Frosty Shop Blues - a reprise

Here’s a little story set in Ventura, California circa early 60's.
I’m gonna call it fiction here, but a lot of the cars were real and correct to the era and location.
As well as some of the people are based on real people and the things they did.
One of those not-all-lies and not-all-truth kinda tales that come to be many years after the fact.


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Frosty Shop Blues
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We didn’t call em shoeboxes back in the day. They were just 49 to 51 Fords. Pretty much like other 50's era cars to an extent although Fords and Chevys were the car of choice for most. In my little gang, Fords were it. Coupes, the absolute favorite. Two door sedans were in the running for sure and that because there were more of them around than anything else. Anything except four doors anyway. Not many four doors got fixed up, but the rest were fodder for the torch of the customizer and the wrench of the hot rodder.

You’d see a few convertibles around town, town being Ventura, California, but most of them were totally stock, most times very clean and about the only things done to them was a pair of pipes with some sweet sounding muffs and occasionally a different set of hubcaps or wheel covers.

One of the reasons converts weren’t hot rodded to any degree or even customized at all, the converts were owned by girls. At least, that’s the way it was in my town. Not a put down on the girls here. A lot of girls like flashy cars, but for most of them, a car was just a means to an end. Even when the girls owned the sorta flashy looking converts, they were for the most part left totally stock. That’s ok, a couple of good looking young women bombing around town, top down in a convert was all the converts really needed as far as accessories were concerned. Not that I’m calling the young women accessories here, just that they added a certain something to the converts just as they added a certain something to just about any car. Even so, there was something special about these convert owning girls. They seemed to be a little more carefree and not too worried about their hair and especially not worried about what anybody thought. They were like the rest of the girls though, in that they fell into the good girl category. And even if they fell into the bad girl category, how the hell would we know? We were so busy dinking around with our coupes and sedans and trying to eke out a little more horsepower that we never really got to know the convert driving girls too well.

Not a problem for one of the locals though. A kid named Ryan who drove one of the ugliest cars that Ford ever rolled out into the light of day. A 38 Ford coupe. Somebody called it a deluxe, but if that was deluxe I’d hate to see what the bottom dog model was. We had to admit though, the car was a cherry. I heard that his grandad quit driving and passed the car down to Ryan.

When Ryan got his hands on it he didn’t do much other than drive it. That part made sense to us, why waste money on that thing when he could have sold it and put the money toward a good looking 39 or 40 Ford coupe or even a 49 or 50 Ford coupe and he would have had something. I guess it didn’t make any difference. Ryan was a thinker and a pretty smart guy. Something we didn’t recognize at first, but it didn’t take too long to figure it out. Seems like he got the car one Christmas and somewhere around the first part of summer it disappeared off the streets. We’d see Ryan at the Frosty Shop which was the usual gathering spot for kids and cars and sometimes we’d see him at Merles, the other car oriented drive in at the east end of Main Street, but he was always with somebody else.

Eventually, the somebody else was one of the two convertible owning girls in town. The one who drove the white 51 Ford convert. She didn’t fall into the blonde in a red convertible category, but one look at her with her light brown hair and knockout drop dead gorgeous good looks made me think that nobody was really worried about red paint or blonde hair. She had it all and then some. I guess she found something in Ryan, but we never could figure out what it was. Probably because the question we asked ourselves was, "How come that’s not me in the convert with Judy?" Instead of the question we really should have asked ourselves, "What were guys like Ryan doing right where girls were concerned?"

Near the end of summer, we found out why Ryan’s coupe had been off the street. I thought the flathead in it gave up the ghost and the ugly damned thing was parked out back of his house or maybe collecting dust out at his grandad’s citrus ranch.

Gotta admit, when he drove it into the Frosty Shop one hot August night, it was a mean sounding sumbitch. It looked a little different too. Somewhere along the line he’d stuck a dropped axle in it and got the front end down as well as popped a pair of 8:20 x 15's on the back and what looked like the ever popular 5:50 x 15's on the front. The interesting part was the engine was a bright red late model flathead. Funny part was, as strong running and healthy as the engine sounded it looked virtually stock. It didn’t even have aluminum heads. Somebody said it was running a pair of Canadian Ford heads that were milled and Ryan thought that was a better way to go. We just figured Ryan didn’t know any better or maybe the cast iron heads were all he could afford. No shame in running them, just that we knew he’d have been better off with a pair of aluminum finned heads.


