The next months saw the coupe again become a one-engined car, but what an engine. The pride of the flathead brigade. And that was saying a lot in those days because drag racing was still pretty much a flathead affair. The overhead valves--at least the V-8's--were a long way from dominating the racing scene. As a matter of fact, the first 270 Jimmys, (six-cylinder, 270-cubic-inch GMC truck engines that were destined to dominate drag racing) were just starting to make the scene, but there were relatively few competition parts, particularly super-chargers, for them; so it was still a flathead world.
The backyard nature of the project didn't hamper me, because all of the cars then were homemade creations. It was years later that the factory and automotive part suppliers really got into the act. In those days it was actually possible for a kid to get a part-time job and, with meager proceeds, build a competitive drag car. He didn't need the vast support of Ford or Chrysler or GM or anybody. He could do it himself, and kids all over Los Angeles and southern California were doing it. I guess this is why people still think of southern California when someone mentions drag racing. Drag racing was the fastest-growing sport in the nation, and I was right in the middle of it--and was not far from actually driving myself.
In fact, I was driving some. There was an alley right behind the chicken coop which was about two blocks long and looked like the perfect spot to test the coupe. The alley was fairly smooth, with sandy soil, and it dead-ended into a hillside. My folks gave me permission to test the car there if I didn't go too fast and if I promised not to get out on the street. It sounded like a fair deal; so I went to work in earnest to get the coupe ready to run. All of the custom body work and the interior and the refinements could come later. Right now I just wanted to drive that car.
I didn't need much coaching when the day for my first test drive came, because I had spent the last two years watching every gear shift and every turn of the wheel that the Igniters had made when they took me for rides. Despite my confidence, a couple of the fellows came up anyway when I told them the car was ready. We made a few final adjustments, and they told me over and over again just what to do. They were like a couple of teen-age fathers.
We pushed the car out of the garage (I had long since stopped calling it a chicken coop) and onto the alley, and I got in and sat there for a minute. I was about to drive my car. I wasn't even thinking of the bragging I would do next day to my classmates; I was just proud of what I had done. And I knew it was to be one of the most important drives of my life.
I started the engine, put the car in gear, and eased out on the clutch. I was moving, a little jerkily, but moving. I looked back at the dust the coupe was kicking up--at the fantastic speed of 25 mph--and I just sat back and felt lucky.
I found lots of excuses to test the car after that, and I think it took me about two months before I could get back to working on the car seriously. I would tighten one bolt and then take the car out back to see how it performed. At least I was getting lots of driving practice.
The driving experience also produced a strong desire to see how it was done at speed, especially since I had long before talked the Rourke brothers into taking me to the Sunday Drag Strip meets. Fontana was the first drag strip in the area and one of the first in the nation--the mecca of speed-struck fans in southern California in the early 1950s. It was about 60 miles east of my house, and all of the fellows went there every weekend. I built up lots of time as a spectator at that track, but I was really there for more than just watching. I was learning from the mistakes and from the gambles that worked--the tricks of the trade. And I didn't forget a thing I saw. I filed it all neatly away in my racing library--the thing most people consider a brain. When that glorious sixteenth birthday finally came, I would be ready. So would the coupe.
Then Saugus Drag Strip opened and started a Saturday meet. It was pretty close to home, too; so we also started going there each week. This gave us an entire weekend of breathing exhaust fumes.
Bill Adair, one of the first drag racers to take me under his wing, had about the fastest dragster at Saugus. It was a super-charged rocket that ran on fuel, and this made it sort of exotic. Most of the cars ran on ordinary gasoline, but the really fast ones ran on this mixture of alcohol and nitro methane fuel. It wasn't just a simple matter of changing over from gasoline to fuel; the engines had to be designed to stand the added kick the fuel gave. They were the real crowd pleasers, the ones that went the fastest--the top eliminators.
Bill took me to Saugus one night and as we pulled into the pits he said, "Want to run it down the strip, Craig? It's early, and there's not too much going on."
I sat there and looked at him. Was he really saying what I thought he was saying? Me? Drive a fueler? "Wow, would I!" I finally blurted out. He went over to the starter, and by the time he got back I was strapped in, helmet on and ready to go.
"Now, listen. Keep it straight and you won't get in trouble," he said. "Get off the accelerator when you get through the lights, and shut the engine off when you get it stopped. Go get'em, kid," he said.
I was only 15--1 don't even know if my parents know about the incident to this day--but there I was on the starting line at Saugus.
