(photo by Cole Coonce)

“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 amplified by a lack of proper coffee as well as the blinding reflection of the morning sun as it bounced off of the milky-white, crystallized floor of the dry lakebed. I shook my head, threw back the dregs of the caffeine, and blinked. It was no hallucination. There I was at Edwards AFB, deep in the heart of the cruel and unforgiving Mojave Desert, a landscape that a French philosopher once called a “slow catastrophe,” and three paces from my bones was the man who organized hot rodding after WWII on this very same uninhabitable desert. That’s right: Wally Parks, President of the Southern California Timing Association in 1946. Editor of Petersen Publishing’s Hot Rod Magazinein 1948. President of the National Hot Rod Association during its birthin’ in 1951, until Dallas Gardner stepped in during the Reagan Years. And probably the first man to call the linear pursuit of horsepower a “drag race,” way back in 1939 in the Racing News.

I was stunned and I was silent. I did not know how to approach the man. Or, closer to the heart of the matter, maybe I did not know how to approach the myth and the legend that is Wally Parks as he stood there larger-than-life, towering over the proceedings at the most mystical and legendary plot of real estate in these here United States of America.

Ah yes, the mythology. There has been more history, folklore, and mythology concocted at the Muroc Dry Lake than anywhere else on the planet since the days of Apollo and Aphrodite making noise on Mt. Olympus. For it was at this wasteland where the Muroc Racing Association, predecessor to the SCTA, predecessor to the Russetta Timing Association, predecessor to the NHRA, etc., etc., etc., began in 1932, hosting competition between renegade hot rodders from the far side of the San Gabriel Mountains, men who would test their mettle, bravado and mechanical acumen by racing hari-kari across the lakebed, sometimes four or five abreast, kicking up such a furious tempest of dust and debris in their wake that only the leader of the pack could actually see where he was going. The other drivers? Well, crashing into your colleagues and barrel-rolling, hobbling into the nearest hospital in Palmdale, 30 miles away via an undulating washboard of a dirt road, only to find upon your return—assuming you survived—what was left of your race car had been scavenged and stripped down to the frame rails, that was the price one paid for inferior horsepower out there in the Mojave Desert during the years of Herbert Hoover and FDR. This, race fans, was the true genesis of drag racing.

Beyond the isolation of this primeval racing on the lakebeds and just when we thought America had already made the world safe for democracy, a funny thing happened beyond either pond that flanks these here Continental United States—the Second World War. And not to trivialize the battles Iwo Jima or Normandy, but the SoCal hot rodding community also suffered a loss in the War. By virtue of eminent domain, the Muroc Dry Lake, the birth place of drag racing, was claimed by Uncle Sam as a “proving ground” for military aerospace research and development. The pangs of this loss were mitigated by a couple of factors: The dry lakes racers and the car clubbers were migrating to other lakebeds, among them El Mirage, Harper, and Rosamond where they continued “cuttin’ the crystals” during single-file “speed trials” (side-by-side competition was now deemed entirely too unsafe at the dry lakes) nearly every weekend; as well as the fact that at night the lakester guys and the car clubbers were matching wheels at either say, Slauson Avenue or Lincoln Boulevard or Glenoaks out in the Valley; or, as early as 1950, they wuz’ changing rear tires and gear ratios, pouring increasingly generous helpings of nitromethane into the combustion chambers of their flathead Ford V-8s and “draggin’” down at CJ Hart’s chunk of airstrip known as the Santa Ana Drags out in Orange County where, for once, they didn’t have to worry about outrunning the fuzz as well as the competition.

And as Chuck Yeager banged through the palpitating turbulence of the Speed of Sound over the hallowed ground of Edwards AFB (nee Muroc Field) in October ‘47, teenagers continued racing across the alkali crystals of the Mojave, or down the concrete banks of the arid, withered L.A. River bed. Soon after Yeager’s scrotal-squeezing supersonic gonzo sleigh ride, President Eisenhower unleashed the clandestine ramjet-propelled SR-71 spy planes, which would rocket through the heavens over Muroc—50,000 feet high!—at speeds in excess of 2,000 miles per hour, subsequently blaze over the bleached bones of the coyotes in Death Valley, and ultimately descend, minutes later, 300 miles away into Nevada’s notorious Area 51. At Muroc in 1959, NASA unveiled its team of astronauts destined for the moon, the Mercury Seven.

Through all of this, there was Wally, always astute and alert as per the trends of speed-addled youth, be it time trials at the dry lakes, rumbles at the malt shop, or draggin’ at the strip. A man of epic scope and vision, he was deftly plotting the co-option, development and commodification of America’s horniness for horsepower into what Parks called in a April 1950 Hot Rod feature “Controlled Drag Racing,” as administered by his yet to be unveiled NHRA. (The birth of the NHRA itself is part and parcel emblematic of how much mythology is intrinsic to the history of hot rodding. To wit, in 1951 Parks asked Lee O. Ryan, Petersen Publishing’s GM, to compose a fictitious “letter to the editor” expressing concern over the lack of direction in hot rodding. In rebuttal, Parks proposed an organization “dedicated to safety,” while providing the gearhead with a place to race, thus decreeing the formation of the NHRA whilst simultaneously inviting everyone to join.)

