Gone Racin’ … Alex Xydias at the Motorsports Museum

Larry Fisher sent out word to the hot rodding community that Alex Xydias was going to speak at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, presented by Automobile Club of Southern California, on Saturday, March 19, 2016. Along with the memories of the early era of dry lakes racing, Alex brought with him film and photographs from the very first time trials held in the deserts of Southern California. The topic of discussion was “My Friend Wally” and of course that meant Wally Parks. If there were ever two closer buddies who grew up in the formative years of the automobile it had to be Alex Xydias and Wally Parks. Even though there was a nine year age gap between the two men there was a closeness that was never broken, even when Parks died in 2007. At times their occupations would cause a separation as one would go in one direction and the other in an opposite direction. Then Wally would call up Alex and say, “You want to go to Bonneville?” It could have been Pike’s Peak Hillclimb, the Baja 1000, Daytona time trials or any one of a hundred other exciting race events. They’d round up the old gang, the “usual suspects,” and that might include the Miller brothers (Ak, Zeke and Old Dad), along with Bill Burke, Don Francisco, Otto Crocker, Bozzy Willis, Tony Capanna, Chic Saffell, the Spurgin brothers, Bud Coons, Chic Cannon, Rick Rickman, Bud Evans, Jim Lindsley, Julian Doty and many more.

How could we refuse an evening with Alex Xydias at the Motorsports Museum? These events are scheduled on the calendar whenever they can find a talent like Xydias; small, informal groups, with an affordable ticket price and some snacks to munch on. It’s always a thrill to see whom the museum has found to delve back into the past and rekindle old and dear memories. I remember listening to Carroll Shelby and Wally Parks pestering each other as they sat on the stage in comfortable old padded sofa chairs. Shelby was a master story teller but Parks kept right up with him. Then there was the time Tom Medley was honored and told us about the creation of “Stroker McGurk.” I remember Nick Arias, Stu Hilborn, Isky himself or the Camfather to fans of Pete Millar and his CARtoons. Then there was Ak Miller, the master story teller, and I can remember him clearly and still laugh at his predicaments he got himself into. But tonight was reserved for Alex Xydias and his memories of “My Friend Wally.”

Larry Fisher called us together as we were out chatting with our friends and there were many; Kay Kimes, Barbara Parks, Epi Parks, Scott Parks, Richard Parks, Ken Freund, Jim Miller, Mark Vaughn, Gail Banks, Ed Iskenderian, Les Leggitt and his daughter Drisha, Charles Rollins (Ray Brock’s son-in-law), among some seventy guests in attendance. There was a contingent of students from the AXC (Alex Xydias Center) that offers training and mentoring in automotive arts and is located near the Pomona Fairplex. Fisher turned the microphone over to Greg Sharp, the archivist and curator for the Museum who introduced Alex. Greg was never far from the podium; he helped Xydias put on the show and there are few to no one as learned on racing as Sharp is. “Alex Xydias was born in Los Angeles and graduated from Fairfax high school in 1942,” said Sharp. “He served as a gunner and navigator on B-17’s during World War II. After he returned home Alex opened up the So-Cal Speed Shop in 1946. When he closed down the shop he took to filming races, all kinds of races and then went into the publishing and magazine business. In 1964 he was named the editor of Car Craft magazine. He was involved with the first Hot Rod Exposition as a member of the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) and got to know a young man in the public relations business by the name of Robert E. “Pete” Petersen, who would later become his boss. He also got to know the General Manager and past president of the SCTA, Wally Parks, and many other men who would go on to great success in the racing field. Alex was involved in the first SEMA show and the first SCORE show for off-road racers. He was named to the top 100 People in Hot Rodding. He has been honored by numerous groups and is today a board member of this museum,” Sharp concluded as he handed the microphone to Xydias.

Alex Xydias rose and took the floor. He will turn 94 the week after this event, but he has lost none of his passion for hot rodding and the love of cars, especially those that go very fast. “I met Wally Parks seventy one years ago,” and then he pondered for a moment to see how long that was. “Wally Parks was a young, tall, skinny guy back in 1946,” then there was another short break as the great hot rodder mused, “most of what I’m going to tell you is probably true,” and the audience roared. “We were both born before the great depression, and we had to live through it. I don’t know why they call it the great depression; it certainly wasn’t great for most of us who had to survive it. The stock market crashed in 1929 and for the next decade the unemployment rate was 25%. Now I’ve heard a lot of people grumble that the 2008 recession was hard and yet it only had a 10% unemployment rate. How would you like to live through a depression that was twice as bad? To show you how bad it was I had a paper route and at the end of the month I would have to knock on doors and ask the people for money. It was only a few nickels and they would have tears in their eyes as they would ask me to come back later as they didn’t have any money to pay me. That’s pretty bad when you don’t even have a few nickels in your pocket.”

