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This month’s post is a little tip in case you ever find yourself on the starting line of the Indy 500 on Memorial Day.  I know it sounds unlikely, unless you’ve devoted a large part of your life to motor racing, but hey, it could happen. 

Just a little background. 

My first car was a 1952 Ford Victoria hard top, cream over burgundy, flat head V-8 with  Ford-o-matic trans and a factory-installed spotlight.  We lived in a California tract house that had a carport you walked through to get to the front door, and my beloved Ford often lay bleeding there, recovering from my efforts to make it into a race car.   My mother should be nominated for sainthood. I started from scratch, with a few old tools my dad had in a box, but I was sure if I worked hard and paid attention, someday I’d be a racer.

I went by the old home a few years ago.  Hasn’t changed much.  I knelt down by one of the grease stains on the driveway which could well have been mine and thought “It’s a long way from here to starting line of the Indy 500.”

Well, it was a long trail.  Graduating from high school in 1961, college, Army, marriage, moving to Vail and meeting Bob Lazier, and a chance to work on a race team finally landed me at Indy.

The stands go almost all the way around the track, seating about 230,000 people.  That’s over TWICE the crowd of most Super Bowls.  With the infield seating, that total jumps to 400,000.   When you’re standing on the starting line, YARD of BRICKS, looking down the track, it feels like you are standing in a dark canyon, and some say you can feel the ghosts of men who raced and sometimes died there.  A breeze is usually moaning through the stands, which adds to the effect.

That breeze makes the setup of the car extremely tricky.  Modern Indy cars create so much downforce with their wings and body shape that they could theoretically drive upside down and still stayed glued to the track.  Sometimes there’s a tailwind between turns 1 and 2,  and a headwind between 3 and 4.  Try that mister setup wizard.  And if you get it wrong, or if it changes during the race, someone could die.  

When we were there, the qualifying, setup, carb day, pole day, etc. lasted a whole month, and it was not uncommon to still be fiddling with the setup on race day.  There are literally thousands of possible combinations.

As race day gets closer, 100,000 or so people are in the stands watching you every day.   At the full capacity of 400,000,  the energy of the people and the noise they make is something you don’t hear, you just feel …. and you never forget.

1981 was my first year at Indy with Bob and we qualified 13^th, which put us on the inside of the 4^th row.  On race day you have to get up about 4 A.M. and enter the track with your garage pass through a “secret entrance” behind the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Motel.  At that hour, lines of people are already waiting at the public entrances.  There are stories of competitors who didn’t make the race because they got stuck in traffic.   Bummer !

Once you are safely inside the paddock, it’s time to transport the tools, stacks of tires, spares, timing equipment, and all the pieces you’ve been honing for the last month into place.  The fuel truck comes by and fills your track side tank, which has been about ½ full all month for safety reasons.  There is a saying along pit row “I love the smell of Methanol in the morning,” which is a takeoff on a line from APOCALYPSE NOW.  

By about 12:30, you’ve been on your feet for nearly 8 hours, at maximum concentration, and now it’s time to roll the cars into place.  The marching bands have cleared out, the jets have flown over, Jim Nabors has sung BACK HOME IN INDIANA, and the moment has arrived.  Indy cars don’t have onboard starters, so one guy carries a big electric motor out onto the starting grid, one guy wheels a battery with cables and an on/off switch (that was me in this case),  and the third guy is usually the CREW CHIEF, who is also known today as GOD.

 

All is ready and the crowd is screaming, which sounds like a big wind.  Most of the guys out on the track are racing veterans, all respected as the best at their craft, but this is my first time.  As the seconds ticked down, one of our crew shouted over to me “DID YOU BRING THE STARCH !”

OH SHIT!  Did I forget something?  This is my moment on the WORLD STAGE, my mother is watching on TV, and I’VE BLOWN IT!!

With quivering voice I stammered “Starch? Why was I supposed to bring STARCH?” 

“Yea, you know, for when they say,  “GENTLEMEN STARCH YOUR ENGINES!”

I guess it’s a really old CORNY joke, but I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.  Maybe it’s a rite of passage.  When Mary Holman actually did say “Gentlemen Start Your Engines,” I’m the guy who threw the starter switch…fulfilling a life long dream. 

We finished 19^th and Bob was declared Series Rookie of The Year.  WOW !

Well, that’s my tip for today.  Fortunately, YOU won’t have to fall for the old STARCH JOKE, but then maybe you can pull it on someone else!  Thanks for listening.    

Duane

In the early 70’s, my wife Suzanne and I found ourselves in Vail, Colorado, with no job, no money, and not much direction.  We’d lived in town for a year or so while I kicked around in the construction business.  A friend of a friend from San Francisco was living in our spare bedroom while he recovered from a divorce, and between myself, Suzanne, and Charley, it was down to paying rent or eating.