Suffice it to say, what made Wally Parks’ presence out at Muroc 1996 interesting was how the NHRA, which began as a nationwide extension of the ethos of the MRA and the SCTA—y’know, bitchin’ trophies for the industrious back yard tinkerer—has metamorphosed into an organization that became a player and a schmoozer in the Multi-National Corridors of Power in America. There are no luxury suites out in the desert. There isn’t even any running water. But as I stood there blinking my eyes, there was Wally…

So the paradox is this: out of the ashes of the Dry Lakes rose the multi-headed Phoenix which is Hot Rod Magazine, the NHRA, National Dragster, the Winston $1,000,000 series, and the “members only” glass-tower corporate suites that lease for $30,000 per event so’s High Society-types can watch the races on closed-circuit monitors while sipping snifters of Napoleon Brandy and eating weenies on a stick. That entire reality is of no concern to the lakebed Bedouins, however. This is because the SCTA and the whole culture of the dry lakes have continued to exist on their own terms for all those years since WWII, albeit with a low profile. In fact, it has been flourishing out at El Mirage with dyed-in-the-wool lake guys supplemented by refugees from the drag-strip wars, veterans of the 1320 who could no longer abide the rampant parts attrition as well as the exorbitant costs of contemporary drag racing. 13,000 gearheads descended upon Muroc on Saturday April 27^th 1996, to symbolically reclaim Muroc, ironically a happening that never would have come to pass without the clout, sociopolitical machinations and handshaking ability of Wally Parks.

And like I say, while wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I stood in the shadow of the exalted hot rodder who embodies the duality of man, the avuncular and towering Wally Parks. I thrust a micro-cassette recorder in his mug, and lofted a softball of a question like, “How does it feel to be back on the dry lakes?” and away he went…

“We’re all absolutely delighted,” sez Wally, “that we’ve had a chance to come back here, because it’s been 55 years since the SCTA ran here. I think having access to this place has got as much value for historic reasons as it has for the satisfaction of running down the course. But the thing we like most is the people who have returned here, who were once up here, and the newcomers who come in to see it. We just think we’ve got 100 percent success and we are very grateful to the Air Base here and the commander for letting us be here.

“Our presence here,” he continued reciting, his towering, lean torso magnificently framed against blue skies and Jet Propulsion Laboratories’ rocket launchers burrowed into the nearby Rosamond Hills, “ties in with research and development programs and their technology and so forth, which is the spirit of Edwards AFB, the test center, which is what this is all about: people testing new ideas. It may not apply to aircraft but it all comes out of the same box.”

Aahh, the Mojave Desert is the perfect backdrop for a powerful oratory, and at 83 years of age, Wally Parks was showcasing his rhetorical skills. But something was a little too perfect about this sermonizing. I wasn’t sure if I was interviewing the man who is not only the driving force behind the SCTA’s wistful return to its Mecca, but also the embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism, or if I was merely on the ass-end of a feedback-generated tape loop fed into a 10” speaker implanted into a cryogenically-enhanced human body, not unlike, say, the walking-talking Mr. Lincoln Exhibit at Disneyland. It was weird—I’ve been dying to bench race with the Man, the Myth, the Legend that is Wally Parks, a complex man, a man who personifies the dichotomy of everything that is virtuous, controversial, banal, and perhaps even disturbing about the Master Capitalists of America, be it Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Dick Clark or Bill Gates. As sandstorms started to kick up and pelt my face with sharp crystals of fossilized mud, Wally continued riffing about America and “the pioneering spirit.” Despite the dust devils he never stopped talking. I have to confess at some point I began to tune out Parks’ monologue about the nobility of Muroc, as the repetitive read-only memory functions of his speech were kicking into high gear. I began to free-associate about Mr. Parks’ pivotal role in the SCTA “taking back Muroc” (at least for one weekend), and I began to wonder if this gesture was not unlike a long-in-the-tusk mastodon going home to his elephant’s graveyard. The speechifying continued, and as I dutifully held my micro-cassette aloft I thought, “Who is this guy? Who am I really interviewing? Machiavelli? Dwight D. Eisenhower? Charles Keating? Charles Foster Kane?” As I write this, I am still not sure…

As the interview with Wally continued, I was overcome by the swirling dust and the heat. As the temperature was climbing into the triple-digit range, the sweat and the sand and the sun block coagulated into this afterbirth-ish goop which seemed to gravitate from my brow into the recesses of my eyes. I tried closing one, then the other, but to no avail. I couldn’t see anything beyond vague forms perpendicular to the earth’s curvature—one of which was talking non-stop (Wally)—all of this tableaux more surreal and bizarre than your typical mirage. Wally was either oblivious or just nonplussed by my fevered perspiring and blinking, the loop tape continuing unabated. I knew this was my only chance to heave a curve ball at the most legendary figure in the NHRA. So as I wiped my eyes, I asked him, “Did you derive more pleasure from your tenure at the SCTA or shaping the NHRA into what it is today?” He answered, “Both, although it’s apples and oranges. One is a non-profit dedication and the other one is trying to keep a big thing going…”

At that moment, with the loop tape mechanism finally disengaged, I felt Wally and I were on the verge of a meaningful dialogue. I was poised to ask him if he felt the longevity of the SCTA was perhaps due to a reaction to the politics and fiscal policies of the NHRA. Fate intervened, however. A senior member of Wally’s entourage (I think it was his sister-in-law) sought relief from the heat and the sand and the noise, and Wally, who had been extremely gracious and accommodating with me, begged off further questions, and chivalrously went to assist the member of his party in distress. I was that close to the truth.

