We have an obligation to our hot rodding forefathers...

To get history right.

And then after the guys who pioneered hot rodding and drag racing are dead... we REALLY got to get it right.

I don't want to start a shit storm... or get this thread locked... but I gotta warn you... in the past, the mere mention of where I read this editorial would NORMALLY get a thread locked.

But I have faith that you guys can have an intellectually stimulating discussion on the subject of hot rodding history. Please, guys... no, really... lets educate, not humiliate.

So, I'm at Wamart and I pick up the latest Issue of Ol' Skool Rodz. (Please note, this is the first time that I have typed the title as it really is supposed to be typed)

I skim the mag, check out the pictures, and then read the "burnin' rubber With Jimmy Carbone" column.

It's a fiction piece...

Now, I won't even get into saying how good or bad it was... how easy to read... or not, it was... nor will I make any smart-ass'd comments about the writer, or not.

To do so would drag this thread to the depths of "Locked-dome"... and make it sink to page 11 faster than Eddie Hill through the quarter mile back in 1988.

Instead I'm going to shed some light on just one simple flaw.

A flaw that is DANGEROUS to our HISTORY, boys and girls.

The writer, Jimmy, sets the stage for this (fiction) story and states "Nothing like racing late at night on a deserted city street for the pink slip of your car"

Sure street racing is reckless and dangerous... but I'm no prude, nor does the mere mention of street racing get me heated (on the contrary).

Lets roll on.

Now, even before that, in the opening paragraph, no less... he introduces a character named "Wally".

A few paragraphs later, in becomes painfully clear which "Wally" he is referring to... yea, Wally Parks"

He says "Anybody who is anybody knows about Wally Parks. This guy started the NHRA. He was racing like this when racing began. Hell, he started it."


Is it me? Or is Wally Parks rolling over in his grave because someone, in print, is associating him with racing on the street?

Oh yea, he associates him alright.

The story goes on with Jimmy telling about how Wally gave him pointers on how to win the race, and the girl... and how Wally prevents Jimmy from loosing his cool and clocking his apponent over the head after his street racing apponent refuses to give his pink slip to Jimmy, (when Jimmy won the street race).

Granted, it's fiction. But jee-whiskers... Wally, street racing?

No.

If YOU know your history... you'll agree that this is bad, very bad.

So how do we go about educating?


Sam.

 

Why, were they out of toilet paper?

 

That "magazine" is'nt very well regarded round these parts.
I got one (I'll never admit to buying it) and could'nt get through the whole thing.

 

I have in my mind stories my Dad told me about street racing. About 1961 he had a 1949 ford coupe with a 283 power pack engine he put a corvette 2x4 setup on and a solid lifter camshaft. He drove the car back and forth to a night school mechanic coarse 60 miles from home. He dusted a cadilac one night on the highway and stopped at the local hangout on the way home where the caddy sat. The guy was telling a story about how this old ford with a hemi just blew his doors off. Dad just told him he was beat by a little 283 and he shut right up.
All the times I screwed around and got in trouble I found out later he was doing the same stuff. Never know about Wally. He may have been the guy to beat at one time. Never know.
Jeff

 

Scandalous, disreputable, libelous slander. Did I mention that those despicable shitheads suck?

 

First off, you said it was FICTION. In fiction, anything goes. The writer could have had the cars fly. Second, you say the character named Wally is supposed to be based on a real person, Wally Parks. That is your opinion, not fact. Regardless of how many references made to the real person, it's still the writers FICTIONAL character. Thrid, consider the source. There are ways to fight crappy magazines and that way is to simply ignore them. Kinda like dog shit. You don't have to pick it up and smell it to know what it is. Step over it and keep going to the garage to work on your period correct car.

It's a fictional story in a bullshit rag. Ignore it and eventually, it will go away. As hard as they are to avoid, don't be one of the people crowded around those train wreck cars they promote or influence at a show. Laugh and walk away. When someone post a pic of a crowd around that crap, you can't tell they are laughing or not, but it still looks like a nice crowd. STOP feeding the shit, man! Just like the scene of a bad accident, keep the traffic flowing by NOT stopping to look!

 

I'm always aware of what joe schmo in front of his tv or reading a magazine might "know" because it was presented to his unknowing mind as fact...but the simple fact is we have no control of the media, and we just have to deal with the aftermath of misinformation and educate folks as good as we can when we can.

 

Wow.. I've never heard/read that.. now I'll never forget it (did you or Wally say that or is it an old quote)

Well my brother brought up the same issue in our last update of our site.. He came to realize that if we write something people are going to remember it. I think it's time for me to sign up for an english class or two.

-Juan

 

The way I figure it...9/10ths of the readers of magazines like that one take it all in as simple "entertainment"...myself included. I laugh at half the cars I see in there and I get angry about how badly hacked many of them are. In a lot of cases I feel that the rods built were nothing but a complete waste of suitable tin for a nicer ride.