Spring and construction season were still a couple of months away, so Suzanne took a job as a chili server/cashier at Eagles Nest, the mountain TOP restaurant.   After a couple of days, the self-important manager walked by and pinched her butt.  Suzi nailed him with a wicked right cross, which landed her in the office of Paul, the head of Vail Food Services.

At the end of their “interview,” Paul asked Suzanne if she’d like to work for him as his Executive Assistant.  Paul was right out of U.S. Army Restaurant Management, and most of his staff were older and had been there a while. She accepted the job.

 Charley was a professional menu designer, and knew a lot about restaurants, so he and I often dropped by Food Service just to see what was going on.  During one of our visits, the Austrian Executive Chef came storming out of Paul’s office screaming “All your restaurants are SHIT … and all your food is SHIT too!!”   We were stunned.

I think it was Charley who ventured, “Yea, well, Vail’s mountain restaurants could use some help.”  Paul looked directly at us and said, “Why don’t you two make us a proposal. The Executive Committee meets Tuesday at 10 AM.” 

This was on a Friday afternoon, so we told Paul we might need Suzi to help us on Monday with our proposal, and we all left the office.

As we drove home in my faithful Shelby GT- 350 (Supercharged), we alternately laughed and cried at our good and bad luck.  I was used to making Industrial Design presentations with my Nikon camera and Kodak slide projector, and Charley had pitched plenty of restaurant menu ideas, so we decided to visit as many ski areas as we could to make a killer slide show on ski area food service, being careful not to include Vail since there was nothing good to say.

We had NO IDEA if that would work, but it was all we could come up with.

We rounded up all of the cash and credit cards we could find, called some friends in Utah we could stay with, and set off to do three ski areas in Colorado on Saturday, three areas in Utah on Sunday, be back at the 1 Hour film developer in Denver on Monday morning, then relax in Vail while we put together our “pitch” in the afternoon.

As Charley and I stood before the Vail execs on Tuesday, we realized they knew almost nothing about their own restaurants, food service in general, or HAD EVEN VISITED THEIR COMPETITION.  They were awe struck … and so were we.

As we left the Exec. Conference room, Paul’s boss Jim, who was also new on the job, asked if we could “Do  Something” with their main restaurant at Mid Vail.  The opening day for ski season was just 120 days away.  No budget, no direction, no nuthin …  just do It.

Paul was a huge help.  Due to the short fuse, decisions were made in minutes instead of weeks.  The previous Mid Vail menu had featured Baron of Beef and tossed salad, all served on paper plates with plastic knives & forks…so we had a good idea of “What not to do.” 

“Fast Food” (i.e. burgers) seemed like a good menu choice, mostly due to the anticipated high volume and limited cooking space. Charley and I jumped back into the Shelby and spent a couple of days in Denver with clipboards and stopwatches learning how the pros did it, or did not do it.

LESSON NUMBER ONE:  It seems obvious that in a high-volume specialized restaurant the menu should drive the design of the facility.  That wasn’t always evident.  Sometimes when we looked behind the counter, employees were bumping into each other, but in our case the facility was going to drive the menu, not the reverse.

LESSON NUMBER TWO:  Remember who you are and what you stand for.  McDonald’s was experimenting with candlelight dining after 8 PM, with waiter service.  They obviously fell flat on their corporate asses, but other fast food chains were trying similar dumb stuff, like Baron of Beef!

LESSON NUMBER THREE:  The fewer menu items you offer the more MONEY you make. If you have one item, it’s (1) going to be available, or (2) going to be out of stock, or (3) turned rotten because someone didn’t rotate the inventory. You have one winner with two losers.

Now, consider if you have two items, there are two winning choices and four losers. Imagine you have 10 or 20 or even 30 items: not good odds.  Especially if your suppliers are 100 miles away in Denver, thru two eleven-thousand-foot passes and a raging blizzard.

We hired all our ski bum/New Age/hippie friends, most of whom had at least one college degree.  They were surprisingly capable and surprisingly motivated.  In addition to the kitchen and seating area, we redid both of the public restrooms, the staircases, the gift shop; and changed the color scheme from black & blue (???) to a warm orange and yellow. Using a subcontractor, we replaced the cheap residential floor covering with commercial grade waterproof carpet … no more musty smell !

Paul and our ersatz crew designed and built the kitchen like a straight through racing engine.  It started with several hundred cubic feet of refrigerated storage, followed by several linear feet of prep, followed by the two biggest char grills we could find, about 30 square feet of cooking area that sizzled, roared, and threw flames (loved that). They fed three stainless “order up” shelves, which were accessed by three order takers/cashiers who never moved more than a few steps in any direction all day long.

