(excerpted from TOP FUEL WORMHOLE: THE COLE COONCE DRAG STRIP READER, VOL. 1)
“We did it all, and we’ll never see times like these again.”—Dean Batchelor, The American Hot Rod.
At first I thought it was a mirage. Or an apparition. I was suffering from an acute lack of sleep, my disorientation and sensory deprivation [...]
THE CRASH, BURN AND RESURRECTION OF A WORKING CLASS HERO
The “Wild Bill” Alexander Interview
by Cole Coonce
This story is one of growth, transformation and alchemy as metaphor. Defined as “a medieval chemical philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold,” the process of alchemy involves the charring of metal, [...]
by Cole Coonce
(BEGIN EXCERPT)
The men and women gathered in a semi-circle around the half-finished Winged Express, alternately laughing and listening in reverent silence to the yarns spun by Mousie. Marcellus was “in the house,” as they say, working the room with the grace and panache of Swifty Lazar at Spago on Oscar night. [...]
THE EPIC SAGA OF THE SURFERS
There is a philosophy of the world that states that there is a common realization about the interconnectivity of all things physical and spiritual—that there is a unity at a profound level—and that our actions have somewhat infinite repercussions. This discipline is known as Zen. In the mid-1960s, it was [...]
