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The Day I Beat the CHP Back in 1959 I was a junior at Pasadena High School in California. I was on my second car, a ‘40 Ford Tudor with a 303 Olds in it. I had just joined a car club in Arcadia, the city just east and the high school rival of Pasadena, and was about to take in my first real car event, the Fuel and Gas Championships at Famosa near Bakersfield, California.
Bakersfield is about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, up over the "grapevine" also known as the ridge route. This stretch of highway was the main inland highway north out of Los Angeles and the truck route. The name "grapevine" gives you some idea as to what the road was like. Grapevine? Ridge route? It wrapped itself around the hills above L.A. with numerous elevation changes. Sometimes four lanes with a center divider, on either side of a steep canyon, two lanes going opposite directions. Amongst this nomenclature traveled many truckers that knew this road very well, and some that didn't, intermingled with us civilians. That morning it was pretty much us against the trucks.
We left Pasadena real early, maybe 4 A.M., anyway it was still dark. Typical California morning, cold and dewy, it didn't matter much what time of year it was, those mornings are all real similar. The two club members I was traveling with were older and for them, beer had wedged itself firmly as one of life's cornerstones. We ran across Colorado Boulevard west through Glendale then into the San Fernando Valley and up over the hills towards Bakersfield. Once out of the city, we decided to stop and open up the cut-outs. This was 1959 after all, before headers, cut-outs were the slick exhaust set-up. A few guys with Corvettes were running Hedman Hedders (that is how Hedman spelled it) but the grunts settled for cut-outs. Mine had the 3 bolt flanges which were cooler than the 2 bolt version. Anyway there we were laying on the gravel shoulder while the trucks blew past, taking the block-off plates off. With this accomplished we were ready for our hot rod fix, an uncorked overhead in a ‘40 Ford. Too cool.
Going up through those hills with open exhaust is a thing that is hard to describe, but when relating that experience to someone who has done it, all you see is real big smiles. We were cruising along going at least 110, or so the exhaust noise told us. Before leaving Pasadena we had loaded the back seat with Colt 45 stubbies and cut a piece of cardboard to put in the passenger door window, the window had been broken out some weeks earlier. The car was not the best one in Pasadena. It had a greasy old Olds 303 with stock two barrel back draft carburetor, stock three speed on the column, red/black/white diamond quilted Pep Boys seat covers, the radio didn't play and there were a few other flaws. But it was only $175 and my mom paid half!
We were whipping through those hills, swooshing from one curve to another, clipping those trucks off right and left, especially uphill. Then while it was still dark, "the red glow". Patrol car, the dreaded CHP. Dick, the guy in the front seat, yelled at the guy in the back seat, also Dick, to ditch the cans, but he was too far gone, passed out by this time. I pulled over onto the gravel shoulder, taking as much time as I could, giving Dick a chance to hide the unopened beer and ditch the one he had going. I wasn't a beer drinker so at least I was able to carry on a conversation with the cop.
Arriving at my door he asked for my driver's license. He began shining his light in the car, first the front, and then the back. "Where are you guys headed?" I didn't dare say the drag races, but then I am sure he knew, after all he had been sitting by the side of the road watching the race cars and tow rigs climb the ridge route all night. He continued to look over the interior, nothing was said about the beer cans, the guy passed out in the back seat, or the cardboard window.
As his attention returned to my drivers license, the interrogation began. "Did you know your license is expired?". I played dumb of course. "No sir officer sir...sir", better shut-up. "Start your engine" he said. Boy I didn't want to do that. But. With the gas pedal slightly pushed down, I was hoping that a little faster idle would make the Olds sound not quite so loud. It was still loud. "Okay, shut it off". He began walking around to the rear of the car. "Step on your brakes --- any turn signals?" No need to answer. Of course not. It was a '40, self respecting '40's didn't have turn signals, especially in 1959.
He walked along the passenger side and around to the front, then along side past my door, stopping to look in the back seat again. "Wait here", as her strolled back to his patrol car. I don't remember the conversation that went on between Dick and I, but I can imagine what we were thinking. Big ticket! Oh darn! ...or something like that. Front seat Dick said "don't worry about, you're a minor". By golly he was right, I am a minor. But what about the beer thing in my car? Didn't sound right to me. I was speeding, cut-outs open, cardboard in the window blocking my view, open beer or at least recently used cans rolling around on the floor, no horn, no front license plate, one stop light, expired license and other things that I can't remember, or the cop ran out of endurance to find.
About a year later it seems, the cop came back, and asked me to step out of the car. "My mom's gonna kill me" I thought as I sheepishly followed back behind my car into his headlights. In those days the CHP used Dodges and were the ugliest cars in the world, except Saabs, still are. This thought flashed in my mind as we arrived in front of his car. No surprise to anyone including me, he began writing out the ticket. I am sure that somewhere in there I got the "Son..." talk, but again, time has taken the memory. One thing I do remember is that he said "I am citing you for that license plate light being out, get it fixed right away", and I'm thinking "okay what next?", but there was no next. That was it, he didn't say anything else. The rear license plate light was out! What! That's it? At this point my utterances hopefully fell somewhere between baby talk and an intelligent life form, but sounded something like, yes sir, thank you sir, I'll take car of that right away...sir. It was over! I gingerly walked back to the driver's door, trying to get out of there before he changed his mind without appearing to hurray. Was I running and didn't realize it or was I being extra cool? I'm sure I actually said "thank you sir" in there somewhere. One suggestion that he made was that we close up the cut-outs before we go any further.
Dick couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Dick in the back seat woke up as we pulled away from the shoulder, and I am sure that to this day he doesn't believe it.
Later we rolled into Bakersfield to eat breakfast. As we sat in the booth waiting for our orders, the officers came in, you'll notice I am more respectful now. Still talking about our experience, I was looking at the ticket and noticed on the bottom of the ticket, where the officer's signature goes, was my name! My name? How could that be? Lets look again, is that right, D...O...N, yup the CHP officer and I had the same name... first and last! Could that have been why I only got the license plate light ticket? No way. He didn't have anything on me, that's why! I beat the CHP.
True story.
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