When it was all finished we offered the best ¼ pound burgers/cheeseburgers anywhere, fries, Coke products (large only), chili, coffee, draft beer, bottled wine, and hot chocolate.  THAT’S IT. No dogs, no salads, no quiche.  Now Get Outa My WAY!

Our full race kitchen ran just OK at idle, sputtered some at part throttle, but at FULL THROTTLE it was the Dragster, F–1, & Indy Car of ski area food service.

I took my trusty 8 mm film camera on the last day of skiing (locals only) on Easter 1975.  What an adventure!

After the season wrapped up Paul informed us that the Mid Vail Restaurant was the HIGHEST DOLLAR VOLUME SKI AREA RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD.

Pretty cool for a dozen or so guys, and a few gals–thank you–who hadn’t a clue what they were doing.  Vail now controls the ski world, owning more than 80 resorts.  Their seasonal EPIC PASS lets you ski Europe, Japan, and Australia, with the US and Canada for one price.  Their Big Risk/Big Reward style and Believe in Yourself management has taken them to the top.

Hello again friends.  For regular readers of this post, I’m happy (and sad) to report that the TRIBUTE we did for Bob Lazier a few months ago continues to get “views.”  They should easily top 1,000 by Christmas.  Bob had a lot of friends, and it’s hard to imagine Christmas at the Tivoli without Bob bustling around.  Miss ya guy!  

You can view the TRIBUTE by going to www.mustangirs.com if you’re so inclined.

With all the buzz created by the FORD v FERRARI flick, I thought you might be interested in a video we shot some years ago as part of an effort to resurrect the Last Shelby King Cobra.  The plan was to have the work done, or at least supervised, by the guys who originally built the car.  Sound familiar?

Sadly, several of the people in this video are no longer with us.  Phil Remington, Chief Engineer and all around wizard (played by  Ray McKinnon in the F v F movie)  has passed.  And of course Shel, who signed the chassis later, is gone too. 

Phil Collins master fabricator, also known as “Granny” in Venice, passed shortly after this film was made.   He had great stories of sleeping in the London subways as a kid during the WW II “Blitz.”  Too bad we didn’t capture them on video.

The late Jerry Titus (Rick’s dad) drove the yellow Can Am chassis #1 in its only two competitive races.  It was destroyed in a crash at the end of the 1967 racing season.   Jerry told young Rick to “Strip everything you can off that tub and throw in the dumpster.”  What would that mangled lump of metal be worth today?  Fortunately young Rick did a great job.  The doors, duct work and other pieces stripped off #1 have recently been found and will be used to finish chassis #3.  

To help you keep the numbers straight, chassis #2 (only 3 were built) has been lovingly restored and is now living in the Northwest.

As often happens with these projects, life has gotten in the way. The mechanicals for #3 have been found, gathered up and sorted, and the wooden buck needed to shape the aluminum body has been constructed (not cheap ! )  

Once the new aluminum  body is complete, it’s back to John Collin’s shop, where John’s son Graham will put it all together.  Jerry’s son Rick will have the FIRST DRIVE !

Time and money will tell.

Dreams do still happen.  This one has just taken a little longer than planned.  Hope you enjoy the video.

Duane

Looking through the slides for the Bob Lazier Tribute (thanks for all your condolences), I found  this gem. 

In 1979, Pete Feistman (Bob’s crew chief) and I decided to cross the Gore Range on a seldom used route.  Pete incredibly still has the map we used!  Those old Nikons took great pictures. What a grand time, hope you enjoy the trip. 

Duane

Hi friends,

In April, my friend Bob Lazier flew by that final checkered flag that waits for us all. I was fortunate to work as one of Bob’s crew members for several years, including when he raced at Indy. In his honor, I’ve created a tribute video.

For a great story about Bob, check out this motorsport.com article about the time when Bob blew away the field at the Indy Legends Pro-Am, at the age of 75, probably the oldest driver in the race, and maybe even the oldest ever to compete.

God speed, Bob. Emphasis on speed.

Duane Carling

Butch Cassidy was a nice Mormon boy from Utah who fell in with the a bad crowd,  robbed banks and trains, had death defying adventures, founded the Wild Bunch and the Outlaw Trail, made lotsa money, and barely escaped with his life (depending on which legend you chose to believe).

In the summer of ’65, my BYU friend Ray Smith insisted we should go to Wyoming, work in the oil field as roughnecks, have great adventures, make lotsa money, and well you know the rest.  Sounded good to me, what could possibly go wrong?

Five hours after leaving Provo Utah in my faithful ’55 Ford, Rock Springs, WY appeared along with a sign that said:

DON’T TELL MY FOLKS I WORK IN THE OIL PATCH.  THEY THINK I’M A PIANO PLAYER IN A WHORE HOUSE

That should ‘a been a tip off.   After some embellishments as to our experience level, we were offered jobs in Baggs, Wyoming, as part of a crew that, I swear, were all on the run from various southern states.  No one had real names, other than “Slim,” “Shorty,” “Butt Head,” or other such handles.

