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    Hot Rodding in Ventura County
    Hot Rodding in Ventura County
    Hot Rodding in Ventura County
    Ebook179 pages54 minutes

    Hot Rodding in Ventura County

    By Tony Baker

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    About this ebook

    Stretching from Ventura to Santa Maria, California, a vibrant and colorful community of hot rod clubs bloomed throughout the middle of the 20th century. Hot Rodding in Ventura County takes a look at the people, places, and, above all, the cars that made up this historic period in automotive culture. Take a look into the golden years of hot rodding through vintage images of the first national championship drag races; visit long-lost drag strips such as Goleta, Saugus, and Santa Maria; and gain access to hot rodding s paramount clubs like the Motor Monarchs, the Kustomeers, and the Pharaohs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMay 13, 2013
    ISBN9781439643327
    Hot Rodding in Ventura County
    Author

    Tony Baker

    The photographs used in this pictorial history are part of an archive of early California transportation and industrial imagery being put together by Tony Baker. Baker is an amateur historian, researcher, and archivist living in Ventura, California. The author of Hot Rodding in Ventura County, Baker has had many photographs from his collection published in national magazines. He works as a technician in research and development for a high-technology manufacturing company.

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      Book preview

      Hot Rodding in Ventura County - Tony Baker

      it.

      INTRODUCTION

      Motor sports have been a part of Ventura County since the early 20th century. As early as 1903, the local newspaper complained of red devils speeding through the streets of Ventura in their horseless carriages. Famous racecar driver Barney Oldfield raced an airplane on the beach at Ventura in 1915. Hill-climb races took place up the Dunshee Grade on the Rincon in the early 1920s. The first car club in Ventura, the Slug Slingers, was founded by Ambrose Amby Little and a group of Ventura High School students around 1937 and was sanctioned by the Southern California Timing Association in 1938. Around that time, El Mirage Dry Lake, four hours east of Ventura, became popular among car clubs throughout Southern California as the place to race. The dry lakebed’s large flat surface and isolated location made it an ideal place to open up the throttle and see how fast a car could go. Members of the Slug Slingers were there during the early days, racing with such pioneers as Eddie Crager, Vic Edelbrock, and Bob Rufi.

      World War II put a temporary end to the Southern California racing scene, as the young men of the car clubs went to fight for their country. Many who returned brought back with them mechanical skills acquired in the service. And there was a new generation of enthusiasts on the scene, raising things to a new level. Hot rodding was ready for a big comeback.

      Ventura County in the late 1940s was a good place to start. It offered open roads, cheap fuel, and a large group of kids who, besides being car crazy, had the benefit of vocational training provided by California’s excellent school system. Detroit was finally producing new cars, and this put a lot of cheap used cars, especially Ford Model As, on the market. There were also a lot of well-trained mechanics and machinists servicing the oil fields who spent their leisure time building cars. Then there was the intersection of Main Street and Ventura Avenue. This was the home to used-car lots, parts stores, upholstery shops, auto-body shops, and other automotive-related businesses. A few blocks west on Meta Street was the home of one of Ventura’s first and best-known postwar car clubs, Motor Monarchs. North on Ventura Avenue lived members of an earlier club, the Whistlers, who would build a car that set a speed record at Bonneville.

      As the 1940s turned into the 1950s, the car club scene in Ventura County continued to grow. The Motor Monarchs and the Whistlers were soon joined by clubs with names like the Kustomeers, the Gents, the Coachmen, and the Pharaohs. This was also when a new sport in California, drag racing, was beginning to take root. The objective was to compete with another car for the best time from a standing stop along a quarter-mile course, basically a long strip of pavement. The first drag meet was held at Goleta, and soon other drag strips were starting up in the area. The Motor Monarchs and the Whistlers, as well as many of the later clubs, were active and successful participants in this scene. The Monarchs were the dominant force.

      Led by the Martinez brothers and operating from a small garage behind a tortilla factory, this club would become famous, appearing on the cover of Hot Rod magazine and many others during the era. The first club to approach drag racing in a professional manner, the Monarchs were also known for the superb appearance of their cars. They won countless races at famous early strips like Santa Maria and Saugus, and would go on to successful runs at the first two National Drag Racing Championships, in Great Bend, Kansas, in 1955 and Kansas City, Missouri, in 1956.

      One aspect of this period was that most of the car clubs in Ventura were considered good guy clubs, in that they tried to counter contemporary media depictions of hot rodders as juvenile delinquents. Local clubs engaged in community services, such as food drives and other acts of charity, and stressed courtesy and safety on the road. Their relations with law enforcement were generally good as well. Many clubs had one or two police officers as members, and a few clubs were informally sponsored by local police departments. Except for the occasional late-night street race, the clubs were a generally law-abiding group. Many car club members went on to become successful businessmen and prominent community leaders.

      A rather ironic aspect was that, for all the contributions that Ventura hot rodders made to drag racing, no drag strips were actually located in the county. When the Motor Monarchs started, most of the drag racing in the Ventura area was done on Pierpont Boulevard or on the road to the old city dump. As things got more organized, the Monarchs, with other clubs, tried to get permission from the City of Ventura to hold races on the seldom-used road. Over a period of two and a half years, the club went through the legal channels required to get the permits and made an effort to gain public support. All that came to an end in 1954. One day, while cleaning up the area, several club members were burning weeds by the roadside. The smoke got heavy, and although the Monarchs blocked the road for safety, a citizen decided to proceed anyway. A minor traffic accident ensued, and even though no one was hurt, the damage was done. The following week, the Ventura

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