Below is an article which ran in the LA Times on Sat, Oct. 15th. Those
of us who read it are hopping mad about the reporting being so
negative. George Callaway is particularly irritated by the article.
After the article you will find a copy of my "letter to the editor"
and the email address for anyone else who might be interested in
commenting on the lousy reporting job.
letters@latimes.com
Speedy Regards,
"LandSpeed" Louise Ann Noeth
LandSpeed Productions
Telling stories with words and pictures
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Plenty of Room to Run Wild
Officials worry about the impact on the fragile desert environment of
El Mirage Dry Lake, but where else can you red-line your BMW or shoot
skeet naked?
By JOE MOZINGO, Times Staff Writer
EL MIRAGE DRY LAKE--This is where people from Los Angeles come to
do what they can't in front of the neighbors.
They blow things up. They shoot porno flicks. They drink beer at
dawn. They rip up hills on motorbikes. They stage cockfights and rave
parties and soar through the sky in homemade contraptions.
And most notably, they drive worse than any road-raging commuter
on the San Diego Freeway.
"We had a vehicle hit a Porta Potti at 200 mph," said Barry
Nelson, chief U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger for 3.2 million
acres stretching from Los Angeles County to the Nevada state line.
Southern California has an open backyard like few other urban
areas in the world, with enough space to try about anything the human
mind can conjure up. And El Mirage Dry Lake, 30 miles east of
Palmdale, has become ground zero for all the pent-up energy, wacko
experiments and illicit desires of lowlanders over the hill.
This place reflects a schizophrenic relationship with our
region's arid interior, an expanse that is seen as wasteland and
sanctuary, fragile ecosystem and pockmarked artillery range.
These visions converge at El Mirage thanks to a combination of
proximity and geology. The cracked clay lake bed, lying on Los
Angeles' back doorstep, stretches five miles by two miles, a
flawlessly flat surface that to the naked eye quickly dissolves into a
liquid haze. From the sunken desert floor, trails wend into a vast
expanse of barren hills, beckoning all kinds of off-road motorists.
As a result, this 24,000-acre slice of federal land in San
Bernardino County draws more types of users than any other patch of
desert in Southern California, officials say. Land sailors dodge
motorcyclists. Gyrocopters buzz RVs. And yuppies put their Beemers to
the test.
"You can do whatever the hell you want out here, and no one will
ever get in your way," said a drunk 20-year-old punk rocker named
Charlie late one recent night.
And Charlie, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did just that.
He had just illegally blown a rattlesnake in half with a 12-gauge
shotgun and was trying to impress his girlfriend with its moving
corpse: "It's still twitching. Feel it. Feel it."
There's no speed limit, and often the government officials in
charge can only stand by as human folly unfolds, sometimes tragically.
About a dozen people die in accidents every year.
"We can try to appeal to their sense of judgment or we can wait
until bones are sticking out of their skin," Nelson said.
Every year, more than 110,000 visitors--crowds of leathery desert
veterans and wide-eyed novices--come creaking up Interstate 15 in old
RVs and trailers. As they head 10 miles west out of Adelanto, down the
washboard access road and onto this raw swath of earth, many feel they
are shedding all those structured confines of city life.
They are taking an age-old psychological path that tears them
away from the "smear of humanity and suburbanization," said Jeff
Kovich, research manager with the U.S. Geological Survey who studies
the California desert.
"It's deeply embedded in our culture that the desert is a place
to draw away, to be free, to be an American. Who's going to see you?
And if they do see you, they're probably doing the same thing."
Paul Faulstich, a professor of environmental studies at Pitzer
College in Claremont, laments the ecological destruction that comes
with some of the heavier uses. But he says the area offers people a
needed venue to satisfy primal desires for open land that may date
back to humanity's origins on the African plains.
"Our lives are so regimented, so full of answering to someone
else," Faulstich said. "When you go out there, it's as much of a
spiritual releasing as it is a freedom to do whatever the hell you
want. Not only can you see a hundred miles, but you can drive your
urban assault vehicle across it."
Motorcycle gangs like the Vagos and the Hells Angels used to
rumble into El Mirage at night for drunken, drug-tweaked orgies.
Today, gangbangers come to try out their weapons or burn stolen cars
in the nearby canyons, officials say. Rangers busted up an organized
cockfight in May. And all sorts of young groups--ravers, skinheads and
clean-cut college students--fan out to isolated spots among the
creosote bushes to party.
Hollywood also loves the convenient desolation of El Mirage,
which is one of the most filmed places in the desert, according to the
Inland Empire Film Commission. Among the scores of film permits issued
this year for the dry lake were ones for a Metallica video, a
Microsoft ad, a third "Jurassic Park" movie and a film called "Blow."