The “pusher,” as the driller is called, had only been able to raise eight guys, so four of us would work 12 hour shifts, noon to midnight, and four guys the reverse, seven days a week.  What the heck, we’re here to make money, right? 

We were to run a “workover rig” which was already set up on an existing well, and the hope was to coax that well back to life.  

Baggs was probably not on anyone’s list of tourist destinations, with one dirt street, a laundromat, a gas station/food store, and a post office.  It did have one claim to fame though.  The Western Hotel was the hotel/brothel where Butch Cassidy and his gang hid out after robbing the Union Pacific east of Rock Springs.

When word got out that a bunch of guys with saddle bags full of money were in town, all the “professional ladies,” and probably a few semi-pros too, flocked to the Western. 

The scene where the posse rides up and asks the proprietor of the Western if he’s seen the Wild Bunch, while Butch watches from an upstairs window actually took place.  Fer sher nobody wanted that damn sheriff ruinin’ the party.

When we started work on the rig, Ray went on one ½ of the crew and I went with the other.  A few days later on my shift the drill bit mysteriously “cratered,” which means it fell apart.  Major delay and expense.  Shortly after that, the drill operator named Buford, let a 1 ½ inch thick cable get loose from its anchor and it almost killed us.  My ½ of the crew got fired (yea!).  I left my few clothes behind in Baggs, hitchhiked to Rock Springs to get my Ford, and didn’t see Ray until months later at BYU.

By now I knowd a few folks in the orl  biddness, so I hired on for a job at the Hiawatha Pumping Station, which is  on the CO/WY border. Right on the Outlaw Trail near Browns Park, it’s an hour and a half on a two-track through the sage brush to the nearest anything.   The pump station was run by Mountain Fuel Co and had about an 18-inch main line.  It collected gas from miles around and pumped it to the Western states’ gas grid.  There were three small bunk houses, and it was BYOB everything. 

We only worked 40 hours a week, which seemed like a vacation. There were a couple of other college guys with other crews, so we began exploring the area.  We also figured out how to run my low-compression, 6-cylinder Ford on “drip gas,” a byproduct of the natural gas wells. WAHOO!  Free gas for the summer!

There were abandoned cabins, corrals, and dug outs everywhere, if you had the patience to look for them.  A great place to hide out.  You could see a posse coming for miles, and then either disappear or lay a clever trap  for them.

Inside one particularly remote cabin, I found a denim jacket, which had been patched and patched again with a single needle.  No new fabric added.  It had been hanging on a nail for a very long time, judging by the newspapers pasted over the cracks in the walls.  I like to think whoever found the body lying on the floor gave it a decent burial and just left the jacket behind.

The rig I was working on was drilling a new well, so it was several times the size of the previous “workover.”  The crew was also MUCH more professional, they had most of their fingers and teeth, and spoke in complete sentences.  The “pusher” and I got along, so he assigned me to take care of the four motors on the rig, which I quite enjoyed.

There were two skid-mounted Waukesha motors powering the mud pumps. Their radiator caps were 10 feet off the ground.  The two motors powering the drill table were 6-cylinder supercharged two strokes made by General Motors. Each cylinder displaced 71 cubic inches, thus they were known as a 6-71 GMC, very popular as bus powerplants.   Everything ran on propane from a very large tank set up about 50 yards from the rig.

Once, I noticed all the guys on my crew sprinting as fast as they could, in their rubber boots and coveralls, toward the entrance of our little valley.  I quickly decided to join them.  The genius delivering a load of propane had ripped the supply hose from our tank and the valley was quickly filing with a fog of explosive vapor!

As we watched from a distance, the motors all died for lack of fuel and the only sound was the loud hiss of propane.  Somebody (not me) decided since there was probably no ignition source, he could safely run back into the fog and shut off the main valve.

That job eventually came to an end, and the pusher said if I wanted to finish out the summer, I could go to work in Jeffery City, WY.  Jeff City as the locals call it, claimed the distinction of having the last bar in WY to have swinging doors.  It was a stop on the Outlaw Trail, about two days by saddle south of Thermopolis (Thermop) where Butch and the gang often hid out in the OWL bar while planning their next caper.

I don’t think I was ever happier to leave a place than Jeff City, well except for leaving the Army, and Provo never looked so good.

In 1968/9 Robert Redford filmed Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (Bob played Sundance and Paul played Butch) and Bob used the considerable money he earned to buy and develop the Sundance Resort near Provo.  His first wife Lola is/was from Provo.

The resort had to have a bar, and Bob wanted to call it the OWL, of course. He heard through a friend of a friend that when the original OWL was knocked or fell down, an old timer had dismantled the actual bar and stored it in a tumble down shed in Thermop.