*****

Before, during, and after Wally’s discourse on the nobility of the pioneering spirit, various lakesters, nitrous-oxide powered coupes, land-speed streamliners, and blown Studebakers began their procession across the desert, hurtling across the lakebed towards the timing beams, over a 1.3 mile course marked by scores of pylons. There were hundreds of drivers in pursuit of various Muroc speed records in machines encompassing a multitude of engine, body, and chemical combinations. Among them was Al Teague, windin’ out his Spirit of 76 streamliner in second gear at well over 200 mph—this same combustion-engined contraption clocked a Wheel-driven land-speed record 432 mph out at Bonneville a few years back. Joaquin Arnett, who has been tippin’ the can since the late 40s, also showcased the home-built Bean Bandits nitro-burning streamliner. There were a few vintage “belly tank” lakesters—speed machines crafted out of fuel tanks from P-38 Lightning fighter planes that were liberated out of aerospace surplus yards. There was even a land speed entry from Guam.

*****

All told, before the dust settled, fourteen drivers were initiated into the Muroc 200 MPH Club. This included SCTA v.p. Mike Cook, who raced across the desert in his blown Ford T-bird at 227 mph.  While the eclectic assembly of speed machines continued kicking up gigantic rooster tails of dust, their clockings were announced over Channel 1 on citizen’s band radios, which were employed in lieu of a public address system. It was an interesting counterpoint, the juxtaposition of low-fidelity c.b. radios against the various satellite communication systems and megawatt transmitters deployed by the Air Force. Out of earshot of the “p.a.” and beyond the pylons, I encountered a messianic figure trekking across the desert in flip-flops. It was Robert “Jocko” Johnson, inventor, bohemian sculptor, and mechanical visionary. (In 1959 at Riverside, CA, Jocko stunned the world of hot rodding with an 8.35 E.T. in drag racing’s first full-bodied streamliner, a clocking 3/10ths of a second quicker than any other Top Fuel dragster. Before he could improve on this outrageous performance, the streamliner subsequently self-destructed at Lions Drag Strip.) Out at Muroc, Jocko was on a mission whose dual agenda was thus: a) to show Alex Xydias (proprietor of the “So-Cal Speed Shop” in Burbank) a brand new pocket-sized centrifugal force-powered supercharger, a device Jocko designed to replace the relatively bulky and inefficient GMC “roots” design; and b) to get a sno-cone and beat the desert heat. He invited me over to his tent for tacos later that evening and I graciously accepted.

That night, after consuming more than a few of “Jocko’s tacos” and discussing Jocko’s plan to unveil a streamliner propelled by an 18-cylinder, 25 cubic inch radial motor—capable of 400 horsepower(!)—out on the salt flats, it was time to explore the “proving grounds,” as it were. As the racers put their exotic machines to bed, the campfires, the Coleman lanterns and the barbecues provided the sole source of illumination, besides the constellations and the orbiting satellites (which, out in the Mojave Desert, are visible to the naked eye). I wandered through the pits, blown away by the massive proportions of this congregation of motorheads who had migrated to this uninhabitable air strip in the Mojave Desert. And as I waded through the nomads camping in the barren flats of the Seventh Circle of Hell, I overheard a campfire conversation about Project Mercury ace Gordo Cooper’s appearance on a “reality-based” teevee docudrama about the Paranormal, riffing about his brushes with alien spacecraft while in astronaut training. The winds began to howl, I looked up at the stars and the satellite space stations and continued walking.

I heard music over at another campsite and I followed its call. Dusty Springfield was singing “Son of a Preacher Man” over a car stereo ratcheted into the door panels of a not-exactly-cherry flamed ‘52 Chevy sedan, while a couple of “Go Cat Wild!” retro-rockabilly greaser-types, twenty-somethings who had complete and utter distaste for contemporary fashion and values, were engaged in a high-octane bench race session. At that moment I knew the Muroc Reunion was a metaphor. I stood off in the shadows, eavesdropping as these reactionary rodders debated the fall and debasement of the late Dean Moon’s legendary speed emporium, “Moon Special Equipment,” recently rechristened “Mooneyes” by its new Japanese proprietors, and which may or may not be a bastardization of the translation of “Moon.” At this point, I piped in from the darkness and suggested there was still a decent cam-grinder in the employ of “Mooneyes.”

“The issue is just because one good cam-grinder still works there,” said one lanky car clubber with a thick Cockney accent, “doesn’t mean that it isn’t the biggest sell-out in the history of (expletive) hot rodding, man.”

“Dean Moon was a genius,” his friend burped, “but it makes me want to puke that people are trying to make money off all that dashboard crap they sell behind the counters of these so-called speed shops.”

“What people are building today holds absolutely no interest to me,” returned the Brit, spilling his can of libation. “I came from (expletive) millions of miles away to live in this country because I’m a (expletive) hot rod freak, right? And when I got to this country I was so (expletive) disappointed because the entire (expletive) place had sold out. And everybody is driving Japanese (expletive) cars.

