the red and gray primer vett

The heritage of the Swoopbacked Monza- Pacer is shining through here. In the 80's it was called the Zepe' Mobile. This specimen was not known to frequent the hill out of ridicule by much greater automobiles. Lacking is the rattle can bronze bling paint on the hats, control arms,a really really big wing and G-50's on the rear with Gabriel Skyjacker airshocks extended to the limit.

Honestly, I think Derek (aka lfot) is being a little insensitive. How dare you wish clouds upon Mulholland. How dare you beam those images into the heavens in hope for more rain upon Mulholland.

After this, we may have to have a group exorcism and soon! :D

BTW, any chance that Beck's is on tap????

News Break
 

************INTERMISSION**********


Porsche Stops 911 Production After Paint-Shop Blast

Feb. 25 -- Porsche SE, maker of the 911 sports car, said production will be shut down at its main plant for at least two days after a gas explosion in the paint shop.

Two workers were treated at a hospital for injuries and then released following the 5 a.m. incident, the Stuttgart, Germany- based carmaker said today in a statement.

``The extent of the property damage cannot be determined at this moment,'' Porsche said. ``Because the sprinklers went off, parts of the production as well as the paint shop are under water.''

Porsche builds the 911 model series at the main Zuffenhausen plant, producing 160 of the cars there daily. Halting 911 production won't affect parts assembly in Zuffenhausen for the Cayenne and Boxster models, which are built elsewhere.

Porsche said it has assembled a crisis management team led by production chief Michael Macht to handle recovery.

Yup, was on OT earlier. It'll put them off by a few hundred cars, but won't bother any of us.

Jeff, when is your 914(?) going to be ready for a drive?

Two weeks!

Um, that was like four months ago! :D

no coment!http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1204022138.jpg

Rest in peace
 

God needed a Hot Rod fabricator in heaven. Boyd was called upon for the job this morning.
Rest in peace.............

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1204161970.jpg

Maybe Boyd just saw the rendering of Derek's car? :eek:

Mulholland Meeting
 

This evening we had a meeting with Peter Linsky, a well-known Porsche writer who is doing a story about Mulholland racing. Members of the MRA, CRE, and ACR were there to relate their stories about Mulholland. For about two hours we had a fun time talking about old times while eating at Jerry's Deli on Ventura Blvd.

Dave B. had many old photos to share, and stories were told by various veterans of Mulholland. Some had just a little to say, and some much more. So much lore exists, it breathes life back into Mulholland.

When you think that you've heard it all, more incredible information is always forthcoming when it comes to Mulholland. I love it.

Peter is A-ok in my book...

Its interesting that throughout Mulholland's history there were only a few Porsches that consistently were up there running the hill. I think one of the "problems" was the initial purchase cost for us young 'uns


I don't know that i would count my own targa as one of them, as the car initially terrified me with its propensity to swap ends if I let off the gas suddenly in the wrong place ;) It took me a while to figure it out.

Our little meet last night did produce the facts that more than once, a 911R driver would haul butt thru there- different owners, but perhaps the same car.
An IMSA driver trailered his 911 racer up there and embarrasingly while in process of getting his race suit, the cops showed up while he was in his underwear!
Another IMSA car (2.5 GTU) ran thru a few times with only headlamps blazing. It was the most glorious of sounds as we heard this car over a mile away on megaphones !

Of course there was John Hall with his white turbo look 911L ; very fast and fearless. Chris- what became of that car?

I hope there is enough Porsche content for Peter to assemble a story for excellence. There were the speedsters and 356 coupes way back when, along with 550 spyders- but is before my time

What old photos did you have, Dave? Pics we haven't seen here yet?

Derek
pics that were in the scrap books at the shop. mainly imsa, f-1, f-5000, trans am, indy races at riverside, ontario, laguna, long beach
some personal race / time trial pics from way back
there are some pics of the CRE gang too- you are welcome to borrow for scanning so you can post here

911l
 

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1204658509.jpg
(Photo circa 1977 at the Banning residence on Mulholland)


I called John this morning and got some details about the infamous 911L.

John got the 911L from David Brian (another Mulholland racer) by trading straight across with his Honda 4 motorcycle, and blue 914, no money was involved.

