e Gray ard Chronicles PASADENA, CALIFORNIA August 17-18-19, 1978 SAAC s third national convention landed back in California thanks to one person: Lynn Park. Today, his email address is Mr. Cobra and that s not something he dreamed up on the spur of the moment. He has been earning it over the past forty years. Lynn s fascination with Cobras began back in the early 1960s when his curiosity over what he was reading about in a small shop in Venice brought him to the door of that fledgling company. Exciting things were going on inside and as a southern California car guy, he found it impossible to stay away. Not being able to afford a Cobra at that time, he got the next best thing an AC, into which he squeezed a 289 engine. It wasn t a Cobra but it was a start. It would lead to a real Cobra, which led to another one, and another one after that. Lynn s interest in Cobras and everything relating to them began there and has grown exponentially. He figures he has Rick Kopec The SHELBY AMERICAN SPRING/2010 17
owned 27 or 28 of them over the years (it s hard to keep track). Today there are ten in his garage. He was a member of the original Cobra Owners Club of America and then was one of the first members of the Cobra Club, the Shelby Owners Association and SAAC. His knowledge of Cobras and enthusiasm for them made him an asset to SAAC and he was elected to the club s board of directors after the first SAAC convention in Oakland. He attended SAAC-2 in Hershey and it was here that he made it known he was interested in seeing the next convention held in southern California, to the point where he would help put it on. That kind offer was hard to turn down especially when we couldn t think of a better place to hold the club s third national convention. In Lynn s other life he worked for a company that made and installed elevators (not in skyscrapers, but in smaller buildings). He would eventually own that company and later sell it, allowing him to play with Cobras full time. Because he had been involved with Cobras, street rods and drag racing for so long, he had contacts everywhere. He knew that in California, it would take more than a one-day car show to attract people and hold their attention, so he sat down with the track manager at Ontario Motor Speedway and put together a rental agreement for use of the track for a Saturday. Lynn was also able to secure the fourteen story Pasadena Hilton as the convention headquarters hotel. By late fall of 1978 most of the details for SAAC-3 had fallen into place. The convention would be held on a Thursday-Friday-Saturday, the weekend before the annual Monterey Historics. The vintage races, a mere four years old, were becoming a prominent automotive event and, at that time, it was about the only place to see a large number of Cobras, GT40s and GT350s competing in actual wheel-to-wheel racing. Not to mention a huge number of cars that would show up out at the track. Don t forget, back in those early days it was common for people to drive their cars to events like this and the corral in the track s parking area was a giant car show all by itself. There were other major benefits of holding the convention in California, aside from making the Monterey weekend accessible. A lot of the Cobra drivers, team members and ex-shelby American employees lived in southern California and after word of SAAC s get-together at Oakland two years earlier had spread, many were expressing interest in attending. All of the other attractions in southern California, automotive and otherwise, made it a per- Thowing CSX2000 on the back of an open trailer to bring it to SAAC-3 for display was no big deal back in 1978. It was just another Cobra. Can you imagine that happening today? The SHELBY AMERICAN SPRING/2010 18
fect vacation destination for members outside of the area. And, of course, there were the California cars. Everyone knew there was something special about the West Coast cars. It wasn t just one thing you could point to; it was the totality of the experience. They could be and they were driven twelve months a year. Owners weren t afraid to play with them; to modify them and make them more to their liking. They weren t bound by any sense of what was correct or proper, and they didn t care what anyone else thought. That was the southern California attitude. Southern California was the epicenter of American s car culture. Ground zero. Hot rodding began here, and so did drag racing. If there was background music in the air it was provided by the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. Car enthusiasts across the country had grown up seeing the names of speed equipment manufacturers, which dotted the local landscape, in the pages of the car magazines they dutifully read every month. This is where the cutting edge of automotive trends began, duly reported in the pages of Hot Rod Magazine, Car Craft, Popular Hot Rodding, Sports Car Graphic and Road & Track. And it was no coincidence that all of them were headquartered here. This was where Carroll Shelby lived and where Shelby American had been located. It was where Cobras and GT350s were born. Dan Gurney, Dean Moon, Mickey Thompson, Craig Breedlove, George Barris, Ed Roth and virtually every other famous name in the hot rod, custom car and racing world had a southern California address. A bunch of us arrived a couple of days early to help Lynn with some of the behind-the scenes grunt work. Over 1,200 people had registered in advance, indicating it was going to be a very large and As a local businessman and a long time Cobra enthusiast, Lynn Park seemed to know everyone in the area. The Ford dealer in downtown Pasadena, Robert H. Loud Ford, was a Shelby dealer in the 1960s. They helped promote the convention by displaying Lynn s yellow Cobra and a white and blue-striped GT350 for a couple of weeks prior to the convention and had a nifty sign painted on their front window. The SHELBY AMERICAN SPRING/2010 19
