Bean Bandits The Life and Times of Land Speed Racing p 5

Starting in 1948, Arnett raced with the Road Runners and the Southern California Roadster Club on the dusty surfaces of Muroc and El Mirage. In 1951 he and his friends started their own club. Comprised of kids from his neighborhood, their ranks reflected the composition of the multicultural environment of their home. While they had African-American, Caucasian, Japanese and Lebanese members, they were mostly Mexican-Americans and they flaunted it proudly, calling themselves the Beaners. During a reflective moment, club member Billy Galvin (who designed the original "Bean Bandit" logo) spurted out that outlaws liked beans, and the Bean Bandits were born.
Paradise Mesa Airfield, outside of San Diego was one place where the Bean Bandits built their memories. It became their home track. Paradise Mesa was a strip where illegal racing was restricted following what, in 1951, Hot Rod called "hazards of frequent uncontrolled drag meets." Bean Bandits' president, Mike Nagem, helped form the San Diego Timing Association (SDTA) and convinced property owner Henry Adams to create a legal venue for racers to show off their abilities. He agreed and the SDTA, with the help of local law enforcement officers, organized the country's first legal drag strips. SDTA brought needed order to a world of chaos. They instituted track rules, charged entrance fees and used Otto Crocker's reliable timers. The track officially opened in 1951 and before closing 8 years later, young Arnett and his friends cleaned up with the trophies. Arnett recalls hopping into his car and racing the fastest vehicles there, motorcycles. Harold Miller sits comfortably in Arnett's living room and remembers the Saturdays 45 years ago when the Bean Bandits would meet at Mike Nagem's service station on Pacific Coast Highway. After filling up on tortillas, meat, cheese, jalapenos and abalone from the nearby fish market, they'd fire up the cars and Ramirez could practice driving. "One time he was in a car and he burned rubber. He was going so fast he couldn't stop. I never will forget that. The lord was with us. Carlos went up a hill and when he got to the corner he was going so fast, he just went flying through a busy intersection. I thought he was gonna get killed." Maybe the cars Arnett built from scratch resembled scrap metal to the casual observer. He would "get a piece of pipe and bend it around and weld the rear end on it." Whatever chassis was available, a '27 T or '24, Arnett would just throw a motor in the front. "We used to take the tires off of Andrew's convertible and put them on the damn thing and go out racing." Maybe those guys who purchased installation ready speed equipment never thought they had to worry. In his book, Drag Racing: Yesterday and Today, Wally Parks credited the "colorful kids" for their racing equipment and further pointed out they were "usually good for a laugh or two." Well, maybe their competitors were laughing to hide their tears because from 1951 to 1956 the "colorful kids" managed to hold records at each of the Southland's tracks. Miller remembers fellow racers would hate to see the guys with yellow car show up. "They'd all say, 'Well, we're gonna race for second, because these guys are gonna kick our butts.'"
	Arnett's scavenger hunt for more performance led him to 'old man Olson,' a model plane dealer who had fashioned rocket boosters for bombers during the war. Arnett purchased liquid horsepower from him in the form of nitromethane. While he was not the first racer to use it, he learned to get the most bang for his buck. Arnett experimented with nitro in a motorcycle at El Mirage. "I went 150 on a big old Harley Davidson that weighed five times more than I did. That was in '52, '51. It was pretty fast for then. It scared me."
Respectful of the new fuel, the Bandits arrived at the track with their nitro packed in rags. Nitromethane's not that volatile, but they didn't know it at the time. Miller says they'd add to the mystique saying, "Don't go near it, it's gonna blow up." Paradise Mesa was their proving ground as Miller recalls, "These guys from LA would come down and make us look bad. Joaq would say, 'Okay, let's put the nitromethane in.'" The crew chief finally settled for a 50/50 mixture because, as he told Hot Rod in 1953, "It's easy to mix this way. A gallon of this and a gallon of that." Arnett used an array of fuel additives to boost his team's performance. Other racers' technical ignorance led to rumors of the Bean Bandits' melted pistons or corroded engines. Arnett swears it never happened. Wild rumors aside, the learning curve with the new fuel and oxygen amplifying additives took a toll on Arnett's hard working engines. He developed alternative means to save parts and keep performance high. Solutions like a gas and oil mix that lubricate the engine when it warmed up were employed. These methods were discovered because he learned a lesson when his engine froze and rods and pistons had to be replaced. He suffered. Their rough-and-ready equipment didn't faze driver Ramirez. "That's one thing I never even thought about. I never thought about getting hurt or something coming loose in the car. I had so much faith in Arnett that I didn't question it. I would look at something and I'd say, 'that's gonna hold. I know it'll hold.' It never entered my mind that something would go wrong." Maybe he didn't worry because he liked speed. "There's no substitute for horsepower. You're always looking for that edge. Arnett used to find it. He'd tell me, 'Go for it, Carlos.' And I said, 'Okay, let's go.' That was the name of the game for me. I'd just hammer it." The Bean Bandits had to blaze their own trails because it was a young sport and they didn't have role models. There was no one Ramirez thought he could emulate. "We beat them. Chrisman and Neumeyer, Mickey Thompson, Jazzy Nelson... We lost a few races, I'm not gonna say we won them all. But we won our share." .
"I guess Joaquin saw something that he liked," recalls Ramirez. Arnett chose Ramirez to drive and taught him how to read a race. "He used to run me off and tell me to 'go watch those guys and see what they're doing. Pick up their mistakes.'" Studying their rivals taught Ramirez the best time to shift - before or after his competitors, the physical quirks of the track, the body language of the flag man who set off the racers. Then Ramirez put those skills to work. "The guys would tell me, 'give it a ride' and they'd get away and let me concentrate on what I had to do." The Bandits' superior abilities allowed them to race the growing national circuit. At the First Annual World Series of Drag Racing held in October of 1954, the club received an award for engineering achievement. Five of the Automobile Timing Association of America's judges felt Arnett's hot rod, built in one month for a low cost of $1,000, merited recognition based on the elements of engineering, speed, craftsmanship and safety.	Only nine of the Bandits' 30 members trekked the 2,500 miles to Lawrenceville, Illinois where they blew three transmissions, wrecked a chassis and an axle. Despite their problems, the snub-nosed "Bean Bandit" powered by a 296 cubic inch Mercury turned a speed of 127.66, the third highest for the meet.