Through My Eyes – The Coming of Professional Sports Car Racing in California – Deluxe Special Signed Limited Edition
For over 65 years, Dave Friedman has been a world-renowned motion picture and still photographer known for his pictures of celebrities, cinema, classical ballet and car racing.
“Through My Eyes” is his latest book and it’s all about car racing in the years 1958-1965.
- This book has 364 Pages of car racing photos; most have never been seen before
- In this book are 658 of Dave’s photos of race cars, drivers, teams and events from 1958-1965
- All the famous race car drivers are in this book
- Along with photos and captions of these famous drivers and their cars are images of pit crews, fans, racetrack scenery, and humorous/historic incidents that occurred at these events.
- Limit edition of 200 books
- Each copy is signed by Dave Friedman and numbered 1-200
- This edition includes a custom designed slipcase
- Contains an OVC designed envelope with 6 pictures of racing legends
- OVC logo white gloves
Through My Eyes – The Coming of Professional Sports Car Racing in California -Signed Edition
SIGNED
For over 65 years, Dave Friedman has been a world-renowned motion picture and still photographer known for his pictures of celebrities, cinema, classical ballet and car racing.
“Through My Eyes” is his latest book and it’s all about car racing in the years 1958-1965.
- This book has 364 Pages of car racing photos; most have never been seen before
- In this book are 658 of Dave’s photos of race cars, drivers, teams and events from 1958-1965
- All the famous race car drivers are in this book
- Along with photos and captions of these famous drivers and their cars are images of pit crews, fans, racetrack scenery, and humorous/historic incidents that occurred at these events.
It Happened in Southern California
Best known for its movie industry, surfing, and amusement parks, Southern California boasts an environment of glamour, both natural and man made. It Happened in Southern California tells the stories of intriguing people and events from the history of this region—from the first ships to arrive in San Diego in 1769 to the Watts Riots of 1965.
Follow a brave little band of multiracial settlers in 1781 up the California coast to a new frontier town today known as Los Angeles. Go back to the Chinatown war of 1871, which some say was sparked by love, but others knew for what it was: a battle over race and money. Learn about the “puppet show” in 1988, performed not for kindergartners but for a baby condor destined to fly wild and free over Southern California’s skies. It Happened in Southern California describes everything from the efforts of the first Spanish colonialists to the reintroduction of endangered condor.
It Happened in Northern California
It Happened in Northern California takes readers on a rollicking, behind the scene look at some of the characters and episodes from the state’s storied past. Including famous tales, famous names as well as little known heroes, heroines, and happenings.
Northern California is well known for its towering redwoods, Spanish missions, and gold mines, but few know about the two-year-long Native American occupation of Alcatraz, efforts by some northern Californians to establish the US’s fifty-first state, or that John Sutter never capitalized on the gold rush that began on his land. It Happened in Northern California goes behind the scenes to tell these stories and many more, in short episodes that reveal the intriguing people and events that have shaped the Golden State.
Bar Keeps: A Collection of California Cocktail Napkins
Motorcycling in California’s Central Valley
The heart of California’s Central Valley—from Lodi, Stockton, and Tracy through Modesto, Oakdale, and Turlock—embraced motorcycling from the beginning of the sport and lifestyle. Eleven riders from the region are in the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) Hall of Fame, spanning every decade from the 1900s. The popularity of bicycling in the 1890s led to early motorcycle shops, riders, and champion racers in the 1900–1910s. Area motorcycle club recreational rides and field meets started in 1914. Central Valley police departments were among the first to develop motorcycle traffic units in the 1920s, before the California Highway Patrol. Early racing venues such as repurposed bicycle velodromes, college stadiums, and horse tracks were expanded when the Lodi Cycle Bowl was developed in the 1950s; it gave newcomers such as Modesto’s Kenny Roberts and Stockton’s Alex Jorgensen, Chris Carr, and Fred Merkel—all now AMA Hall of Famers—a track at which to compete weekly.
Haunted Southern California
Southern California is known for its sunshine and beaches, but underneath this façade lies a darker side. From the Vallecito Stage Stop deep in the desert where a phantom bride eternally seeks her lost love to the town of Lone Pine, where the shades of U.S. Cavalry and Paiute natives still battle for land rights, Southern California is haunted by its sordid past. Ghosts relive their days of fun at Universal Studios and Disneyland and remember their days sailing on the majestic RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach. Even its missions host the spirits of the long-departed. Join author Brian Clune as he uncovers the spooky side of Southern California.
