tv guide

it was a gorgeous day here today; sunny; warm; no wind; dead calm on the water!

the best day of summer!

ron and i met the daughter of one of our accounts from our days in the old country. we took her to lunch in carmel and i ran her around the peninsula being a tour guide.

lindsey, who has now been christened chanequa (pron. shu-nee-kwa), seemed to enjoy being on the pacific coast as opposed to the shores of lake michigan. can you blame her? she’s hoping to find a job in radio or a record label on the west cost; preferably in san francisco. can you blame her?

how chanequa, got her name is a very long story. but, when you hang around me and ron and/or the secret obelisk society, you will inevitably get a nickname. one day i will write about nicknames.

she’s now in san jose and will be on her way to sfo in a day or two.

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i was poking around youtube last night and found some lsr-related videos that i want to share.

in 1996 my parents, john sprenger, kit catterlin and i were on the black rock desert to, hopefully, witness craig breedlove, once again, break the land speed record. back in the 60s, craig was the first person to set average speeds of over 400, 500 and 600 mph. he was hoping to be the first person to set an average speed of over 700 mph.

contrary to what you may have heard: the budweiser rocket car, driven by stan barrett, did not set a record and may not have even broken the speed of sound as alleged. we will never know for sure as the owner of the car (hal needham, a professional stuntman, which tells the story right there) did not want to run the car according to fia rules. so, what it amounted to was a stunt and not a record attempt. i’m sure the car reached a speed of 700 mph, but it was not an average speed and it was a terminal velocity speed not recorded over a “flying mile” like every other land speed record. their terminal velocity was supposed to be around 730 mph, which is not fast enough for them to have gone faster than the speed of sound at the elevation of muroc (now known as rogers) dry lake. they have been crying over not being recognized for breaking the record since the stunt took place back in the 70s. but, they have only themselves to blame. so, screw ‘em!

but that’s not why i brought you here.

in 1996, craig was trying to break the record before the british car, the trust ssc, was completed so he could claim 700 mph before them.

there were several things that did not go right on his last run of 1996: badly designed aerodynamics on the rear of the car, a faulty afterburner and a crosswind of about 15 mph.

the following video shows the results of this ill-fated attempt at the record.

craig was not injured, but i’m sure he needed a new firesuit when they got him out of the car!

the car’s onboard computer, which the team says was consistent with the timing clocks, claims the car was traveling 675 mph when it lifted off of the ground. if it was not going 675 it was very close.

kit and i were the first people on the course after the run. you could see where his wheels left the ground and came back down twice and a fraction of a second later was in a locked slide like a sprint car. the kevlar tire on the right rear came apart on impact with the ground and we gathered several pieces of it.

the following year, the brits arrived and methodically took their monster of a car up and over the record... and the speed of sound.

i missed the supersonic runs, but my parents, john, kit and my friend, willy, and i were there for the first lsr over 700 mph.

the first wheel driven vehicle to break a land speed record was the summers brothers’ super-sleek streamliner: the goldenrod. i have never seen the following film, which is in 3 parts.

this final video is a little silly, but has some very cool shots in it. it was shot about the time i was born and is full of bad acting, but it is well worth viewing.

concouring the elegantless

i added a new element to the blog today: a playlist of some of the music that has influenced me over the years.

some may find “bobby brown” by frank zappa offensive. but, you need to keep in mind that frank wasn’t singing about his own sexual experiences; this is supposed to be a parody of… well… i don’t know whom. the important things to remember are: frank didn’t care if he offended anyone and i think the song is funny. listen with an open mind and you too may feel the same.

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finally had a chance to hook-up with my old friend gary peterson today. we never could come up with a year that we last saw each other; mid-70s was as close as we could get.

i’m very happy to see that gary has done quite well for himself. way to go, dude!

he drove his ferrari 355 berlinetta (forgot to ask what year) and shipped his lamborghini (not sure if he said what model) up from san diego.

he still looks like the gary i used to know, except (like myself), 35 years older!

for a while i wasn’t sure if we were ever going to be able to get together: if he was free i was busy and if i was free he was busy.

i ran around the polo grounds and golf course yesterday, but never made it out today for concours. i woke up with a headache, tried to get inspired with a couple of triple-lattes and went back to bed for a couple of hours. by the time i got up, i only had time to visit with gary.

oh well! it wasn’t like missing a king crimson concert and i did get a chance to hang with gary for a while and that, in itself, was more important than the cars!

i did get to see a couple of cool cars yesterday.

finally had a chance to see a ford gt up close. also got to see a new mustang concept car.

don’t know if ford’s gonna do anything with any of the concepts, but it looked pretty spiff. i did see an old flathead powered (champ?) car. too big to be a sprinter and not big enough for indy. i saw some people pushing it onto the grounds the other day and could tell from the exhaust that it was a flathead and not an offy since it had pipes on both sides of the boat tail. i haven’t had the pics developed (we’re still using the antiquated film-method-of-photography around here) so i don’t know what shots came out and what didn’t. i tried to get shots of some bronze pieces that were on display: the goldenrod and a few other bonneville/lakes-type vehicles. also took a pic of a piece (not sure of the medium) that was a highboy being pushed out of a 1940s style pit by three guys with a leather helmet-clad driver; the base looked like the surface of el mirage.

speaking of taking pictures: it was so difficult to get a picture of the cars without somebody (usually some synthetic-beauty – which means she was far from beautiful) trying to get in the shot. every time i would frame the shot, somebody would slip in and pose. i guess it was the “media badge” around my neck. since i was shooting on film i didn’t want to waste the shot, so i’d lower the camera, walk around the car, wait for the would-be-model to move, re-frame the shot and she’d be back in the picture. this happened several times.

my patience with pretension was shot by the time i got out of that place.

i overheard a woman ask (i presume) her husband how much a car was worth. he told her: “about 3, or 4-hundred thousand!” without sarcasm, she replied: “oh, is that all?” she was quite serious. like ron would say: “not good enough! you got that?” i’m surprised she didn’t gag onto the asphalt, like she was just told she was eating goat, from having to stand so close to such a classless car. it was a bentley of some sort.

ron’s event last night was, i would have to say, a smashing success! the place was packed and everyone seemed to have a great time. i hope waj gets some new members out of it!

i made some new friends last night, too: maneesh reddy, a very friendly man who sat at our table, and david ray who drives for nissan, who sat next to me. david was driving the pace car this weekend for the monterey historics. i announced that “the cool people” were sitting at our table.

my new friend, jane, came as my guest and looked quite resplendent. she was gracious enough to stick around to give me a ride back to the beach house after i tore-down the paparazzi-backdrop, the projector and the dvd player.

i’d have to say that the meal was the best banquet meal i’ve ever had. i ate filet mignon, medium-rare. it was so tender i wish i had ordered it rare, but didn’t want to take a chance since they were serving about 50 of us. they also served a chicken dish of-some-sort, mushroom ravioli and the most un-edible item the world has ever known: salmon!

a couple of years ago, teri’s mom asked, while we were visiting her up at tahoe, if we’d like to stay for dinner. “we’re having salmon!” she proudly announced. i told her i couldn’t stay but she said they’d throw a steak on the barbecue for me. unfortunately for me, the steak was grilled right next to the salmon. so, i had salmon-flavored steak. i gagged-down a few bites and couldn’t force anymore passed my teeth. we hit burger king (only slightly better than salmon) on the way home; insuring that, not only did i taste salmon for the next 4-hours, but i had heartburn from the burger.

the greatest fear i have is that i’ll be stranded in the wilderness with only salmon to eat!

mm-mmm!