Category Archives: Americana

Shocking, just shocking I tell ya

Americana, Politics

path·o·log·i·cal, paTHəˈläjək(ə)l: compulsive; obsessive. Google dictionary.
 
By now, most people realize that President Donald Trump is a liar. What I didn’t know until last week is that he brags about it, as in: “Trudeau came to see me, he’s a good man, he said we have no trade deficit with you, we have none…I said, well Justin, you do. I didn’t even know. Josh, I had no idea. I just said you’re wrong. You’re wrong. It was so stupid.”
 
This shocks me. He was meeting with a foreign leader to talk about a trade deficit and he didn’t even bother to look at the numbers beforehand. The point of the meeting was to talk about trade numbers and Trump didn’t even know if we have a trade deficit or a surplus with Canada. That is a level of not giving a shit that would be shocking in a high school drop out.
 
Then he lied to a guy who did know the numbers. When I was in the merchant building biz – the development biz a little like Trump, really – I saw lots of people lie but I don’t remember ever seeing somebody lie to a guy that knew the truth. A purchasing agent might tell a sub his bid was high when it wasn’t but the sub had no idea. A salesperson might lie about the schedule of a house but the buyer didn’t know the real schedule. Here, however, Trudeau knew the real numbers and Trump lied to him. Maybe Trudeau gave him the benefit of the doubt and just thought, He must have been given the wrong numbers, maybe Trudeau just thought This guy is an idiot but, either way, he knew Trump was wrong. 
 
Lastly, in a public forum, sure to be reported, Trump bragged about being ignorant and lying. To me, this is the most shocking of all. Lying to a foreign leader about something that is checkable is stupid, bragging about it in public is shockingly idiotic.

A thought while trying to visit the new Apple building

Americana, Around home, Art

A couple of weeks ago, on a cold Saturday, Michele and I went down to Wolf Road in Cupertino to buy some pu’er tea. As an aside, Cupertino is pretty famous for being the home of Apple but, what is less known is that it is the home to a large Chinese population. Starting in the late 70s, Chinese immigrants started settling in Cupertino, drawn by its excellent schools. Now it is a haven for good Chinese restaurants. End aside. The turnoff on 280 to Cupertino at Wolf Road has now been enlarged to two lanes to accommodate the increased traffic to the new Apple Park, but that doesn’t mean that just anybody can get into the main building. It is impossible to get close enough to even walk around the outside (and I don’t think I know anyone who can get me in).But, just from driving around, it is easy to see that the attention to detail is extraordinary. Look at the perimeter fence in the two lower pictures above, the pickets are steel tubes, close to ten feet high, cantilevered up from the ground. There is no top rail, each one stands on its own and has to be strong enough to stop a big guy if not a small car from getting through. They were probably prefabbed in a shop somewhere with cheap labor, but, still, that is an extraordinarily expensive fence.

A couple of weeks after the tea run, I went back to Wolf road to go to the Visitor Center to get a better look. The Visitor Center, as well as the main building,  was designed by  Foster + Partners, mostly Norman Foster, really, and it is exquisite. The design and the detailing, or lack of detailing, is perfect for Apple. It is a great monument to Apple, and that is the problem.  I love architecture but, unfortunately, when a company builds a monument to itself it usually means that its best days are behind it. When General Motors built its magnificent  Technical Center – designed by the great Eero Saarinen – in 1956, General Motors was the biggest, most profitable, company in the world with 51% of the total auto sales in the United States. When McLaren built its spectacular Technology Centre – designed by Foster, like the Apple Headquarters – in 2004, it had been the previous’ decade’s winningest Formula One Team, last year it was second to last only beating out a Swiss Team that is run, more or less, as a hobby. Maybe that is the good news, the world keeps moving, sliding into a veiled future. Apple, like Sony, and IBM before, that once imagined their way through that vail into that future and changed the world. Apple, like Sony, will still be a major technological and design force but their world-changing days are probably over and this is a monument to that wonderful past. 

Guns, guns, guns

Americana, Current Affairs

“The adults have failed us.” A student on a Facebook clip I can no longer find.

I’m thrilled and actually surprised, that, at long last, somebody is protesting the NRA and their program of guns and more guns for all no matter how many people get killed. I’m surprised and actually thrilled that it is the children that had to finally do it. That unknown student is right, our generation, my generation, have failed those who are following us in almost every way; Global Warming, Environmental Degradation, Income Inequality, Unsafe Schools – let alone good schools – Deteriorating Infrastructure, Perpetual war, to name a few ways.  

Maybe it is always the young people who bring change but high school age children seem younger than usual to me. On the other hand, they are the ones who have to live in this brave new world. Hooray for them!  