Even the most dedicated couch potatoes have visited--through car
commercials, like the one showing a Nissan Maxima careening around the
lake bed and halting in front of a single flower.
George Callaway, who lives on the lake edge and runs land speed
trials there, has seen it all in the half-century he's visited or
resided here. Called the "mayor" of El Mirage, he has driven his
souped-up 1929 Ford roadster more than 130 mph across the flats.
Still, as he was cruising around the lake one afternoon several years
ago, he saw something that makes him shake his head to this day.
"Here's this dolly with no clothes on," he said, beginning a
story about a pornographic movie shoot he happened upon. "And she's
got 40 people standing there watching it."
Gunmen and In-Line Skaters
Only rangers, who patrol El Mirage and beyond, witness the full
scope of humanity that can fan out across the Mojave.
Nelson remembers the 115-degree day he headed out to a more
isolated lake bed northeast of El Mirage. Alone in the middle of the
lake, decked out in camouflage, a man sat with a cache of guns and his
van in the blinding midday light. Surrounding him were little plastic
molded men, like lawn jockeys in battle fatigues, which he was
methodically blowing away with a rifle.
The ranger was spooked. He questioned the man, who, though
strange, was doing nothing illegal. Nelson left.
"He was under siege, I guess," Nelson said. "It was one of those
contacts I just wanted to end with a graceful exit."
Usually, though, the less pathological people come to El Mirage.
Even in August, when the furnace-like temperatures scare the heavy
crowds away, the lake bed can be a manic mix of recreational ardor.
During a recent summer afternoon, a lone in-line skater emerged
from the blue warp of heat, an absurdly solitary figure cutting across
the hardpan. As she slowly got closer and the warm air set dust devils
spinning, one could see she was wearing a red bathing suit--and a wide
grin.
Her name was Susan Werner, 38, and at home on the crowded Venice
boardwalk the Los Angeles resident can't swing her arms when she
skates.
"This is total freedom," she said later. "It's very surreal."
To the east, a student filmmaker from Occidental College was
shooting the climax of his movie--crouching on roller skates while
being towed backward by a Volkswagen. "The film is a postmodern piece
about struggles, destinations and mind journeys," said director Bryan
Lasseter, 21.
Lasseter needed just the right shot of a young fair-skinned actor
riding a red bike across a desert. Checking out various Web sites on
the Internet, he found that El Mirage was the most otherworldly place
so close to the city. "My actor is an L.A. pretty boy, and he needs to
be back as quick as he can."
Soon a westerly wind kicked up, and a group of land sailors began
tacking across the lake on their three-wheeled land yachts. They
swooped back and forth at 50 mph, keeling up on two wheels, sails
flapping, shooting past the burned-out skeleton of a dune buggy that
had caught fire and exploded near their camp. Land sailing is one of
the few quiet, peaceful sports on the lake.
Hours after nightfall, Charlie and his punk rock friends--a
tattooed, pierced and spike-headed lot--arrived in the area. These are
the type of high-impact campers that make the more genteel land
sailors cringe, driving from Chino and Riverside to get wasted and
shoot guns where no one will bother them.
Desert Ecology Is Fragile
Their journey had been interrupted by police who pulled them over
in Adelanto and questioned the young men and women about whether they
had thrown a bottle, which they denied. One of them was arrested on
outstanding warrants, and one of their cars was confiscated.
Finally, the group pulled up to an abandoned foundation with an
old chimney and some tamarisk trees, just off the lake bed. While they
ravaged a Joshua tree for firewood, one kid stepped on a rattlesnake
and was saved by his Doc Marten boots.
Then the haphazard shotgun blasts began. The fire was lighted,
and the first keg of beer was tapped. An assault rifle emerged from a
trunk. A toilet paper roll was obliterated, and the business end of
the snake was soon roasting in the campfire. "We've got dinner!" said
one. So, with the stars etched hard in the sky, another night passed
at El Mirage.
Desert use isn't totally unregulated. The Bureau of Land
Management enforces laws and performs the delicate task of balancing
environmental concerns with people's recreational needs.
They try to do that by designating specific off-road vehicle
areas, one of which includes the El Mirage lake bed. Such a
designation prohibits riding double or without helmets on motorcycles,
but generally allows all types of vehicles within its boundaries.
Still, riders are always lured by that next ridge or open valley,
and new tracks are constantly being cut across the hills.
Environmentalists say this threatens one of the most fragile
environments on Earth.
Shrubs can live thousands of years. But they don't readily sprout
up again when trampled by someone's Humvee or motorcycle, biologists
say. The dirt is entwined with a fungus that prevents erosion and
blowing dust. Yet a single off-road vehicle--indeed, a single
footstep--can undo that for decades, they add.
"A typical 4-by-4 pickup truck damages 1.25 acres of land for
every four miles driven," said Kovich of the U.S. Geological Survey.