California’s Haunted Route 66
From the stark beauty of the Mojave Desert to the haunted Santa Monica Pier, California’s Route 66 is the guideline for a truly spirited road trip. The road is lined with ghost towns such as Ludlow, a town that lived and died twice, and Goffs, now a dusty museum where the shades of the past walk the streets. In Barstow, a hundred-year-old rail station hosts long-dead passengers still waiting for their trains, and in Monrovia, the Aztec Hotel entertains spirits from a bygone era, as does the Pasadena Playhouse, the official state theater of California. Join author and paranormal historian Brian Clune as he explores the haunted history of the mother road.
Drag Racing in Southern California a Tiny History
Images taken at Irwindale Speedway,Orange County Race Track, Pomona Raceway and Ontario Motor Speedway from 1970 through 1984.Other images included from 1996 though 2000. Most images never before published.
11 x 8 193 pages
Flat Out California Dry Lake Trials 1930-1950
In the late 1920s hot rodders began to gravitate to the various dry lake beds near Los Angeles to engage in straightaway time trials. By the late 1930s the sport had become formalized and was booming. It’s a purely American activity, and one that continues to this day.
Flat Out: California Dry Lake Trials 1930-1950 is the definitive history of the sport during the Golden Age of dry lake competition. It covers the beginnings, Muroc Racing Association, SCTA, the “bootleg races” during WWII and the postwar period. 300 photos of almost every notable dry lake car.
When Drake started this book, almost nothing was written about dry lake competition during the years 1930-1948 (when Hot Rod Magazine began). This book contains information that would otherwise be lost.
The book has 300 photographs, showing almost every notable dry lakes car, and many “typical” cars. It captures the spirit of the times–what it must’ve been like to have been a rodder during those two decades.
Chapters on: Hollywood Folks, Wrecks, Behemoths, Streamlining, Timing, Organizational Activities, Souping the Four Barrel, the V-8 and more.
Butch the California Flash Leal
Check out the first ever biography on the popular drag racer, Butch “The California Flash” Leal.
Born and raised in central California, Larry “Butch” Leal was obsessed with cars from a very early age. What began with field cars turned into hard work and new Chevrolets. This took place when the golden era of drag racing was in its infancy, and Leal joined with enthusiasm. He performed well at the track with his early Chevys and had an impressive number of wins before he was out of high school. His success brought him plenty of attention and collaboration with other big names in the sport.
In 1963, GM pulled out of the sport on an official basis. As a result, Butch (at age 19) teamed up with Mickey Thompson and joined the Ford camp, securing a ride with the factory team and its new Thunderbolts for 1964. After his success that season, including winning the Super Stock (S/S) class at the 1964 NHRA US Nationals in Indianapolis, Chrysler came calling, and Butch signed on to race the new altered-wheelbase cars in match races for 1965, as the NHRA did not have a class for these new “funny” looking cars. While Leal dabbled again with Ford and Chevrolet later, his relationship with Chrysler lasted well into the following decades, running both Funny Cars and Super Stockers.
Penned by talented automotive historian Bob McClurg, who was there for it all, and featuring full collaboration with the book’s subject, Butch “The California Flash” Leal covers the span of his fascinating career during arguably the most interesting era in drag racing history. Butch was an 11-time NHRA champion and 4-time recipient of Car Craft magazine’s All-Star Driver of the Year award in a career that spanned the 1960s through the 1990s. It’s all here, the events, great vintage photography, and the stories from one of the best storytellers the NHRA has ever known. Add this entertaining volume to your drag racing library today.
The Dealer: How One California Dealership Fueled the Rise of Ferrari Cars in America
Legends & Lore Along California’s Highway 395
Stretching from Victorville to Carson City, Highway 395 offers a snapshot of California’s diverse landscapes and oddities. Tales of skinwalkers and Sasquatch sightings flourish among the bones of ghost towns, and stories of the elusive Lone Pine Mountain Devil ignite the curiosity. Far from fiction, the Sierra Phantom lived among the hills for fifty years, and mountaineer Norman Clyde used his skills to find lost hikers and climbers. Rumors of the Lost Cement Mine, with a rich vein of gold, lure people in, and the Tuttle Creek Ashram, built high above Lone Pine, offers peace. Author Brian Clune explores the strange and fascinating side of the majestic mountains and lonely deserts along US 395.
