CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’                                                              By Steven Justice

It had always been a dream of mine to go and live in the ‘States’, especially California. It wasn’t just the allure of the weather, but obviously the racing, too. Then again, all the speed equipment suppliers and manufacturers were located there, and I would not have to endure the hellish Canadian customs nonsense. It took just such an incident involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to push me over the edge and leave Canada. It’s 1966 and we had a match race with "T.V." Tommy Ivo at St. Thomas Dragway. We were getting paid $500.00 and I’m sure Ivo was getting a lot more. Surprisingly, he red lights in round 1, but atones for his earlier foul and totally thrashes me in round 2. Wanting to make sure we attempt all three runs and get paid, we start servicing the car in preparation for the big final round. Just about the same time three very snappily dressed gentlemen show up and ask, "Who is Fred Farndon"? Ooh, they must be reporters as ego pushes caution aside. I say, "me". "We would like to talk with you in our car right now" was their reply. I said, "Let me get out of this fire suit", but they were adamant that they meant now! A bitter argument ensued until they flashed a Royal Canadian Mounted Police badge. Taken to their car, I’m kept in the back seat for what must have been an hour, still in my fire suit, sweating profusely, answering all these questions. "Where did you buy all this speed equipment and we want to see the receipts for the taxes paid on this stuff"? Because the third round was imminent and Ivo was in the lanes waiting, Jim comes over to their car and taps on the window. When the RCMP flash their IDs, Jim turns white and beats it. Ivo, meanwhile, assessing the situation, collects his money, packs up, and heads for Detroit. Then, the Mounties start showing me all these pictures of our race car, and want to know when we bought this injector or that set of tires, and where’s the receipts for the tariff due for all these new parts. Explaining that some were back at our garage and some at Karbelt's, they said they would follow me back to Toronto so I could produce them. They followed me closely for over 50 miles when they just simply disappeared. By now, I was totally fed up with racing in Canada. Heck, having to worry about going to jail for racing was just ridiculous, if not crazy. So, right then and there I decided to leave and move to California; which I did.

Montreal, 1966; the last time I ever raced in Canada. This is the car I would take to California; sadly I left behind my best friend, Jim Arnold (white t-shirt)

In 1967 I beat it to the ‘States’ and brought my ‘trick’ Schubeck car with me. I did make it to Indy that year, but did not qualify. In retrospect, going to Indy probably wasn’t a good decision because I didn’t have enough parts. The highlight, actually lowlight, of the year was the theft of my race car trailer. I had just made the long trek back from Indy and left the dragster at Waterman’s for some engine work. Exhausted, I parked the empty trailer hitched to my ’62 Chrysler wagon in front of my apartment. When I awoke the next morning it was gone. Now, this thing had "The Dodge Boys" in big 2 foot letters all over it. Despite this obvious ID, the Long Beach police never found it. Later, I was told someone saw it heading south on the I-5 for Tijuana. Thank God I unloaded the race car and tools the night before.

Bakersfield 1967; the Schubeck car

Indy 1967; Fred and crew chief discussing the tune up; Van Luven was right!

The financial drain of trying to race solo forced me to sell the Schubeck car in late 1967. After that, I joined forces with Bill Butters and Dave Gerard, and for the first time in my life, drove for another owner. Though a heavy beast, their dragster was just a great handling race car that could really mile-per-hour. We even squeezed a 228 mph out of it at Riverside. Actually, my first outing with B-G was the 1968 March Meet. We got to Bakersfield on a Friday night complicated by bad weather and rain. I had a very good looking blond girlfriend at the time, and because she was keen on drag racing, naturally came along. Our dragster was in its open trailer in the motel parking lot, and Gerard tells me I’ve got to get in the car so they can check out the seat belts and my vision. Eager to impress everyone including my little blond gal, I catapult into a seat totally full of water. My ass is soaked and Bill and Dave are rolling on the ground in hysterics. The blond must have thought I was a real moron; oh well! Around the same time, I was also helping Gary Cochran with his fueler. It was due to an unfortunate accident towing to Indy in 1968 (with Gary), that my first Speed Products Engineering dragster, the so-called "Frankenstein" car, was created. Cochran’s accident happened in Missouri when ‘Farmer Brown’ and Gary vied for the same space on the interstate late one night. Too bad because that was one nasty hot rod and Gary would have done really well at Indy. I salvaged the back half of Cochran’s car and had Roy Fjastad wed it to the front half of another car. Back with Butters-Gerard, we pooled our money and put together a decent race car. It was somewhat of a bucks-down operation, but we neither had huge expectations nor courted any pretension about success. We just loved drag racing and nitro. Sure, we never won an event, but we went some rounds here and there, and all in all, it was an unbelievably safe and honest operation. I never got oiled down; not even once. That is something I can’t say for some later driving experiences.

Checking-out my new ride-1967; note; chassis and body by Eddie Potter (Mr. Sudden Death himself)

Dave Gerard working hard on the dragster; Bill Butters 'yakking' at me

Fred was able to buy the Cochran dragster as salvage (dime on the dollar), and Roy (SPE) took a damaged chassis from the rafters at his shop and offered us a deal that we couldn’t refuse. I believe the pipe from the second car came from the "Smothers Bros.-Beach Boys" (Jim Busby and Dwight Salisbury inked a deal with the well-known television personalities) car that had been damaged after it tangled with some hay bales. Basically, taking all the parts off Gary’s car, Roy put them on the other chassis and added a new front end. We ended up with a very professionally outfitted race car at an extremely attractive price. We bathed it in candy red over pearl white paint and debuted it to the 1969 Winternationals as the "Utica Tool Company Special". It should be mentioned that Fred’s amiable relationship with Gary Cochran and Roy Fjastad allowed all this to happen. Soon thereafter, our sponsor (Utica Tool) wanted to feature their other product line, so the car was repainted silver metal flake with red and blue trim and raced as the "Bonney Loc-Rite Special". Good bet this was one of the first top fuel dragsters sponsored by a tool company. After the sponsorship deal ended we continued on for a while just as "Butters-Gerard". But, REDs and the 426 cid engines pretty much priced us out of the game, so we sold the car to some kids in Indiana and concentrated on designing the first purpose-built B/ED rear engined dragster"-DG.

Staging lanes at Pomona; the Bonney Loc-Rite Special