Their shriveled swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle’s stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;
Nor war’s wild note, nor glory’s peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce Northern hurricane
That sweeps the great plateau,
Flushed with triumph, yet to gain,
Come down the serried foe,
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o’er the field beneath,
Knew the watchword of the day
Was “Victory or death!”

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O’er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the glory tide;
Not long, our stout old Chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.

Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr’s grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation’s flag to save.
By rivers of their father’s gore
His first-born laurels grew,
And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory too.

For many a mother’s breath has swept
O’er Angostura’s plain –
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its moldered slain.
The raven’s scream, or eagle’s flight,
Or shepherd’s pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o’er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air.
Your own proud land’s heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims from war his richest spoil –
The ashes of her brave.

Thus ‘neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,
Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast
On many a bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes sepulcher.

Rest on embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
For honor points the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel’s voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanquished ago has flown,
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight,
Nor time’s remorseless doom,
Can dim one ray of glory’s light
That gilds your deathless tomb.

- Theodore O’Hara

We picked them off one-by-one and found ourselves in the finals late on Saturday night. I was the kind of cocky that only a 17-year old can be. I was invincible and there was no way in hell I was gonna lose the final. That was certain. And so it only made sense to turn off the delay box and race nose-to-nose with the modified-t staged beside me. We’d leave together and I’d use the Reher-Morrison small block to stay beside him to the finish – nosing him at the line without breaking out. That was the plan, but that’s not how it worked out.

I saw orange and lifted off the trans-brake. The front end of the car went to the sky briefly and then settled perfectly just before the 40′ mark. I ran the car hard through the 1/8th mile and then began looking back for my competitor. He was coming on, so I stayed in it. And then, all hell broke loose.

I can vividly remember something letting going in the front-end – a flash of sorts. I didn’t know it at the time, but my left-front had experienced a catastrophic failure. It was such a violent blow-out that the wheel was damaged allowing the frame rail to dig into the track and act like a pole vaulter’s launch. One instance I was seeing a dark west texas sky line, the next I was seeing asphalt and it was coming at me at an ungodly pace. I remember bracing myself and thinking, “This is gonna really hurt.”

But it didn’t. At least, not in the way you think it would. I can remember waking up a few times and being confused as to where I was and what I was doing, but I didn’t have any incredible sensation of pain despite the fact that I had a broken wrist and a really screwed up spine. Instead, it felt more like a soft dream. The car had rolled end-over-end twice and then rolled in your standard “sideways” fashion another 7 or 8 times, finally resting on it’s roof about 300′ past the finish line.

The first time I woke up, I was all alone and I could see the ambulance lights heading towards me – upside down. I hit my safety harness release, dropped down to the roof of the car, and passed out again. The next time I came too, my dad (a physician) was fighting with the emergency workers. “Unless you want your ass kicked good, you will get away from my son. Right. Now.”

I then woke to see my dad on top of me doing whatever it is doctors do in such a circumstance. He was crying. I could see the utter terror in his eyes and I passed out again into a deep dream that seemed to last for hours. I began to reason that I wasn’t hurting because I was dying. In a strange sequence of blur, my short life did kind of pass in front of me right to the point of lifting my finger from the trans-brake again. At that point, I felt an intense pain in my neck. Oddly, that jolt of pain was a relief – like waking up from a dream and realizing it was just that. “I’m hurt,” I thought. “But not dead.”

I didn’t race again for another six months. I decided then that the crash wouldn’t be my last and it wouldn’t be the defining moment of my racing career. Instead, my defining moment would be the next time I got onto the track – over coming the fear and all that comes with it. I look back now and I can only imagine what I put my dad through. I’m not sure how he let me do what I absolutely HAD to do. But he did and in the process, he taught me some of the most important lessons in life.

In any case, this memory was freshened by the photos you see here. They were taken from the Life archives and feature the crash and aftermath of Fred Carrillo’s last outing in his gorgeous streamliner. Like me, Fred experienced a blow-out at speed. Seeing the images makes me wonder if Fred’s experience was anything close to mine. Of course, his accident was much more violent. Fred didn’t have 1990′s technology to protect him and I’m guessing he was clipping faster than the 150mph I was when I went over. But it’s that last photo – the one with folks standing over Fred’s seemingly pathetic body – that seems so familiar to me. I almost feel like I was there.

Sadly, Fred lost part of his leg. The accident, however, didn’t define him.

My pal Piero stepped up to the plate with Mad Fab Volume 6 and now he’s looking to do it again. To do so, he’s enlisted the folks over at Indiegogo in an effort to raise funds. Essentially, his plan is to travel the country and cover what he sees – like a Jack Kerouac with a GoPro in hand. Texas is in the can:

If you like what you see and want to see more, you can support the cause here. I, for one, am very excited to see what Piero can do with an actual budget.

