[Banning]

Here is some more very interesting information concerning Charley(from The Mulholland Experience).


Racing was heavy on Wednesday and Friday nights. It was reported
that several dozen cars would run during the course of one evening.
The MRA members even had business cards printed up as a joke that
read “Mulholland International Raceway, any night from dusk til dawn.
This card admits one.” They would go down to cruise night on Ventura
Boulevard and hand out the cards to the drag racers and bate them up
the hill to run and crash.


In the late 60’s Mulholland Charley Woit acquired a used 1966
original low-performance big-block 427 fastback Corvette. He replaced
the front springs with cut-down station wagon coils. He also stiffened
up the rear suspension, so that if you pushed on the fender the car did
not budge. That was against the policy of the times.Most of the racers
liked a soft feel so the car could handle the bumps and have greater feel
in the corners.

Dick Guldstrand remembered Charley with fond
admiration, he set-up Charley’s Corvette. “We conversed a lot about it. Every once in awhile, he would bring it by for alignments and for
changes as we developed new parts that he wanted to try.We knew the
car quite well and we knew Charley very well.We set Charley’s car up
with all new Guldstrand parts.”With that blue ‘66 Vette, Charley
continued to dominate over all who even dared to challenge him. All
they saw was the dust from his huge tires tearing up the pavement and
his rear-end dancing all over Mulholland. Nobody could compete
against Charley on Mulholland Drive.

Stilts received a lasting memory
the first time he encountered Charley. Here is what Stilts recalled to us.
“The first time I ever saw Charley’s red Corvette was in 1971, when I
was on Laurel Canyon, coming up to Mulholland Drive. His car went
flying up and passed everybody. I got behind him and I turned right in
my Corvette. I thought this guy doesn’t know how to drive. I figured he
was a straight-liner. He doesn’t know how to take the turns with those
wide tires.We were going slowly on the eastern side of Laurel just past
the Fire Station. Charley gets about half way into that turn and his car
all of a sudden lifts up and goes over about four feet. By the time I got
to the other side of the turn, there is a straightaway, and I didn’t see
him. He was gone. I thought that is impossible. I went along trying to
find his taillights.When I got to the other side of Cahuenga Pass, he
was on the other side looking at me. That was the first time I ever met
Charley. I saw his car on Magnolia one time, and then I learned that
Charley was a legend. Charley was a rare sight. He would come up
once in a great while and make a run then turn around and disappear.
Another Charley story is when Charley was coming up Beverly Glen
and the cops were chasing a Porsche. Charley got tired of waiting and
passed both the police and the Porsche during the pursuit. That was
typical Charley behavior.”


World Driving Champion Mario Andretti drove Mulholland at
top-speed for a motion picture sequence. He is quoted as saying, “It is
the most demanding, dangerous road course that he had ever faced…
anytime, anywhere…”


At the end of the 60’s Charley still remained the undefeated
champion of Mulholland road racing. In the last part of that decade, a
major national magazine, Hot Rod Magazine, did a story about the
MRA operations. Shortly after that article was released to the public,
the LADP busted the racers in a raid up on Mulholland. The MRA was
forced to disband and split up.