The Winternationals continued

Americana, Cars

“This is not my demographic…but I’m having a great time.” Malcolm Pearson

Before I talk about actually going to the Winternationals, let me get a couple of obvious and far from obvious facts out of the way;

  • We are deep in Trump country, while we see only one Trump flag – that over a Thin Blueline Flag – there are way more American flags than we would see at, say, the Coachella Music Festival or a vintage race at Laguna Seca. It is the kind of race in which the Army is a major car sponsor. However, it is also in Los Angeles County, the very same Los Angeles County that went for Hillary in a big way at over 72%. The mix results in a crowd that is overwhelmingly white but not exclusionary, everybody is here to have a good time and it is infectious.
  • The NHRA has over 200 classes and many of them are running today but the big hitters are the Top Fuel Dragsters, Top Fuel Funny Cars, and ProStock (which almost look like real cars).
  • Drag racing is not as simple as it looks. Drag racing may have started as a short race between stoplights in Dad’s car, but it didn’t take long for the loser to make his or her car faster. That led us down a slippery slope that has resulted in Top Fuel Dragsters that…well, let me quote the National Hot Rod Association: the fastest-accelerating machines in the world, 10,000-horsepower {no, that is not a typo, ten thousand horsepower and it is probably higher now}…They are capable of covering the dragstrip {one thousand feet long} in less than 3.7 seconds at more than 330 mph. Top Fuel dragsters burn up to 15 gallons of nitromethane fuel during a single run. That 15 gallons of fuel has to be pumped into the intake airstream in 3.7 seconds, so fuel pump technology is a big deal in drag racing. Two other interesting factoids are 1) that the huge tires in the rear expand as they reach higher revolutions; they go from 36″ in diameter to 44″ at the end of their run when the car is going more than 330 miles per hour and 2) these cars don’t have a transmission, the engine is bolted directly to the differencial and it only rotates about 870 times during the 3.7 second run (compared to about 24 thousand times when I take my Hyundai on a twelve minute drive to the grocery store). 
  •  So that brings up the question, is this really a sport? does it really take skill? and the answer is Yes…Hell yes! These engines are so powerful that the driver can make the wheels spin any time by flooring the gas – throttle actually, I guess, since these cars run on nitromethane – so the run has to made at partial throttle, balancing on the edge of adhesion, adhesion that is constantly changing as the car gains speed, until the very end when they can floor it. With too much throttle, the driver spins the tires and the driver is an also-ran, and with too little throttle, the driver is an also-ran; it takes incredible finesse and feel for what is happening. In Top Fuel or Funny Car, this finesse takes place while wearing five layers of Nomex racing suits, a helmet, and a gas mask because the nitromethane environment is so toxic. 
  • Top Fuel Dragsters are violent machines and very dangerous. The day before we were there, probably the greatest driver in drag history, John Force, made a mistake that blew up his car – he ran the next day – and the day after we were there, Courtney Force, John Force’s daughter had a brutal accident that sent her to the hospital for observation.
  • This is a sport in which man and women play in the same pool, and women do well. 82 different women have won over two hundred and fifty major races. Four times, women have won the Top Fuel National Championship, Shirley Muldowney three times – incidentally, there is a very good movie about Muldowney, here is a clip, that, I think, is still relevant and inspirational – and Courtney Force last year. The day Malcolm and I were there, two women were running in the Top Fuel Finals.

Malcolm’s and my plan was to have a leisurely breakfast, go to the races, have a late lunch, and then drive home for about seven hours. The day before, when we had been inside at the museum, the temperature had been in the mid-eighties but our day at the race track was forecast for overcast with the temperature in the high fifties, low sixties. When we got to the racetrack, mid-morning, it felt even colder. Once we got inside gate, we ran into what seemed to be an impromptu old Hot Rod and Dragster Show. 

The place was chock a block with delicacies like this AA Fuel Altered Roadster of some sort. 
Classic deuce
This seems to me to be the classic Hot Rod and what I love about it, besides that it has a supercharged engine that is crazy overkill, is the contrast between the engine and the wheels. Everything possible in and around the engine is chromed, including the firewall, and the wheels are painted steel. I love the little pinstriping detail by the door handle and just the spot of pinstriping on top of the radiator.
Dragster & Funny Car
A mid-60s dragster and an early Funny Car, so called because, well, just look at it.

We wanted to see the Top Fuel and Funny Car Qualifications so we hurried by the pits where the brutes were being prepared. The change in weather also changed the humidity, which for dragster mechanics, is a big deal. A change in humidity changes the air density and that affects the fuel/air ratio, so the mechanics were all busy adjusting to what they hoped would result in optimum performance. In about 1/4 of the cases, it didn’t work. 

Our seats were about 70 feet down the track from the starting line I know because we were just past the 60-foot marker – and the Top Fuel Dragsters were going over a hundred miles an hour by the time they passed us. In the picture below, I was panning the car – moving the camera with the car – and the background was already blurred. To quote Malcolm, watching and feeling the cars take off was “a full chakra experience”. I could feel the sound as deep, throbbing, vibrations that rattled the stands, vibrated up my legs to my groin and traveled up my body. I had a panicky moment when I thought it might damage my heart. Then it’s over.     

