"Forty Years of Going Around in Circles"
or "Memoirs of an Old Fart"

By Craig K. Anderson

Disclaimer: This memoir is taken from a highly dysfunctional person whose two mottos for writing are one, "I never let the truth stand in the way of a good story" and, two, "What I don't know I make up". The author asked several hundred persons to edit and review this material but either no one wanted to think that far back in time or no one is willing to admit to being that old. All errors of omission or pure bull roar is not intentional and anyone portrayed, living or dead, has every right to be upset.

It was a day like any other I suppose, well maybe not. In 2005 the autocross scene in the Pacific Northwest is celebrating it's fortieth anniversary and I was there when it all started, it doesn't get any simpler than that (with the same car no less). Let me explain, the year was 1965 when it all began in the great Pacific Northwest:

I bought my Austin-Healey in 1961 when I was 19 years old. My first autocross was June 17, 1962 in San Diego, CA. In addition to the autocross (in which I finished dead last) they also had an "acceleration and braking contest" whereby you came from a standing start, accelerated about one hundred feet and attempted to stop just in front of a white line on the tarmac. Closest and fastest to the line without going over it won.

By September of that year, I was going to college in Monmouth, Oregon. Those four years of university had to be the best seven or eight years of my life. My first Northwest autocross event was that same month in Salem Oregon, put on by the Willamette Motor Club, (which is still in existence by the way). We put the event on in the parking lot of Russ Pratt's Warehouse, a local storage facility for the hops used in beer. We used no helmets but with the pungent smell of hops wafting in the air who needed helmets?

Within the next two months, I had discovered the greater Seattle-Tacoma autocross scene. The deal was to run an event in Portland on a Sunday morning, get permission to run early, pack up and head north to South Sound Mall in Tumwater for a South Sound Race and Rallye event.

Other venues included go-kart tracks (there were several then), Bellevue Square (which was basically a paved field for about a year) and most community colleges. Colleges were being built nearly everywhere around Seattle at the time and most were out in the middle of nowhere. They wanted to embrace the "racing community" and would allow a great deal of variation to what we now know as safety rules. It was not too long until they discovered that the rapidly encroaching community did not like noise of any kind and the college's freshly paved access roads and building aprons soon had what the English call "sleeping policemen" or as we know them "speed bumps". Boeing Kent soon came on the scene and was the savior for autocrossers for many years.

I moved to Enumclaw in 1967 and the commute to autocross was shortened considerably. Boeing was prime! However we also got to use Pacific Raceways, mostly the run-off road at the bottom of the hill after turn 2. We would start at the top of the hill (2), down-hill through 3, 3A and 3B; make a sharp left and back up the hill.

I was road racing then as well and thought I was pretty hot stuff. Don't we all think that at that age? Our venues then were Pacific Raceways, Portland (the old course on the Vanport roads, several ninety-degree right turns); and Westwood, B.C. A great deal of autocrossing took place at the Vanport site, too. The streets were crowned and kerbed with the so-called California water ditches. It made for interesting events.

I remember Clark Marshall, a local Seattle drag race promoter, asking me to oversee an event held on his Puyallup drag string that was basically what we today have come to know as a ProSolo. It was two cars, separated by hay bales, going down the track through the cones, left and right, to the finish lights. His idea was to get more business for the drags from the sports car crowd. He paid me $100 for the effort.

Highlights of those years were Pangborn Field in Wenatchee, the Waterville Hillclimbs and Yakima. Yakima had a go-kart track and we also got to run on the then-unpaved (packed dirt) speedway. We ran events on the streets of Longview, WA for several years as well. The chief of police was an autocrosser with a Triumph TR-3. We also used the fairgrounds (packed dirt again) for a couple of years. "LoKeCo" was the event's name which stood for LOngview, KElso and COwlitz. There was also a large go-kart track in Ridgefield, just south of Longview and I believe the Sunbeam club still uses it.

Mentioning Pangborn Field in Wenatchee reminded me of an autocross experience somewhere around 1968. I was pitted next to a classic 1958 Corvette. We were in the same class. We were working on our cars and I looked over and I told him he was allowed by the rules to remove his air cleaner. He said he had taken off his air cleaner. I looked closely and saw my first-ever 1200 cubic feet per minute downdraft carburetor. It was as big as the air cleaner. The 'Vette was great in a straight line but at the first corner it was all over.

