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FUN IN A DEN OF VIPERS
By Chris Martin
I used to hate it when my father would put down rock n' roll of the
1950s and then counter with something like "Glenn Miller, now that's
music..." Like with so many older race fans, baseball fans, music
fans, whatever, invariably there is a time when they pump the primacy
of their own experience. Boiled to the greasy essentials, "In my
day, it was better and I know it for a fact."
As a counter to that or any dichotomized situation, I fall back on
my old personal friend T.S. Eliot who wrote that "between the idea
(the idealized conception) and reality falls the shadow." For me,
in drag racing one of the shadiest of these shadows is the California
Hot Rod Reunion. Drag racing is quicker and faster today, it is far
more technologically advanced, and really, leaving aside the corporate
paint jobs, today's modern fuel dragsters make the older cars look like
old Flintstone cars.
Yet, there is an awful lot about the Reunion that makes it an event
that towers over anything NHRA produces. And this is where I feel like
my lecturing father: It's one helluva a lot more fun than anything on
the regular tour. Primacy of my own experience? Not in all cases, but
hell yes, in this one.
In today's world, the increasing amount of violent crimes, swindles,
international intrigue, and murder have given the new millennium shaky
hands, and it's reflected at so-called entertainment events. Checkpoints
at event entry, heavy security, cutting off of beer sales at early hours,
the segregation of the rich and sponsored from the rest of us are obvious
signs...and that's why I like the Reunion. It's not uptight. Not stiff-collared.
None of that. It's spontaneous. It captures the attitudes and looseness
that surrounded the drag racing sport 30 and 40 years ago.
If I had to put a face on the positives it would be the Vipers car
and party club campsight at Famoso Dragstrip. Located next to the first
turnoff road for the 11th consecutive year, these men, women, and kids
reflect the attitudes that turned me on to drag racing. Certainly, the
social ones....
Phil Cox, Jim Rotan, Troy Cagle, Francis with the hoodless forties
Mercury and Rafael the conga player, and a number of crazies picked
up early on what NHRA's Steve Gibbs, the driving force behind the event,
intended for it. Said Gibbs, "I would like to see this become sort
of the season's biggest social event rather than a race." Sure,
there are race cars, but Gibbs wanted this to be an event where the
friends and foes of the past 50 years got together and rolled around.
No problem for this crew.
It wasn't but a year or so that these Southern California denizens
and their Northern California counterparts, the late Mike Mitchell,
San Anselmo art collector Johnny Brown, and Flowmaster "Gumbo"
ran into each other like atoms in a super collider. I got into it through
Mitchell and Bellflower car collector and former member of the Jeb Allen
posse, Terry Lee Minks, and haven't regretted it since. As has been
the case for the past half-dozen years, Minks fought his way through
L.A. traffic in Bellflower to make it to me digs in the San Fernando
Valley for the ride to Bakersfield. This year, he showed with a slick
black '40
Ford sedan. The year before it was a '50 Chevy delivery van and before
that a rare Mopar factory 426 '66 Dodge Charger. With Terry Lee, half
the fun can be getting there.
We always knew that when we arrived we would have people waiting for
us. After a few years of refinement, the Vipers had a set format in
this area. The early arrivers would circle their mobile homes, show
cars, golf karts, and regular transpo in a circle against the fencing.
They then brought out the world's trickest ice chest, a wooden ice chest
carved along the lines of an old AA/Modified Coupe and set it in the
center of that circle. Next came a large barbeque, and from that point
it was left up to the imagination of the revelers.
This year was highlighted by a number of things. For me, it was my
introduction to the Vipers breakfast drink: the "Bloody Caligula."
Cox had told me that the concoction traced its lineage from the famed
"Bloody Mary," and her more spicy brother, the "Bloody
Caesar." Without giving away the amounts used, the colorful brew
was various parts Clamato, Atomic H horseradish, Sontada habonera, Lea
& Perrins sauce, pepper and celery salt, and Polish vodka, all stirred
into wondrous shape by a tall stalk of okra. Oh baby, was that worth
the trip. Not enough heat to overpower the fabulous flavor, but just
enough to open up the sluices.
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