"You multiply that by the number of vehicles out there and the number
of miles driven, and the impact is huge."
Then there's trash and the age-old perception that the desert is
a waste dump. "Everyone tells me they bring more trash out than they
take in," said BLM ranger Bob Hastey. "I guess I must be talking to
the wrong people."
Lately, Hastey said he has discovered plastic carcasses strewn
from Barstow to El Mirage--old computers and fax machines that
apparently have been blown to smithereens by frustrated owners.
Overall, he said, the BLM has removed more than 1,000 tons of trash
from the desert around Victorville and El Mirage in the last five
years.
There actually are laws out here.
In the off-highway vehicle area that includes the dry lake,
shooting is strictly forbidden. Outside the area, only shotguns are
permitted. Bombs are a felony anywhere, raves are banned and dumping
junk or destroying the local plants and animals is strictly
prohibited.
Rangers say they made 26 arrests last year on outstanding
warrants and drug offenses, and issued 120 citations, mainly for
vehicle and firearms violations.
Karl McNeil got written up in August. He brought his family out
in the RV to ride dirt bikes.
But one night at El Mirage, Hastey ticketed him for setting off
illegal fireworks. "We do mortars. Got 'em in Vegas for $300," he
said.
And so authorities keep a tenuous grip. When no laws are broken,
they can chuckle at these odd manifestations of freedom.
"There was once this couple shooting skeet," Hastey said,
savoring the memory. "Naked."
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October 16, 2000
Editor
Los Angeles Times
via email
Good Morning,
Initially, I was delighted to see an article written about the El
Mirage dry lake in "Column One" for both print and electronic editions
of the Times October 14th. My delight was quickly soured as I read Joe
Mozingo's heavily biased piece on lake activities that reeked of
supermarket tabloid journalism.
Although Mozingo spoke to resident racer George Callaway, he failed to
include anything but an incorrect passing mention about "running land
speed trials there," and hammered away with a sensational style of
writing that left me disgusted and worried some zealous bureaucrat
might seize the opportunity to wreck political havoc with responsible
recreational users.
It is a documented fact that the Southern California Timing
Association (SCTA) has conducted safe, sane and family-orientated land
speed racing time trials out on El Mirage since the 1930's. The group
of racing officials stage six meets per year that attract several
hundred race cars and crews and several hundred more spectators once a
month from May through November.
Although the cars can exceed speeds of 300mph on the course, the
accident rate is extremely low for an origination that has been
operating with an all-volunteer staff for more than 63 years and their
conduct is a benchmark for others to emulate when using the lakebed. A
quick check with the local law enforcement will substantiate this
claim, let alone the longevity of the SCTA events themselves,
This point is in sharp contrast to poor behavior spotlighted by
Mozingo who chose to ignore, in my opinion, pertinent, salient facts
about lakebed usage. I can understand what a guy might do to get his
editors to give him page one (naked babes shooting skeet, rattlesnake
assassins, et al), but having researched the history of the SCTA for
my newly published book, Bonneville Salt Flats, I am outraged by the
lack of balance in this piece.
Land speed racers are a fascinating bunch. Regardless of what they do
in their everyday lives, when they
are on the dirt, they become a family bound together by speed - a
powerful force that erases ethnic, economic, political and religious
barriers.
They are people trying to go faster than anyone else has gone before.
And they do it again, and
again, and again -- flogging physics to win velocity crowns. Some
speed wrinkles have been doing it quite well for 50 years. Land speed
racing invigorates the spirit so thoroughly, energizes the libido so
subtly that those immersed in it consider the few, definable
distillations very intimate, private. It's a driver's game, not a ride
you take shackled to a computer program. Strapped in the car, hurtling
along the dirt, it is just you, the machine and the Almighty. Time
slows down and the empirical becomes spatial.
El Mirage is the "tune-up" shop for Bonneville, the ultimate speed
laboratory where you can spinout at 200 mph and not hit a darn thing.
Doing well on the dirt gives you the hope that you can do well on the
salt flats where more land speed records broken than any other spot on
earth.
I ask that you send Mr. Mozingo and photographer back to El Mirage
November 18 and 19 when the SCTA will conclude its 2000 racing season
with a time trials event that will again bring these fascinating,
responsible and congenial people back to the place where land speed
racing was born in the United States.
Speedy Regards,
"LandSpeed" Louise Ann Noeth
LandSpeed Productions
1761 Dwight Avenue
Camarillo, CA 93010
Ph/Fx: 805.445.8414
P.S. The Times might remember that on if its own once raced at El
Mirage and then went on to international land speed racing fame -- LA
Times pressman Mickey Thompson became the hero of the hot rodders,
when in 1960, became the first American to exceed 400 mph.
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