlsbad, down south of Oceanside.
 

Best effort by a flopper... The Armenian Army

Best effort by a flopper team had to be The Armenian Army at the '69 PDA meet, (so I believe, it may have been the Nitro Classic in June, but, the PDA sticks in my mind.) First pass about 10am, broke the drive shaft, second pass ditto, third pass, no burn out, put the car in the field, goes all the way to the finals, no breakage to speak of. Finals, Rich (Siroonian) does a hairy burnout, rolls back into the bleachbox to get the tires wet again, stages the car and makes.. The Pass of the Night, Low ET... I think it was a 7.38 or so, top speed, and wins.

I really think everyone thought that Rich screwed up making that last burnout, the car was hooking too well and that was what was killing driveshafts. Okay, what they were killing was the coupler at the rear of the tranny to the the driveshaft, I know the car got a fresh trans and frontyoke after every pass. I also believe that Maz wasn't running the funny car compound that weekend, they were experimenting with a dragster slick, thinking the car needed more bite because of something they discovered working with Roland a few weeks earlier. They did find out, what worked with a Logghe stage 2, didn't apply to their old Exhibition Engineering chassis.
 

Sit Down!

Sorry, I'm rambling on again, surprising what a 16 year old "GOFER" hears. Which is really why I never brought a camera to the track, I think I made it to every fuel show in SoCal between early '69 to mid '73, brought dates, always sat low in the first section next to the tower... at least until '71, when I started watching from the top end bleachers, or the line, if I was hangin' with a car. I did sit on the Spectator side twice, the first time was fantastic, the second time was a depressing disappointment.

Which brings us the the next question, where was "The Best Seat in the House"? Spent most of '69 watching from Tower Side, Section 1, Row 10.. Thank you "Ticket Master". For the Manufacturers meet that year, I believe it was open seating for qualifying, spent as much time wandering the pits that Friday night as watching cars run. Neat thing was, for the MFC, the cars pitted in what we thought as the Bracket pits, the area right behind the Tower Side stands. That way, you didn't have to walk the 1/4 mile down to the "Hot Car Pits" pass the finish line "Ditch". Saturday, for the "Show", I sat on the Spectator side, in the stands under the "scoreboard" that faced down the track. The next and last time I sat on the spectator side of the track, the last time I ever went to The County, was the year of NOS controversy, what, about '82 or so, the only time my wife ever went to The County with me. That was a spur of the moment thing, and I was shocked when it cost twenty five bucks a piece to get in and five to park. That was THE LAST Nitro show I ever went to.

From late seventy on, I watched mostly from the top end bleachers, or the dragster staging lanes. Remember fuelers being push started? As hard as it was at The County for a fueler to turn around after leaving the fire up road at OCIR, with it's large sweeping area behind the line, it's easy to understand why Lion's went to the rollers.

Two things here for Ray Alley, first off, thank you for bringing your car to our '68 Father/Son Banquet at Champman Intermediate. Your professionalism and presentation proved to my Dad that not all Drag Racers were "Hoods". 33 years down the road, I feel I must tell you, damn that was an ugly blue/gray on the car, the orange wasn't bad, but, it beat the purple paint job all to hell. Let me get this straight in my mind, the Cuda body was replaced by the Duster body, then that became the Cougar that Kenny drove?

Okay Ray, Now the "Burning Question": I realize the 90% rule was to cut down breakage, not really to slow down the cars. So why not set it at 50/50, I'll be damned if I can tell the difference between a 4.85 pass in a flopper and a 5.4. Just asking.

Other things overheard, not that I know anything about this stuff first hand....(yeah, right) Please correct me if any of this is wrong, my appologies in advance, if I offend anyone. 
 

Your Out, He's In

Rich Siroonian retired from driving at the the start of the 70 season, because his new bride asked him to. Arnie Behlings get's the seat in the California's finest funny car. Sounds good, right? The way I heard it, when they lowered the body at Woody's shop the first time with Rich in the car, he couldn't see out. Not a good thing, just before loading up for the track. Let's say that Arnie isn't the tallest guy in a room, and was the only guy that could see out of the car that was availible on "short" notice. He spent most of the season in the car, they finally modified the car for Rich after Indy that year. Had something to do with what I heard as "I'm tired of giving away races just because we've got a loose nut behind the wheel".
 

Sush Matsubara and the Pisano Bros.

I had just gotten to the track when I hear, "This is Sush's first pass in a funny car, he's one of the premiere alterd shoes in the business, now he's going to drive for the Pisano Brothers." Needless to say, I ran for the rail on the spectator side, right at the starting line as the car fired up. Car is in the Spectator lane. Sush did an awesome burnout, the dry hop looked great. Sush staged the car, green and it left hard, coming right up on the rear tires, carrying the front end past the tree. Front end came down about 200 feet out, and it was "Left Turn Clyde." So ended the life of the Strongest Pure Chevy on the Left Coast. I have the impression in my mind of the Corvair being up on the right side tires only as it hit the pit side guardrail. Back of the mind going, "that's a different view of the car". Sush got out of the car fine, but it was a sad ending for one of my favorite floppers.