Of course, Redford HAD to have it.  Legend says it wouldn’t all fit into his rental truck, so Bob strapped a few pieces to the top of his car.  He had a Porsche 911 Carrera Targa with a ski rack at the time, so I guess that’s possible.

The bar’s not real big, made of Rose Wood, built around 1890, and has some fun stories associated with it (bullet holes and such).

I stopped by when the OWL was completed.  A warm, wonderful place, with some very nice folks.  As the evening got late it occurred to me that I’d started and ended my Butch Cassidy adventure in Provo, Utah.

Sometimes things just work out.

by Duane Carling

After driving past the entrance to Nine Mile Canyon zillions of times, my son Mike and I vowed to dedicate a day to exploring this international landmark right on our doorstep.

The road turns off Hwy 6 at Wellington, near Price UT.  You can pick up the free one-page brochure at the Chevron gas station, or load carry map  on your phone.  The road proceeds east through the canyon to intersect Hwy 40 near Vernal.  Why it’s called Nine Mile, being over 40 miles long, is one of the many unexplained mysteries of the canyon.  Billed as the WORLD’S LONGEST ART GALLERY,  the petroglyphs (an image created by removing part of the rock) and pictographs (images painted on the rock) were drawn by the cultures that lived there for at least 8,000 years.

Loads of academics, including some from my alma mater, BYU in Provo UT, have taken a shot at interpreting the art.  This is how it usually goes.  Young, ambitious student enters the Anthropology Dept., obtains Bachelor, then Masters, then PhD.  Does Post Doc. work and is awarded Asst. Professor title.  Older Prof. and mentor  retires, now former sudent is promoted to Full Prof. and immediately debunks all previous theories and publishes new study. Not  based on any new info, just a re-jiggering of all  conclusions of previous academics. In other words, no one knows, so make up yer own ideas!

Based on the above astute observation, here goes with Nine Mile Canyon according to Yours Truly.

The day was perfect. The skies, the red rocks and the greenery were stunning. The road is now mosty paved (over objections from environmental wackos) to accommodate the gigantic oil trucks that ran both east and west. The trucks are now idled, so traffic is almost non-existent. There is a big natural gas pipeline though, looks like about a 16-incher, that runs through the canyon and is still in business. It takes natural gas  from the east end of the Canyon (the Uintah Basin) and pipes it west to intersect the gas grid near Salt Lake City. That grid then runs all the way to the West Coast. 

The app on your cell phone or the brochure will tell you where the major art  stops are along the way.

• 

One of the most interesting of the hundreds of ‘glyphs I’ll call  The Theodolite. You can google that. Looks like the tripod-mounted laser Mike & I use to lay out sewers, foundations and roadways. That would require some basic math, and of course lasers, optics and a few other technologies. Hmmm.

Nearby is what I’ll call Bubble Man. Mike and I couldn’t decide if these were bubbles (natives didn’t have access to soap, that we know of) or if this was a represention of a person approaching in the dark with multiple bright lights. That would indeed be impressive, since the brightest lights the natives had (that we know of) were camp fires, burning sticks and starlight.

Some say it is a representation of Spider Woman, a deity who taught the natives how to weave. That could be. Natives did have access to peyote though, from their trading partners the Hopi and the Navajo to the south, so that could also be an explanation.

Speaking of trading, Utah was and is “The Crossroads of the West.”  There was an active slave trade in North America long before the arrival of the white man (with apologies to New York Times 1619 historical revisionists). Passing travelers and war parties would often grab children or young people to use as slaves or as trade goods. As an example, search history.com for Sacagawea. She was kidnapped, enslaved, sold to pay off a gambling debt,  married at age 12, and then while pregnant was offered as a guide and interpreter to Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery (1804-6). So much for slavery & racial sterotypes.

Besides the obvious difficulties (being careful not to impose my beliefs onto another culture), slave trading did act as a spike to the gene pool, which decreased the effects of inbreeding.

The horse arrived around 1680 (stolen from Spanish explorers), and that changed everything. Imagine you are a person about 5 ft. tall who eats grass, leaves, berries, and an occasional squirrel, with a top speed of about 10 MPH in a short sprint. Now you sit eight feet off the ground, on something that can move 50 MPH, weighs 2,000 pounds, and you can control it!  Suddenly them buffalos, them deers, and them ‘noxious neighbors is ripe fer the killin’!

Nearby was a picture of 16 dots, which looked a lot like a calculator keyboard. Actually, there were two such pictures. Could the natives and their big-brained visitors have used a system of math based on the number 16? 

Our present culture uses a system based on the number 10, which we call metrics, while simultaneously employing another system based on the number 12, which we call dozenal. We use that to measure time, but it can also measure distance. It’s a  very handy number, being easily broken into 1/2s, 1/4s, 1/8s, and even 1/5s and 1/6s. Try that with yer metrics, Mister “Accurate to the nth decimal!”