“I came to (expletive) America and I came to Muroc today because I thought it was the last bastion of hot rodding,” the émigré gearhead was gathering steam now, double-clutching his soliloquy into overdrive, “and I think that this is (expletive) great today because shit like this rolled up (points to a ‘32 Model A D/Gas lakester) and made me a believer that hot rodding is still alive. (Screw) all that painted chrome and shit, this is a proper hot rod (points to the ‘52 Chevy sedan). You know what? I hate all this ‘family values’ and wearing shorts with flames on it, like ‘blar, blar, blar’ and ‘blar, blar, blar’ and ‘Excuse me, you can’t have no beer on that site.’ ‘Ex-cuse me?’ y’know-what-I-mean? I ain’t got no kids, I don’t want no (expletive) kids, I don’t want to be in an environment where I have to watch my (expletive) behavior because there might be kids present, I want to go and hang out where the is some old (expletive) proper hot rods, man.”

“Our ancestors,” his pal extrapolated, “much like him, left Europe to do what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it. He came over here, and he found he can’t do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it.”

“It’s not a case of that exactly,” the Brit resumed. “It’s a case of indoctrination. It’s a case of the asses who run the magazines these days—the writers are getting paid wages by the suits who run the magazine to say what’s trendy because the advertisers tell them to. So he has to say what is trendy, and it’s like ‘new-(expletive)-stalgia!’. What the (expletive) does that mean?

“Street rodding, as far as I’m concerned, means conforming to the rules the magazines have put down. Y’know: it’s easy to have a 350 Chevy with this person’s steering column, and this person’s (expletive) tie-rod, and this person’s (expletive) blah-blah-blah. That’s not, as far as I’m concerned, what hot rodding is all about, which is hauling shee-it out of a (expletive) junkyard and building a car on the jeeg.”

“Real hot rods don’t have tan interiors,” one of his pals summed up.

“You can build an old-looking car out of new pieces, but that doesn’t make it an old hot rod. Old hot rodding, truly, has disappeared. I think an article, really a lament, on the decline of true hot rodding would be a cool thing because nobody wants to do it—they’re scared to do it, they don’t want to put that in a magazine because they are supported by the people who are selling the parts.”

I reckoned he was correct, no magazine would publish those sentiments. I also told these adrenaline-addled hell raisers that most of their heroes—Alex Xydias, Stu Hilborn, Joaquin Arnett, etc. were in their seventies nowadays, and were probably trying to catch some shut-eye. The most reverent yet politic gesture these hep cats could make would be to turn down their stereo, put out their campfire and go to sleep…

The next morning, after a handful of test runs down the parched mud where NASA, the JPL, and the Southern California Timing Association pulled off their bizarre romantic visions (indeed the only place that could not only tolerate but actually nurture their dreams), the winds kicked in with a ferocity that rendered further speed-record attempts futile. As the mother of all sandstorms blew fiercer and more torrentially, the desert rats collapsed their tents and loaded their belongings into their motor homes, trailers, and deuce coupes and began their journey home. But for one weekend this procession of the Timelords of the Apocalypse, a gathering of tribes seriously in touch with the soul of the Universe, got to play in their Garden of Eden—never mind that the only foliage in this Garden were a few sandblasted Joshua trees out by the rocket launchers.

As the timing officials announced the cancellation of the speed trials over the c.b. radio, I closed my eyes. I could see the plume of thick, charcoal-black death smoke, emanating off of the horizon on the desert floor. And I got the chills as the stinging pricks of the torrential sands continued to dig into my face. Aerospace. Jocko Johnson. Wally Parks. Project Mercury. Rockabilly Anarchists. Sonic Booms. The SCTA. Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Drag Racing. Mach One. The Bean Bandits. They were all the same thing, big chunks of the Southern California Experience, just expressed in different ways out at Muroc. It was all a twisted, glorious manifestation of what the Mercury Seven called “Go! Fever,” a sickness that starts out innocently enough as an intellectual exercise to debunk physics via downforce (with a co-efficient of drag) or propulsion or torque, anything man, just hit the throttle!, a fever so mesmerizing that its victim becomes caught up in his quest for speed, speed, and more speed, until the rational and linear thought processes have been superseded by raw desire, damn the torpedoes and damn the consequences, I want to live man!, even if it means dying, so turn up the boost and gimme some nitro! Jocko Johnson spit out the quote that defined the existence of these veterans of the dry lake sandstorms. Over turkey meat tacos the night before he said, “The more creative you are, the closer you are to God.”

Anybody who tells you that soulless corporations are a necessary ingredient to the pursuit of horsepower has never stepped foot on the fossilized dry lakebeds of the Mojave Desert. Those who have seen and tasted the elements of the dry lakes—sandstorms, whiskey, rocket engines, nitromethane, and maximum velocity penis-shaped land speed vehicles—as they coalesce on a lunar landscape in the Mojave Desert, will tell you this: The sands will come again. Just ask Jocko. Or Wally Parks.

(Author’s note: I must acknowledge a serious debt as per literary sources that informed this article. These include: The Nearest Faraway Place by Timothy White (Henry Holt and Co. Inc.); High Performance by Robert Post (John Hopkins University); and The American Hot Rod by Dean Batchelor (Motorbooks International).)

(Originally published in Super Stock & Drag Illustrated)

(excerpted from TOP FUEL WORMHOLE: THE COLE COONCE DRAG STRIP READER, VOL. 1)

The “Wild Bill” Alexander Interview

by Cole Coonce

"Wild Bill" Alexander (photo by Ron Lewis)

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, a procedure that the man who came to be known as “Wild Bill” Alexander witnessed repeatedly from the cauldron of a cockpit. Indeed, nobody has encountered—and dodged—more molten metal than the bold and angry prince who answered to the name “Alexander.” Every trip down the drag strip was a potentially explosive exercise in metallurgical sorcery, which saw the alchemist himself grow and mutate from Hot Rod Hooligan into hell-bent Speed King and Conqueror to, finally, Elder Statesman of the Nitro Wars.