Supernatural California
This comprehensive guidebook takes you to over 200 sites where the supernatural, paranormal and unknown are most likely to encountered in California. You will find: –the top 5 California UFO hotspots –Bigfoot encounters –lake monsters and coastal sea serpents –rare chupacabra and other cryptozoological creatures –haunted hotels, parks, museums, theaters, businesses, roadways, and more –numerous unique people, places, mysteries, and legends This unusual volume is a guidebook to the weirdness of California, divulging the fascinating histories behind these locations and events, with interviews from firsthand witnesses. More than 60 illustrations and color photographs offer glimpses into wonders of the Sunshine State. Directions are provided. Fantastic journeys into the heart of Supernatural California are waiting. Are you ready?
Junkyard: Behind the Gates at California’s Secretive European-Car Salvage Yard
Junkyard offers the only known photographic documentation of car collector Rudi Klein’s famed stockpile of distraught—but rare and valuable—vehicles from Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Maserati, and more.
In 1967, Rudi Klein began quietly buying up wrecked, damaged, and worn-out high-end European cars under the business moniker “Foreign Auto Wrecking.” Over time, he amassed a stunning collection of treasures. Among the stash is a one-of-one 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500K built for pre-war Mercedes racer Rudolf Caracciola. No one is precisely sure what other prizes rest behind the yard’s not-open-to-the-public gates.
Some 20 years ago, and after much negotiation, photographer Dieter Rebmann and author Roland Lowisch were permitted rare entrée to the salvage yard’s grounds to document its residents.This record of Klein’s collection is nothing short of amazing for any classic and collector car enthusiast.
Sadly, Rudi passed away in 2001, but the collection remains under the care of his sons, who operate it as elusively as their father, maintaining its decades-long air of mystery and desirability.
Southern California Road Racing
In California, the popularity of all kinds of motor sports reached its peak in the mid-20th century. None was more exotic or glamorous than the type commonly called road racing. Southern California Road Racing is a collection of historic photographs that depicts all the action and excitement of the golden age of motor sports. The images in this book will take you back to the days when the best cars Europe had to offer competed with homebuilt specials over world-famous road courses like Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, Glen Helen, and Riverside International, plus show all the cars and people that made it happen.
Postcards from Mecca. The California Desert Photographs of Susie Keef Smith and Lula Mae Graves 1916 – 1936
Susie Keef Smith was seeking escape from a troubled home life and the havoc of childhood polio when she took a job as postmaster in Mecca, on the edge of California’s Salton Sea. She and her cousin Lula Mae Graves set out to photograph the last of the prospectors, burro packers and stage stops in the remote desert to the east. They traveled by burro, foot and Ford though sandy washes and roadless canyons, armed with a .38 revolver and a large format camera. While making postcards for the Post Office spinner rack, the women were remade in the wilderness and wound up creating an unparalleled portrait of one of the lesser-known deserts in the West. Susie Smith’s photos were nearly lost to history when upon her death they were tossed out by a county estate administrator. A savvy archaeologist jumped into a dumpster and rescued many of the photos in this book. Postcards From Mecca presents portraits of a mysterious land along with the story of its heroic chroniclers, self-taught documentary photographers of the 1920s and ’30s.
UFOs Over California: A True History of Extraterrestrial Encounters in the Golden State
Step aside Roswell: California leads the nation in UFO sightings and encounters, with over 5000 reported incidents from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries. Documented here are diverse early accounts, including native American UFO encounters, the 1896 California Airship Mystery, and the 1942 Battle of Los Angeles. Hundreds of verified sightings include luminaries, such as Sammy Davis Jr., Cliff Robertson, Jill Ireland, and Ronald Regan. Sightings and landings at California Air Force bases include Edwards, George, Norton, and Hamilton, as well as some over Los Angeles International Airport. Cases are described of healing and surgical implants along with UFO landings, on dry land and off the coast. Color photographs of UFOs in flight and illustrations by award-winning artist Kesara will leave every reader searching the skies, seeking the truth!
California Hot Rodder
Ride with the author through the ’50s heyday of hot rodding. Includes numerous photos and cartoons.
