Baker - Hot Rodding in Ventura County

IMAGES
of America

HOT RODDING IN
VENTURA COUNTY

This evocative photograph shows Ventura residents Lee Ledbetter (at right in the center car) and Eddie Kulper (in car at right) at El Mirage Dry Lake in 1947. Ledbetter is driving the first car he built, a primer-gray, channeled 1929 Ford roadster powered by a four-banger. Jim Gray is in the passenger seat. Kulper is behind the wheel in his unfinished 1932 Ford coupe. Note the vintage racing attire the boys are wearing. The occupants of the car at left are SCTA officials that patrolled the lakebed for breakdowns and accidents. (Courtesy of Lee Ledbetter.)

ON THE COVER: The Kustomeers are pictured at Santa Maria Dragstrip in November 1957. (Courtesy of Jerry Williams.)

IMAGES
of America

HOT RODDING IN
VENTURA COUNTY

Tony Baker

Copyright 2013 by Tony Baker
ISBN 978-0-7385-9968-7
Ebook ISBN 9781439643327

Published by Arcadia Publishing
Charleston, South Carolina

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012952317

For all general information, please contact Arcadia Publishing:
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Dedicated to Eddie Martinez and Dave Marquez

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, I would like to thank my good friend and colleague, Elnora Tayag, reference librarian and outreach coordinator at the John Spoor Broome Library at California State University, Channel Islands, for the inspiration, encouragement, and support that made this project possible. All of the images in this book, plus many others depicting the history of motor sports in Ventura County and in Central, and Southern California, will soon be available as part of a digital archive at the Broome Library. Thanks also to hot rod artist and writer John Waldo Glaspey, who gave me the idea, and to my friend and mentor, pioneer hot rodder Ambrose Amby Little.

Special thanks go to all of the car club members and their families who opened their homes and photo albums to me: C. Darryl Struth, Richard Martinez, Jim Harris, Lee Ledbetter, Jerry Williams, Bob Richardson, Ernie Cooper, Ernie Sawyer, Marv Houghton, Jim Bohlen, Wanda Nelson, George Rose, Dennis Williams, Mike Loftus, Ed Marks, Howard Clarkson, Bud Hammer, Nick Sweetland, Jack Taylor, Rodney Fernandez, Jim Monahan, and to anyone I may have accidently left out.

I would also like to thank Santa Paula, historian Craig Held, and the staff at the Santa Paula Library; Judy Weston, the reference librarian at the Oxnard Public Library; and my friend Charles Johnson, archivist at the Ventura County Museum of Art and History, along with the archive staff, for their patience and generous assistance.

Finally, thanks to my friends and neighbors Adam Randall and Tiffanie Wright of Squashed Grapes Winery in Ventura for the use of their office and computer, my old friend Harry Mishkin for his support, Ryan Rush for the many patient hours of technical assistance in putting this book together, my son Thomas, and my friends Byron Barnes and Dan Alvis.

In putting this pictorial history together, Ive tried to present an accurate record of the contributions the hot rodders of Ventura County made to automotive culture. The captions were written from hours of recorded interviews with the people who were there. I hope you enjoy 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 lakebeds 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 Californias 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 Venturas 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.