Ryan marched to the beat of a different drummer, that was for sure. Besides the ugly damned coupe, which, if you really looked at it, didn’t look so ugly anymore, the great sounding engine caught your ear like few other engines did. As far as looks go, the only offbeat thing that gave away the engines potential was the three two barrel intake sitting up top. Strange part was, the middle carb flange was blocked off and he ran a pair of 94's at each end. That one really threw us for a loop. Heck, some of us were running three 94's on a totally stock engine and they ran just fine. Ian, probably the smartest guy in our little group of misfits figured Ryan was a lot smarter than we gave him credit for. His comment was that Ryan probably blew the engine budget on the internals and that could have been why only the two carbs. Even so, he leaned toward the theory that two carbs, even with a built flathead was probably enough. Made sense I guess, Ian’s 49 coupe ran two 94's on what we knew to be a totally stock engine and it was a good runner. Kind of hard to argue with Ian sometimes. I was pretty sure he ran milled heads and pretty sure the rest of the engine was stock, but the interesting part was, his coupe was the fastest car in our little group and in fact was about the fastest flathead powered, almost stock 49 in town. Ian’s dad was the parts manager at the Ford dealer, but Ian didn’t seem to have a real advantage with that. Aside from the discount. Ian learned what he knew the hard way. Reading about hot rods, talking to guys who really did know what worked as well as getting right in the middle of working on his own car. Sometimes it surprised me to see a lot of the stuff he tried and experimented with just so he could learn how it worked. I guess he never heard the little saying about not fixing it if it wasn’t broke.

Anyhow, Ryan, apparently tired of the insults about his little coupe, started telling people to put up or shut up. Sometimes I wondered if he meant literally or if he was inviting them to race. Being sorta close to the situation now and then and looking at Ryan’s serious look I thought that either way didn’t make too much difference to him. We’d see him get into a fight now and then and most times come out on top, but with that and beating a couple of the local thought to be fast cars, people stopped giving him a bad time about his coupe.

Life kinda cruised by for a while and not much happened until June rolled around. Near the end of the school year one of the guys - named Mike, but we called him Mikey - bought a 56 Chevy Belair with factory powerpack dual quad engine. It was, no doubt about it, a beautiful car. We wondered about the Powerglide because their reputation as far as drag racing or street racing went was simple. If you ran a Powerglide you were probably going to lose. Didn’t take long to find out that Powerglide or not, the Belair was a car to look out for. It wasn’t long until he was one of the fastest cars in town and about the only thing faster was a primered black Deuce five window running a built Desoto engine.

We asked Mikey why he didn’t try to find a stick shift car. With the good running dual quad engine it sure looked like the way to go. The answer was simple. They only came with a Powerglide and he wasn’t getting involved with swapping it over. That was it. If you wanted a stick shift you had to settle for a lesser engine or get dirty.
So between Ryan’s coupe with it’s decidedly stock looking and good running engine and the Belair with it’s "never had no respect before" Powerglide we started paying a little more attention and learning a few things about cars. It was a little discovery that fit exactly what the ancient Chinese philosopher meant when he said, "All things are not as they seem." At least I think he said it and if he didn’t he probably should have.

Like you’d figure, the stars all fell into alignment or whatever the heck it is that bring some things to be. The thing that came together was exactly what we’d hoped for. Ryan and Mikey decided to settle just which car was the fastest. The ugly duckling 38 or the beautiful blue and white BelAir. Geez...... all we needed was a wicked witch and we’d have had one hell of an internal combustion fairy tale. At least that’s what we thought. What we didn’t know was that there was a witch involved, sort of, but we didn’t find out about it until way after the dust had settled. We weren’t sure about brown haired Judy with the white convert as far as the witch biz went, but the stories we heard were saying that she was an empath of sorts. Since nobody in our little gang knew what the hell an empath was maybe that’s where the wicked witch bit got started.
Judy was a little different, not too much, but she could be hard to figure out. Besides being a looker, she was friendly and gracious and as long as you were at least half way mannerly or at least trying to be polite and not completely stupid. She’d smile her beautiful smile at you and now and then talk to you. If you were a dipshit, she knew it and before long you knew that she knew and you either continued on with your dipshit career and got out of the way or you got your act together. Far as Judy was concerned all you had to do was try to be a better person. For the guys who didn’t understand it was easier for them to label her than it was to figure it out or at the least think about it.

Kinda funny, a lot of girls would stand still for some of the stuff that some of the guys dished out, but crossing swords with Judy and engaging in a battle of wits with her, would, many times have you end up looking like the unarmed man. She had such a way with words that it didn’t take long to get the message. I was never anything but polite to her. It was enough to see what happened to the guys who tried to hassle her.