“Franklin D. Roosevelt used to have fireside chats on the radio and we would listen in to him. He told us better days were ahead and to hold our heads high; we were going to get out of our troubles. The troubles just kept coming. There were wars around the world and the great dust storms in the Midwest that obliterated farms. The old joke was that Texas blew into Oklahoma in the morning and Oklahoma returned the favor in the evening. Wally’s family came out of the Midwest. These migrants were called Okies although they came from all over the country. They had lost their farms to the dust storms or the banks had foreclosed on their mortgages. They bundled up all they had and loaded it on their old Ford’s and went west to California. Sometimes they were stopped at the border and told to turn around and go home. Wally’s family left about a decade before the dust bowl period, but it was still a rough haul. He told me a story about a special carpet that his mother would unroll and place on the ground, a sort of table cloth so as not to get any dirt into the meals she served. She loved that rug, but one day they had gone a great distance and realized that they had left the rug behind and it was too far back to go to retrieve it,” Alex intoned.

Throughout his speech the projectionist kept up a steady review of photos taken from Greg Sharp’s and Xydias’ collection. I remember too a story from that trip west when my grandfather, Henry Clyde Parks and his wife Bessie brought their family out to California. They had followed whatever roads existed and most were north to south. But it seemed like they were lost when no one could speak any English and they guessed that they had passed the border and were now in Mexico. The family retraced their route and when they heard English again they followed the setting sun west towards the great Pacific Ocean and the Golden state of California.

Alex continued, “I used to hitch rides to the dry lakes to see the land speed guys race. We went to all the dry lakes in the Mojave Desert, but Muroc was the best; just miles and miles of flat open desert to race on. Hot rodding was our love and our passion. Seven clubs got together in 1937 to form the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) and Wally and the Road Runners was a founding club. They began to attract tremendous crowds of young people to the time trials. Bob Rufi in his home built streamliner was the first to go over 140 mph at the dry lakes; he was our hero. That little car went so fast and it was just a six-banger. Wally was the editor of the SCTA Racing News, which had started out as the Road Runners Racing News. Eldon Snapp helped him and they drew cartoons, sold ads and wrote articles. Another thing that I remember is that we’d go to a junk yard to find parts to put on our cars to go faster. We could buy just about anything in a junk yard for a cheap price. Sometimes the junk dealer would take pity on us and just give the part to us,” Alex kept going.

“But it wasn’t easy to go racing with the depression and a lack of jobs. The government funded the WPA (Works Projects Administration) and gave jobs to out of work men to build bridges, roads, buildings and many other things. They didn’t get paid much but it was something. I graduated in 1940 and found a job at a gas station making $10 a week and I thought that was a fortune. It didn’t take much for us to feel like we had something. World War II started in Asia in 1937 and in Europe in 1939, but we didn’t enter the war until almost 1942. The government was starting to award contracts to manufacturing plants to build up our military and we were woefully under armed. Wally got a job at a GM plant making tanks and his job was to test drive them. He had a lot of fun doing that. I also got a job in the defense industry and was making 52 cents an hour. I thought I was the richest man on my block. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and we had no idea what that meant to us or to the country. I went to the movies that night and there was an announcement ordering all military men to return to their bases. When we saw the damage on the newsreels we got very nervous and panicked. We had blackouts and we really believed the Japanese were going to wade ashore at any minute and invade us. It took awhile for us to fight back; the Pacific Ocean at that time was our back door. In May of 1943 Wally enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the Tank corp, 754th Tank Battalion. He was in a tank retrieval unit and rescued tanks that had been shot up or had lost their tracks. He painted a dinosaur on the side of his tank and named it Ol’ Dinny. War wasn’t always battles, sometimes there were long and boring waiting times. He found parts off an old Ford and put them into a jeep that he scrounged from someplace. It had a V8-60 motor and though low on horsepower the car was light and could really fly. I went into the Army Air Corp,” Xydias added.

“After the war we returned to the dry lakes to race or watch the action. Men had money from the war and we wanted to spend it. We found what we couldn’t buy. Jim Lindsley got hold of some street lights, wire and a generator and we rigged up the first ‘Christmas Tree’ on El Mirage dry lake. Wally was elected the President of the SCTA in 1946 and appointed to be the General Manager in 1947. His job was to publish the SCTA Racing News, set up chairs for meetings of the club representatives, keep a mailing list, answer mail, collect dues and generally to run the SCTA. He had so many ideas; especially Bonneville and the Hot Rod Exposition. Pete Petersen asked Wally if the SCTA would hire his group, Hollywood Associates, Inc, to help promote the show. Wally okayed the deal and got the clubs behind the first hot rod show in America. Pete started up a little magazine he called Hot Rod to publicize the show. It was held in 1948 and was a huge success. Pete and Wally formed a team and would be together for the next 13 years. Bozzy Willis made the displays for the show and all the hot rodders pitched in and helped. The SCTA made quite a bit of money. That show also began the success of Pete’s Hot Rod magazine. Pete tried to get me to buy ads in his magazine but I couldn’t see how that could help me. In those days we just sold to local guys and had no idea what mail order would become,” Alex told the crowd.

