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There once was a newspaper
called Drag News...
Courtesy of:
Hawaii Motorbeat Monthly
By
Paul Maddox
It was 1966. I was working as a parts
guy at Don Hartunian's Hollywood Ford, just down the street from
Petersen Publishing company’s grand offices. I had visions of
cartooning for Hot Rod, their premier publication, but they already
had the wildly popular Pete Millar.
Further down Hollywood Boulevard was
an original California hot rod shop ~ Ford Parts Obsolete ~
specializing in flatties. They carried a weekly racing tabloid
newspaper called Drag News - which I’d never heard of until my
recent move from Hawai‘i to LA. I picked it up to read about all the
drag strips never mentioned the NHRA-only Hot Rod magazine. San
Fernando in the Valley, Fontana, Carlsbad and strip called “Lions”
in Wilmington down next to Long Beach.
One fateful day the shop owner said to
me. "You’re an artist, yeah? Doris said she needs a paste-up artist,
you should give her a call."
He was speaking of Doris Herbert,
sister of cam grinder Chet Herbert who had started Drag News in
1955. I swallowed hard and set up an appointment for the next day. I
had no idea what a paste-up artist did.
Thankfully, we just exchanged
pleasantries for a few minutes the following afternoon and she
turned me over to her Production Manager to finish my interview.
"You don’t have clue what paste-up is,
do you?" he observed after just a couple of minutes of hearing me
babble on about how this would just be a dream job, and I would
really work hard and I didn’t mind working late and...
I confessed. He took me under his wing
and taught me how to produce ads with my crude ‘toons and even
create a newspaper ~ which would come in handy a couple years later
when I returned home to start "Hawaii Raceway News" for Jimmy
Pflueger.
Every week I did ads for Lions, the
new Irwindale track, the now famous "Cam Wars", the fledgling engine
builders and parts makers. The hot rod ‘industry’ was being born and
a bunch of the pioneers soon created a group called SEMA -Speed
Equipment Manufacturers Association - later changed to the more PC
"Specialty" EMA. One of the new young safety equipment guys made us
a DRAG NEWS drag ‘chute for our company mini bike ~ of the first to
have custom lettering. Bill Simpson went on to do well with those
new ‘Cross-Form’ parachutes and his improved firesuits.
All the big names came through the
doors with their latest press kits ~ hoping to get that cover shot
and more 'ink' in "The Drag Racer's Bible". One of the weekly
regulars was Tom McEwen, who was cooking up a 'rivalry' with another
lanky top fuel driver nicknamed 'Snake'. The cartoons I did for
their battles at Lions helped fuel their all-hype fire.
And it was the time of 'Run-Whatcha-Brung'
drag racing innovation. The Factory Experimental cars were evolving
weekly at Lions and Irwindale. Most were still 'stock-bodied' cars,
although they were all starting to kinda look funny as the engines
got bigger, farther back and huffed with alky and nitro.
1966 was a very good year to be in LA
if you loved drag racing... and even better if you had a Press Pass
from Drag News on a Saturday night.
Aloha ~ PM
Hawaii Motorbeat Monthly
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More from Paul Maddox at:
www.hawaiimotorbeat.com
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