Things started falling together at the Frosty Shop one moonlit Friday night in November when I was sitting in my 50 coupe with Skip. Both of us were swigging down root beers and trying to cool off. The Santana’s - the hot winds that blow in off the desert - were in. It was T-Shirt weather and I was watching Ryan and Mikey standing next to Rocky’s 50 Merc coupe talking.

Easy to see that something was going on and more than likely what was going on was setting up a race. I gotta hand it to Ryan and Mikey. There was none of the jockeying for position, somebody gets a half length kind of BS. It was get waved off and first one to the finish line won. Pretty simple when you got right down to it. It always seemed that way with the faster cars. Both guys had faith in their cars and were willing to lay it on the line straight up. Wanna race? Let’s go race. That was it, none of the handicap stuff. Straight up. One time, one winner, no whiners.

Me and Skip looked at each other, I fired up the tri-carbed stock flathead in my dark blue coupe and we pulled out of the Frosty shop headed east on Main. We knew right where they were going. We knew too that one of them would pull out, kinda casual like and then maybe five minutes later the other guy would leave. That was the best way to run it. Sometimes the word would spread like wildfire in the Frosty Shop and instead of having two cars headed out for a quick little street race on a deserted country road, you’d have a parade of cars and it wouldn’t be long until a cop car joined the parade or even worse, held back, showed up later on and bust everybody they could. Sometimes the cops would show up in two or three cars and then you were screwed. Times like that, some of the guys would run into the orchards and end up walking home now and then. The guys who paid were the car owners. They always got caught. And if it was a single cop car and he only caught one of the racers, the other car went onto his list and somewhere along the line that guy would pay the penalty. Not necessarily for the long past race, but for whatever they could pin on you. There was always something they could catch you doing. Get on the wrong side of the wrong cop and you’d pay for it. The cops were fair for the most part and contrary to what some thought, they weren’t dumb. They had their job and we had ours. Even if our job was being a pain in the ass most times.

One small thing I was glad I had done was to go out to Foothill Road at the power station road during the day time a while back and do a little exploring. Just down from the power station road, I found the orange orchard access road that led you into where the wind machine was. That particular wind machine being about six rows or so from the road and I figured it was a good place to park the car and it would be well hidden. Best part was we could walk through the trees and stand on the berm that was about eight feet above the road right around the thousand foot mark. The orchard owner was a smart cookie and I had to give him credit. He’d strung a steel cable across the orchard access road, had warning rags tied on as well as several padlocks that made it look like you’d need a key to get in. When I walked around to the back of the steel post the cable was strung on, I saw that a loop of cable simply dropped over a one inch or so thick bar welded onto the back of the post. Clever thinking for sure. No keys required for the workers or the orchard owner. I would imagine that once a guy pulled up in a car and saw the sturdy cable with padlocks and all, most times they just turned around and left.

It was perfect for us though. I pulled off the road, Skip got out, unhooked the cable, laid it down, I drove over it, he hooked it back up and we were in business with our own little private parking place. If it didn’t keep out the other guys, we hoped, at the least it would keep the cops out.

Sometimes, on a night like this, with the full moon and all, there weren’t a whole lot of places to hide. As light as it was, it didn’t make much difference.

We’d walked through the trees out to the berm and were standing there, not too far out, all we had to do was step back a bit and we were swallowed up by the trees. At least Skip was. Seemed like he always wore a dark colored polo shirt and here I was in the uniform of the day, a white t-shirt and feeling totally conspicuous.

We’d been standing out there for what seemed like an eternity, but it always seems that way when you’ve got a guilty conscience or are waiting for something good to happen. Far as I was concerned this was a little bit of both. Even so, it was probably ten minutes or so and here came Ryan’s midnight blue coupe. If he’d been running lights out, we’d have never seen it. The blue color was so dark that it was almost black. Kinda funny that we knew it was Ryan’s coupe. You couldn’t really hear it and all you could see down the mile long straightaway was a pair of headlights. It was just something you felt. I looked at Skip, he looked at me and smiled. He knew too.

Ryan slid by where we were, more than likely he didn’t see us and he probably wasn’t even looking at us. He pulled into the power station road, shut down, lights off and not a sound of a car door slamming or anything. I figured he would have someone with him, but I guess not.

Bout five minutes later, here comes Mikey and the Belair. Mikey had somebody in the car with him. That made sense. You could have a pretty good race with drivers only, but it was a lot better if you had a starter. That way, no whining and no excuses.