The Ancients may have used a system based on the number 16, which our culture has already given the name Hexadecimal, or just plain Hex. You’re probably most familiar with it in computers as a positional locating system.  Remember 8 bits, 16 bits, and 32 bits? The movement of the heavenly bodies in the universe has been described as “dancing with math” and Hex could be the tune. It’s the same rhythm my phone app is using to locate me next to the petroglyph in a three-dimensional satellite fix.   

Are these positional diagrams for the universe, or at least for our solar system?

Is the fourth dimension, time,  hidden in there somewhere too? Maybe we just can’t see it .

Our culture’s baby steps into space have found methane (natural gas) everywhere in the cosmos. The latest theory is that methane is part of the planet-building process and is captured underground by natural formations. It ain’t rotting dinosaurs! (Check out The Deep Hot Biosphere by Thomas Gold to read more about hydrocarbons seeping UP from the earth.)       

This pump station in the canyon pushes the gas  toward civilization.

As we came out of the canyon into the small town of Vernal, we passed block after block of oil drilling equipment stacked behind locked gates. A local in the area said there hasn’t been a new well drilled in over two years. Fortunately, we have enough proven reserves to last for at least  another 100 trips around our sun on Mother’s spinning clockworks.

For more cool pics,  Google NINE MILE CANYON  IMAGES.

A great trip ….  & we’re headin’ home.

Thanks for listening.

Duane   06/10/20

You can file this story along with the 100 mile per gallon FISH carburetor (GOOGLE that). Some people can see a conspiracy behind every rock, but this one, the 6 CYCLE ENGINE, kinda gets to me.

A few years ago, I co-hosted a one-hour Saturday morning talk show called CAR TIME with Gene & Randy, the owners of a local repair shop. The radio station provided our call screener/producer/D. J. and coffee pot operator named Scotty. Besides being a great guy, Scott knew virtually NOTHING about cars, and somehow that turned out to be an advantage. He could turn a complex question like “My car won’t start and I think it’s the carburetor” into something like “Caller on the line wants to know if he should rebuild his old Pinto, or just follow his girl’s advice and buy a newer car.” Lots more entertaining, and probably more useful than a long technical discussion about carburetion.  Scotty’s quick wit could turn a complicated situation into something the audience could understand …. and we could sound intelligent answering.

The CAR TIME show was immediately followed by CAR TALK, the National Public Radio (N. P. R. ) broadcast featuring CLICK & CLACK, The TAPPET BROTHERS. We kinda rode on their coat tails, and were in the same “market demographic.”  Station management told us that people who tuned into their show early helped our ratings. By some miracle, ours was the second most listened to locally produced radio show in Utah, right behind the MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR !

Sometimes we had guest interviews, and a friend suggested to me that we interview Bruce Crower, of Crower Racing Cams, about a new type of engine he was developing. I tracked down Bruce’s number and arranged to have him on the show. Scotty called him a few minutes before 7 A.M. (6 A.M. his time!) and after the opening commercials I introduced Bruce to our audience. I asked him about his revolutionary new 6 CYCLE MOTOR, and he took the next 30 minutes to explain how the 6 CYCLE worked. We were all amazed, and in the second half of the show, minus Bruce, most of our callers were also amazed.

Bruce has since gone to that race shop in the sky, but not without patenting the basic concepts. It works like this: The standard 4 cycle, (1) intake stroke, followed by (2) compression stroke,  (3) ignition and power stroke, and then (4) exhaust stroke (except the exhaust valve stays partially closed). Bruce called it the re-compression stroke. Now, a shot of WATER is introduced into the dense 2,000+ degree combustion chamber, gases causing a steam explosion that creates a second power stroke (5). This is followed by another exhaust stroke (6) and the cycle starts over.

Not only is there a 40% increase in fuel economy, but the super-heated water molecules combine with thems nasty carbon dioxides, carbon monoxides, nitrous oxides, and other oxide baddies to create essentially carbonated water vapor coming out of the exhaust pipe.

Voila! Oil crisis, pollution crisis, climate crisis, and maybe a few other crises solved! Not only does it take advantage of the 1,500-to-one expansion ratio of steam (vs about 10 to one for gas or diesel) but the water injection cools the motor also, eliminating the need for a radiator, fan, water pump, and hoses, with their attendant cost, weight and parasitic drag.  And the aerodynamics of the front of the vehicle can be cleaned up, with no need for an opening to cool the radiator. In a big diesel, all that water handling equipment can weigh over 1,000 pounds, which can now go toward payload.

Yeah, you need another tank about the size of the fuel tank to hold distilled water (or do as Bruce did…..just collect rain water) plus a high pressure water injection system similar to a diesel fuel injector, but these two things quickly pay for themselves.

