Dana Point Concourse

...our country club added a Bocci Ball area that I have NEVER seen in use! 

The annual Dana Point Concours d'Elegance held at St. Regis (Monarch Beach Resort) is gone too. Our city officials must be making all the right moves for these events to move away. This was our equivalent to the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

It's time to move back to Bakersfield. At least I'll have the classic car show at the Kern County Fairgrounds...

I think that may be my car from last years event.

Rusty @Rusty S - to add to the bureaucracy, the Aliso Viejo Cars & Coffee has recently been shut down by the city council for the usual issues (loud revving and screeching tires by the usual idiots). 

I think the event has moved to the upper deck of the parking garage for the Outlet Shops on Via Hermosa in San Clemente. 

MusbJim posted:

Rusty @Rusty S - to add to the bureaucracy, the Aliso Viejo Cars & Coffee has recently been shut down by the city council for the usual issues (loud revving and screeching tires by the usual idiots). 

I think the event has moved to the upper deck of the parking garage for the Outlet Shops on Via Hermosa in San Clemente. 

Sad but so true - it seems that no amount of signage or police presence will keep the idiots from ruining a good cars & coffee location. The Aliso Viejo location was probably  also short lived because a new Urban Plates Restaurant will take over the parking lot soon...

In 1981, every town in America had a cruise-night.

In Peoria, it was Friday, on Main St. from the top of the hill to Western Ave. It was no Woodward Ave, but it was our equal-opportunity display of metal and horsepower.

The prime real-estate was in the Steak-N-Shake parking lot. If one dared to pull in and park, one needed to be ready to pop the hood and lean one's Levi's 505s on the radiator, awaiting inspection of every gear-head in the tri-county area. Posers were not tolerated, nor were boy-racer wanna'bes-- if that hood went up, it meant that a man had thrown down the gauntlet and was ready to prove he belonged with the elite.

A tubbed '69 Camaro with a tunnel-ram and some unearthly gearing was the undisputed heavyweight king of the street. Nobody I ran with knew the owner's name, but when the car "rolled the Steak", hoods went down and a parking space always opened up. It was hard to miss the intent of a car with 12" Centerlines and "Adios, Mother" tattooed on it's rear spoiler.

I witnessed the car pull the front wheels at a stoplight on Main and Sheridan. I stared down the first Nitrous Oxide bottle I'd seen in the flesh through his rear glass. Lesser cars ran drags down the side streets, but I never saw anybody ever challenge Adios Mother.

By '83 it was ruined. Dudes were pissing on storefronts and throwing empties at cars in the street. Chicks were cramming into mom's station-wagon, rolling up and down Main with "Blondie" blaring from their AM radios. Every oil-burning, mid-'70s Tornino with bias-ply snow tires wanted to be the next Don Garlits. Steak-n-Shake stopped offering curb service, and instituted a 30 minute parking limit. The side streets were closed off. Cops started issuing equipment violations and loud muffler tickets. City Council meetings were dominated by how to stop the blight.

... and then it was over.

Steak-n-Shake closed and was torn down. Main St. became populated by second-hand clothing stores and package-liquor retailers. My son lives in one of the old mansions a couple of blocks in-- the blight halted for now by the presence of a cop living in the corner house as part of a neighborhood stabilization program. There are "shot spotter" cameras hanging from the power poles.

Sometimes when I roll up the hill past the towers and High Street, I can still catch a whiff of what used to be-- semi-burned fuel, and greasy fast-food, and testosterone combining in an elixir that smelled like youth and possibility. Cars and Coffee is sort've cool in it's own way (I suppose) but to be 18 and rolling a big engine I built with my own hands under the hood of a machine I knew was a dinosaur even then-- that is something that is gone, and will never come back. 

It was my Pebble Beach, and Highway 1, and Indianapolis 500, all rolled into one. I'm supremely grateful to have been around for it in it's heyday.

The last Cars & Coffee I went to was after Anand got his '54 Pre-A Speedster. The local Porsche dealership was just purchased by an early 30's something former professional baseball pitcher and part-time Porsche racer CJ Williams and he wanted to welcome the community to the dealership.

The p-lot had numerous early 912's, are there any other 912's? Along with a large collection of other early year 911's, a reproduction Speedster, some custom trucks, a few early two-door all metal cars, and a more than ample collection of high-end Acuras, Lambos, McLarens, Ferraris, and other high end cars with less than a 1,000 miles  on them. I laughed to myself, well maybe to Teby also, but that none of those cars could hold a candle value-wise to the innocuous little black Speedster that was off on one side of the dealership and I doubt that more than a few of the people there knew that.