Alexander began his ascent into adulthood with a bad mojo. As a dyslexic schoolboy from a broken home, Bill sought comfort and camaraderie in the Bel Airs, one of the many ubiquitous car clubs that sprouted up in SoCal during the 1950s. Concurrent with leaving home at 16, he finally found a field he excelled in—and a potential outlet for his prodigious anger: Speed.

His buddies talk about Alexander’s precocious aptitude for wrestling with a hot job. “He was racing my ‘34 Vicky and it had a 3-speed on the steering column,” one Bel Air member remembers. “The gearshift lever broke off in mid-shift and he never even blinked. I was riding in the passenger seat and I couldn’t believe it. He just tossed it aside and continued shifting with a nub on the column.”

In one of the great symmetries of the era, the unsavory street racing favored by the Bel Airs thrived in an impromptu arena that was nothing if not a civic embarrassment: the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River. Traditionally, rivers are florid metaphorical tableaus upon which life and culture flourish. Think of the Nile and its fertile lands which gave rise to the Pharaohs of Egypt, among them Alexander the Great. Then think of a narrow piece of muck and concrete that serves no larger purpose than that of a glorified drainage ditch. Yes, although it is known as the breeding ground of nothing except perhaps a case of dysentery, the L.A. River gave rise to the career of “Wild Bill” in the same way that the Nile enabled a rampaging young Pharaoh also known as Alexander to conquer entire empires.

At the concrete delta, Alexander’s reputation grew while outrunning not only car clubbers but also the fuzz. One night, Law Dogs surprised the river-bed drag racers and attempted to broom the juvenile ne’er-do-wells into paddy wagons. The hot rodders peeled rubber and commenced to scattering like excited particles in a science experiment. Forced to improvise, Alexander resorted to scampering in his coupe like a coyote up the dusty bridle trails of Griffith Park and up into the Hollywood Hills. . .

The chaotic, dirty gear-jamming of the L.A. River ultimately yielded to properly sanctioned speed contests at El Mirage, Bonneville and San Fernando Raceway. While operating a drill press during the week, the drag strip was where Alexander’s star shone brighter still. Part working-class hero, part ultimate cockpit chimp, “Wild Bill” was subjected to and rode out the effects of imperfections in tire technology, as well as structural, metallurgical and thermodynamic failures. But he survived the frequent bouts with carnage in style: Shoeing Ernie Alvarado’s Shudder Bug, Bill stood down the notorious and fabled Greer, Black & Prudhomme AA/Fuel Dragster for Top Eliminator at Lions December 8, 1962, a dragster eliminated by only 7 other drivers. After crashing at Fernando in ‘63, he returns to the strip and, under the aegis of horsepower-monger Jim Brissette, is newly christened “Wild Bill” Alexander as he sets Top Speed of his career in his first lap back.  Later he sets Top Speed of the Universe, arguably at 202 mph, and then indisputably at 205.

Occasionally back in the 60s the drag racing press referred to Bill as Alexander the Great. This was apropos, as the precocious terror who became king of Macedonia at the prime age of twenty had an insatiable appetite for destruction and decimation. “Wild Bill” similarly had a scorched-earth policy. For reasons he wouldn’t understand until much later in life, he was anti-social, misunderstood and kinda’ mad at the world. Nobody escaped his agitation: competitors, officials or even teammates.

But, heck, after leaving a wake of wanton bloodshed and genocide, even Alexander the Great eventually mellowed and could be found dancing nude at the tomb of Greek poets. And after retiring as a journeyman in 1971, as the sport of drag racing took a turn Bill wasn’t comfortable with, Alexander returned to the drag strips in the ‘90s with the genesis of California’s front-motored “Prostalgia” Top Fuel wars. But his comeback is distinguished by the same jones for speed that characterized his first tenure in the hot seat; moreover, it is enhanced by a kinder, gentler demeanor and a new lust for life. Indeed, as runner-up at this year’s March Meet at Bakersfield, while driving for “Root Beer Frank” Hedge’s Mastercam AA/Fuel Dragster, Bill posted his career best elapsed time of 6.08 seconds.

"Wild Bill" Alexander and his Nitronic Research 5-Second Club shirt (photo by Cole Coonce)

*****

So some of the guys in the Bel Airs tell me you used to race on the L.A. river bed.

Alexander: Oh yeah (nonplussed). Generally on Friday night. At the time I didn’t haven’t a car. My buddy, Gary, had his ‘34 Victoria. Stan had a ‘57 Chevy—brand new—and we’d go down there and race with Tony Nancy, Floyd Lippencott, Jr. and Tommy Ivo, and all these guys and just street race in the river bed. It had this green slime down there so we had to find a spot with the least amount of green slime in order to race. Whoever’s side had the least amount of green slime won, usually.

Then we went to the River Road—which is Forest Lawn Drive now. We’d get 4 or 500 spectators down there, pit areas, the whole thing.

But it was more than just the L.A. River. It was Glenoaks Blvd…

Alexander: When we were street racing there was a Frostee (Foster’s) Freeze where everyone hung out. That’s when I had my ‘34. You’d park yourself and if some guy came by with a hot car, there was a signal right there. He’d have to stop and you’d just pull out next to him. You’d race down Glenoaks as far as Brand Blvd, turn around and pull back into the Frostee Freeze.