Mikey spun past the power station road, Ryan fired up the coupe and pulled out after him. They ran down to where Wells Road T’d into Foothill, did the u-turn bit there and more than likely looked down the hill to see if anyone was coming up. Easy enough to look off to the east to see if anybody was coming along Foothill from that direction.

Both cars ran about a quarter mile up the road from Wells, stopped, a guy got out of the Belair, motioned Ryan into the left lane, walked out ahead of the cars, walked off the road, clear across the shoulder and up on the short bank. We could see him, clear as day. He pointed at each car, the revs came up on both, he raised his hand, brought it down and it was darned near a perfect start. We could see the Belair spinning the tires a little bit. That was a surprise to me. I could go along with the Belair being fast and all, but with a Powerglide, spinning the tires was something I didn’t expect. Ryan’s coupe got the jump on him though. From where we were, it didn’t look like Ryan spun the tires at all. Ryan’s coupe was pulling him, probably due to the rumored to be 4.44 rear end. Once the Belair’s tires stopped spinning, Mikey started reeling him in. Ryan had a length on him not quite half way out, but it was disappearing rapidly. Just listening to the engines on both cars it sure sounded like both were running ok. When they went past us, they still sounded ok, in fact, more than ok. There was nothing else we could hear other than the engines pulling hard and spinning up some ferocious revs. From what we could see it was all over for Ryan. The Belair had a fender up on him and was pulling away. The Belair was heavier, by more than a few hundred pounds, but he had the horsepower. I figured Ryan was probably running out of gear as well. The 4.44's were killer at the stoplight’s, but sometimes you’d end up a little short before you hit the end of the well marked quarter mile.

They crossed the finish line and it looked like the Belair had more than a length on Ryan. The Belairs stoplights lit up, Ryan rolled off the gas, slowed down and was heading west for town. Mikey spun the Belair around and went back to pick up his friend.

Now we had to make a decision. More than likely the people who lived in the houses about a half mile away had called the cops. We could stay hidden where we were and wait it out. Not a bad option if you had a few beers with you, or, get out of Dodge as they say. We decided to make a run for it. I drove the coupe down to the end of the access road, lights off, we did the cable across the road tango and took off. Not too fast, pretty calm stuff. This was not the time to be speeding down the highway. A little ways out, the headlights went on and for all practical purposes we were just a couple of guys headed for home after being in Santa Paula. Our story anyway.

We got back to the Frosty Shop ok, didn’t see anybody to speak of, gave up and went home.



I don’t know what happened to Ryan’s coupe. It disappeared off the streets for a quite a while. We’d see Ryan running around town in his granddad’s beat up old F1 half ton once in a while, the smiling and beautiful Judy by his side and it seemed life, at least for them was pretty much back to normal. Judy didn’t seem to drive her convert as much as she used to, but I think that was because Ryan liked to drive and she didn’t mind riding along in darned near anything he showed up in. Just being together was the important part I guess.

Somewhere along the line, Mikey and the Belair disappeared. We heard he joined the Air Force and took the Belair along. Probably a sad end to a nice car when it had to sit in a military parking lot for weeks if not months on end. More than likely he sold it when he got to basic training. From what we heard that was pretty much the way it went.

In the middle of all this stuff, I got my hands on a 324" Olds engine, a 41 Caddy side shift trans, a Spicer rear axle with 4.27 gears out of an overdrive model 53 Ford wagon as well as the front brakes off a 52 Ford wagon, bought some speed equipment, a set of .125 over pistons and set about doing an engine swap and engine buildup pretty much at the same time. Well, not quite at the same time. We got the stock engine in the coupe ok, fired it up, ran it around the block a couple of times, drove it into the garage and pulled the engine. From there it went to the machine shop and the race was on. Literally.



None of us knew it, but Ryan hadn’t been sitting on his butt where his coupe was concerned. I don’t know how he even found it let alone how he could swing the bucks for it, but he came up with a 327 Chevy engine, the four speed trans out of a Corvette and a dual quad intake off a 56. Course, what we weren’t thinking about was that Ryan’s coupe had been off the streets for darned near a year. Geez, it took me longer than that to get the Olds stuff squared away before the swap even started. Even so, at least I was driving the coupe for most it. In the end, it was only off the street for a couple of months.