It's that 10th of the readers that come away thinking that this is the way things should be done and the information presented is "fact". Those ten percent probably are responsible for ruining a lot of decent cars, parts, etc...most of which never even comes close to making it onto the road. They are also the ten percent that would go around spouting "facts" they learned from some writer's fictional tale.

There are some nice rods featured in that magazine...and some worthwhile articles too. You just can't expect that you'll like or agree with 100% of its content. If you do, there is probably something seriously wrong with your brain. Just my opinion...for whatever it might be worth.

 

Terry Baldwin put me on to this story about Wally's first hand account of early racing on the street http://www.dragracingonline.com/firsttime/ii_4.html

btw this is the car

:edit: found another pic

 

Thats beautifull...

I love that quote.


I think that should include ( at least it does to me ) trying to be accutate about Historical Facts.

Who owns a significant car is important, but ( no disrespect to Wally Parks ) worse things seem to fall through the cracks.

I've seen ( in print, in a major Rodding Magazine ) the wrong person credited for building a significant Car.
And Clones of significant cars named as the real deal.

But I guess you have to start somewhere....

 

"Write to teach, not to sound good..."

That is one of the more profound things that I have read in a long time.
It is very important to get things such as the history of a car right and to correct errors before they are treated as fact. Many times errors have ended up not being corrected for decades and I am sure in some cases still haven't been.
I will use 2 examples to illustrate this.
Without going into too much detail one of the financial backers of the original Bentley Company and a accomplished racing driver accepted a bet that he could not beat a very famous train (The Blue Train) from Nice back to London.......he won.
Many years later the famous transportation artist Cuneo did a painting showing a Bentley Fastback racing a train. This particular car was owned by the same driver who had raced the train and it became known as the Blue Train Bentley and because of this story became one of the more historic hence valuable Bentleys.
In recent years a good friend of mine Eion Young one of the great motor racing writers of all time was doing a article on the artist and his research started showing anomalys in this story and subsequent research eventually turned up the inconvieniant fact that the so called Blue Train car wasn't built until some time after the race occurred and that a totally differant car was involved. However despite the correct car being identified and incedentley being purchased by the current owner of the other car, so he has both, the old legend persists.
Case 2 involves a book published here in New Zealand some years ago supposedly being the diffinitive history of cars having raced here. The whole book is full of major errors but over time people have started treating it as the bible and I have seen cars advertised quoting this book to authenticate history for the car for sale. In reality a mention in this book proves nothing and could seriously mislead.
These are but 2 cases of history being distorted by a error so it is important to get it right and not let errors slip by.

 

Jimmy B-Thanks for sharing story/pics. The saying "The older I am the better I was" comes to mind. It is very difficult to keep History straight on most anything. We all alter the true story in one fashion or another. As long as we keep the true spirit alive of what people like Wally Parks stood for will keep us on the right path. Enjoy today while you can, and don't sweat the small stuff.

 

im not real sure how the rat rod scene works in yalls part of the country maybe its the same everywhere but around here the kids are trading in their mini trucks for rat rods its not because of any one thing and the mechanics of it dont seem to have any part of it either its the cool factor and it appears to me the more raunchy rancid and dangerrous the better , now just yesterday i cant remember if it was in the intro section or a regular post but a teacher was asking for some imfo on a rat rod prodject he was working on with his students IF it was at all possible we should try and get this guy in this or any conversation and perhaps develope some kind of dialog .. if we need to start somewhere it would be with a teacher .. my 2cents i could be wrong..

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Ok, just bought a 1949 chevy truck..Going to use it for a school hot rod project..My class will be doing most of the the work...after all I am the teacher...so what I say goes...we are going to put it on a early 90s short bed S10 frame...already read the how to...and putting a corvette LT1 with a 4sp auto in it..any advice on rear ends and radiators would be great!..Thank you

 

If they want a decent fiction writer they should hire C9 as I believe Roger already has a gig.

 

al gore writes for old stool?!?!?!

 

Ahhh I hang my head man another nail in the HAMB coffin
See sig!
FRITZ

 

Like most history or historic figures, Wally and hotrodding are doomed to be misrepresented, misunderstood, and perceptions of them possibly even changed by people who write. Take the business of the Kennedy assassination and all of the things that have filtered into public perception.

The "write to teach..." is timely and profound. Very good advice for responsible writers. Sadly, we will always have ideas presented publicly that may distort the truth, or, even distort historical fact.

When an insult to righteous sensibilities are challenged, I would think that we "read to learn." Some of the most interesting Kennedy assassination stories came from the National Enquirer... they were still crap. The HAMB is where the gospel is preached if anyone wants to know about traditional hotrodding, not Ol' Skool Rodz.

