GREAT VIDEO!!! NOW about living in Hawaii. RANT ON... From my time living on the Big Island.... Hilo is the most rained out Drag strip venue in the Nation... Not opinon, thats a fact. I had friends who would run the jet cars over there, He'd book room sat and sunday night because 80% of the time Sat or Sun got rained out and it bumped over untill Monday. WHY KONASIDE CAN"T GET THEIR SHIT TOGETHER AND GET THE TRACK DONE IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT CAN OF SHIT!!!!!! (and yes it needed to be yelled.) I got the old Island Chevrolet to donate 1500 $ , My dads shop Honokohau Machine to Donate 500$, My personal buisness in Hawaii (Kona Cruisers : I rebuilt old FJ40's) 500$. And a earthwork buis (forgot name) to do 2 weeks with 8 guys at 50% rate.. over 6 years ago.( and I was just a small fundraiser maybe .5 % of total raised as of 2008) I understand that is nothing towards the total cost, but there was lots of state money invovled too. The county and State approved land usage but fucking Bill Gates and Michael Dell , Oprah and the rest of the guys at the world most Douchy neighbor hood keep challenging different enviro studies and such... (This is 6.5 miles from the closest house... 8.5 from theirs... IN THE MIDDLE OF A DESOLATE LAVA FLOW) Forget buying cool stuff here or on ebay and ship it there with out having to have a relay point ... I had a set of 16x11 ansens shipped 185$ POSTAL service. Not UPS or Fed EX...not including the amount i paid to get them to a Hamber in Cali.. Cost of living... 2012 AVG elec rate... 42.47 per KWH... Crazy gun laws.. RANT OFF... ++'s You get to cruise EVERY Day... You cant beat the view.. ( I moved to Alaska better view IMO... but not most peoples) Kona side you can ride motercycle every day to save on gas...
Honest to god, I could care less about any of that stuff simply because the ocean owns me. When I'm old and dying, I will be living in Kauai. Just me, a roadster, my surf board, my wife, and the ocean... That's all I'll need.
Sorry for the rant. I just got so disenfranchised by the time I left I am a bit jaded. I decided to move, sold my shit and moved off island 11 days later... I do miss my long board and spear fishing gear. It lives with my best friend in Koloko. The Folks are spliting time snowbird style between here (AK) and Kona... -Levi. Never forget the rich people there rule the islands.. I'm not talking 1%ers... I'm talking forbes top 75ers...
No matter how fast they go in the quarter mile... it still is not fast enough to jump to the next Island!!! When I was stationed at Hickam AFB... the coolest thing about it was I was stationed on a tropical Island! The worst thing about it was that I was stationed on an Island... needed a boat or an airplane to go anywhere from that postage stamp. With all my wandering time cut to nil... I Learned to surf, scuba and wind surf. I'd show up for my afternoon formation (2nd shift) wet and with sand pouring out of every orifice! Loved it!
Thanks Ryan cool video and music. Back in the 60s I wore blisters on all my fingers learning the licks to just about all the Ventures tunes. Skinned all my knuckles bending wrenches too.
The cover of Walk don't run is not the Ventures. There's way to many covers in my collection to guess who that is. It's not one that I own. If it is the Ventures, it's sure not a version I ever heard.
In 1992, my late wife Patty Piantanida and I were invited to Hawaii to reopen the road course at Hawaii Motorsport Center. Patty and I were both National Chief SCCA Stewards so as a team, we had the credentials to officiate at the track. I was Chief Steward and Patty was Chairman Stewards of the Meet. We found the track in pretty good shape, although we discovered that the fire extinguishers had net been certified for a few years. As I recall, things went pretty smoothly, although there was a crash involving a car that had been rented, and the owner wanted the Stewards of the Meet to grant restitution, which, of course, they could not do. Patty and I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend in Hawaii. Patty was on chemotherapy at that time and passed away in 1995. Tom Piantanida
I posted my dads drag shots here and on this website www.fredsslides.com Hawai'i 1949 It's a flash page so you may need the iSwifter app or a PC since apple and adobe don't play together
Nice!! Perfect timing for this thread ryan! I'm heading to Oahu on saturday! gonna spend a week there....I'll hunt that old track down...my wife will be thrilled
I'm always amazed that whenever there is a thread about Hawaii, a passionate debate about what's good or bad about living here ensues. I guess it's that kind of place, you either love it or hate it. Like anywhere else it has its ups and downs. Certainly the cost of living here is the highest in the nation and Honolulu can be a crowded mess, but when you get out to the neighbor islands, the pace and environment changes dramatically. I grew up on Kauai and it will always be a special place for me. Back to the issue at hand...thanks for sharing that film Ryan. Total time warp, island style.
"Walk, Don't Run" is definitely somebody's (maybe even the Ventures'?) re-recording - and no, it's not "Walk, Don't Run '64" either, but Jørgen Ingmann's "Apache" was the real deal. And to the owner of the film: See if you can get your money back from whoever made the transfer - they could have focused it much better and they should have cleaned the dirt off the print before running it.
i don't want to get any hopes up but we may be having an SCCA autocross event at Vidinha. let the scores get settled, road course style. i guess bikes aren't invited but seems you might have a bike powered car coming along. looks super badass
Ryan thanks for that.I was born and raised here on the Big Island and left when I was 15(1959).Retired back here a couple yrs ago 12 mi north of Hilo.Remember the days when the old Fords and others drove the streets here as well as the Jalopy races.Read my profile.Any Hambers visiting the Hilo side give me a heads up and we can meet to"talk story".
Then you arent involved in getting the track going on the Kona side. Haualalai and its resident homes are the reason it hasn't gone any where.
You guys were really lucky! Sad as to what's happened to HRP - kinda brings a tear to your eye don't it? Sad part is it's just sitting there and not being used for anything. At least let the locals use it so it's not wasting away.
Great video, noticed towards the end the Glass Slipper makes an appearance, then remembered that there was a story in HRM in '57 about some California cars that took the ship to Hawaii to race: Glass Slipper, Nesbitt Orange dragter of Maurice Richer, and a couple of others....probably the only video of their appearance... (The 32 Ardun-powered 5-window wound up in Montana when the Hawaii-based owners moved there to attend college, but when they still lived in Hawaii they took it to the NHRA Nationals where they won the long distance award...wonder where it is now?)
When folks on the mainland used to ask me about the (higher?) cost of living in the Islands, I'd explain to them that I'd never had to buy any shoes, or socks, or coats, or jackets, or sweaters, or pants, or pay for any heat or a/c, and many other trade-offs. It all ends up being relative, doesn't it? ... Plus, you can grow your own lilikoi, guavas, papayas, bananas, pineapple, or anything else that nature produces, year 'round ...
I ran a '57 chev in Oahu some where outside Pearl City back in the late '60's early 70's while serving at Pearl Harbor............those were the days............
Did your 57 have a tilt front end with gate hinges? I remember seeing a service man with one in Pearl City - where I'm from.
Got a point there! I ate on base... slept on base... rented the surf boards... scuba gear and wind surfer from base for "pennies to the tourist dollars"! My biggest expense was gasing up the Honolulu rent a wreck Toyota! If I did eat off base "Patty's Place" in the mall had a very reasonable buffet.
It's been nearly four years since there was any activity on this thread, but here's a link to see my pictures from Maui Raceway Park. (I've been doing the track photography there on a regular basis for the past nine years or so.) http://www.maui-angels.com/wheelerdealer/photoalbums.html
The Jalopy Journal