I was lucky that sister would let me use her ice blue 47 Chevy coupe on weekend nights for dates or just running around since she was usually with her boy friend. The other lucky part was the gas station I worked at was just up the road from the house, within easy walking distance and all that so no big deal there. Heck, I wasn’t bashful, I’d use my little brother’s 20" Schwinn to ride up there if he’d let me borrow it. He was a pretty good kid, willing to share and I did my part in taking him along with the big guys when I could. I think he was crazier about cars than I was.

Eventually I got the coupe running and the built Olds engine surprised more than a few guys. Who it surprised the most was me. It turned out to be a strong runner, a lot stronger than I’d thought it would be and I think I got a little crazy there for a while. I was taking on all comers and the few races I did lose weren’t by much.

I was learning too. Learning to set up a street race. Especially when some guys wanted to race for money. It wasn’t much, maybe ten or twenty bucks, nothing like the hundred dollar races we’d hear about now and then, but it wasn’t the money so much as it was winning the race.

We’d hear things about Ryan now and then. BS stories, rumors, some of it was just plain old wishful thinking and now and then, the occasional right on the money story. The best one we heard about him that summer was that he took off one weekend and went to San Fernando where his uncle Bob lived. Now uncle sounds like an old guy, but Ryan’s uncle was about five years older than Ryan and a pretty good guy. He treated Ryan like the little brother he never had and Ryan looked up to him like the big brother he never had. They had a small parting of the ways when Bob took him to the San Fernando dragstrip which was just down the street from his Glenoaks Blvd. house. Bob had a nice 58 Corvette and fancied himself a pretty good driver. I guess he was. Seemed he could hold his own against the other Corvettes in his class and he’d picked up one trophy and lusted after another. Bob knew that Ryan liked fast cars and during time trials he figured he’d give the kid a thrill and let him drive a really powerful car. Bob knew about Ryan’s coupe, but the engine build and swap was still going on so he figured that Ryan didn’t really have much experience running a fast car like his Corvette, but being a good guy he was willing to let the kid have a shot at it. Bob more or less told Ryan to give it hell and not over-rev the engine. I don’t know where he told him to shift it at, if in fact he even did, but once Ryan got behind the wheel all bets were off. The story went that Ryan launched the car hard and rowed the four speed so well that it sounded like a cotton-picking B&M hydro. He ended up with a time slip 2 mph faster than his uncle as well as having an ET almost half a second better.

Uncle Bob got kind of pissed off. Not that Ryan drove the Corvette hard, but that he’d been running the Corvette at the strip for most of the summer and here was Ryan beating his very best times in his first pass. Which turned out to be the last pass. That was the one and only time Ryan ever drove the car. Bob wouldn’t even let him drive it on the street after that. Funny part was - and we didn’t find this part out till later - Ryan had been driving more than a few four speed cars for some of the locals. They’d come to the realization that Ryan could really drive and if they had money on the line, far better for them to get out of the drivers seat and stick Ryan in. Ryan was starting to get a pretty good reputation, locally and other places.

So with Ryan getting some street racing experience as well as getting one pass in Bob’s Corvette, once he got his coupe running they were a fearsome combination. Maybe not as fearsome as we first thought though.

Sometimes in the street racing biz, you get involved in a little deal called a "setup." That being where somehow you convince the guy you’re gonna race that he has the way faster car and then let him seek you out. I had a little deal like that going on. Me and Skip were over in Fillmore one day and found ourselves entering Highway 126 headed west with a blue 63 Ford two door from Ventura right behind us. We recognized the car and we knew he was running one of the factory dual quad 427's. It was a tank of a car, but the 427 Fords were good runners and most times it was an iffy deal if I could beat them or not. I was pretty sure I could beat this one because the guy who owned it didn’t know how to keep it in a good state of tune and that meant he was giving away horsepower before the race even got started.


Sure enough, as soon as we got straightened out on the highway the guy nailed the big Ford and started to sweep around us. I rolled in the throttle on the coupe, but not all the way. Just enough to make it look good. Once he got just a little past us the throttle was opened all the way and it was easy to see that the big Ford wasn’t gaining any ground. Once I saw that I rolled the throttle off a bit, left just enough on to make it sound good and we watched the Ford slide on down the highway.

I knew it was coming.

Skip turned, looked at me and said, "What the hell was that all about?"

He knew the coupe could have pulled the big Ford and I asked him, "You know that guy, right?"

"Yeah."

"You know he likes to bet money, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, think about it a little bit. What do you think will happen next time we see him at the Frosty Shop or Merles?"

"Ok. Just bring money, right?"

"Right."