very successful convention. One of the first things we did was take an empty open trailer to Shelby s wheel company in Gardena to pick up CSX2000. Shelby was generous enough to provide the historic car for display. The three-day schedule included activities which had proven popular at previous conventions. On Thursday morning there was a meeting for SAAC Reps and it was well attended. They all had questions about the still-new club and their role in it, and the best ways set up and run regions. In the afternoon there was a movie session (we never got tired of watching Shelby Goes Racing With Ford, shown in those days before VCRs and DVDs, in 16mm with sound). We also managed to turn up a couple films from Goodyear that depicted Daytona and Sebring in 1965 and Sebring in 1966. Also on the schedule were overlapping seminars on Cobras, Shelbys and car insurance (because owners were still trying to come to terms with their cars being classified as classic or collector cars). Late that evening we all went racing. Well, sort of. Lynn made arrangements for the local Malibu Grand Prix to stay open after 11 p.m. for the group and about a hundred of the hardcore burned up that track. Virtually everyone from outside of California had never seen one of these attractions (just something else that added to the southern California mystique). The cars were a fairly sophisticated cross between a go-kart and a Formula car with a 20 horsepower 2-cycle snowmobile motor, a centrifugal clutch and wide slicks. The track was very tight, very narrow, and full of turns (so you could never get it up past 20 mph or so before braking and turning...which was the point). Each driver s time was flashed on an electronic sign after they crossed the finish line. A minute and change was about average, with some people working very hard to get under a minute. Four cars could be run on the track at a time, starting at intervals so they never got close to each other. All this for a buck a lap. The schedule had originally included a parts swap to be held on Friday morning, but due to the high level of interest (along with strong lobbying by some vendors) it was expanded to two full days. It was held in one of the hotel s large meeting rooms which was locked up at 5 p.m. each day. Over a hundred vendors participated, and it was heavy on literature and collectibles, which were beginning to become a very popular segment of the hobby. Parked in the hotel s lobby were more than a dozen notable competition cars that Lynn had gathered. All were in pristine The SHELBY AMERICAN SPRING/2010 20
condition. Everyone in the club was just beginning to gain an appreciation for the historical aspect of Shelby American, and most of the cars that fit this category could be found in California. That would not last forever, but in those early days, that s where the cars were. Beside CSX2000, there was a Daytona Coupe, a 427 S/C, FIA and USRRC Cobra roadsters, three GT40s, an 11-second Sunbeam Tiger drag car, a GT350 road race car, the ex-dan Gurney Ford-powered Lotus 19 and a 69 GT350 road racer and a few other Cobra roadsters. Seminars were scheduled for Friday afternoon, each for an hour and a half, but they overlapped so it was possible for someone to jump from one to another: literature and collectibles, suspension, and separate seminars for Cobra, Shelby and Tiger owners. For dinner we had scheduled chili, which seemed fitting. There had been conflicting reports of whether or not Carroll Shelby would be able to attend the convention. He was at his game preserve in the Central African Republic and had gotten word to us that he would try to be there. When he showed up, unannounced, asking where the chili was being served, there was a mini-riot as people suddenly began clamoring for tickets at the door. We had given the hotel the number of tickets we had sold well in advance, so they would have enough chili on hand, and the last minute rush caused the banquet manager more heartburn than what he was serving. The choice was to make people angry by closing the doors after a certain number (separating them from Shelby), or make them merely annoyed by serving thinned out chili. Neither was very appetizing (pun intended) but we went with Plan B smaller portions and extra salad and bread for everyone. With Shelby there no one seemed to care. After the chili ran out and he had signed about five hundred autographs, Shelby had headed home. He was still weary from his sixty-hour trip but he promised to return the following evening. The Friday evening program consisted of a showing of Shelby Goes Racing With Ford and then we rounded up as many of the former Cobra team members and drivers as we could find. We asked each of them to say a little something about what they most remembered about their Shelby days. Among them were Bob Bondurant, Al Dowd, Phil Remington, Tom Payne, Charlie and Kerry Agapiou, Allen Grant, Chuck Green, Jim Findlay, Jack Hoare, Steel Therkelson, Don Roberts, Dick Smith and Ian Garrard (a special treat for Tiger enthusiasts). One of the stars of the convention was CSX2299 owned by Mike Shoen. He drove it on the track, proving it was no display piece. The SHELBY AMERICAN SPRING/2010 21
Ontario Motor Speedway was a duplicate of the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval. Opened in 1970, it was the first and only automobile racing facility built to accommodate races sanctioned by the four major sanctioning bodies: USAC, NASCAR, NHRA and FIA Formula One on a road course. Built on 800 acres which cost $7,500 an acre in 1969, by 1980 the value had risen to $150,000 an acre. As a racing facility it could no longer be justified. After only ten years in operation, it was demolished. However, the property remained vacant for several years. In the mid-1980s a Hilton Hotel was built where Turn 4 had been. In 2002 the Hilton was used at the headquarters hotel for SAAC-27. By 1978, vintage racing had begun to attract a strong following for the Monterey Historics in August. Open track events were increasing in popularity, especially at Willow Springs. The timing was right for a convention in southern California which would have a track event and Ontario Motor Speedway was a track that not many members had driven on, so it was a natural. Almost everybody with a Cobra signed up to drive the track. No wake-up calls were necessary the following morning as the hotel s six story parking garage came alive with the reverberations of Cobra and Shelby engines. Everyone was getting an early start to get out to the Big O, Ontario Motor Speedway. A couple of hundred cars participated in what were described as parade laps and just about every car had a passenger on board. (Those were the good old days before the lawyers scared the beejesus out of us explaining the concent of legal liability.) For the last session of the day anyone who was there was invited to take a few slow laps around the track and about 400 cars lined up, four abreast, along the pit road. The SHELBY AMERICAN SPRING/2010 22