I'll never forget the thrill that accompanied that first run--the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I let the clutch out, tramped the accelerator, and felt the power pulling me down the racetrack. It made my chest throb and my fingers tingle. It was injecting the booster shot of racing fever in my veins. No more kid stuff--this was the real thing. I thought, "Will my sixteenth birthday never come?"
I had gone 127 mph in my first run--at 15!
Bill smiled when I got back to the pits with the car and said, "That should shake up your friends at the drive-in." He was referring to the Clock Drive-in where I went often with my buddies from school.
Practically every evening we sat around at the drive-in, waiting for somebody we knew to ask us to get in his car. Someone usually did, and we would sit there for an hour or two, telling racing tales and talking about cars and girls. Bill was right. Tonight I really had something to tell them.
These were impressionable days for me and hardly a week went by that didn't bring another "greatest thrill of my life."
The next in a long line of "greatest thrills" came when my folks allowed me to go to Bonneville in August for Speed Week with Bill and another Igniter, George Farrell. My folks really liked Bill and George and felt that they would watch out for me. In fact, they had been watching out for me since I was 12. It was also part of a deal I had made with my folks. They were still concerned that I hadn't shown more interest in school than I had, and they said they would let me go if I brought my grades up to a B average. I knew this wouldn't be too tough, and Bonneville was important enough for me to make even the supreme sacrifice--studying.
There was nothing as big in hot rodding as the Salt Flats at Bonneville. It had been the first place hot rods had competed, and it was still the fastest. I was about to go there.
Bill and George were taking a twin-engined roadster, which we towed up with George's '46 Ford business coupe. There were just the three of us, and I remember the Ford boiling every time we tried to go over a mountain. At one point George was sitting on the front fender as Bill drove. He had a five gallon can of water and was mopping down the radiator to try to keep it cool.
Racing heroes in the early 1950s were an exciting blend of legend and reality, and I was really excited to be involved with two of the real giants of racing--even if one of them was sitting on the front fender of a boiling Ford and the other was swearing at it when it got so hot that it wouldn't run at all.
Here I was, a 15-year-old kid, with two race drivers, in their mid-20s, sharing all their problems and talking about racing and actually being part of the crew. Big names have always impressed me; even today I stop and stare in awe at a movie star or a famous sports hero. So you can imagine how I felt at 15.
The trip to Bonneville was a dream come true. When I wasn't sitting up front between Bill and George, I was curled up in the back of the car, sleeping on the luggage compartment just behind the front seat--the only seat those business coupes had. Bill and George talked a lot about what their strategy would be when they arrived at the Salt Flats and even asked my advice on a couple of points. I was about as well informed on hot-rodding as many of the older fellows, and this was something of which I was proud. I never tried to show off, though, and I think this is why the older guys accepted me and tried to help me, and why the kids my own age looked up to me.
When we arrived in Wendover, the closest town to the Salt Flats, it seemed that every hot-rodder on earth had invaded the town. Wendover is about six miles from the Flats and the only place where they could do any major work on their cars. They could do some minor repairs on the racecourse but most of the work had to be done in town because there was no electricity or anything else out on the Flats.
There were thousands of kids and hundreds of cars. It was a fantastic sight watching the cars running up and down the streets and seeing all of the racers, with parts literally strewn all over Wendover. We didn't even stop in town but went right to the Salt Flats and rolled out our sleeping bags. It was after midnight and it had been a long, tiring day, but trying to sleep was ridiculous. I was so excited I don't think I got more than an hour's sleep, and this was divided into about twelve equal parts.
When the sun came up I couldn't believe the sight. Stretching out before me was the largest expanse of anything I had ever seen. I knew the Pacific Ocean was bigger, but at that moment I would have argued the point. Here was this huge mass of nothing but white. It looked like a giant frozen lake, and I guessed you could go about nine thousand miles an hour on it. Within 15 minutes after sunrise there were about 200 cars there with drivers who felt the same way and about 2,000 fans who were sure the cars were going that fast just warming up.
George went 179 in the roadster, and I couldn't have been happier if I had been behind the wheel myself. After all, I was an official crew member and I had a pit badge on my crew jacket to prove it. As I recall, I wore that jacket and badge to school almost every day for the rest of the year--even when I didn't need a jacket. The teachers weren't too wild about it, but the kids were.
The trip home did even more for my pride than the one to the Flats. I proudly shared the back of the car with this giant trophy that I had helped win. I had been a crew member on a Bonneville-winning car! We got to my place about one in the morning, but I wasn't satisfied until my folks--even Flash--had gotten up and seen the trophy. I think that in spite of the late hour they were a little proud of us, too.