Now all we had to do was wait for an invitation to the dance so to speak. I didn’t think it would be long in coming. Probably the first time we saw him in town.

About a week later, we heard an interesting story about a blue 56 Chevy from Oxnard that rolled into town every once in a while. One of those cars the owner thinks is real fast, but the truth was it was just a stock four barrel V8 with pipes, three speed stick and that was about it. The owner, a pushy kind of guy kept egging Ryan on about a race. Finally Ryan said ok, asked if the guy wanted to bet, but the guy wanted to race just for fun. The really amazing part to all of it was the 56 Chevy just edged out Ryan’s coupe at the finish line. That one witnessed by more than a few. What made it real interesting for me was that the blue 427 powered Ford had beaten the 56 Chevy in a race a few weeks back so it looked to me like maybe Ryan’s coupe wasn’t as fast as we thought it was.

We’d been patiently waiting the rest of summer to run into the 427 Ford again, but we hadn’t seen him come into the Frosty Shop for a long time. Nobody knew why, but I was guessing maybe he broke something and the car was up on blocks. The 56 Chevy quit coming around as well. We heard he did a touch of over revving and let daylight into the engine. That was one car that was definitely up on blocks.

Like you’d imagine, a race between my coupe and Ryan’s coupe finally came to pass. I figured I could probably hold my own, but with Ryan’s lighter weight coupe and him running a four speed that he could really shift made it a potentially tough proposition. What tipped me into saying yes was hearing the little story about Ryan’s race with the 56 Chevy. The story told by a sorta disinterested third party of the female persuasion. All of which made it a non BS story and completely believable as far as I was concerned. Sometimes guys were full of it, but the girls were pretty straight shooters.

Early in September, on a more than hot Friday night, which was a little different from our usually temperate coastal climate we rolled into the Frosty Shop and saw Ryan’s coupe sitting near the back of the parking lot. About in the middle of the lot was Judy’s white 51 convert, top down and her sitting behind the wheel with Ryan in the passenger seat. It looked like they were enjoying one of the Frosty Shops great root beer floats and talking to each other. Judy looked up and saw us, turned to say something to Ryan, but he was already looking at us. I guess he’d heard us turning in off Main Street. The big cam in the Olds along with the big Drag-Fast collectors was pretty hard to disguise and most guys recognized something was up when they heard it.

I backed the coupe in next to Judy’s convert, shut down and Ryan & I sat there looking at each other. I was thinking about a street race and I don’t know what Ryan was thinking about.

He didn’t say anything for a bit and then he said, "Foothill Road?"

I nodded my head.

He said, "Twenty bucks sound ok?"

I nodded my head again.
He said, "Judy will hold the money for us."

Not a problem for me, Skip kicked in a ten spot, I pulled out a ten and handed both of them to Ryan. He gave the money to Judy, I fired the coupe and we pulled out headed for Foothill Road. Interesting part was, and maybe I should say the good part was, no one noticed what went on. Fine with me. No crowd needed or wanted.

I didn’t realize how dark it was until we got there. We pulled into the power station road, turned around, killed the lights, and pulled out just far enough to be able to see down Foothill.

The power station road was a winding twisting road that ran back into the hills where the power station was. At night the only traffic was a little bit in front of and after midnight when the guys working there changed shifts so we didn’t have anything to worry about from that angle.

It didn’t take long and we saw Ryan’s coupe coming up Foothill. There was a car a ways behind him though and we figured if it was a cop, Ryan would drive on by. From what we could see it looked like a cop when they got a few hundred yards out. I fired the coupe, rolled it back into the shadows, killed the engine and used the clutch like a brake so the stoplight’s wouldn’t give us away.

It shocked the heck out of me to see Ryan’s coupe turn into the power station road and come to a stop, lights still on. We didn’t know what was going on and I couldn’t believe Ryan would be that dumb. When the car went by I could see that it was some guy driving a black four door Ford just like the Ventura cops used.

Ryan smiled and said, "Did we scare ya?"

I just nodded my head.

Ryan said, "Let’s go from here. Where the row of eucalyptus trees start on the south side is right at a quarter mile. That’ll make it easy for you to go back and pick up Skip."

It sounded ok to me and maybe it was better than starting a quarter mile back toward the houses. If I’d been thinking I would have realized it didn’t make much difference anyway. The sounds from the cars carried for miles.
Skip got out, Ryan backed his coupe out, I pulled out and turned into the right lane, Ryan pulled up next to me on the left. Skip jogged up the road a hundred feet or so, stood on the dirt shoulder and flagged us off.