Several of the C&C's I've been to are more about showing off the size of one's wallet and ego than anything gear-head related. A couple of the McLaren owners felt it necessary to announce to everyone there that they were leaving as they attempted to rev up their engines, break traction, and drive away at a high rate of speed on a busy street. One of them dumped the clutch and barely broke traction, the other managed to launch pretty good but missed his next two gear shifts and rolled to the stop light. It was juvenile, embarrassing to the car owners, and a black eye to the atmosphere of the event. If people want to act and drive like that, they should go to the track; otherwise leave it at home.

An eloquent prose on the Mid-West teen scene of the 1980's (I'm queuing in on "Blondie" here, popular when my kids were still kids....  Hey!  I'm an "Old Fart!")

A decade or two before that, a similarly-staged Drama played out on "Shrewsbury Street" on the East side of Worcester, Massachusetts.  Do not fear - these mini-plays were found in just about every  town and small city in America, you just had to know where to look for them.

Shrewsbury street is the straight-line connector between downtown Worcester (second largest city in the state) and the suburb of Shrewsbury, MA, named for the Earl of Shrewsbury, the supposed inventor of the "Sandwich"; various stuffings between two slices of bread.  (Hey!  Whaddo I know?  I just live heah!  They TELL me this stuff!!)

Along Shrewsbury street is a series of stop lights spaced, roughly, 100-150 yards apart. In the middle of the street was "Speedy's", a quintessential drive-in offering the usual Burgers, Fries, Shakes (called "Cabinets" around here, but a "Frappe", Milkshake or "Fribble" to you) and, of course, for the more "Macho" types, Speedy's Onion Rings", guarantied to give anyone, instant acid indigestion.  Think of "Arnold's" on "Happy Days" - That's the place, just Massachusetts, not mid-west.

Shrewsbury street became THE street to "strut your stuff", and the larger the engine (and more exhaust noise) the better.  This was back in the era when the 409 Chevy in a '62 body was king (the '59 Chevy, with those ridiculous, horizontal fins (including the '60 Ford ) was looked on like fish poop. )  The dominant car there in that period was a really nasty-looking Pontiac LeMans that was occasionally challenged by this or that Chevy Chevelle or Super Sport or a Ford Fairlane or Galaxy or that guy frm Thompson, CT, with a 427 stuffed into a Falcon - all of them lost to the GTO.    

But then, there came to be, two or three guys who challenged all of those "Big Block" guys and beat them on the Shrewsbury Street Beat, because they analyzed the track (street) and figured out what it would take to beat them at their own game, namely, who is fastest between lights?  But, more importantly, "who can get all of their power to the wheels in the most efficient manner in less than 150 yards?"  No "peeling out", no massive tire screeching, no massive noise, no over-rising the front end, just a lot of wheel grab and get to the next light, 100 yards away, before the other guy. 

The ring leader was a guy named Johnny Clark and his accomplices were Lee Knowlton and Ray Nichols.  Their weapon of choice?  A 1962 Volkswagen Grandma's Sedan (Ray's daily driver).  They knew they would be laughed at, but not for long.

They chose their weapon carefully:  A stock, VW sedan gearbox, fronted by a Porsche 356, 1,600cc dual port base engine, carefully reworked by Johnny with guidance from Al Alden, a well known name in the local Porsche racing circles.  They threw out the single-throat Solex carbs in favor of dual-throat Webers.  They tossed the wimpy Porsche cam for a better grind to Al's specs by Hitchock Machine in Framingham, Mass., and tossed the stock crankshaft in favor of a forged, stroker crank from a shop in Southern California, noted for providing cranks for Bonneville racers.  Johnny spent a week of evenings re-working the flow of the heads and intakes as well as choosing the proper-sized pistons and barrels.  Lee spent almost as much time working on an extractor exhaust system.

Slowly, and in secret, they worked on their creation, bringing in bits and parts from all over the USA to build the ultimate "Shrewsbury Street Killer".  But.....Would it be fast enough?  "FAST enough?  Fast ENOUGH?  This thing's gonna blow their F-ng DOORS off!" said Lee.

Based on that unbiased assessment, they installed the engine in Ray's VW sedan, flipped the VW rear wheels around to dish them out, added 7" wide rim spacers with 225 tires  and let him "break it in" for 500 miles (Well, Ray was never noted for patience, so it was probably more like 100, well-thrashed miles) before they made their way over to Speedy's to see what was up, Johnny and Lee in Lee's '58 VW sedan (with a similar 356 engine, just not to the same level of tune, but Lee's son, Patrick's kiddie seat in the back) and Ray in the so-called, "LeMans Killer".

So, the deal with Shrewsbury Street was, Line up at a light and race to the next light, regardless of light color when you get there.  Whoever gets there first (there were "spotters" at each light, giving an arm raise for "1" or "2" lane first) won.  The lights were (and still are, today) 100 - 150 yards apart.  The problem was, if you had too much power and couldn't match it to the road surface, you would spin on launch and waste precious milli-seconds while you were spinning and your opponent took off ahead of you - Got the picture?  

