Editor's notes: Jack Mendenhall and his family and friends created the Museum of Gasoline   Pumps in Buellton, California. The Gold Coast Roadster and Racing Club uses this Museum  to hold their Annual Gas-Up Party and Dry Lakes Hall of Fame Bar-B-Que and Awards ceremony.  Jack organized the Security Team at Black Rock Desert in 1997, for the British and American attempts at the Land Speed Record.  He was involved in Jalopy, stock car, oval track, drag and landspeed racing throughout a fabled career.  His car, The Pea Soup Andersen Special is on display at the Vic Edelbrock Museum in Torrance.  A restored Jalopy, owned by Pete Van Eiderstein, was named in Mendenhall's honor and is on display at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, in Pomona, California.  Jack was a member of the SCTA/BNI 200 MPH Club, and a member of the Dry Lakes Hall of Fame. His museum is one of the best  in the world in depicting signs, globe faces and gas pumps from the early decades of American motoring representing what garages and service stations were like.  His collections have been  displayed in the Petersen Automotive Museum and other exhibits throughout California. For all of his achievements, the one that we will remember the most about Jack will be the twinkle in his eyes and the good natured way he treated people.  He was a generous man and a gentleman who made everyone feel welcomed and appreciated.  See www.oilstick.com for funeral or memorial services and schedules.  Richard Parks

*We all thought it would be a nice gesture if the whole country would set off a load of fire- works, in his memory, today. He sure did enjoy setting his off on the 4th of July. (Will Scott)
We'll do that, Will. Richard Parks. July 4, 2005

Sorry about your loss Will.............Please give the family my best.    Mary July 4, 2005

Evey,  Please pass this on to Mark. I spoke to him on Sunday when I tried to call Jack.  July 5, 2005

Mark,  I will definitely miss your Dad. He's been a very special friend for over ten years now. I really enjoyed his friendship and working with him on the Gas-up, The Dry Lakes Racing Hall of Fame and sorting out some of the early problems with the Gold Coast Roadster and Racing Club. 

I hope God got the race track finished before Jack got there, I heard he was re-doing a couple of the turns and putting in a longer straightaway with a little salt on it just for Jack.  

I wish for Jack to have a tail wind on the straightaway and just the right wedge in the corners on his newest venture.  John Petri

Jack Mendenhall… Hoot-Mon was a greeting that was always there… I grew up in Buellton and Jack was, my Father figure… my Brother… my Mentor … my Partner.

My parents taught me to eat pea soup for breakfast… but Jack taught me to enjoy a chocolate sundae…. Memories go back many decades;

Jack was working for Bill Olivera and manning the pumps one day… Rod Chester, Jack and I were at the coffee shop next door (The Riding Academy… I know it had a real name I don’t know why it was called that)… Jack ordered a chocolate sundae, but had a ‘HOT ONE’ on the island (customer)… while he was gone the sundae arrived … Rod produced a can of Permatex and added a little of his flavoring… surprise for Jack..

My first truck: Jack left the station in the hands of a pair of brothers, the Dunsons, and we’d pump gas run tows at night during the summer… a friend and I had worked all night pulling my 1954 Chevy pickup apart to put a Hemi in it, that I’d ‘big dealed’ … Jack arrived just as we were about to cut a large opening in the firewall, as the Hemi seemed much bigger than we had thought… Jack took the torch and put it away and with me in his ‘53 Ford off to a junk yard in LA we went… finding a Chev 283… stopping at Ansen’s for a floor shifter and back in Buellton by a little after noon… of course he was there with the tow truck when the truck was totaled…

My next truck… I got a letter in boot camp… from Jack telling me he’d found two ’49 Fords and what color did I want mine… Red or White?  When I got home my Red pickup with the 283 in it was waiting…

My Corvair…. Jack was again there with the tow truck when I 360’d it thru a bridge…

My Mom’s MG…DITTO… when we played hide and seek… and missed a turn

The Tow truck(s)… what fun we had with them… there was the ‘37 Ford and the ’41 which later became a ’58 (I think) in cab only… we raced kids on State Street pulling a car … and won… a friendly ‘Heeeeeeeeeeeeey Wanna Race’ was all it took… sitting on the front fenders when that moving van was a little too heavy… but I’m not sure doing that from the stock yards was legal… saving a cow stuck in the mud… and leaving the Cop stuck in the mud on the flats after getting a ticket, because it wasn’t our towing period… ‘call Olivera’!!!… repoing a car… Mark was the repo driver and wanted to ride in the car on the hook… hey, more room in the tow truck… but when the hood blew off at 60- 70 mph… hmmmm… we only stopped because a good citizen chased us about 20 miles to tell us we lost something… going to LA with a car, we had to stop for water in Camarillo we had the new body on the old truck… and a favorite gas station… where the new guy was sent to check the oil… what is a flat head?? 