I was a fair start, I’d like to say it was an even up start, but Ryan got the jump. It was even up through low gear and once he hit second in the four speed he started pulling ahead. I hit second, heard the tires howl on the dry pavement and then heard Ryan hit third. He was slowly pulling away and there was no way I was going to catch him. I stayed with it anyway, just to see how I could do against Ryan’s coupe. I hit high, a couple seconds later Ryan hit 4th and we swept by the row of eucalyptus trees at well over a hundred. I started slowing and Ryan really started pulling away. I didn’t see brake lights and I didn’t hear the engine ease off much at all.

When I looked in the mirror I could see why. There were two sets of headlights coming down the road, side by side which was weird and for a while there I figured we were screwed. I was still running around 70 when we went around the first curve and Ryan must have been a couple hundred feet ahead. We wound down Foothill Road and when we hit Day Road, Ryan stayed on Foothill and I hung a left and went down the hill at Day. Probably an obvious one to any thinking cop, but I hung a right on Loma Vista at the bottom of the hill and cruised on down toward the Frosty Shop. I was busy thinking up excuses I could use if I got stopped. I was hoping too that if anybody was looking for me they’d be on Telegraph Road which was the next road south on Day and the main thoroughfare in that part of town.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was gonna do about Skip. Getting abandoned was one of the chances you took when you were the starter. One thing I did know, I wasn’t going back out there in the coupe just in case they were looking for me.

I rolled into the Frosty shop, but no Ryan. Judy was still there in her convert and she waved me over. I parked, walked up to her car and a good looking girl I’d never seen before was sitting in the passenger seat smiling at me.

Judy smiled and held out twenty bucks.

I said, "I don’t get it. Ryan won the race."

"I know. At least I thought he would."

"How come you’re giving me money then?"

"Ryan heard about your little race with the blue Ford over in Fillmore."

"Ok, but what does that have to do with this?"

"The Ford owner talks a lot, right?"

"Right."

"Ryan started thinking about it and figured you were setting him up for a fall."

"Sorta like the race Ryan was in with the 56 Chevy?"

"Yes. That was for your benefit. He figured the story would get back to you, you’d put two and two together and decide that beating his coupe would be easy."

I didn’t know quite what to think.

She said, "So the setter uppers got set up. Right?"

"Right."

"Mad?"

"No. Learned a lesson though."

"Ryan said you were a good sport."

"I guess so. Where is Ryan?"
"He said he was taking the coupe home and parking it for a while. He thinks it’s getting a little bit too famous."

"That makes sense. I better lay low for a while too. Probably dumb for me to be sitting here in the Frosty Shop after getting chased by a couple of cop cars."

"What happened? And where’s your friend Skip?"

"Right after we hit the finish line the headlights from a couple of cars popped on right behind us so we ran for home. Skip’s still out there."

"Well, come on. We’ll go out and pick him up. A couple of plain old girls in a regular car shouldn’t attract too much attention."

"I wouldn’t exactly call you two plain old girls."

"I’ll take that as a compliment."

"It is."

"Get in. You can ride up front with my sis and me."

"Sister? I didn’t know you had a sister."

"Yep. Meet Linda. She’s from Texas."

"Your sister is from Texas? And you’ve been a Ventura girl since grade school?"

"Yes and it’s a long story. Linda probably wouldn’t mind telling you though. Provided you have some time."

"Lots of time. How about tomorrow night?"
"Fine with me, but you really need to ask Linda."

I looked over at Linda, she smiled and nodded yes.

It was pretty nice riding along in Judy’s convert, stealing glances at Linda and watching her short blonde hair fluttering in the wind. Kinda nice too when she turned and smiled at me about half way there.

We found Skip, walking nonchalantly down the road headed for Ventura. He wasn’t worried he said. He figured somebody would be out to get him and if he had to walk home it wouldn’t have been the first time.

The real interesting part was when Skip told us the two cars we’d seen at the end of the race weren’t cop cars. They were a pair of 55 Chevy’s from Santa Paula having a little race of their own. The power station road was about half way between Ventura and Santa Paula and got used by guys from both towns.

All in all, an interesting evening and it was a great race, even though I lost. If lost is even the right word. When you get right down to it, I set myself up for a fall.

Sometimes though, you don’t always lose when you lose.

After meeting Linda, I never really thought about that race too much.

Always wondered where Ryan got off to though. He disappeared into the mists of time and I never saw him again.

Somewhere along the line, Linda got married and went back to Texas.