It is the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. A Formula One car puts out about 800 horsepower and that’s loud, but this is over 10,000 horsepower. With earplugs in and my hands covering them, it is still painfully loud and it seems as if I can feel each cylinder explode. It is literally earthshakingly loud; for 3.7 seconds. 

We watch about ten pairs of Top Fuel cars and ten pairs of Funny Cars qualify, wander back through the pits and then the arcade where Malcolm buys a pair of pink souvenir Britney Force socks for Emma. Then we get a hot dog and fries at Pinks – probably the best hot dog I’ve ever had, BTW –  

and drive home, talking about drag racing and politics. 

 

 

 

The Winternationals

Americana, Around home, Cars

Last weekend – well, when I started this it was last weekend, now it’s two weekends after last weekend – Malcolm Pearson and I went to the Winternationals. I am sure that there are lots of sports – and I want to get to that – that have a Winternationals, but, in the car universe, there is only one Winternationals, the racing weekend that starts the Drag Racing Season. It is always in Pomona, Southern California, and is always the second weekend of February. I am not a drag racing fan and neither is Malcolm but this is where drag racing started, it is where hot rodding itself started, and this was more of a pilgrimage than a trip to see a race.

Because this was a pilgrimage to an unexplored country, at least to us – although I had been to several legal and official drag races in the 50s and even ran in one with a ’48 International flatbed truck – Malcolm and I wanted it to include some background to help us understand what we were pilgrimaging to. In this case, our homework is going to the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum which is, unironically, “dedicated to safety” (sort of like a Rock and Roll Museum dedicated to ear health).

 

Ever since the second car, people have been trying to make them go faster. In the entry to the museum is a 1932 Ford three-window coupe, the kind of car a young doctor might take on house calls, facing that transportation device is the same car, now without fenders and a bigger engine, being transformed into a Deuce, the classic hotrod. 
At first, I guess, hot rods were just cars that could go faster, however, by the fifties – when I first started driving – the Hot Rod had become a separate, identifiable,  genera, divided into three basic species, Hot Rods people drove on the street, Hot Rods modified for top speed, and Hot Rods modified for maximum acceleration. The most visible species are cars designed to drive on the streets. These Street Rods, it should be noted, however, are not meant to be road racers, they are meant to be cars that look good, within strict parameters, and can be driven on the road (the road racing hotrods, like Troutman & Barn’s Scarab or Max Balchowsky’s Old Yeller, are, for some unfathomable reason, not considered Hot Rods). It turned out, to my surprise, that Street Rods, my favorite, are in short supply at the Wally Parks, but a couple of very classic Hot Rods were hidden in a corner.
There was also a Custom ’49/’50 Mercury on display and I was reminded of how disdainful I was of “Lead Sleds” like this when I had a real Street Rod, a five-window Deuce (even though it was really a 1932 Plymouth with a Ford Flathead engine).
After saying that road racers are not Hot Rods, I want to show the exception, a recreation of the original Hot Rod Lincoln built by Bill Stroppe to race in the La Carrera Panamericana in the early 50s. 
While the Stroppe brothers were building Hot Rod Lincolns, other hot rodders wanted to see how flat-out fast they could go. With the fortuitous combination of a large number of engineers and mechanics that had worked in the aircraft industry during the war and dry lakes, Southern California soon became a hotbed of very sophisticated, if somewhat obscure, hot rods that became known as Lakesters or Streamliners. The car on the right had a top speed of 178 mph with a flathead Lincoln engine producing about 120 hp in 1952! The car in the middle went 307.977  with a supercharged four-cylinder Chevrolet engine.   
We had come here for drag racing and that meant drag racing cars. The National Hot Rod Association – hereinafter called the NHRA – was founded in 1951 by Wally Parks, in Southern California, but it took years for it to spread. We did not get an official drag race strip in Northern California until I was 17, in 1957. Before that, we raced on the streets and one of the favorite streets was a usually deserted section of Cañada Road near the Pulgas Water Temple. Occasionally, some out of towner would show up with a ridiculously fast car which always made me wonder how an out of towner would know about us but the police never caught on. One Friday night, a friend’s mother showed up and was shocked at what was, obviously, risky behavior. Even more shockingly, her reaction was to write an editorial in The San Mateo Times campaigning for a legal drag strip. And even more shocking than that was that we got one, at the Half Moon Bay Airport. The tradition of ridiculously fast cars showing up to challenge the locals continued and the car above is one of them, Called Swindler A, with a blown Crysler Hemi, stuffed into a 1941 Willys, cars like this toured around challenging the locals. These cars still burned gas but they were well on their way to becoming specialized dragsters.  
A couple of early dragsters. The purple car in the background, BTW, is the Glass Slipper and I saw it turn a 166 miles per hour at Vacaville Raceway, in 1959 or 1960. I was going to write about the Winternationals in one post but there is too much here so I will do this in two parts.

Originally, this was going to be a single post but it is running longer than I thought so I will show the actual races in the next post.