How did you make the leap from street racing and running from the law into climbing into a digger?

Alexander: My brother had built a ‘41 Willys to run the lakebed (El Mirage). He got drafted and left the car at home. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to touch it but instead I—whoop—took it out to the lakebed. It was kind of a dog; it ran 127 mph. A friend of mine said, “Let’s get the rulebook and check it.” We looked at the rulebook and we could take a 265 Chevy and de-stroke it 1/8th of an inch and get it down to 259 inches, put a blower and an injector on it and we could run it in the same class, C/Altered. We did. The record at the time, if I’m not mistaken, was 129 and we took it out and ran 155. Just shattered it. Then we went to Bonneville and ran 172 and then it took back to El Mirage and ran 181—in a ‘41 Willys coupe that went everywhere but where you pointed it. It was the most ill-handling thing—of course, I didn’t know any better because I had never driven anything out there.

After El Mirage one day, on the way back we went to San Fernando to run it and Ernie (Alvarado) was there. The next weekend they came and said, “Hey, you want to go to Long Beach?”  Ivo runs 8.99—it was the first 8 second time (on gas)—in a dual engined, unblown Buick. Ernie, who was a roundy-round guy, went, “Oohh, I like this.” The next weekend they came by and said, “Hey, you want to go to Long Beach again? And how would like to drive a dragster?”

When I was 14 my brother-in-law, Marty Elvehoff, had a slingshot altered that he was doing body work on at his house. I sat in it and I told myself, “Someday I’m going to drive one of these.” So when Ernie asked, I finally had the chance. So we go to Kent Fullers’ and we start building an aluminum body for it. We go down to the river road, fire it up and we had put the main jets in backwards. It was trying to hydraulic the motor. I’m down there trying to turn the fuel shut-off valve on and off, trying to make it run and it goes Ka-Blooey! and kicks the rods out of it—steel rods!  We oiled down the river road… never even got it to the race track.

That had to be a portent of things to come.

Alexander: Oh yeah. So we build a new motor for it, we’re getting ready to go to the races at San Fernando, loading the car up and the phone rings. Ernie’s dad had just died. Obviously, we didn’t run. That lasted almost a year. Ernie and his dad had just gotten close—it just devastated him.

Oh no.

Alexander: Finally, we got around to running it.  We take it to San Fernando, I leave the starting line and you talk about a shock. It probably went out about 400 feet and I’m off the throttle, out of it, dead player. Get down to end and the guys come down and ask, “How was it? How was it?”  I said, “Aw, bitchin’.” Lying through my teeth. . . ly-ing through my teeth. “You want to make another one?” “Yeah!” Lying again. We go back and cool the motor down (we were running on gas), make the next run, go about 700 feet and the comfort zone is gone—I’m petrified—CLICK! It ran 145 or 147 and I’m making the turnoff and I’m thinking there is n-o way I will EVER get this thing to the end of the track.

A blown Pontiac on gas?

Alexander: A blown Pontiac on gas. Probably at that time, the most state of the art car built—Kent Fuller built it. So after the second run, they come down and ask, “How was it?” “Bitchin’! I loved it!” Still lying through my teeth. “You want to make another one? “Yeah, okay… (under his breath) Oh, God. . .”

We go back and r’n’r the thing, cool it down. We go up to make the last pass. The gas record at that time was 168 mph and it turned 165 mph—and I got it down to the end. I shocked myself. Doing that convinced me that I could do it.

Were there any other pivotal moments?

Alexander: Well, shortly thereafter I met my first wife. The only reason she went out with me was because I drove one of those cars with a parachute on ‘em. We got married soon thereafter. So now I’d ask Ernie, “Are we going to run the car this weekend?” and he’d say no. This went on four or five weeks in a row.
What had happened was Ernie didn’t want a married guy driving for him. He didn’t want the responsibility. So he pulled the plug on me and put Tommy Ivo in. Tommy drove it that winter until the March Meet.

Was it still a hobby at that point or were you able to actually get some grocery money out of it?

Alexander: It was strictly a hobby. But after the March Meet, the car sat in Ernie’s garage for four months and I got the brilliant idea to tell him, “Give me your garage, give me your push car, give me your trailer, give me the race car and I will turn it into a Top Fuel car—with my money, it won’t cost you a penny.” Duh. Dumb idea, right? I didn’t have a pot to piss in, I’m married with one, soon to be two kids. He said, “Okay.” So every penny I could beg, borrow and steal went towards converting the injector over: new nozzle, new barrel valve, all that stuff so we could run it on fuel. Edgar Hugglebuss and I went out to Long Beach every Saturday night and that thing would go 200’ and it would turn right. So I’d get out of it. Edgar said if he had insurance he’d drive it. Right. That really pissed me off. So I told him, “I’m getting this (expletive) down there. It’s either going to the end or it is going to crash—one or the other, I don’t care anymore.” So I legged it on down there and about the 300’ mark, it turned right and I turned left and it went right through it. It did the same thing on every pass I ever made with that car. It was just one of those idiosyncrasies. From then on we went down for a long time and set Top Time or Low E.T. and then we’d get beat. Until a 32-car showdown there where we went and beat Greer, Black & Prudhomme. That was our first win and it seemed like we almost couldn’t get beat after that. Until it crashed.

