Ron, thank you for another great article and amazing colour photos. A little side note I recently found out Wally Parks cohort in the Pacific was Chuck Spurgin, Chuck and Wally were stationed on the same island of Bougainville but a few miles apart. When they found out they were on the same island they got together and souped up a jeep and proceeded to race it.
To blend a couple of Mr. Kelloggs stories. As stated, Veda Orr continued to put out the SCTA Racing News during WWII. Mostly trying to keep members apprised of the branch and theatre of other members. According to my Dad who was a member of the Hornets, an S.C.T.A. club from Redlands, CA the Racing News would catch up to him at various places when he was in pilot training. It seems that at some time in 43, or 44 Veda and some of the other S.C.T.A. ladies, and I assume some of the few guys that were not in military service put on a lakes meet at El Mirage. I am only assuming that the location was El Mirage because Harper, Rosamond and Muroc were being used by the Army Air Corps soon after Pearl Harbor. You need to put this event into perspective as at that time gasoline was rationed with common citizens getting very little for pleasure use. Having enough fuel to race cars would be the easy part, getting the considerable distance to the lake and back would be nearly impossible. According to noted auto historian Michael Lynch it was Tommy Lee, presumably through his Cad dealership that provided the gas ration stamps necessary to get this done.
I'm from 1947 and I'm in color................Thanks man those are priceless and rare....color photos from that era usually go away or are barely visible...the color layers were very unstable.....
There's something about the color quality of old pictures that really hits me. I wonder how many will wind up as desktop pictures? One for sure! Thanks for the neat pix.
Forgot to ask.... but is there any info on who shot these images? Are they just anonymous from the archive?
Damn sweet! I took the liberty of running them all through Photoshop and do a quick and dirty 'Auto-Levels' on them to bring up the colors a bit.
Thank you for the question, when I purchased the Dean Batchelor estate back in the 90's, there was one file that did not list who took the photos and listed as to add to Deans update of his hot rod book, but that was not to be. So very sorry I can not give credit to who shot these photos, Just as I have great photos in color from 1948 by may dear friend Lynn Yakel from 1948 at the lakes and living in Montebello, he was my best friend as we both owned 300SL's Gullwings and I lost my buddy a couple of years ago, and he sent me all his images, and I cherish them so. And I will always honor the person who took the photos if that information is known. Thanks for the question. Ron Kellogg
The Jalopy Journal