The active clubs around the greater Seattle area were: Per Terras (basically a rally club but they put on some great autocrosses, too), the local Chevrolet Corvair clubs (which were very popular), tons of Mustang clubs, (as the dealerships changed names, so did the club's name) scads of Camaro clubs (ditto, with the name change thing), the Boeing Employees Sports Car Club, (now BEAC), Tyee Triumph Club, the previously mentioned South Sound R & R, Puget Sound Sports Car Club (one of the largest), MG Seattle, Rally Fanatics (or rat f*** for short who did great autocrosses, too). and of course the largest, SCCA.

Highlights of those years were the annual Seattle Auto Show. One year I was the gopher for Jim Rogers of Channel 13 in Tacoma, owned by J. Elroy McCaw (who died in 1968) who was Bruce and Craig's dad. Jim had an hour show called "Behind the Wheel." I drove cars on the set, shagged visitors from the airport and announced the races at Pacific Raceways with the TV crew. I was squire to Craig Breedlove (the land speed record holder at the time) at the 1967 show and chauffeured him around to his various promotional appointments. Breedlove really liked the sauce in those days and I had to drag him away from several of the venues and pour him into the car.

Oh, also at this time in history, (1967) I navigated for Senior McCaw's son Bruce in his first competitive driving event in which we won first place in the press class and second overall, I think. Bruce was 16 and had just gotten his driver's license. We were in dad's Mercedes. Father asked me to "look after Bruce." I just love the comfort of the modern rally car.

In 1971 I moved back to Portland and continued to autocross profusely. I ran 62 events in the 52 weeks of that year which I believe had a small part in my first divorce. In the mid- sixties the Pacific Northwest clubs banded into the Western Oregon/Washington Sports Car Council, or WOW as it came to be known. The joke was if you grabbed your ankles and put your head between your legs and rolled down a hill, you would be WOW MOM WOW MOM all the way down.

The association lasted for several years. Many in Oregon would make the short three- hour drive to Seattle and spend a weekend with the groups assembled. An autocrosser could gain "out-of-region" points toward the WOW championship. It was nicely done and well organized.

I moved back to Shelton, WA in 1976, where I went to prison at the Washington Corrections Center. No, no; I was teaching auto tech and got to go home at night. I always have said I did a "three-to-five" with a little time off for good behavior. While in prison, I had several sports car groups put on displays inside the prisons fences and at the Mason County Fair each year. Even had three drag racers show their stuff on one occasion, inside the joint, down the main tarmac separating the reception units from the main prison blocks. Now that got some attention!

I got into the concours arena in those years. At one of the Sports Car Spectaculars, always by Boeing, they had an autocross, a rally and a concours; giving points in each event for a combined overall trophy. In the 1968 event I took first in the autocross, second in the rally and last in the concours. My Healey was so bad I actually got negative points. However, I had the top points in the other two events and took home a huge trophy which I still have. By that time I was on the Pro Rally circuit driving under the name of Mad Dog. My navigator, William Hugh Johnson, used the name Buckwheat. Our mail came addressed to Mr. M. Dog and Mr. B. Wheat. I believe that had something to do with my second divorce, but I'm still not sure.

In the spring of 2001 I had the privilege of being the last person to drive on the Boeing Kent site before it was unceremoniously ripped up; never the more to be. This honor was afforded me by one of the organizers of the event who asked the last driver of the day to loan me his car. He reluctantly allowed me to drive his car but only if he went with me in the passenger's seat. As we left the line he thought I needed some instruction as he thought I was a novice, having misunderstood the "committee's" request. He told me where to take early and late apexes, where to brake and where to accelerate. When we finished the run he said I did very well for a first-timer. I told him it was a privilege to drive his car and thanked him sincerely. A few minutes later he came over to my trailer and began fumbling excuses and flushing profusely. He said he didn't know who I was and what the occasion was all about. He was just asked to loan his car to someone for the last run of the event. I told him I really didn't know who I was either; just an old fart that happened to be around when things started. But then I was forty years younger, too. And that's another story.