I had already worked on the car for Dave a couple of times, and OK'd it for John to trade. In fact, one time Dave thought he had thrown a rod or something from some noise that he heard, so he brought it over to my home shop, However after taking it to red line on a cold motor, I was able to prove that the engine was in good working order. (More to come on 911 durability).

John finally had a 911, so watch out!
Now keep in mind that John was my best man at my wedding, and a best friend for over 32 years. We worked on our racecars together and he was my crew chief when I raced with the SCCA at Riverside a few times. My nickname for him is "Johnny Mul", and for good reason.

John was a maniac from the word go when it comes to cars and Mulholland. Whatever he was driving in, it was always full bore.

The second day that I met him, he came to my house and took me for ride in his little orange Mazda. The drive to Coldwater and back would have most people crying under the dashboard, quivering like jello. I knew at that time we were destined to be best friends.

John wanted more of a racer look, so he asked me to weld on factory steel fender flares to accomidate 9's and 11's (wheels). I remember using plenty of bondo for that custom look. John used steel wheels with Caldwell re-treds. He put on a whale tail and RSR fiberglas bumpers, and painted the car white. It looked good. I took this photo just after the car was finished.

With just a stock 2 litre engine John could easily beat the regulars with his "No Lose" attitude. I don't think that that little 911 could go any faster. Some refused to go for a ride with John for fear alone. We used to laugh and laugh about it. It made us true comrades. Now we both had cool Porsche racecars for Mulholland.

A note on durability: One evening, John was coming up Beverly Glen towards Mulholland on the way home. With no warning, oil pressure went to zero! He kept driving anyway up from the Four Oaks Restaurant all the way up the hill with No Oil Pressure. He called the next day and told me what had happened. I didn't believe him at first because I thought it wasn't possible to drive under load for such a distance with no oil. I took John's engine apart and found in fact that the oil pump had broken, unbelievable! I gave John a replacement pump and John Norris (another Mulholland racer) rebuilt it for about $600.00. The crank was scored but saveable after polishing. The bearings were of course thin as paper, but the thing still ran. What a testament to the 911 motor.

To answer your original question, John sold the car in the Recycler for $4500.00 after incredible abuse on Mulholland Drive. John thinks he remembers that the next owner crashed the car and died.

Dave G. interview part I
 

Dave Gainey is also one of John's lifelong best friends, here is his interview for your enjoyment.




Dave Gainey Interview 8-26-05



Chris: You and John got pulled over during the day?



Dave: A couple of times. He would get chased and we had that one on Beverly Glen. I was kind of in the area when John got chased through Beverly Glen Park and I was coming back and I had Jimmy Richman with me and we were coming down Beverly Glen. Bob Satt had Jimmy’s keys. So we pull over just to get the keys and the next thing Richman starts mouthing off to the cops. Then I started mouthing off and the next thing we are going to jail.



Dan: For what?



Dave: Racing purposively. We were parked we had just pulled over because someone had Jimmy’s keys. Real nice and we were on our way to jail. Do you remember Dianne Glassband? She was going outside the cop car saying that “we will get you out.” The cops were going “do you know her?” I said I have no idea. They pull her over. They ask her who we are and she says “that’s Jimmy and Dave.” The cop then leans over and punches us both in the stomach. Seriously real nice!



Chris: Did you ever race Mulholland Drive?



Dave: I guess so.



Chris: What years did you race and where on Mulholland?



Dave: That would have been 76-79 it was only a two or three year period.



Chris: And where we you racing?



Dave: Mainly over there near Coldwater and Laurel but only half of that stretch. There were other places too. Pretty much anywhere on Mulholland.



Chris: Who did you know who raced on Mulholland besides you?



Dave: John, Chris, Bart, Mark, Tino Tereques he was the other ACR guy.



Chris: Those were the ACR members?



Dave: Correct.



Dan: When did ACR get formed? I know you and John started it correct?



Dave: There was another ACR before. There was CRE and TVL. CRE was the older guys they were 25, 26 at that time. Then there was an original ACR before and John and I resurrected the name.



Dan: Was there a membership to that?



Dave: No, there was no real structure to a club. It was just something to be different because John and I were from this side and everybody from TVL were from the Valley and other areas. We all knew each other and to give ourselves a little identity decided that ACR would be the thing to go with. We added the profession graphics to it because one of our friends had a graphic arts business design our logo which was kind of nice. Tim Terresca had a V8 Vega. He had a 310 aluminum V8 and we took him because he was fast.