The Buellton Garage… a church in itself… Jack and the many colorful co-workers and people who hung out… a lot of us grew up there… and grew up well… Jack didn’t allow smoking or cussing (well not much)… there were no drugs… I think (for me) we all grew up good people…of course there was the ice box in the back room… with beer and a bottle of champagne... off limits!!!… the radio that played Rock ‘N Roll… the weekend that ‘The Mighty 690’ played the same BAD record from 4pm Friday til 6am Monday when they changed their call letters and format… Tommy Garland had the garage across Zaca Street… he listened for a few hours to the disc jockey say ‘ here’s one you haven’t heard in a while’ and play the record that he’d just played... we’re all doing stuff and Tommy comes in unplugs the radio and puts it in the garbage can… Harold Barthalmew cutting with a torch (the featured implement of destruction) and a Dunson brother washing the islands with gas… we all know gas and fire makes for more fire…WHOOM… Jack is running around saying ‘what happened’…. Think you had to be there…or not…. Never at a loss for excitement … Mark with a charged capacitor when you thought you’d asked for a 9/16 open end… Mark with the key to the cash box when Jack needed money for a service call… betting on cars going past the station after midnight that they wouldn’t make it over Nojoqui grade and hedging the bet by following in the tow truck… and of course the ever famous fire crackers… on the islands… in the storage yard… in the pit…

Bonneville… my first trip at 17… with Yankie and Leon Permassi … Bob and Jack from Santa Maria… and many others we made up the ‘Dirty Dozen’ … Yankie, Leon, and I had the ‘32 coupe… which had been Yankie’s daily driver until Jack traded it one day for his ’34 pickup and turned it into a race car… we had beaten the ISKY CLOWN a dragster at San Luis Obispo for Top Eliminator… and now it was going after the LSR … there are stories about that trip… but without Jack… you’ll have to wait… we arrived and set up camp on scorpion flats just outside Wendover.. in 1960 almost everything was outside Wendover… we were having problems getting any speed out of the car… a call to Jack and with Dino Dunson as a co-pilot… Jack took the short cut thru Tonopah… over a rise he says he was going real fast and ran into a group of cows… literally… if you’ve been to Bonneville that way…you know!!… he and Dino made it but the ’53 Ford was a mess… Yankie was the driver and went thru the clocks at 150mph… looking out a side window… did I say thru the clocks… well the SCTA didn’t have another set and while they suspended racing until Crondex could get a replacement set in from LA… we left not to return for 20 years when Jack went back with Salty the Salt Dancer…

The dragster… many, many…. many fond memories…

The trips to LADS (Long Beach Drags or the BEACH), Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo, San Fernando and Riverside… the ‘CREW’ (this is when we became the dirty dozen) loaded up once and went to a Saturday night race at ‘ The Beach’ we ran a couple of times and broke as we were going on to Riverside Jack and Driver Marshall Solise opted to fix the car after we fond a motel… we got into the motel and off to a bowling alley for dinner and a little bowling… from there Jack and Marshall were off and the rest of us headed for bed… at 5am there was a pounding on all of our doors a hearty ‘HOOT-Mon, last one in the pool is…..” We weren’t welcome at that motel again…

Marshall and I took it to the Beach… and broke it… bad.. the scares are still on it.

The end of the race season parties… the movies of what we did and didn’t do… the wish list for a Kent Fuller car… the year that Jack was blamed for following a couple of Hotties all over the pits with the camera… ooops, is that Jack at the hot dog stand…Mark was busted!

Probably my best memory was 1996 the year I married Sherry… Jack at our wedding offering us the dragster to take on, what became the 5 year car show… we had so much fun at shows in California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado…

Over the years I never was far from Jack or he from me… he showed up for a tour of the Kitty Hawk when the ship and I were in San Diego… I’d look up at a Denny’s or other restaurant I’d be managing and there would be Jack… even from across the country it was a phone call to or from him… I know the 805-688-3139 (my age to his)… better than any that I’ve ever had…

When I settled down in Reno it was Jack traveling with his trailer full or empty selling his open and closed signs, who would pull up and tell his stories… “I found this safe” he once told me… as the hitch of the trailer drug on the ground…the Bonneville sign that he had to replace with a like one to get and about killed off a friend making the switch…a pair of inline skates (before anyone knew about them) he’d found the guy who invented them… he’d met these rag tag racers from England led by a Richard Nobel, who at the Black Rock Desert set the Land Speed Record… but they wouldn’t keep it… Craig Breedlove would be back… he called once said he was coming to a casino with Glen on a gambling trip… but they really wanted to go to the air races… I met them as they entered the casino and we raced to my car and to a day at the races... back at the casino we slipped into the restaurant and made like we’d just met up not sure that we really fooled the tour lady… but it worked for me… I got a call meet him in Phoenix, he has to pick up a truck and trailer for Paul Vanderley and can drop me off in Burbank to fly back to Reno… what a trip… my flight arrived first I made it to the gate as he deplaned … they guys with the truck were there and had a guy circling the airport parking as this thing was too big to just park… we grabbed it as it came around another circle to be told all about it.. “Don’t go over 3500 RPMs” we were told… why? …’Because that was 105 mph and the trailer shouldn’t be pulled that fast’ of course we had to see if that was true... Paul that WAS a fast truck…

Here is the hard part… all the stories and tears that I have shed writing this… I’ll really miss a SOUPER friend… but know he now has all the time to get everything done and no more ’BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL’ but I know he’s looking down at me and when the thunder rolls I’ll now know he just tossed another cherry bomb….

 Robby ‘Pea Soup’ Andersen!  http://robbya.chatango.com