Here's a fun detail for Brian's T332...

[Patrick]

Came across this photo on a FB Laguna Seca group...

How funny is that!
Patrick

[Calvin]

The best pic I've seen all day!!!!!!!

[pje]

Michael needs to update his decal sheet!
Paul Erlendson

[Deleted]

It's a reference to the car's sponsor.

[vintagerpm]

I believe he is referring to the clean-up guy behind the mule team.

[dustymojave]

Very cool detail pic. I don't remember noticing that in the day, although I was well aware of the team sponsor and of the 20 mule team and wagons graphics on the side of the car.

A close friend of mine has revived the old model kit of the Boraxo 20 mule team ore wagons. All new tooling and made in China. But the owner of the new tooling is my old neighbor across the street. He grew up in a small Mojave Desert mining town called "Boron", where the primary mine of the Boraxo corporation is located (more recently owned by a Brazilian mining company called "Minas"). That's just northeast of Edwards Air Force Base where the Space Shuttles used to land, and the next town north of where I live. He has moved back into the home he grew up in since his folks passed away and left the home to him and his family. So he's just across the highway from the mine and got corporate approval and support to re-introduce that old kit. With my plastics industry and model building experience, I worked with him to develop the new kit.

For youngsters who are confused at this unfamiliar product, Boraxo is an old brand of soap (hand and laundry) based on the mineral Boron. Still available and still very effective as a detergent booster. Boron is also used in metal alloys such as high strength steel for high grade bolts. The ore is called "borax". The company used to sponsor many TV shows in the 1950s through the 1970s. Ronald Reagan, before entering politics, was best known for MC-ing a TV show of various Western stories in the '50s and '60s called "Death Valley Days". The majority of Borax mining was done in the deserts and mountains of California and western Nevada for the last 150 years. The ore was for decades transported in huge ore wagons as shown on the side of Brian Redman's Lola T332. 2 massive ore wagons hitched together with a 3rd wagon to haul water for the mules and crew, and pulled by a team of 18 mules led by 2 horses. Some of the mines were in Death Valley. Each wagon hauled 10 tons of ore. The rear wheels were 7' diameter. My grandparents had a cabin in the mountains west of the Mojave Desert about 3 miles from a borax mine. The road for the wagons passed by their cabin and climbed the very steep side of a ridge near the cabin and passed over into the next canyon. When I was a kid, there were remains of a pair of wagons and skeletal remains of mules in a draw on the side of that ridge below an extremely sharp turn. There was a couple shovel-fulls of ore left in the bottoms of the wagons then. My dad worked in the early 60s at Lockheed Aircraft with a man who had been born and raised about the turn of the 20th Century near that mine and whose father was the manager of it. He told my father that turn was called "Drunkard's Curve". Supposedly the wagon drivers tended to be drunks who would typically get started out from the mine and by the time they got to the ridge were usually pretty drunk. But the mules were very savvy and had done the trip many times. So they were able to negotiate the road OK. Company management got wind of the drunk drivers and insisted that non-drinking drivers be hired. The 1st time a new sober driver got to the curve, the whole rig wound up down the canyon side where it stayed until the 1970s when the wreckage mysteriously disappeared. Try looking up the process to turn the team and wagons around a curve. You can't just pull the reins to the left, it involves the outside mules stepping over the traces for the inside mules and vice-versa. Pretty complex. It's described on the instruction sheet for the model kit. Way too complex for a sober driver apparently, but the mules handled it fine with a drunk driver who let them do it themselves. After the driver and crew were buried and the bulk of the ore recovered, the company quickly and quietly went back to the previous drivers.

Not Indy car or even F5000 model kits. But related to this thread.

[Art Laski]

Cool read, Richard.

[kip]

I love it when you guys throw in some history or anecdotes. Thanks.

kip

[alterrenner]

I remember that model! Boraxo came in a black and white box. Send in a couple of box tops, a little money for shipping, and this beautiful model kit arrived in a plain-looking brown cardboard box. Molded in a sort of greenish-blue plastic!
Yep, my memories are done in color!
Enjoyed the story!

--Frank

[joe]

Yes I remember sending in and receiving the kit. Really molded well. Still have one to build given to me from a friend after helping to clean up his parents house.
Great memories  maybe showing my age.

Joe

[dustymojave]

You're welcome Kip.

The blue plastic the kits were then and are now molded in is a close representation of the light blue paint the ore wagons were painted. I have a couple of test shots of the newer kit I plan to build. And I have a couple of bags of actual Borax ore to fill the wagons with. The only reason I haven't built either of the kits yet is the issue of where to put them. They're like 3' long with mules and horses. I'm thinking of a wood bottom clear case to mount on the wall with Mojave Desert "ground".

[Gary Davis]

Yep...I watched A LOT of "DEATH VALLEY DAYS". a GREAT back story Richard. It's really enjoyable to read a part of history that connects the racing world to the civilian ( for lack of a better word) world. I am able to watch the same program( along with a bunch of other 50-60s..in BW/color-western TV shows) on stars/western channel. Looking back at Ronald Regan in some of his past acting jobs...I formed a little different opinion of his ACTING talent. He wasn't to bad.....

[johnwebster]

That's a hoot! I remember watching Death Valley Days as a kid and Brian Redman in my early 20s.