Chris: Who were all the members of ACR?



Dave: Originally it was just myself, John and Tim. Then came Bart and Mark at that was basically it.



Chris: Then the ACR guys hung out at Bowmont?



Dave: We all hung out with everybody there wasn’t any division of anything like that.



Dan: Chris Oxley was he in there too?



Dave: He thought he was, yeah you can add him in there.



Dan: How about George/



Dave: Absolutely not.



Chris: Tell me Dave what is you favorite Mulholland story?



Dave: One of the most entertaining times was ridding John when he had his Pinto. That use to scare the absolute crap out of me. I really don’t know what was holding it together. Nothing was torque everything was loose. He had the basic racing seat and the passenger’s seat was a collapsed Pinto springs sticking through piece of crap. He would have the stereo up and the windows down. Even though the seatbelt was locked I could almost completely slide out of it. We did that a couple of times. We had this one where a guy wanted to shoot a movie about the whole thing. So John was pitching the thing sideways as much as he could on every single turn in the Pinto. That thing was just terrifying. We were coming down the sweeper in his 68 Camaro. I used to sleep under it because we worked on it all night long. Coming down the sweeper we were behind the guy in a 280 Z. There was a little kink before a turn called Carl’s. A right hand turn and that car use to pop out of gear. He was trying to get the car back in gear and we weren’t loosing any ground on this guy. A the guy just whoosh he drove right off the cliff.



Chris: Before Carl’s?



Dave: He never made the right hand turn.



Dan: The guy you were racing?



Dave: The guy we were following.



Chris: John told us about you holding the car in gear with you foot on the shifter.



Dave: That became the thing after that because I didn’t like that at all. Another thing I use to do in the 69 Camaro was I would look out the back window because it was much better to see where I’ve been instead of where I was going.



Chris: We heard about a movie that was made about him in his Porsche with someone who was following him and talking pictures. I think there are two copies. I don’t know anything about that one.



Dan: Markoff has a copy.



Dave: By the time the Porsche days were going I had stopped a little bit.



Dan: What happened to the guy that flew off the cliff?



Dave: They were okay. They went down quite a long way a good 150 feet. All the days I was up there and all the people I saw going off the cliff I never saw anyone get killed. I saw one guy get hurt in a Triumph. He was coming up and went though the second part of the left hand turn, and flipped over and he got impaled on the shifter.



Dan: Did you ever see any headlights end over end crashes?



Dave: I saw rolls but never saw end over end. I almost did the end over end myself. I was coming up the S’s from Coldwater and there were bunch of people that we called the Silver Lake squirrels. There were these guys that would have all these nice lowered cars that would come up from Silver Lake but never race. If they did they would stay in their own lane and be jazzed if the went 40 miles per hour. I thought I show them something here. I went by Grandstand’s and was going up the hill and thee was a sweeping turn right before you get to Grandstand’s a right hander and I didn’t see the car the headlights coming and all of the sudden here comes this car going through Grandstand’s. I had to go around the outside and I didn’t make so I just kind of slide and went whoosh and went air born and it just dug into a bush.



Dan: What kind of car where you in?



Dave: I was in my Fiat 124 coupe.



Dan: Did it destroy the car?



Dave: No. It tore off the front spoiler and I had it dragged up. It had a bunch of dirt stuck in the clutch assembly but other than that it was fine.



Dan: And you were fine.



Dave: I was getting out. There’s no way, that’s a long, long way down.



Dan: So you dove out of the car?



Dave: I was taking off the seatbelt I was going to get out.



Dan: If you didn’t stop you were bailing from the car?



Dave: I was getting out, that’s a long way down. That was the idea it was a very stupid idea but… It was the idea.



Dan: So you climbed back up the hill?



Dave: Yeah and I called Bart to get me out.



Chris: Did you hang out at Grandstand’s?



Dave: Yeah, it was either there or Beaumont.



Chris: What was it like there?



Dave: TVL was there all the time. 8 to 10 car would be a lot. There was a lot of transient activity with people coming and going all the time.



Chris: You never saw 75 people up there at one time?



Dave: The most people I ever saw were when we all got arrested.



Chris: How many people were there?



Dave: 30 or 35.



Dan: That was the 77 bust? Can you tell me your perspective of that event?