The big trip had convinced me of one thing - I needed a better-paying job than the car sanding bit. I had seen some great cars up there, and I realized that it was going to be expensive if I expected to compete in that league. And with my sixteenth birthday only a few months away, there wasn't much time to get it. I talked with all of my hot rod buddies and finally found what I considered the perfect part-time job.
Quincy Automotive in Santa Monica was a speed shop, and some of the neatest cars in the area came in there for repair and custom work. There was an opening for a welder, and I knew a little about welding from watching other guys work. Quincy agreed to teach me the rest, and I went to work for a dollar an hour. I worked three hours after school and all day on Saturday, and the job gave me both the welding experience and ideas from other cars, in addition to the money that I needed to finish the coupe.
The coupe was pretty much completed mechanically, and all that was left was the custom body work and the interior; so I stepped up the program. I worked every night and Sunday on the car, applying my body shop and welding knowledge, and had it ready to paint in about three months. The fellows at Quincy agreed to paint the car for me and let me work off the bill. They also helped me with the interior by taking the seats down to Tijuana, Mexico, to have them reupholstered. Most of the fellows were having their upholstery work done there because it was cheaper and, in most cases, better. Quincy loaded mine on with three or four others and took them down for me.
The seats were back in about two weeks. Man, they were beautiful! They were rolled and pleated black leather and looked like they had come right out of a Rolls-Royce. I had finished rubbing out the new blue and white paint, and we slipped the seats in. The coupe was finished, and it was a magnificent piece of machinery!
Then the big day finally arrived. I was 16. In the next few weeks I put the final touches on the coupe and with the help of fellow Igniters (I was now a full-fledged member) tuned it to within three-sixteenths of its life.
The first thing I did then was to announce to my folks that the car was ready and I was ready and I was going to Saugus to race it.
When my stepfather said I couldn't race it, my heart dropped. "That's what I built it for, to run it," I said.
He said, "Absolutely not. You spent about four or five hundred dollars on the engine alone and you're not going to take it up there and ruin it."
So I said, "Okay, I won't go," and that closed the conversation. And then I went.
I had been to the races hundreds of times and had been in the pits just about as often; so the environment itself was nothing new to me. Why, I had even driven a car there myself--not in competition, but I had driven one. None of this mattered a bit. The feeling I had when I drove that race car into the pits of the Saugus Drag Strip on April 18, 1953, was unexcelled in my years of racing experience. (Well, it had been four years.) I knew almost everybody in the pits from having been there with one Igniter or another. Now I was one of them and for a moment was the center of attention. I'm the king of Saugus, I thought.
Every time a new car showed up at the track all of the other drivers would come to look it over. I took it as a great tribute to Craig Breedlove, race driver. What they actually were doing was looking over the competition to see how difficult it was going to be to beat. Nevertheless, the thrill was there, as I'm sure it had been for each one of them.
George and Bill went with me and we stood in the pits, tinkering with the adjustments for the four-thousandth time that day, and waited. I grew more apprehensive with each minute, not from fear of hurting myself but from fear that I wouldn't win!
Finally the time came. They announced the B Class gas coupes, and the next thing I knew I was pulling the Ford to the line. I glanced over at the car on my right and it looked awesome. It was a jet black '37 Ford coupe and looked real mean. They call the starting light on a drag strip a Christmas tree light because it has a series of lights that flash for each lane, top to bottom. When it gets to the last light--the green one--you jump on the accelerator and hold it down until you get past the next set of timing lights. "That black Ford doesn't look like anything I ever associated with Christmas," I thought.
Then the light was green and the two coupes were screaming down the quarter-mile with white smoke pouring from the rear tires. It had all happened so fast I didn't even have time to be scared. My racing career was officially underway.
I beat the black coupe, and Bill and George just grabbed me and hugged me when I got out of the car. They didn't say anything. They just held on to me, because they knew how much winning meant to me. And besides, nobody really needed to say anything.
When I got to the starting line for the next heat, my competition was a fire engine red deuce (a '32 Ford coupe), but it didn't look as mean as the black coupe had. I guess I bad started to acquire the confidence needed to be a successful race driver. It's important, I was to learn later, to know you're going to win. And I knew I would beat the deuce.
The light flashed green, and I slammed the accelerator pedal down with the style of a veteran and sizzled off to my second victory. There was only one plateau left before the coupe, which I had now started to think of as Blue Streak II, would be the fastest of the B Class gas coupes at Saugus.
The final race was a close one, but I flashed through the timing lights about half a highly chromed bumper ahead of a '33 coupe called the "Red Baron." The charming young American of bike racing fame had done it--and with no skinned knees or torn shirt.