So from late ‘62 and into ‘63, you were among the elite fueler guys.

Alexander: None of us felt that way. At that time we were a bunch of kids having fun—a bunch of kids who knew we weren’t going to live past 35. With Ernie’s car, I never took a penny, although it made a ton of money.

So you didn’t quit your day job at this point?

Alexander: It never dawned on me it could be possible. All the money went into the racing account which Ernie ended up keeping after I crashed. But after that I always took 33%. I did not drive for anything less.

Tell me about the crash.

Alexander: Mickey Thompson saved my life. The very first time we tried to run at Long Beach the inspectors looked at what was one of the first over-the-head hoop rollbars and they didn’t like it. So they called Mickey on the radio and he said, “If you put two bars halfway up the rollbars down to the rear-end mounts, I’ll let you run it.” So we put two “sissy rails” on it. That’s what prompted the body to be designed the way it was. Ernie hated those sissy rails so much. Lujie Lesovsky (Indy car builder) built the body up on the sides and into the parachute pack to hide the sissy bars. He said, “I can’t just stop here,” like most of the guys did.

So you’re saying this actually precipitated the design of, say, Stellings & Hampshire.

Alexander: Ernie’s car was something that everybody went off of and made better. Ernie’s car was kind of boxy. The Greer, Black & Prudhomme car was a little slicker—it looked a little smoother and nicer. Everybody smoothed ‘em out, but Ernie’s was the first of its kind.

Until that Sunday at the Pond in April of ‘63.

Alexander: Right. In those day we ran 15 or 16 pounds of air in the rear tires. We made the first run and broke the track record—mile an hour and E.T. Came back for the first round and instead of 15 or 16 we ran a pound less. “If that was good, this ought to be better.” Same thing, Low E.T., Top Speed, track record. Come back the next round, it’s a pound lower. So screw it: “If that was good, this ought to be really good.” Went out and did the same thing. Come to the final round and one of the last things I remember is that we were another pound lower. My theory is that the tires finally got so low that it spun the wheel in the tire and at half track started spitting tire out and kicked the right hand tire off, blew it up, it drove it into the dirt, nosed in about 1000 feet and ended up clearing the flags over the finish line and then all hell broke loose. It just dug in and catapulted. Flat out, it blew a right tire.

After it catapulted, it came apart like a cheap watch. The front end broke off, the engine took off. People told me that the chutes came out when it was 20 feet in the air. When I got stopped, my hand was still on my shoulder like I had pulled the chutes. They did a magnificent job of getting me out of the car. Dave Wallace and Harry Hibler (track personnel) saved my life. Harry looked at me and said, “Goddammit, don’t you die.” I rolled my eyes back in my head and he said, “You son of a bitch.” He thought I had died. They hauled me off to the hospital—we called it the butcher shop. Meanwhile, a friend of my wife’s called her and said, “You and Renee can come live with us.” My wife said, “What are you talking about?” “I just saw on teevee that Bill got killed out at San Fernando.”

(silence)

Alexander: Yeah, heavy stuff. Ernie’s damn near dead—he’s in shock and was in the next room.

Besides that dark day at the Pond, how was it getting the Shudder Bug down the strip?

Alexander: That car taught me everything I know today. It was an evil car—I didn’t know that at the time. At that time, it was state of the art. But it was an evil little bastard. It taught me how to feel the car, rather than let the car act and then I react. It taught me to turn the wheel before the back of the car ever reacted. It taught me to be ahead of it—to feel the car. Ernie’s car taught me so very much—but it also taught me that life is very precious.

Maybe that’s the car they should use in the drag racing schools. So when you came back, that was the advent of “Wild Bill”?

Alexander: When I first drove again I went faster and quicker than I ever went in my life.

Out of the box?

Alexander: Out of the box. I was worried that I would have this big flashback where I was upside down and on fire. It didn’t happen, I just legged it on through there like it was no big deal. I don’t remember the guy’s name who was in the tower, but he said, “Oh, that’s old ‘Wild Bill’ for ya’.” I got stuck with the name.

This was with Hippo (Everett Brammer) and Jim Brissette, right? How did this partnership come together?

Alexander: Hippo went to Jim Brissette and said, “Would you put your motor in my car if I get Bill Alexander to drive for me?” He said, “Sure.” Then he asked me, “Would you drive my car if I get Jim Brissette to put his motor in the car?”

We started out with a 354 and would smoke the tires, went to a 331 and would smoke the tires, and finally ended up with a 300-incher and the thing ran good. We could finally control the horsepower. But through all of that Jimmy decided, “Screw this.” He ordered a brand new Woody Gilmore car, 144-inch-long come-catch-me-throw-me-down-top-of-the-line, with the engine about 3 inches off the rear end. It didn’t have immediate success. Fastest car in the world for maybe two years, quickest car in the world for maybe four months.

The reputation was that the car would stay together for maybe three rounds.

Alexander: It would haul ass in qualifying. The first round nobody wanted us; second round everybody wanted us because they knew the rods were coming out at half-track. It was because Jimmy was making so much more horsepower and the car worked so good that it worked the motor that much harder. It would have main bearing problems, which became rod bearing problems. Jimmy tried everything—we drilled the main caps and had extra lines going into the main caps—and then the fingers started pointing. “Bill is driving it too hard.” For the last eight months it was finger pointing, not by Jimmy so much, but by his friends and people at the races. Yeah—we’re running 206 and a tenth of a second ahead of the field sometimes and “he’s driving the car too hard.”

