[Editor's Note: this article originally ran in the February 2010 issue of Grassroots Motorsports]
Story by Beth Dolgner
Professional street stock endurance racing has now been with us for a quarter of a century, and while many of the participants have come and gone—drivers, manufacturers and even the series organizers—the teams and fans have remained loyal to one of the …
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The mentioning of Dick Guldstrand and Bobby Carradine reminded me of when I was a member of the Guldstrand Racing Association (GRA) in the early to mid 80s. Being a member had a number of benefits including Dick’s knowledge and stories. At times we also got to see some of the cars he was working on including the cars he was prepping for the endurance races. I asked a lot, maybe too many, questions but Dick knew I was going to be building my IT car so he shared what he could.
At one of the GRA monthly meetings in ’85 (IIRC) he asked if any of us wanted to come up to Willow Springs for the race and possibly help and if we had a driving suit etc bring it. Myself and about 6 or so others said “HELL YES ! ! !”. The chances we could drive were pretty nil, but helping otherwise was a possibility. We ended up being fans and go-fers since the car(s) ran pretty well. I paid a lot of attention to how things were organized and run since I had aspirations of running “big time” endurance races. Given Dick’s racing history I figured he would be a very good example to follow.
One thing I recall is that it was weird. We were at a race, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night and there really wasn’t much noise – Showroom Stock cars with mufflers. The front straight sounded kind of like a half empty freeway. There were brief times of not quite chaos (pit stops), but mostly hours of not much.
We GRA guys split into shifts; 3 or so in the pit area, 3 wandering around, and 3 napping. Since I’ve never really been a night person I fell asleep quick that night since it was relatively quiet (at a race) in the parking area.
We did get intro’d to the drivers as a group but didn’t interact with them much. Far as Carradine goes, I kinda wanted to say Hi since he and I were at a summer camp once about 15 or so years prior. But I wanted it to be just him and me so if he recalled the camp prank it wouldn’t be in front of a bunch of guys who might give him some BS. It didn’t happen so, oh well.
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