Dave: I was just sitting right there in the middle. All of the sudden cops came in from every direction. I wasn’t that everybody was scared and wanted to run away at least from my perception. I thought oh what is this? It was just harassment, and that’s a fact. Some people started to walk behind the road right there at Grandstand’s but there were already cops there in the bushes and they walked them back out. Then they handcuffed everybody and took us down to Parker Center.



Chris: Arrested for what?



Dave: I guess aiding and abetting a speed contest that was the main thing. They called my characteristics on the police report pot face like I was a drug head or something. I have the report.



Dan: Did you have to pay a fine or were you let go?



Dave: It was dropped. I was sitting in the back of Parker Center they had lined us all up and asked for everybody to come in. Officer Jackson, whom I had more than one run in with, handcuffed me to the rail. The cops were going “get over here come here.” I was handcuffed to the rail I couldn’t go anywhere. It was a very orderly arrest.



Dan: Were you first taken down to Hollywood division?



Dave: No I was taken straight downtown. I think they took the juveniles to Hollywood.



Dan: Do you remember singing Happy Birthday to Bart Rome in the jail cell?



Dave: No. I was in a cell with just John me and another guy.

Dave G. interview part II
 

Dave Gainey Interview 8-26-05 continued



Chris: Did you ever run from the police on Mulholland?



Dave: Did I fail to pull over, yes. Officer Jackson from Hollywood Division was the main guy.



Dan: He is the one who built the car to chase you down?



Dave: He said he was going to do that. He was going to take one of those AMC Matadors.



Dan: Did he ever do it with the Koni shocks and the springs…



Dave: It wouldn’t have mattered a 4,500 pound car with the suspension and geometry of a wagon. He still wouldn’t have known what to do. He would pull me over for vehicle violations and things like that. I would have my front end so I could snap it on and off. He would chase me and I would get to certain sections where I didn’t have enough horse power and I would get a turn ahead and I would just hit my hand break and go the other way. He couldn’t adjust to that very well. That’s how I would get away.



Dan: Did you have kill switches in your Fiat?



Dave: Yes I did.



Chris: So Jackson got to know you.



Dave: Oh yeah, ask Jeff Coleman because he use to ride with me a lot. He would pull us over a lot and Jackson would come and put me on the roof of my car. He would sit there and thump Jeff in the chest. It finally got to the point he would pull me over and I wold get out and jump onto the roof. It’s hysterical.



Dan: Thump with his club?



Dave: It was like “If I ever see you up here again.” I don’t know what the law is if you fail to pull over the next time they couldn’t do anything to you, but they didn’t.



Chris: Did you ever get caught being chased?



Dave: No. I didn’t get beat I got roughed up a few times.



Dan: If you got roughed up…



Dave: It was John’s fault each time.



Chris: Tells about the evening that John went to go get some supplies?



Dave: Oh that was a lot of fun. I was in the lower room and all of the sudden there were helicopters and John and Nancy came flying through the front door. I’m on the landing between upstairs and downstairs and John comes running upstairs and gives me the keys. The cops come running in and they are looking for a guy in a blue jacket. I’ve got a blue jacket on and I am holding the keys. I ditched the keys. The cops go upstairs and they are beating on John. They were roughing him up pretty good.



Chris: You could hear it?



Dave: I heard it. Cops were everywhere and lights from the helicopters were blazing in the place. So they have four of us so now it was serious. Myself, Nancy Cornblatt was standing next to me, and she was so composed all the time. She spits on one of the cops.



Chris: Was she mouthing off?



Dave: Yeah, she could hear that John was getting worked over pretty hard.



Chris: So what did she say?



Dave: “Just leave him alone” and that kind of stuff. They said something to her and she spit on them.



Chris: Then what happened?



Dave: I put my hand in-between them. The next thing you know there are flashlights swinging at me. I didn’t get hit I was able to duck. I was a boxer for 6 years at that point so I knew how to get out of the way of things. But for Nancy they arrested her.



Dan: Did they arrest you? Wasn’t it you car that John was driving?



Dave: No, No, it was Mark Mitchell’s car. It was Mark’s 78 Camaro Z 28 I believe. They arrested John and Nancy. I don’t think they arrested Paul but they did arrest Steve Benson. All four of them were in the car. Benson took off running and they caught him in the LA River wash or something.



Chris: John Hall said it was you in the wash.



Dave: No, I was the guy he handed the keys to. It was Steve Benson.