Next time I talked to "Papa Joe" was at the car show at "Cars of the Stars" down on Orangethorpe, just off Beach Boulevard in Buena Park, the week before the first "Supernationals". The new car was beautiful, it was about five weeks old, and had a hemi in it instead of the Rat Motor. Talked with Joe for a few minutes, he was happy with the way the car was running, and he felt that they had a good chance of winning at Ontario. Well, we ALL know what happened there in the first round Sunday. 
 

Bob Pickett

First time I remember seeing Bob Picket run was at a spring 32 car Funny Car show. At Dusk, Bob set a new altitude record with his Javelin, hurt himself at the same time. It was almost a year later when Bob was recovered enough to drive again, He went on, after his orange and white Cuda, to drive for Mickey Thompson.
 

Wild Style

The late sixties had lots of strange looking, no just plain strange funnys. Holy Toledo jeep was a contender everytime it ran. The Durachrome bug? Warren Gunter was nuts to even drive that thing, but it did beat some of the "killer cars". The strangest looking had to be the "Genuine Auto" AMX. I liked the spoked rims, that the best I can say for the car. Also in the top ten was Gene Conway's "orange" vette roadster. Not the world's prettiest funny, but man, that was one killer hot rod. I believe you all know the Legend of the Beach City Vette, Gary Gabelich's black plume flowing over the top of the the cover over the roll bar. That was an awesome car, burned to the ground several times, once on Interstate 5, after leaving the track.
 

Clayton Harris

Totally impressive, the late Clayton Harris, blowing into town for the Winternats, stopping at the County for the a January race in the yellow New Dimensions fueler, ripping off a string of 6.2's, when the closest car to him was Carbone running 6.3's.
 

Chi-Town Hustler

Farkonas, Coil and Minick made the winter stay in '69, does anyone remember what was lettered in small print next to Austin's name? Again, another touring car that everyone covered by a tenth. And contrary to popular belief, the Chi-Town Hustler was the first funny to run a six; Edgewater Park, I believe. No one said anything, the track didn't want to be known for "Popcorn Times". Sorry Leroy, I would love it if Austin would confirm it.
 

The Two Piece Crankshaft

Speaking of sixies, just before the Spring 70 funny car race at OCIR, Tim Beebe, was sure he had found the secret for running a six, but all it got him and Dave was a broken crank in the first round. Alot of bad jokes followed, like Tim's speed secret was a two piece crank.
 

Running a 6

Ray Alley ran the first left coast six up at S.I.R. in Seattle. The first Southern California six was run by Don Schumacher on a Wednesday night test and tune, the week before Indy. He had just picked up the car at John Buterra's, check pass, then a 7.0, then the six, just that easy.
 

Bad Mojo

Not meaning to sound depressing here, but I really came to dislike my Birthday, in mid September. In '69 we lost John Mulligan, and before the next ten years had past, we had lost Jungle, on my birthday, Dickie Harrell, it got to the point, I wished we could just stop September.
 

WCS

The WCS meet in '69 was special. Both Mazmanian and Charlie Allen took turns at trying to reset the National Record. Everyone had run 7.2's at Indy a couple of weeks earlier, this was the last chance before the World Finals in Dallas. No, not the Motorplex, the "old track", built in I believe '68 or so. One of the new breed raceways. 

The best discription of track conditions that evening, "it was like trying to hook up to an icy dirt road". Needless to say, No new record that evening. 

Danny Ongais had to win supercomp that evening to earn enough points to go to Dallas, at that time AA/FC was still classed with the AA/A's, A/FD's (injected Nitro rails, what we called Junior Fuelers). He was driving Mickey Thompson's yellow car, which was was normally Larry Fullerton's ride. His Last burnout of the evening sticks out in my mind. Tower lane, rules state that the cars can't burnout across the starting line. Danny had the so out of shape, you could read both sides of the car. He earned enough points to go to Dallas, Where he was runner up to Gwynn's AA/A for the World Title. Hope I spelled that right.
 

In Living Color

You noticed I said MT's yellow car, it get's a little fuzzy as to the number of cars built in the '69 season by MT. I saw him run the blue and the red car as Pat Foster first built them.

By mid to late summer, the yellow car showed up, and I remember a white pearl car also. The blue car was reskined before the start of the 70 season with a lighter blue paint job. I believe Danny ran the blue car at the World Finals, I know that was the car he ran at the Manufacturers Meet.