“Wally convinced Pete and Lee Ryan to go on a trip with him to Salt Lake City in 1948 to see Ab Jenkins and talk to the Chamber of Commerce to see if we could rent the Bonneville Salt Flats to race our hot rods on. He wanted Petersen to go because he had a nearly brand new car and he needed Lee Ryan, a PR guy from Hollywood Associates to go with them. Ryan was older, more mature and knew the ropes when it came to public relations. All the young hot rodders looked up to Lee. Hot rodders were considered thugs back then and no one thought we could get permission. They were afraid of us, because hot rodders had caused so much trouble on the roads and streets of America. Ab Jenkins liked the idea and he was a very popular mayor. Lee Ryan reassured the Chamber of Commerce that these young men were all very mature. There was no denying the passion that Parks and Petersen brought to the discussions. The Chamber of Commerce granted permission for a one week trial period starting in August of 1949. The SCTA was ecstatic; they were going to race on the sacred course that up until that time had been the playground of the British. Men such as Sir Malcolm Campbell, Captain Eyston and John Cobb had turned the Bonneville Salt Flats into the world’s fastest racecourse. Cobb had run a two way average record of 394 miles per hour. These European cars all had super-powerful air craft engines in them. Now it was the hot rodder’s turn,” Alex chuckled.
“Those that went to the first Bonneville Nationals in 1949 were called the ‘Pioneers’ or the ‘49’ers’ and they were a special group. Jim Lindsley, our electrician, found enough wire for us to string a ten mile course. The trip to Bonneville was tough. We didn’t have the nice roads that we have today. Some drove up the 93 and others went by way of Bishop and Tonopah. It was scenic, rugged, slow and long. When we got to Wendover, a town where the Nevada/Utah border bisected, we found only motor courts, sort of like our motels today. They were little houses, but we didn’t spend a lot of time in them; we were too busy out on the salt flats all day and in the Stateline hotel bar at night. We noticed right away that there were no bugs and no dust; we got tanned on the salt flats and got cancer later. For as far as you could see there was salt and it was flat and thick, like running on a five foot thick concrete road. It was awe-inspiring then and it is still an inspiring sight today. There was nothing to stop us. Holly Hedrich ran his roadster, got back in line and ran again, 27 times in all. Otto Crocker was our timer and we borrowed him from the boat racers. He had the best timing equipment,” Alex reminisced.

That first race course was five miles long, five times longer than what we were used to racing on at El Mirage. It took some getting used to but in the end we did. We were up at an elevation over 4200 feet high and the air was thinner. I was going after a record of 160 mph in my class for the #5 So-Cal Streamliner and we turned a 193.54 mph record and no one would believe it. We went so fast the rubber flew off the tires and when we got home we asked the tire dealer what happened. He told us that the tires were only rated for speeds up to 175 mph. Certainly we had our homework to do if we were to continue to race on this marvelous course. Union Oil 76 sponsored our famous pith helmets and boy did they come in handy to keep us from the glare and sun burns. We found out quickly that the glare off the salt would sunburn us in places we thought were protected, like under our chins. We had a reunion 50 years later and there were still a large number of 49’ers who showed up,” Xydias mused.

“Pete Petersen named Wally editor of Hot Rod magazine in 1949 and the first editorial he did, in the October issue was on our trip to Bonneville. Wally’s Legacy was the NHRA, but I wanted to show you the Wally that I knew personally. One day Wally called me up and we drove out to Edwards Air Force Base, which we called Muroc in the old days. This is a top secret base and I was sure we would be dumped in some deep dungeon. Edwards is where Chuck Yeager flew the first supersonic jet and everyone was sure he was going to shake the plane apart. Wally charmed the colonel on the base as only he could do and we got to go back to Muroc to hold several reunions and to race on the sacred spot once more. He also called in favors to get us to race on Vandenberg AFB once. He knew a lot of people and he was able to get a lot of venue sites for us to race on. At Muroc he drove his old car ‘Suddenly’ once more, as a rookie and ran out of gas half way down the course, though I think the fix was in as a prank. Tom Fritz painted ‘Return to Muroc’ and it was made into a famous print. Wally had so many talents. He had a quick wit and the greatest sense of humor you could imagine. He started up the OFARTS and we had tee shirts made up to wear just about everywhere,” Alex ended.

Greg Sharp took the microphone and thanked Xydias for his memories. “I remember when Wally and Barbara took me to lunch and he was using a cane. Barbara was a bit slow and Wally pretended to whack her with it. The timing was irresistible. They were a close and loving couple and they loved the museum. It was their dream. Wally was the happiest when we were building the museum and it was a mess when we first got it. We put a lot of work into it. But it was the glass display cases that sold us on the building. I remember another story when Wally was incensed about something that Drag News had said about the NHRA and he wrote back and complained. He signed it Mr Park Swengard, which backward spells Drag News Krap,” laughed Sharp. Then the Museum staff wheeled out a big sheet cake and we all began to sing Happy Birthday to Alex Xydias on his 94th birthday.

Gone Racin’ is at RNPARKS1@JUNO.COM.