Why the 6 CYCLE concept never took off, I have no idea. N.P.R. did a whole hour interview with Bruce (THEM SCUM BAGS obviously stole the idea from us !) and the patent has zillions of views. Some big companies like Ford have looked into it ….. but I think it’s a conspiracy by big oil to suppress this new technology, just like the FISH carburetor!

Thanks to Louis Floquet of Crower Cams & Equip. Co. for reviewing this article.

My son and I  left Van Nuys early one morning headed south to the Shelby facility in Gardena.  Traffic Alert said there was a wild fire on the east side of the  405 through the Sepulveda Pass, and we wanted to avoid the inevitable traffic jams.  Sitting in a Chevron gas station, loading up on coffee for our journey, we could see traffic was already beginning to slow.  Once on the 405, we crested the Pass just as traffic  stopped.  The fire had started on the east side,  easily vaulted the multi  lane  freeway and was now  on the west side,  licking at the concrete walls of The Getty Museum.  As we sat there, along with everyone else, I asked Mike if he’d like to hear  the connection between The Getty and the Chevron drink cups we were holding. 

Too bad… you have to hear the story anyway.

In the mid eighties, the C.E.O. of Pennzoil, Hugh Liedtke  had a problem.  Pennz had great retail distribution, but lacked refinery capacity and oil- in- the- ground to be able to compete with the big  guys.  Getty Oil–founded  by J. Paul Getty  (1892 – 1976), at the time the world’s richest man–had more oil than it could possibly use and  plenty of refinery capacity, but lacked distribution channels.  It could be a marriage made in heaven.

Liedtke had been trying to buy Getty for some time, and finally through  contacts in the art world found a sympathetic ear in the person of Gordon P. Getty.  Gordon owned 40% of Getty Oil stock and also was a  trustee of The Getty Museum.  The Museum owned an aditional 11.8 %  and if Liedtke could convince Gordon and the other trustees to sell, he would control Getty Oil.

 Gordon was  third generation  and much more interested in opera than the oil business.  Most of the other trustees were second generation and were getting on in years.   After appropriate schmoozing, Liedtke offered Gordon and the  other trustees  110  dollars per share.  The stock  typically traded for around $50, but the oil- in- the- ground said it was worth more like $100.   A hand shake deal was struck at $112 and lawyers started drawing up the papers. 

Liedtke was ecstatic.

Days later he woke up to news from New York that Texaco had purchased Getty Oil for $125 a share.

“I’ll sue the bastards!” were the first words out of his mouth, and that’s what he swiftly did,  under the legal  construct of tortious interference.   T. I. is similar in the contract world to alienation of affection  in the domestic world.  If someone interfers with a settled arrangement–i.e. Some scum bag seduces your wife and she leaves you–you can sue the bastard for alienating her affections.  Yea I know, don’t try that today.  That law was written a long time ago.

After two years of legal manuvering, a jury trial was finally convened in Houston.  It was billed as DAVID v GOLIATH, with the much smaller Pennzoil taking on the eighth largest corportion in America, owning properties in all 50 states and Canada.  News acounts of the day bragged that Texaco had spent over 11 million dollars on scores of attorneys  just preparing for the trial.

Joe Jamail, Pennzoil’s lead attorney, always wore Italian-made cowboy boots with zippers on the sides,  and western-cut suits when working  in Texas.  In the sixth week of the trial, Joe looked up at the spectator area and saw John McKinley,  C.E.O.of Texaco, sitting in the gallery.  Joe whispered to his assistant Susan,  “Get as fast as you can  to the clerk’s office and get a subpoena to put Mr. McKinley on the witness stand.”

There was no way Pennzoil could have extradited  McKinley  from New York to Texas to appear in a civil proceeding, but there he was.  And by God he was going to testify !

If the head of a major corporation is going to testify at trial, his legal team will spend days, if not weeks, coaching him on every possible question he could be asked, and exactly how to respond.  But not today. 

John McKinley, a decorated World War II hero and a real life Wall Street Titan,  was dressed befitting a man of his stature and surrounded by his personal assistants.  He had flown in on his private jet to get a look at what the whole financial worid was talking about. 

On the stand, Joe asked John if he remembered the Wall Street Journal  story on January 5, 1984 stating that Pennzoil had reached an agreement to buy Getty Oil.  John couldn’t remember.

When Joe asked him if it was true that 50 copies of The Journal were delivered  to Texaco  headquarters every day,  John couldn’t remember.  The jury squirmed.

When Joe asked him if he could remember anyone at Getty refering to the situation as “A bird in the hand,”  John couldn’t remember.  The jury looked at the ceiling.

When Joe asked him if he knew what “A bird in the hand” meant,  John didn’t know.