What was your deal with Brissette?

Alexander: 33 percent, bottom line. I packed the parachute and drove.

The consensus was that Brissette wouldn’t settle for anything but big numbers.

Alexander: Exactly. Blowing the engine up and catching it on fire—that didn’t bother me. Blowing the rods out, getting oiled in, I’m okay with that. Ernie’s car, every run we ever made, I got oiled in. But then we started blowing blowers off—this became rather serious. Actually, it became very serious.

We went to Fremont one night and whistled the sucker down through there, get about 900’ and ka-blooey: We split the blower right down the middle. Come back, put the spare on it, go out there and whistle it through…  ka-blooey: We split the blower right down the middle. Some guy who had already qualified goes over and pulls the blower off his car and goes “plink!” “I want to see you guys run over 200 mph.” Jimmy throws that sucker on the motor, run it down there till’ about 1100 feet, it sneezes and splits that blower. Somebody else walks over with another blower. Etc., etc. By the final, we leave the starting line, I’ve got the other guy covered and the thing is really hauling ass. I’m thinking, “All right!” And I’m whistling down there…  Ka-blooey! It goes off. The blower lifts and comes back and hits me right between the eyes. The entire blower and the injector. It falls in my lap, it pulls my hands off the wheel and into my lap. This all takes place in a millisecond. I lift the thing out of the car, throw it out on the cowl, grab a hold of the steering wheel and I’m still trying to drive. There is oil on my goggles—they are all cracked by now. I take one hand off, wipe off my goggles. “Okay, I’m still fine.” The blower goes, “clink, clink, clink” hits the tires, goes back in the air and hits me right back in the eyes again. This all sounds like bullshit, but it went “boink, boink.” I went, “Aww,  s-s-h-h-it.” It hit the tire again, came back and hit me in the face and that is the last thing I remember until the ambulance guys were taking me out of the car.

When I became conscious the first thing out of my mouth was, “Did I win?” “No, you lost.” “Aww, s-s-h-h-it.” It ripped my finger from the knuckle down and split my nose from my forehead down. It was going, “phfffllttt. . . phfffllttt. . . phfffllttt.”

And it was more of a mercenary deal at this point?

Alexander: If it hadn’t have been for drag racing, I wouldn’t have been able to have a wife and raise two kids. I worked during the day and I made more on the weekends than I did during a whole week. I was able to take care of my family and provide for them much better than I ever knew.

Who did you drive after Brissette?

Alexander: I didn’t drive for a couple of years. Then Bob Sbarbaro called me from San Francisco. I would commute—all expenses paid. Plus 33 percent. I started driving for him but we didn’t get along. Bob was very outgoing and loved everybody. I was very withdrawn and really a homebody. (At this point) I did racing for a living—not because I enjoyed it.

So it would it be safe to say that you enjoyed being in the cockpit, but not socializing.

Alexander: The only thing I liked about racing was driving the car. As far as socializing, I didn’t do it. Maybe people got the wrong impression of me. But that was me and has been me—until not long ago.

I couldn’t tell you why I was the way I was. I didn’t know any different; I didn’t know any better.

Why were you so mad at the world?

Alexander: I had a shitty childhood—a gawd-awful childhood. Walking the streets when I was 7 or 8 years old. (Details deleted at Alexander’s request). I hated the world and I was an angry, very upset young man who took my anger out on anything or everything.

But driving a fuel car had to be the ultimate release.

Alexander: It was the ultimate release, but as soon as I got out of the car the anger came back. It was a lousy way to live. It ruined my first marriage.

With a co-efficient of drag racing.

Alexander: Not really—that’s what I thought. But in hindsight, I ruined that marriage. I was a pissed off young man who didn’t know why he was angry. I didn’t realize this until six or seven years ago. I have been trying to turn my life around for six or seven years.

Isn’t it interesting that the front-motored fueler thing has come back and you have a chance, perhaps, to undo some things?

Alexander: This is where you are exactly right. This is where I have a chance to make up for a lot of the bad things I said and the bad things I did. As far as moaning and bad-mouthing of sanctioning bodies—I made a lot of mistakes.

So there you were in the late ‘60s and the sport is getting more professional. How come you didn’t ride that wave? Did your outspoken manner make it difficult?

Alexander: I had a wife and two kids I had to be responsible for. I had an opportunity to go on tour but I was afraid I couldn’t make enough money to support them. My marriage was shaky, so I thought I should stay home and try to salvage it—which wasn’t salvageable.

Do you regret that choice?

Alexander: No. I’m glad I did it. I would have liked to have taken the chance but I wasn’t about to gamble with my wife and kids.

Is what you’re doing now providing a venue for some of you guys who felt that you didn’t get a chance to ride out that last wave as you saw fit?

Alexander: This has let a lot of us do what we wanted to do when we were younger—and maybe a little more talented. But it is allowing us to fulfill maybe a dream, or maybe the reality of something we stopped doing then because of families, business or whatever.

It takes a certain kind of mind to run a nitro car, particularly to tune one…

Alexander: Now you’re out of my league. I know how to drive and pack the parachute—and mix nitro. And I try to stay away from mixing nitro because I just assume pour straight nitro in it.

"Wild Bill" Alexander, in the Ground Zero Top Fuel dragster at the 2003 March Meet (photo by Cole Coonce)

(Originally published in Drag Racing USA)

by Cole Coonce