You can find historical error even here on the HAMB, but there are many wary viewers here to correct those errors.

himmeberg

 

So... SAM's original question was "How do we go about educating?". Here's my (oversimplified?) take.

1. Leverage the HAMB's substantial capabilities as a hot rodding reference library to determine exactly what constitutes an 'accurate' history of our hobby and those who helped develop it. I'm not aware of a singular entity that has instantaneous access to the vast collective knowlege on these subjects as does the HAMB. Just pick a subject, and the data comes rolling in... powerful stuff, if it can be focused appropriately.

2. Consolidate the collective knowledge on the given historical subject into a digestible format. As opposed to requiring readers to simply read thru a given thread, with its numerous responses, rebuttals, opinions, etc..., significant topics may warrant a post-discussion summation into article format.Think 'Wikipedia', wherein a given entry is actively edited until the information is complete and accurate to the satisfaction of those contributing to it.

3. Leverage the HAMB's significant abilities as an information-sharing medium to disseminate the now-accurate representation of the historical topic at hand. Ryan's Jalopy Journal posts are an excellent step in this direction, and perhaps certain topics can be deemed sufficiently important as to warrant a JalopyJournal.com article under a special heading or folder, such as 'Hot Rodding's Roots', or similar... one-stop shopping for the 'real' story on a given subject.

SAM's really on to something here. If HAMBers feel the need to set the record straight on specific topics, we owe it to the future of hot rodding to not only compile the accurate history, but to make it easily available to those who seek it.

Food for thought.

 

The only way to reach a broad enough audience to be a truly effective teacher is to sound good...

The article Sam mentioned sounds ok to me... I know Wally did everything he could to improve the image of our hobby, but I think it would be naive to think he never engaged in exhibitions of speed on the street given his interests and the time period he lived.

I think Artistic License is an extremely important thing, deserving of as much protection as possible. Hopefully the fiction draws someone into the sport with a yearning to sus-out the facts.

The problem is that society seems to have completely lost their moral compass which seems to have the side effect of being unable to differentiate between fact and fiction, along with a complete lack of a sense of humor...
People believe everything they read as long as it's sensational...

How do you drive the facts home to an audience like that? I don't know... Ultimately, I don't think you can. You have to hope the right audience will find the facts on their own.
OSR is probably not the right audience...

If you have the desire to take on the responsibility of maintaining the history of our hobby, your job is first and foremost to record that history. Projecting that history might be largely ineffective.

You have to have faith that eventually passionate people will seek out that history...

Like we did.

 

I heard lots of the story from my old man and his buddies street racing back in the day. It was not for pinks, money or the girl. It was always about the car. Who could tune better, shift faster and have the guts to do it and how to out run the cops.... I loved those stories, then he would slap me upside the head, look me in the eye and tell me what happens if I get caught street racing. Not only does my insurance skyrocket, I loose my license, and thats only what the law will do.... I did do my share of racing on the down low out on some dark country roads but never through town and it was always about the car...

Dakota Kid

 

I looked up Hot Rod Safety in the dictionary and Mr. Parks photo was there......"we will watch your back Wally"......RIP

 

The dumbing down of America has been going on for decade's. You can only teach the willing. You have to 'sift' through the crap every where, yes here as well. You know 'show me your'................. The ultimate monthly car magazine does not exist-yet-but, Garage combined w/ The Rodder's Journal would come dang close. Till then, sift!

 

I......have a knack for finding fault with anything and anyone and in my zest for comentary (I know all and I know best). When I was on some rant about a certian croud a simple statement was said to me that has allowed me to view all this with somewhat an open mind. "I like cars". So if you promote cars in anyway, I owe you some credit. It is, after all, the only reason I come to this site.

 

I have never written anything that sounded good, so I'm safe. Hopefully something I have written has taught at least one person. If nothing else, how NOT to write!

Spike

 

when my shops done,,i will teach what my dad and uncle taught me.....SAFTEY FIRST! everything else comes later!
and i do buy osr now and again! just for show photos... i know its a silly reason to buy it, but if i get one neat idea out of one mag, its worth 5 buks....well, and the fact that shoe was in the last one i bought, well, he is just so damn dreamy....

 

Any time a work of fiction includes historical figures in roles other than what is historicly correct people get bent. It has always been that way, probably always will.

Case in point. "Last Temptaion of Christ", Christ in a work of fiction, balsphemy!

Not really, it was fiction. I watched it, and came away with the opinion that while it was an interesting story, it didn't shake my faith.

I feel the same way about the story with the "Wally Parks Character". That the truth and history will uphold his legacy.

The story Wally wrote with his life and passion will last long after any article in any magazine past or present.

Sorry for the religious reference but it was just to make a point.

GV