July 29th, 2010
Kirk Jones, Editor of the Goodguys Gazette, posted the news on the Jalopy Journal message board yesterday that the one and only Rich Guasco had been inducted into the NHRA Hall Of Fame.
For the uninitiated, Rich Guasco built (and still owns) one of the most famous – and our absolute favorite – Fuel Altered class dragster of all time. What we didn’t realize till yesterday, was that Rich hadn’t been a member of the sanctioning body of drag racing’s hall of fame till now. We’ve got our own issues with the NHRA and this just adds one more to the pile: the NHRA became what it is because of guys like Rich Guasco and better late than never, we guess.
In January of 1963, Rich was running a front engine dragster (FED) at Northern California’s Fremont dragstrip when the rearend came apart. In those days, an FED was either a “legs under” or “legs over” car –– meaning that the driver either sat with his ass on top of the rearend housing or the housing sat in his lap –– neither of which are smart places to be if something in that rearend breaks loose. When exactly that happened to Rich, the once-stationary aluminum rearend housing started spinning as fast as the wheels were turning. And they were turning pretty fast in mid-pass down the track. The accident just about vaporized Rich’s hips and made quick work of some fairly vital organs.
But, that accident didn’t seem to do much more than give Rich some time on his back to think about his next dragster. The next year, he called on young fabricator, Pete Ogden, to build a chassis for a Bantam-bodied racer to campaign in the newly-minted AA/FA (double A, Fuel Altered) class. The thing ran like a raped ape well into the 8-seconds with not much tinkering. “Ogden tells me that he said, ‘Guass, that car is pure hell – you oughta name it that.’ But y’know, I used to say that damn near everything was ‘pure hell’ back then,” Rich remembers about the naming of his new car.
“Pure Hell” was born and Rich was gonna drive it. Because of his injuries, he had to be helped in and out of the car, but he was determined and he was a drag racer. That was all there was to it. The claustrophobic cockpit of a Fuel Altered soon took its toll on his body, though, and Dale Emory was tapped to pilot Pure Hell for the rest of its glorious career.
The wild and wooly Fuel Altered class was finally replaced by the Funny Car era in the early Seventies and Rich followed suit. But the little Bantam digger survived and both of them still show up for the drags on any given season weekend. He keeps the car down the road from his place in Pleasanton, CA where he’s lived his whole life and is still heavily involved in drag racing and hotrodding.
God Bless, Rich Guasco and congratulations –– you deserve every accolade draped upon you and we’re looking forward to coming over and hanging out in your garage again soon.
Oh yeah, we also tipped in a shot below of “Pure Hell” as it sits in its secret garage these days. You might notice it behind the girl…
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July 27th, 2010
This week on Product Review Tuesdays, we thought we’d keep with the rare alcohol theme and bring you what has become our absolute favorite beer in the history of beer: “End Of History” made by a brewery with a name as shitty as the beer is unique, BrewDog (here).
Some beers come in a “suitcase” or a “beerball” or a little green glass barrel or even a mini-keg. But a furry little stoat? “The impact of The End Of History is a perfect conceptual marriage between art, taxidermy and craft brewing. The bottles are at once beautiful and disturbing…” claim the boys at BrewDog (imagine The Proclaimers in plushy bunny suits). We’re SO down with that. And what we’re also down with is the reappropriaton, nay, recycling, of what would otherwise be a blight on the roadways of Scotland; dead stoats. Apparently.
The boys go on: “Only 12 bottles have been made and each comes with its own certificate and is presented in a stuffed stoat or grey squirrel. The striking packaging was created by a very talented taxidermist and all the animals used were road kill. This release is a limited run of 11 bottles, 7 stoats and 4 grey squirrels. Each ones comes with its own certificate of authenticity.”
We have no idea what a stoat is, but we suddenly wonder what one tastes like. Kinda cute, really. Tasty, probably. Maybe a little gamey. Beyond that, we barely have the faculties to actually deal with the sheer awesomeness of this 110-proof beer (that’s 55% alcohol for all you amateur drinkers). We guess that’s OK, though, since rumor has it that all 12 very limited-edition bottles sold out in, like, four hours. Time to go check Ebay for beer bottle-sodomized stoats armed with certificates of authenticity…
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Product Review |
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July 26th, 2010
If you’re old enough to know what Playboy Magazine was all about in 1980, you’ll remember Dorothy Stratten –– the Playmate killed by her insane husband, Paul Snider (frighteningly well played by Eric Roberts in the 1983 film, “STAR 80,” named after Snider’s personalized license plates).