What these VW guys found was that, with a stump-puller first gear, a really fast shift and a really strong engine, they could get a hole-shot every time and, if the engine had enough grunt and the driver was REALLY good on shifts (and the transaxle didn't blow up), they could get to the next light first, every time because those guys with more power would ALWAYS spin excessively on launch.  The "sweet-spot" of engine power to weight for the VW sedan was about 150hp.  More than that and you had to fight wheel spin on launch and lose time.  Less than that and you simply didn't have enough power to win between lights.  They all realized that, if they had to race TWO lights, they were toast, so the bet was ALWAYS on a single light distance.

Word quickly got around at Speedy's.  The guy with the LeMans simply was not interested in running a VW (I mean, really?  You $#!tten me?)  Some guy from Leicester (just on the other side of Worcester) with a Fairlane looked at the bug and said, "This is a joke.  I don't race jokes.  F---- off!"  But a skinny, acne-faced guy from Marlboro in a stout Chevy Nova said, "$#!+, I'll run ya!  And blow you off, TOO!"

So Ray got into his little, '62 VW sedan with the dished rear wheels, single Lucas Flame-Thrower driving light on the front, open sun roof and USAF sticker on the rear window, and they lined up in front of Speedys heading west and slightly downhill towards Worcester center.  The entire population of "Speedy People" headed out to the sidewalks to watch.  One of Speedy's roller-skate drive-in girls skated out into the street with a "Speedy's" placemat in hand, raised it in the air and, after holding it for a few seconds, whipped it down and the two cars were off.

The Nova burst to raucous life, spewing a huge cloud of blue and white smoke, but not really moving forward much as his wheels spun and spun and tried and tried again to gain traction.  Meanwhile, Ray's VW sedan took off like a rocket, heading to the next light, no wheel spin but LOTS of "go".  The launch was awesome to behold as the car virtually LEAPED off the line, front end lifting almost to breaking contact on the front wheels, but then second gear was pulled with a dip and leap of the front end.  By the time third gear was searched, it was time to shut down for the next light and STAND on those drum brakes to stop for the light.  The VW got there first, stopping with the "stop line" about mid-way on the car body.  Two arms went up from the spotter, signaling that lane two (the VW) had won.  All of this was done with properly clicked "Lap Belts" - I'm jus' sayin.........

Meanwhile, the Nova came roaring up from behind, tried (and failed) to stop for the light, went blasting through and stopped about 30 yards beyond, smoke still spilling from underneath the car.  That was the beginning of quite an awesome 1966 summer on the Worcester area "unofficial" drag strips, like Shrewsbury street, Lake Ave, Hayes Drive in Marlborough, Mulberry Street in Leicester - a whole bunch of streets.  Non-Believers were turned into skeptics, but they still knew that they had been beaten by a Bug, plain and simple.  

Al Alden eventually found his way to a Porsche/Audi dealership in St. Albens, VT, bringing Johnny Clark with him as his Service Manager.  Lee Knowlten took over his Dad's farm in Grafton, Mass.  I saw him in front of his house one night ten years ago when I was out in Pearl and stopped to show it to him.  He had a big SEG when I pulled up, and the grin just kept getting bigger when I told him about the engine and gearing I had (it was really close to Ray's sedan).  His wife, Pat, told me at Lee's wake that my car was what he always wished he'd had and he was SO GLAD that I had stopped that night.   Ray Nichols finished his years in the Air Force and became a local businessman but always had some sort of Hot Rodded vehicle to drive and eventually found his niche in building extreme performance snowmobile engines.  He died of a heart attack in his shop, building that last, 370hp snowmobile engine for a customer.

Speedy's lived on for a while, as a fake store front at the Worcester, MA "Summer Nationals" Muscle car meet, but it just wasn't the same.  The location was sold to a car dealer that eventually went out of business.  Amazingly, on almost the same spot has arisen "Vintage Grill and Gourmet Pizza" where the local Hot Rod set descend on Friday and Saturday nights to re-live the grand old days of Hot Rod racing on Shrewsbury Street, but few, if any, of them were there like me, because I was the little kid in the passenger seat of that VW sedan.

What a great story, Gordon.

MusbJim posted:

Rusty @Rusty S - to add to the bureaucracy, the Aliso Viejo Cars & Coffee has recently been shut down by the city council for the usual issues (loud revving and screeching tires by the usual idiots). 

I think the event has moved to the upper deck of the parking garage for the Outlet Shops on Via Hermosa in San Clemente. 

Nice view though Jim.

And so ends another era in American Teen-age motoring.

So long, and God Speed, Mr. Busada.   You always treated this "little kid" with respect:

http://www.telegram.com/news/2...t-graveside-memorial