Chris: I didn’t think it would have been you in the wash.



Dave: Paula got out and crawled under the car that’s what she did. Like they didn’t see that from the helicopter and they pulled her out.



Dan: Did they arrest her too?



Dave: I don’t think they arrested her. They had their three and she complied. I don’t think she was spitting and things like that. John was getting chassed one time and I don’t knw why we were out of the car. I was with this red hair girl and this other guy I don’t remember who it was. It was right at Deep Canyon and Mulholland. I we had to walk back. Oh I remember John was going to race somebody. I think it was Metsos, I was tired of that so I got out of the car. Anyways, time passes and he’s not coming back so let’s just walk. There were helicopters and police everywhere and you could see a police car ½ way past Benedict and Deep Canyon. So we ran down into the bushes and the police car stopped and the doors fly open. We had only gone down about 10 feet. I don’t know why we did it we just ran. I had already been associated with this stuff so I wanted to eliminate that. These cops come running out of their car with their flashlights on and they go way down the hill. They were down by the house with the fence. I could hear them saying ‘maybe they are in the yard.” We were up by the road.



Chris: you should have raced their car on Mulholland.



Dave: I don’t know what kind of felony that would be. Just sit in front of John’s house waiting for him to come home. That would be funny.



Chris: What kind of accidents did you see?



Dave: There were just a few. John ran into that guy David Rotenburg. He pulled out in front of him in that Camaro at Mid Pits between Carl’s and Carl’s Junior. Rotenburb pulled out just as John was coming up the hill with speed and just T-boned him.



Dan: Did you ever race against John?



Dave: I tried I figured I could get him on downhill sections. I spent so much time looking in the rear view mirror and seeing he was on my butt I don’t think I gave it my best effort.



Chris: How about when you were behind him?



Dave: The only time I could keep up with him was downhill sections. I usually had a slower car and inferior driving skills. It wasn’t really a match. If I’d had a formula 1 car and he was in his dad’s Mercury Marquee I could have done something.



Chris: Do you recall any kind of social structure at Grandstand’s?



Dave: There were little names but not really… There were people who where beefier. There was Turkey’s Very Limited and I have said enough about that right there.



Dan: Any Silver Lake squirrels?



Dave: They were an occasional drive around group. One guy Carlos who had an Opel knew them all. As far as a hierarchy goes I didn’t see any pecking order. All the people who were faster had a little more respect.

Dave G. interview part III
 

Dave Gainey Interview 8-26-05 continued



Dan: How about the rallies, can you tell me about the rallies?



Dave: That was planned we put them on.



Dan: How did you organize that?



Dave: I use to do a lot of skilled gimmick rallies that were a play on words. Confusing street changes and maps, it was a slow speed thing. It got into a timed event. I’m surprised we all didn’t get arrested for that stuff. We would loose people in the first couple turns. I remember Benson pushed his little X19 up at Beverly Estates Drive and he came down Benedict to a 180 degrees turn he stuffed in their. We had people crashing all the time. Barry won it every time.



Chris: Barry showed up later didn’t he? Long before Barry showed up you were already planning them.



Dave: I remember Barry winning two of them for sure.



Chris: I was in the one in 78 and I tried hard to win that one and came in second to Barry. He won that one.



Dave: We tried to incorporate some high speed sections like Sepulveda from Mulholland down.



Chris: I have all the photographs from that rally.



Dave: I would like to see them some time.



Dan: Do you remember Barry and Chris getting chased by the cops?



Dave: I remember Chris more than a couple of times. I remember riding with Chris was always an experience.



Dan: Tell me about that.



Dave: I remember going for a ride for the first time in his Porsche where you can’t get your legs too close to the hot oil lines. You are not strapped in and you were ridding with a non medicated schizophrenic at the time. So you are like what the heck is going on here. Speeding down Mulholland at speeds that my car could never go unless it was a long flat out run in Nevada. The look on his face was like Nicholson in “One who Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest” look like a choir boy. His face would get beet red and his eyes are sticking out and laughing the whole time because he knows he is scarring you. A mundane task like let’s go get a Recycler turns into an average 200 beats per minute and a loss of two gallons of sweat all the time trying to keep my foot on this oil line. Then he would slam on the breaks and you would come out of the seat even though it was a racing seat.



Dan: What did you hold onto in that car?