What we weren’t so familiar with was a certain photoshoot by a certain William LaChasse with a George Barris custom ‘80 Firebird. Which quickly led to the discovery of a few more images that really prove an equally frighteningly accurate representation of the world of custom cars and bikes in the late Seventies. The unforgettable Dorothy Stratten and the forgettable showcars of that era: bittersweet, ain’t it?
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Culture, History |
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July 22nd, 2010
Good friend and talented artist, John Bell, checked in from his vacation to Yellowstone, WY with some tasty old roadside neon he found along the way. Look, the fact is that while the East Coast of the U.S. holds some of the earliest artifacts of American history, the western states are still full of some of the greatest and most obscure fragments of mid-Twentieth century popular culture. For the most part, it’s all right there in architecture and graphic design readily found across the landscape. And post-war neon signage is at its best along the first western highways when everyone jumped into cars built for long-haul driving and went on vacation to see America.
John’s work is clearly inspired by this Golden Age of motoring (here) and we fully dig him for that, among other things. Critical decisions on pizza, old horror flicks and Seventies-era dragsters, to name a few.
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Art, Inspiration |
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July 21st, 2010
Larry Watson, one of the greatest and most influential custom paint guys of car culture to ever live, passed away yesterday. Almost ironic that the guy who practically invented the custom paint that American hot rods and taildraggers became known for died on the same day that the first Model T –– a car famously known for being offered in any color as long as it was black –– was shipped from the Ford factory 107 years ago.
Read the rest of this entry »
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July 20th, 2010
This week on Product Review Tuesdays, we’re bringing you a nifty spiced dark rum, just in time to save your ass from doing your best air-pirate pose at the summer barbecue: The Kraken Black Spiced Rum!
OK, you’re a car guy. That means other guys just naturally look up to you, a little. You know stuff those other guys don’t. You got a little pimp swagger when you walk down the driveway to the backyard where the cookout has been going off for about an hour already. Fashionably late, but not too late, right? Late enough to ensure some hotties are already laying out on the deck and your entrance won’t be a wasted effort.
Now, they already heard you pull up and park out front, thanks to giving a crack to the pedal before you shut ‘er off. So you got a good head of steam before you even make an appearance. Don’t ruin all your hard work by carrying in a brown grocery bag with a couple sixers in it –– no, you’re gonna need a bottle of Kraken Black, with the label facing forward, hanging by the neck from your hand with the car keys in it.
Yes, Kraken is a spiced rum. No, it ain’t the “Cap’n.” Yes, you can pour a few “Kraken-n-Cokes” for the soon-to-be-swoonin’ ladies and be the hero. Yes, it’s a little spendier than the other spiced rums. No, the few extra bucks won’t kill you. Yes, you’re old enough to think about these kinds of things now.
You can find Kraken (here) and (here). And it’s got a giant squid on the front of the bottle and it’s called Kraken. You’re welcome.
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July 19th, 2010
Our own Ed Fox sent these snaps from the Mooneyes summer show that was held over the weekend at Irwindale Raceway. For all y’all who follow these sorts of things, this was a makeup show from the rained-out X-Mas show last winter. Whatever.
Anyhoo, Ed couldn’t get enough of Slim’s hacks and really, who doesn’t love a wheel-standing candy van or a slick-shod trike? Check Slim’s site (here) and keep an eye on this kid: if nothing else, we dig his life-affirming Successory, “Sacrifice Comfort For Style And Speed.” We can get behind that.
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Builders, Culture, Inspiration |
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July 15th, 2010
We got to talking the other day about the perfect ridgerunner –– in other words, a liquor car. In other words, a car built to run moonshine from the still to the buyer. Now, while we pretty much came to the overwhelming conclusion that the perfect ridgerunner is either a hot ‘40 Ford coupe or a ‘57 Ford post, we also got to discussing the music coming out of the Southeastern U.S. –– Ground Zero for the Golden Age of moonshine.
And that discussion came around to Bill Monroe. The Father of Bluegrass, Monroe is credited with the first “hat show,” the predecessor to rock-n-roll, a man who launched a thousand more careers, the rockabilly movement, crossover work with the Folk movement and we’re gonna go out on a limb and maybe blame him, ulitmately, for the horrible show that is the “hippy dance” in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park during the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Sorry, Bill, we calls ‘em like we sees ‘em.
But, there’s a really good documentary on Bill Monroe presented by Folkstreams (here). It’s well worth the hour and a half –– it’s a strong piece of work that not only documents Bill’s work and influence over the decades, but indirectly talks about the roots of car culture in one of the most culturally rich regions of this here country. Dig on it and let us know what you think. In the meantime, we’re gonna borrow Rolfe’s banjo and get to work…
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Culture, History, Music |
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