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Here’s the earliest
photo we could find of our hero on the job, circa 1962, in
San Fernando Raceway’s trophy shack. The babe with the
beehive obviously had his full attention. (Dave Wallace Jr.
photo)
“After a while, I started sending short stories in
to Drag News, instead of just the winners’ list. I felt
that our racers deserved the same recognition that racers
got at the bigger tracks in the area, like Lions and San Gabe.
[Publisher] Doris Herbert was in Gardena, and she was always
looking for local material to print the following Tuesday.
She liked to have it by Monday afternoon, so she could set
the type Monday night.
“In those days, to get stories or prints to Drag News
on a Monday, the writer or photographer had to drive there.
That was out of the question for anybody with a day job —
except for postal workers: At my [Panorama City] post office,
employees had access to a special pouch that went directly
to Los Angeles at midnight. From downtown, mail would usually
get to Gardena the same day. If I didn’t make it by
midnight Sunday night, it would go out Special Delivery early
Monday morning, for Tuesday delivery.
“That’s why the only same-week coverage you saw
in the racing papers came from local strips, and why the news
from the rest of the country was always a week behind. Sometimes,
a local strip’s Special Delivery package wouldn’t
get there Tuesday morning, and Doris would be on the phone
to the writer or photographer. Any time the big Saturday-night
shows were rained out, Doris depended on local strips that
ran on Sundays, like San Fernando, for fresh news.”
“She also wanted pictures, but in the beginning, we
didn’t have a photographer who showed up every Sunday
and could also process and print film on Monday, then hand-deliver
it,” he explains. “Eventually, either Doris or
I came up with the plan to use Polaroids, and skip the lab
work. So the track gave me a used camera, and I started sending
in black-and-white Polaroids, with typewritten captions stapled
to the borders. They weren’t very good, but Drag News
was happy to have them. My big boss, William Hannon, was happy
to see his big starting-line sign in the paper every week,
and our racers didn’t complain.”
At age 77, Dave Sr. finally got
his first “ride” in a real, running race car:
the restored Doss, Clayton & King fueler that Wallace
often photographed at ‘Fernando. Former-driver Wayne
King offered Dave the seat for a lengthy, 98-percent warmup
during NHRA’s 2004 California Hot Rod Reunion. “I
thought the fumes were gonna kill me,” admits Wallace,
“but what a way to go!” (NitroGeezers.com
photo by Dana Winters) |
Indeed, this drag-racing pioneer who never drove or wrenched
on a race car set one national record that is unlikely ever
to be broken: for most Polaroid photographs published in a
national publication!
Only when track management finally supplied a cheap 35mm
camera did Dad’s natural photographic skills become
obvious. Cover shots in both Drag News and the artistically-superior
Drag Sport Illustrated were among the memorable images to
come out of this simple camera from 1962 to 1965. The senior
Dave Wallace has been credited by his peers as the first to
regularly shoot from a tall ladder, giving a new dimension
to black-and-white action. Indeed, Dad’s “career
shot” has to be the backlit, overhead photo of the Zeuschel,
Fuller & Moody fueler that DSI-editor Phil Bellomy enlarged
to fill an entire 1963 cover. Nearly four decades later, a
panel of veteran editors and photographers voted this picture
third-place honors in the 2002 Leslie Lovett Memorial Photo
Contest — bringing our retired postal worker his first
major recognition as a motorsports photographer.
The second trophy to result from Dad’s second career
will be awarded this fall, upon his formal induction into
the California Hot Rod Hall Of Fame, at age 78. Multiple ceremonies
are scheduled during the three days and nights of NHRA’s
Bakersfield Reunion weekend (Sept. 30-Oct. 2). Now that the
reality of this overdue recognition is finally sinking in,
Dad can hardly wait to reconnect with the surviving racing
and media friends he made between 1960 and June of 1965, when
his last story and photos appeared in print.
I hope you can make it out to Famoso Raceway for the festivities.
Be sure to look up both Dave Wallaces. I’ll be the one
in the background, proud as a papa.
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