Dave: The roll bar and the handle on the side.



Dan: Were you ever racing with Chris?



Dave: No.



Chris: Did you ever ride in the Monza or El Camino?



Dave: I rode in the Monza.



Chris: What was that like?



Dave: Oh a whole lot of fun. I don’t know how that held together either. All the sudden Chris has a Monza with a 350 engine, and I said “where the hell did you get that?” With the 350 that thing was sideways all the time. Again that was another one of those things that was suspended with big pin springs. Everything is bolted to a sub frame 16 inch steel. The whole thing is flexing and I thought that the windshield would pop our as we were going around a corner. I don’t know even how the doors stayed close. You could feel it torque as you went through the turns. I don’t understand how the differential held together on that thing, the wheel could have gone right out and he wouldn’t have noticed.



Chris: That was a fun car.



Dave: Then there was this thing when John got me grounded. You use to see who could get going 130 miles be hour down Beverly Glen. My parents house was right there. I was already in trouble and I had to paint the eves on my parents house. My dad was out front doing yard work and I hear this loud roar of an engine. Here comes John in his Z28 and Chris in his Porsche. They just go flying by the front of the house. My dad then said to me ‘you are grounded for a week.” Ten minutes later I hear that roar again and they were coming back the other way and I said “oh no.” He come back and says “two weeks.”



Dan: How old were you then?



Dave: I was 19. They were racing down and then up.



Chris: Can you tell us about racing in the fog?



Dave: That was always fun. It was a situation where you knew where the road was so in certain sections you could go as fast as you wanted to. Especially over here I knew the road very well and by the Identicals, that’s where most of the fog was, I could go pretty much flat out. You could see where headlights were so if someone was crossing over you could see them. You realized where the headlights were because you could see them in the trees. You could also tell how far they were coming from the other direction. You could come on somebody head on and scare the crap out of them.



Chris: Did you race in the fog with your headlight off?



Dave: No.



Chris: Did you run with John like that?



Dave: Yeah, I was probably looking out the back window or I was underneath the seatbelt. If he ever hit some thing I would just choke and not bleed to death.



Chris: Do you miss those good old days?



Dave: It was fun and I am glad I survived it. Would I ever do it again? Absolutely not! If you did that today like we did it then the people around there… We would get arrested instantly if not shot at. I see people racing now and I’m the old guy and I get pissed.



Chris: Did you ever go to that bowl in the park with your skateboard with John, Brad and Chris?



Dave: Yeah, we did it with bicycles.



Chris: What year was that?



Dave: Probably 14 years old to 18. I didn’t really do it on a skateboard.



Chris: john made a comment that when I went by racing my 911 S and you would all go to the top to see who it was, do you remember that?



Dave: Kind of yeah, something rings a bell there. I remember the first time I met you I thought ‘man this guy is a blowhard.” I knew John had met you.



Chris: That’s when John pulled up at the Four Oaks gas station.



Dave: I just thought man is he a know it all. You have to understand I was 18 years old and Chris was older at that time by 3 years. He was a Porsche mechanic and he’s this and that and he is 21 years old. What are you, you pompous jerk.



Chris: Laughs! Yeah, I remember those good old days. Do you think your experiences on Mulholland led you to where you are now?



Dave: What working 16 hours a day living at the beach. It has nothing to do with it because I was an electrical spas when I was a kid. Now everything I do is computer networks, home theatre and automation.



Chris: Do you race still?



Dave: No, but actually I just got my SCCA membership card again. I go to all the races in Fontana even the little races such as the historic ones.



Dan: Did you race, enter the circuit?



Dave: I did a few races solo early on.



Dan: Mark Russell driving school?



Dave: No I couldn’t afford that.



Chris: Do you remember anything about Mark or Bart?



Dave: Bart had a good one leaving Riverside Racetrack. Pete was always with him and he had that big white Chevy Truck. Four wheel Chevy truck and they were pretty wasted so they decided that they were going to go up into the hills to get out of the track. They didn’t take the normal way out and I guess a cop saw them coming out onto the street. They were going to give Bart a sobriety test and Bart couldn’t do something. The cops said for Bart to stand on one leg. Bart said I can’t and he pounded on his leg and said fake leg. The cop bought it.



Chris: Really?



Dave: That a balls right there.



Chris: Why was it fun back in those days?