McKinley had been circling  of the drain,  but now he headed straight  down the tube!

The trial was schedueled for twelve more weeks, with the jurors earning a whopping $6 a day.  Joe wrapped up his arguments and rested his case,  further endearing himself to the jurors.

They found Texaco guilty, and awarded Pennzoil  almost 11 BILLION DOLLARS  in damages!   No matter who you are or how big you are, no one can take a hit like that.

Texaco filed for a defensive bankrupcy, and in a very unusual move, Pennzoil continued pursuing them into bankrupcy court.   It was almost like opening the grave and robbing the corpse.  An appeals judge finally reduced the award, but penalty and interest charges were mounting at 3 million per day, and attorney fees were in the tens of millions.  Pennzoil  had to fight Texaco’s secured creditors but finally managed to scrape out about 3 BILLION DOLLARS.

Now that the grave had been ravaged,  Chevron Oil came by and picked up the bones, fired most of Texaco’s management, and merged the operation into Chevron’s  San Ramon CA headquarters.   Some retail outlets were sold to Shell,  and thousands more were re-branded CHEVRON / TEXACO,  apparently in a bid to retain loyal Texaco customers.

Traffic on the 405  was starting  to move.  The sun was brightening the sky and  J. Paul’s solid concrete structure had withstood the flames.  The story and the coffee were both finished, so we put the truck in gear and headed south to Shelby’s shop to build  beautiful cars ….  on another beautiful  California day!

Fun story,  and thanks for listening.

Duane Carling
19 APR – IIII

Hello again digital friends.

To paraphrase William Faulkner,  “The past is never dead,  and today it pays good money.”

The success of the Ford v Ferrari  movie  (4 Oscar nominations and 2 wins), which is set in the mid 60’s, is a story of life, death, love and brotherhood,  all fueled by that universal solvent money.  At last count the movie has generated over 225 million dollars.   

The design talent that helped Ford defeat Ferrari was, and is, my friend Peter Brock .  Peter has received  several LIFETIME ACHIEVMENT awardS,  recognizing his design work starting when he was a teenager.  He penned the Cobra Daytona Coupe, which brought America its first and only F.I.A. Grand Touring Championship in 1965.  He is now an entrepreneur, prize winning author and speaker.  This reflects the love  and respect the automobile world has for Peter and his work,  including  those early days  when  Carroll defeated Enzo.   I have a tee shirt  dated 1964 that says “NEXT YEAR FERRARI’S ASS IS MINE.”  Love it.

This post features an interview I did with Peter for the Shelby American Auto Club quarterly  way back in the mid 70’s.  It still resonates today.  Rick & the gang at S.A.A.C.  were kind enough to dig out the old issue and send me a scan.     

As Peter says in the interview, Shel was no dummy when it came to making a buck.  By the decade of the 70’s  he was no longer making Cobras,  no longer associated with Ford, and was watching a new industry known as “kit cars”  sell 427 Cobra bodies  and even completed cars with no questions asked.  The now defunct magazine from which  I copied the  pictures below  listed 36 different companies selling  Cobra bodies. 

“Guaranteed to attract chicks, will fit any frame, even a VW floor pan.”

Carroll  came up with the idea that under the legal term of TRADE DRESS, which protects the appearance of a product  (you can’t sell a soft drink in a bottle that resenbles a Coke bottle)  he ought to own the shape of the 427 Cobra roadster, as well as the 289,  the Daytona Coupe, and a few other Shelby cars.

Car manufactures in that era were focused on THE FUTURE   and didn’t give a   _ _ _ _   about last year, much less 10 or 20 years ago. Owning the past was really unheard of in the business.  Carroll thought otherwise, and after a few false starts and some expensive appeals,  he  began winning lawsuits  and collecting judgments against the makers of Cobra knock-offs.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Today every car company has a Licensing Division, which sometimes brings them more dollars than selling  their cars,  with no risk or capital investment !!  When Hot Wheels makes a toy in the shape of  a ’57 Thunderbird, even if they don’t use the name,  the good folks at Ford get a piece of the sales price.   Same with after market body panels.  Even interior  structural parts  that no one will ever see … if it resembles a piece that came out of a Ford stamping die in 1965,  you pay !  My friends the Kirkhams, based in Provo UT,  just completed their 1,000th aluminum Cobra, and a part of the $100,000 (more or less) purchase price of each one goes to the modern day Shelby organization.   Good on  ‘em.

What  makes this car from the past worth all that money ?  The Shelby name comes with the  love, life, death,  brotherhood, that the  Ford v Ferari movie celebrates. The past is still not past, and it now pays really good money.

 Ol’ Shel was one of the first to recognize the sales potential of all that, especially  when wrapped up in a beautiful body. 

Er…… maybe I should rephrase that.  Anyway, until next time, thanks for listening.

Duane