I got married and stayed in California.

I still talk to the beautiful Judy from time to time.
They say the only constant in life is change, but sometimes some things never change. Whether or not Judy is an empath, I don’t know for sure, but she never fails to amaze me.

Like always I’m polite, respectful and try not to be a total idiot around her.

Thing I don’t understand is how can one girl outnumber four guys?

And what I really don’t understand is how she knows what I’m going to say before I say it.

One of life’s little mysteries I guess.

Cue up the music from The Twilight Zone right here....

C9

 

Jay, do I sense another book in the works??

 

who's gonna read all that?

 

The HAMB is full of smart guys and gals.

Along with that, most of them are readers.

Perhaps you're in the wrong thread....

 

Yeah.

Still doing the rewrite.

Summer was a bit distracting with all the hot rod stuff going on around here.

Now that it's chilled down a bit, 17 degrees F. for the minimum a few nights back - which means the garage gets below freezing - so I usually wait for the afternoons to hit the garage.

I know, 17 degrees F. just means Canadians gotta pack the surfboard away and drag out their skates & bicycles....

Anyway, looks like a little more time will be spent indoors here.

That's good and bad....

 

I'm a smart guy, and read quite well... you are right, I'm on the wrong thread.

 

Great read. I enjoyed it.

 

I enjoyed the read as well, as always. Thanks!

 

Great read hope there is more.

 

One of the first threads I remember reading on the Hamb was the Red Roadster. I always enjoy spending a few minutes, or hours reading what you write. Thank you.

 

Thanks that was a great read Jay! I wish I could remember all the crazy shit we used to do. But it was the seventies and we were all in a fog

 

I hear you about the semi-fictional aspect. Knowing all the roads and intersections made it even more fun to read.

 

I drive to work up foothill everyday and turn right at Wells, now I have something new to think about when I see the powerstation. Thanks Jay!

 

That Ryan guys sounds like a Froot Loop...

 

Today's word is erudite...look it up in the dictionary. There you will find C9's picture. Good job of capturing the way it was. Here, on the east coast, we didn't have organge groves and balmy weather always, but the feel in that you capture so well was about the same. Ahh, the good old days.

 

Another excellent read Jay. Thank you so much for posting it.

I just loaned "Pinky" to a pal to read and I told him he could borrow "Doofus and Whiney" (which I printed) when he's done.

Happy Holidays to you and your lovely wife.

 

Now I know why something inside me makes me hammer down between Santa Paula and my house, it's tradition!

thanks , great story

 

killer tale man...i saw this earlier but didn't have time to read it but i just got home and sat right down to pour over it. i love your style, and of course the subject matter. for about 5 minutes there i was in the 50's

 

Really cool story I enjoyed reading every part of it...

 

This was posted back in 2006, but I just happened upon it. I really enjoyed the story, and I figured that others who may have missed it might enjoy it as well. Bringing it back to the top for that reason.

 

Jay was a helpful fella. A good guide when you needed one!

 

Thanks for bringing it back up, or I would have never been it. Loved the writing style, very smooth, almost non stop.

 

Thanks for bumping this to the top! Miss seeing him post

 

RIP Jay.

Jan

 

Hmmm...That story sounded like our own R-J drive in back in Santa Clara, 1963...
only the 'round body coupe' would have been my Chrysler hemi-fired '46 Coupe, and the '56 Chevy would be Al Driscoll's '62 Plymouth 413 long-ram, the gorgeous girl friend was 'Terry', the waitress...
A warp in time, no doubt.
Oh, the races were on Coffin Rd. (shudder) and we left R-J singly. Not even in 'twos'.
Elwood P. Fuzz was crouched, watching the teens. 'Police business'.

 

Thank youRIP Jay.

 

Just read this, good reading and a lot like old times here in GA.

 

Damned fine read.

Sorry to hear of his passing, seems he touched many HAMBers along the way.

 

I've been on the HAMB for a few years. A good story pops up now and then, this one reads like an autobiography. A very intersting, well written, biography. Wish I could read more of his work. Bill

 

I really miss Jay. I've always enjoyed reading his stories. Makes you feel good and nostalgic for the stories you've lived in your own life.
A good writer like Jay brought his stories to life and made me feel like I could have done those things and fit into that life easily.

It would be great if we could have a dedicated thread that was a sticky thread that stayed at the top and contained all the stories that Jay wrote and posted on the Hamb ... hint to @Ryan

That would be a great tribute to a fine hot rodder and gentleman, historian.