Dave: It was the cars and that rebel thing and nobody was doing it. Nobody was doing anything like that. There was some dragster activity, but no one was doing road racing. What we were doing with the little four cylinder cars was the precursor to what is going on today with all the lowered Hondas and Acura’s. The speed channel… We were the precursors to that. We were doing it long before they were.



Chris: Did you ever meet Charley?



Dave: Yeah, he drove a 67 fastback 427 Vette.



Chris: What was Charley like?



Dave: He was a mystical figure he would come by and a beer can would come flying out the window.



Dan: You saw that?



Dave: I saw that physically. I saw that from Bowmont one time and it stuck in my mind. It was an ironic thing because the car was so heavy, it was a piece of crap, and it had these fog lights and they would vibrate and you would hear this loud ass thing coming up the hill.



Dan: So it looked like a dragon?



Dave: Yeah, it was bondo up primer piece of crap. With the headlights jumping and you could hear him coming up. The thing wasn’t really that fast but it sure seemed like it.



Chris: Did you talk to him?



Dave: I met him but didn’t say anything to him. I don’t think he knew who I was. He only stopped twice and I think it was to take a leak. He was an older guy in his 40’s or 50’s. At that time anything twice my age was AARP.

Dave G. interview part IV
 

Dave Gainey Interview 8-26-05 continued



Chris: Can you tell me about when John would slow down and let the cops catch up?



Dave: I don’t think he did that with me. I’ll tell you one thing he did with me. I suppose to be home for dinner. We were in the Porsche and it’s rush hour. He had this stupid halo of luck along as you were with in ten feet of him if not you were going to jail. We got chased coming up from the Valley on Beverly Glen and I’ve got to get home for dinner. My parents are strict that way. We were getting stuck behind traffic at Mulholland. It looked like the red sea parts and he gets through that. The cop comes through too and we come down Beverly Glen turn on Beverly Glen Park and the cops are coming he whips up Lagordia there and stops and lets me out on the corner of Angelo and then continues on with his chase.



Chris: Anything else?



Dave: Do you remember Dante? Well this blowhard had a shop over on Magnolia. He and I didn’t get along we were constantly at each other’s throats. We use to have these match races he would say he was going to beat me no matter what. He had this little Austin America automatic. I would do 0 to 60 in three days. He was going to race me we were going to go to Skyline turn around and comeback and do it twice. So I let him lead first. So we did it and I guess he was leading and I was sticking to him like glue the whole time and I could have passed him. So by the second time here come the cops and they are chasing and I making my hand breaker and they came out of nowhere. I’m making hand breakers and I get ahead and they took Dante to jail. This blowhard and his race thing that he was going to beat me, they took him to jail and I just drove by slow as they were marking him off.



Dan: What are you doing now?



Dave: I have my own company and I do security systems. Now mainly I do telephones, home theatre, home computer networks and automation. It’s Jess Security but that is going to change to LV Fusion which is for low voltage fusion. I don’t want to do alarms anymore. There is much more money and satisfaction in doing the other.




Dan: When did you first drive on Mulholland? What inspired you to do that?



Dave: I liked car and I really didn’t know why. I had an MGB 66 a piece of crap. I was with my friend John Heller and we had just come back from the LA auto show I was 16 years old. It was 1975 maybe. We were coming back in the fog on Mulholland. We were in the father’s Vega GT which I thought was the coolest thing in the world. We were going along and this guy passes me warp speed in his Mini Cooper. John Barnhart he was a TVL guy. It was Wow did you see that? It was so cool. After that I started driving through there in my MG. This guy in a Ford Courier Pick Up Truck was trying to pass me and I thought I’ll race this guy. Well me passed me and I ended going down the S’s and blew four spokes out of my left front tire in my MG. But it was the Mini Cooper come flying by that did it to me.



Chris: Do you know why they call Deadman’s Turn, Deadman’s Turn?



Dave: I don’t know if it is just a name somebody gave it or if someone died there. I could see someone dying there.



Chris: Why is Carl’s and Carl’s Junior called that?



Dave: A guy named Carl, who was a friend of Charley’s, went off there.



Chris: And Carl’s Junior because he crashed there too?



Dave: No because it looks like Carl’s.



Chris Most of the cars go off at Carl’s Junior. Remember there would be so many cars at the bottom on Carl’s Junior? They would pull them out and then there would be fifteen more cars at the bottom, do you remember that?



