Art & Inspiration Traditional images that need no explanation.

Not watching. Providing adequate supervision so our tax dollars aren't misspent.

 

My comment actually comes from a conversation I had years ago with a friend I went to school with:
I was driving down the street one hot, sunny day when I saw him sitting in his county road supervisor pick up on the side of the road. I hadn't seen him in a while so I stopped to say "Hi". As I approached his truck, I noted that the windows were up, engine running, air conditioning on, so I thought I should do my duty as a taxpayer and tell him to turn off the engine and roll down the window, just as us poor schmucks that paid his salary had to do. As we were bantering back and forth, his pager went off (before the cell phone days), and he says:
"I've gotta go... one of my crews has an emergency."
When I asked him how the hell a maintenance crew could have an emergency, he said:
"It happens all the time. I got an emergency call this morning from one of my crews telling me they forgot their shovels when they left the shop this morning. I told them to lean on each other until I could deliver the shovels."
Your tax dollars at work!

 

QUOTE="Speed Gems, post: 14628511, member: 191851"] View attachment 5526351 [/QUOTE]





Hello,

Fiat Altered Coupes were one of the most popular lightweight bodies for this particular use. A shortened chassis, modified motors from Hemi’s with injection to SBC 671 supercharged were popular versions. Then as the lightweight body became more popular, the Competition Coupe Class started seeing those builds come into play. The driver behind the axle gave the coupe a look like, dragsters with an addition, put on for competition. The difference being Fiat Coupe Altereds had the driver in front and the motor being a 25% set back.
Dunn, Merrit, Velasco, Reath Automotive

“This is the Dunn-Merritt-Velasco Fiat that I ran with Henry Velasco and Dewey Merritt. I built the chassis myself; everything is homemade on this car. It had a 5/8-stroker small-block Chevy, supercharged on gas, and won [class] at the Winternationals in ’63 and ’64 and was runner-up at the ’63 Winternationals." … Jim Dunn

from a different post:

Most everyone in drag racing knows Jim Dunn. One of his early drag racing cars was the Dunn-Merrit-Velasco Fiat Altered, from Reath Automotive in Long Beach. This was not the only Fiat Altered from the throes of Reath Automotive influence. From 1959 to 67, there was a squadron of Fiat Altered Coupes from that section of So Cal. This was one of them.

If the Fiat Coupes were all lined up at the drags, they would have looked like toys. It is too bad that no one took a group photo of all those Reath Automotive sponsored Altered Coupes from that time era. It was a who’s who of early Altered Coupe/Sedan racing prior to being lumped into a single category vs. The Altered/Modified/Hot Roadsters.
or another version...
Jnaki

Then the end came almost as fast, as they were lumped in class competition with others variations and the popularity fell, as the newer attractions, Fuel Dragsters/Funny Cars took over.

Who can list and post the photos of all of the Reath Automotive sponsored Fiat Altered Coupes from 1959 to the end in So Cal?

 

Moomjeam also had a 1932 Ford roadster, and a Buick nail head powered "T" bucket that was driving around the Turlock swap meet several years ago,

 

Need to make this one bigger.

 

Out here in sunny California it’s called The Cal Trans ratio. 1 working to 5 watching. 1 worker, 1 trainee worker, 1 supervisor, 1 assistant supervisor (to drive the supervisor around), 1 OSHA inspector, and of course, 1 state auditor. Quite often there are traffic control technicians at each end of the worksite as well.