On Friday evening the program consisted of a number of VIPs former Cobra team members and Shelby American employees spending a little time at the microphone, telling the large audience, briefly, what they did and what they remembered most vividly. In 1978, the glory days of Shelby American 1965-1966 were only 12 years in the past. Most of the ex-drivers, mechanics, fabricators and other team members hadn t been away from the eye of the hurricane that long. We all remembered what it was like, but their memories were a lot different that ours. They remembered the long hours, the hard work and the relatively low pay. But on the other side of the coin were the camaraderie, the esprit de corps and the proud feeling that victory brings. SAAC members had the cars, and to be honest, at that point very few of Shelby s original Cobramen saw much value in them. Heck, if they did they would all be owners. They were impressed, and a little surprised, that these used sports cars were held in such high esteem by their owners. And for that matter, that they were, too. Most weren t used to being treated as celebrities. At some point in their comments, each one would say that they were just doing a job and at the time didn t see that they were making history. And that is understandable. An event or experience does not become history as it is happening. It must first be examined through the lens provided by the passage of time. And it also has to be considered in the context of what was happening around it. As the 1970s made their exit into the 1980s, Cobras and Shelbys were just beginning their lift-off towards the stratosphere. The cars were still being driven, especially in California. And for the most part, they were still affordable. Old race cars and their patinas were just beginning to be appreciated. And vintage racing was beginning to become popular. It was a confusing time for most of these Shelby American guys. They were in the middle of a large group of Cobra and Shelby owners who were seeing something in these cars that they could not see. Yet. It would take a few more years and a doubling of prices before they would begin to see what this hysteria was all about. By that time the train had left the station, and if any of these guys ever had dreams of owning one of these cars (and in truth, not many did) it was too late. It would be very difficult for one of them to rationalize paying $100,000 for something they watched being sold for $6,000 when they were punching a clock at Shelby American. The magic for us was lost on them. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Don McCain [1] was Shelby s national sales manager and it was his idea to build a special drag race model of the new GT350. Al Dowd [1, seated] was the race team manager for Cobras and GT40s. Gentleman Tom Payne [2] had no shortage of stories; he drove roadsters and coupes for the tram and also as an independent. Allen Grant [3] was Shelby American s early production manager during 289 Cobra production and he drove Daytona Coupes both in the U.S. and in Europe. Phil Remington s [4] official title was chief engineer but he was really a magician. Bob Bondurant [4] was a team driver. Steel Therkelson was a fabricator but that hardly describes his mechanical talents. And Charlie Agapiou was one of the race mechanics who accompanied the cars just about everywhere from 1963 through 1967. The SHELBY AMERICAN SPRING/2010 23
Carroll Shelby wasn t expected to attend, as he was at his safari company in the Central African Republic. But after 60 hours of traveling he arrived on Friday evening. Even back then he was besieged for autographs. Dick Smith brought his 1967 A/P National Champion, CSX3035, and gave a few rides at speed. After racing the car for several years he retired it to the street and was continually stopped by the Fresno police because the car had no bumpers. He had a street rod shop fabricate a set of simple nerf bars, which met the bumper requirement. Then they started stopping him for loud exhausts. When he began vintage racing he stopped driving on the street. It s hard to know exactly how Gentleman Tom Payne ended up behind the wheel of Alan Bolte s GT350 vintage racer, 5S093 out at Ontario. It could have been Bolte, being a gentleman himself, inviting the loquacious Payne to take his car out for a few laps. Or, it could have been Payne, browbeating the hapless Bolte who finally submitted because that was easier than saying no. Either way, it made for an interesting story. Payne wore a jacket and tie, reminiscent of his days driving a 289 Cobra comp car at St. Jovite, Canada, Road America, Mid-Ohio and Watkins Glen. Payne s legend was born when he arrived at the St. Jovite track late for his qualifying session, which had already begun. He was wearing a jacket and tie. He put on his helmet, jumped in his car, and took off. When the corner workers saw someone in a sport jacket and tie driving a race car in a qualifying session they went nuts. They thought a spectator had commandeered a race car and was loose on the track. After word got around that it was a licensed driver they calmed down, and when the session was over everyone had a good laugh about it. The jacket and tie quickly became Payne s trademark when he was driving a Cobra and he usually wore a them over his driver s suit. It was great theater. The SHELBY AMERICAN SPRING/2010 24