Dave: I think people dumped stolen car there too.



Chris: People would over steer and drive off.



Dave: The few cars that I did see under steered off.



Chris: Under steered off?



Dave: When they came down they didn’t realize how sharp it is coming down through the sweeper. In the Fiat I could carry 80 mile per hour down into the little kink before the turn.



Chris: The sharp right hand turn.



Dave: The sharp right hand turn. I could get it going because the Fiat would stop so well.



Chris: The Camero that you rode with John in he crashed that car.



Dave: The got that thing as a roller.



Chris: The blue one. It was a roller but it was a 396 originally.



Dave: It was made for an automatic though.



Chris: I bought that car and I took all those big block breaks and put them on my red Camero. I had four piston caliber breaks.



Dave: You bought that other one. That 427 I was with you. The won John bought was a roller. He got that thing out in Simi Valley.



Chris: And when he wrecked it I bought it from him.



Dave: Oh you did?



Chris: Yeah.



Dave: He bought that Malibu from that greasy guy a 56 Malibu and it had a 327 in it. I took that 327 four speed.



Chris: You are right about that blue 427 I went down to the airport and bought that and you were with me right? And I painted it red.



Dave: I remember you blew it up coming up from the Valley.



Chris: Right, that was the 427 right.



Dave: It’s a good thing it had a scatter shield.



Chris: I put a small block in it in fact the motor is downstairs.



Chris: Do you think Chris and John and Charley were the most exciting to ride with?



Dave: I never rode with Charley. I would never get in that thing are you kidding me? Or your car I stopped doing that too.



Chris: How about Bruce Kusada, do you know anything about Bruce?



Dave: He would have been the perfect kamikaze pilot.



Chris: Bruce had some interesting comments. He didn’t really race on Mulholland but he would drive with me and John and he knew you also. How about those parties at my house? Tell us about those Mulholland parties.



Dave: I don’t remember a lot of it not because I wasn’t there. I remember we had a good party right before I and John left for Arizona. Let’s just get hammered right before we drive all the way to Arizona and have John hallucinate as we get in there. It was 5,000 degrees and we were up all night long and John was seeing C130’s taking off in the middle of the desert when he was driving that was a good idea.



Chris: We had a lot of people there that night. Was that the night we put the stereo outside and turned it up full blast?



Dave: I have no idea all I know is that my decision making was really poor back then.



Dave: I wasn’t there we left and I have to drive all the way to Arizona.



Chris: Those were fun times. If you could surmise what it was like back in the 70’s as comparison today, what would you say?



Dave: There wasn’t the scrutiny of the outrage ness of what we did. Today what we did there night after night hanging out would have been absolutely crushed immediately. Society has changed to the way it responds to that kind of stuff. I think you have to look at the overall density. At the time it was a wealthy area but not as it is now. You didn’t get the impression that is was 10 million dollar estates and thing like that. I don’t think that the people that live here now would have tolerated it. In retrospect the people back then didn’t tolerate either.



Dan: Do you know anything about the guy who over watered his lawn?



Chris: He would wet Mulholland down purposefully do you remember that?



Dave: Not really.



Chris: A couple people would do that because they didn’t like the racers. Late at night they would lay a water sheet across Mulholland in the turns so we would go flying through there and crash.



Dave: I never really hit that. I tended to go home at a decent hour. During that whole time I wasn’t drinking or doing anything.



Chris: In the 70’s would you class yourself as one of the top ten fastest on Mulholland Drive?



Dave: I would probably be at the fringe of the top ten. I was more directional downhill maybe. I could beat most of the people up there on Mulholland.



Dan: Did you race a lot?



Dave: When I had the Fiat I did. We would say let’s go make a run and you just go back and forth a few times. I think I did that more than most people. A lot of people would just sit there and not do anything. People like Harold would make runs and John was just constant. He would make the list and I would just stop because it was just a magnet for the police at that point.



Chris: Your odds are diminishing.



Dan: You were sort of unlucky because you were arrested in all the busts and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.



Dave: I got arrested 3 times in 6 months when I was 19.



Dan: What was the third time?



Dave: We had the big bust, the Richman one, and the third one was… I’ve got all the police reports they were all for the same thing but I’m drawing a blank on the third one.



Chris: He has the police reports.



Dave: You should see those they are hysterical.