Pardon my fuzzy photos. I missed the car at the GNRS and only had these sloppy shots taken at the Petersen “Vault” last summer.

1. He was nuts. The good kind of nuts. He was always up for anything. I mean ANYTHING. And he always gave what ever “anything” was, his 100%.

2. Because he was up for anything, he’s connected to just about everything cool in one way or another.

Much like the “7-degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, you can find some cool shit that went down on the salt in the early 1950′s and track it back to Mal in one way or another. Here’s a good example:

Recently, Jimmy B bought a whole mess of vintage images off eBay featuring shots of Fred Carrillo’s streamliner along with build shots of another streamliner that we have yet to identify. But, I’m getting ahead of myself…

Fred Carrillo’s best pal was another hot rodder that went by the name of Bob Betz. Together, the two went to Bonneville in the 1940′s to witness John Cobb break the land speed record. After viewing such an epic moment in time, Bob and Fred were hooked. They wanted to go fast and quickly began constructing their own streamliner.

Of course, the fellas need some expertise and hooked up with some made men to earn an education. Before long, Fred and Bob were hanging out with guys like Tommy Sparks, Ray Brown, and Earl Evans. Those friendships added experience to the team and by 1953, Fred and Bob were ready to go 300 mph in a streamliner that was built primarily in the garage that you see in these images.

Of course, like it often does, disaster struck… During one of Fred’s record attempting runs, his right front wheel disintegrated at speed and sent the car on a 1500-foot ride in all sorts of directions that weren’t intentional. The car was a loss. Fred lost part of his leg, but didn’t loose his passion for speed. He went on to create Carrillo Connecting Rods and by all accounts, proved to be resilient beyond imagination.

Fred Carrillo is a hot rod hero, but how is he connected to Mal Hooper?

Easy. As mentioned, Fred and Bob struck a relationship with both Ray Brown and Earl Evans in the late 1940′s. Mal drove many a race car for Ray Brown and was good pals with Earl Evans. In fact, Earl and Mal pitted with each other at Bonneville almost every year between 1949 and 1954. I know this from my own photo collection…

So, it’s easy for me to imagine Fred and Mal sitting at the same bar sometime in the 1950′s. Fred would be bitching about his leg and Mal would be listening intently while at the same time sipping a beer and eyeing the leggy blonde across the room. Because, in my mind, that’s just how Mal was.

And these images just help me place Fred next to Mal. They are remarkable in their “unremarkableness.” Just snap shots. Casual. Fred as he was… Brilliant.

Editor’s note: Stay tuned. Later this week we will post some imagery of the incredible accident that Fred survived. And, of course, special thanks to Jimmy B for sharing these images with us.

I’m also not sure how our new H.A.M.B. Classifieds are going to work either, but I’m giving it a shot anyway. Essentially, we’ve had two major issues with the classifieds in the past 15 years:

1. Folks don’t read the rules. Hell, I don’t read the rules… It’s just one of those things. I mean, we are a bunch of hoods, right?

2. Because folks don’t read the rules, ads don’t get to spend their fair share at the top of the forum and are often overlooked for ads that have tons of illegal (you bastards!) replies and bumps.

What ends up happening is that all of the classified moderators spend hours everyday trying to clean things up and make it right. Inevitably, we miss something and piss someone off or… It’s an ugly scene that I won’t scare you with, but rest assured some of our moderators sleep with one eye open and a finger on a trigger.

In any case, I got a wild hair up my ass to make a change today – a change I think we’ve needed for some time now. Actually, a few changes. Here they be:

1. Users can no longer reply to classified ads. The original poster can still reply to their own ad (and bump it every 3 days), but you lawless thugs that have been dirtying up the ads for over a decade can no longer do so. Instead, if you have a question or want to make a purchase, you will have to send the seller a private message. Tough shit, right?

2. We’ve never allowed eBay ads in our classifieds and we still don’t. However, I’m testing out this forum. Essentially, it’s a place for you to list eBay auctions – your own or others that you’ve found while traveling that time pit of a website.

For now, that’s it… With any luck, I’ll have a sleeping new born this evening and I can work on cleaning up the rules a bit.

As always, thank you all for that thing you do. Seriously.

Your incoherent curator,

RHC

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Editor’s Note: I did a similar post a few years back that piggybacks nicely off of this one. You can see it here.

The rest of the book is great too and I love the concept. Essentially, they took a number of cars built from each coast and put them together in an effort to compare and contrast the differing styles from various periods. And it’s not just hot rods – customs take some space as well. The end result is a book that you want to read as much as you want to just stare at.

I don’t review books that I don’t like. I like this one.

Get yours here.

And how about a pat on the back for both Alig and Kilmer – they deserve it.