Wednesday, May 27, 2026
One day in 1951, A.J. Watson put down his tools at the Lockheed aircraft assembly line in Glendale, California. He walked past his coworkers. Past the time clock. He didn't punch out. He just left. And he never came back.
After seeing his first race at Bonelli Stadium in Saugus in 1947, he built a track roadster and arrived at Indianapolis in 1948 as a mechanic. By 1950, at 26 years old, he'd built his own car for the Indy 500 — but the cost of running it for driver Dick Rathmann drove him back to Lockheed. Back to the assembly line. Back to the steady paycheck.
For one year. Then the 1951 race approached. And Watson walked away from Lockheed. Without a word. Without punching out. Because Indianapolis was calling, and a time clock was not going to answer.
What followed was the most dominant chassis-building career in the history of the Indy 500.
Within a year, he was asked to join an Indy crew.
After a succession of drivers and owners, Watson built a car for Bob Sweikert in 1955 that claimed his first Indy 500 win.
The next year, with the track repaved, Watson knew the speeds would go up causing more tire wear. He built a much lighter, slimmer car for Pat Flaherty, who won the race.
In 1959 Watson teamed with Rodger Ward and team owner Bob Wilkie to form the potent Triple W team. Ward and Jim Rathmann finished 1-2 in Watson’s cars, then swapped positions in 1960 to give Watson his second consecutive 1-2 finish.
Ward won again in 1962, leading a parade of six Watsons in the top eight.
In all, Watson built some 23 roadsters, including the last Indy 500 victory for a front engine in 1964, driven by A.J. Foyt.
the Northern Pacific train wreck on the "S" trestle 7 miles above Mullan, Idaho, on February 10, 1903.
An avalanche had taken out a sizable section of the trestle just hours after the train with a rotary snow plow stopped partly on the trestle so the crew could rest. Ironically, they had stopped on the end of the trestle to avoid the train being buried in an avalanche. A helper locomotive with tender and a caboose on the back of the train on the trestle were hurled over 75 feet into the gulch below, while a passenger car hung precariously over the chasm. Amazingly, nobody was killed. The injured NP personnel were hauled to the hospital in Wallace by hand sleigh. NP engine no. 396, a Baldwin manufactured E-Class 4-6-0, it's tender, and the caboose were a total loss.
Some officers in the 101st thought a 75mm pack howitzer could not knock out a German tank. The grunts ignored the naysayers and did it anyway
On Christmas morning '44 the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion were dug in northwest of Bastogne.
A German armored assault force helped out by showing up to provide tanks to submit for testing, with direct fire, at short range.
The battalion claimed eight tanks destroyed, though only two could be confirmed at the time and other units shared the fight. Of the eighteen that began the assault, none survived the day.
The 463rd received the Presidential Unit Citation for its work at Bastogne.
the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority got hacked... by the Iranians
Iranian hackers were responsible for a disruptive computer breach in March that forced Los Angeles’ transit system to shut down parts of its network, Israeli researchers say.
they snagged at least 700 gigabytes of emails, backups and other files
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
the Robb Report says the new Dodge sports car was not shown, only described, and it sounds like the Copperhead concept car from 29 years ago
well it's about damn time.
"Dodge wouldn’t let those reporters share images of the car, but they were allowed to describe it. And from those accounts, it appears that the Copperhead will be based on the current-gen Charger, though it will be more than just another muscle car. Car and Driver reports it’s a low-slung, two-door coupe with an aggressive stance, while the Drive added that its highlights include a shark nose and a giant rear wing."
a Geo Ham poster I haven't seen before
https://www.gros-delettrez.com/lot/178371/33662288-geo-ham-1900-1972-jerome-cavalli-un-des-meilleurs
Did you see and hear about this travesty that Ferrari will regret for decades, until (or IF) it's ever forgotten? Ferrari stock instantly DIVED 10%. 600k electric car that looks terrible. Utterly unlike anything Ferrari ever made, because Ferrari never made anything this ugly before
Anthony Dick, an auto analyst at Oddo BHF, added that Ferrari's stock drop is “by far the sharpest reaction we’ve seen for a car design - the market has spoken," adding, "Luce marks “the furthest deviation from the brand’s ethos we’ve ever seen."
Monday, May 25, 2026
the last time I posted about the Mahan collection (of Macks and Cats) 7 years ago, I didn't see these photos of their museum
Last time I posted, they had this 16" gun from the battleship New Jersey, but they hadn't made it this nice
https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/01/one-hell-of-nice-collection-of.html for the last post
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