SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1490770
FIRST IMPRESSIONS A View Of The Legendary Mickey Thompson Through The Eyes Of Sal Fish By Dan Sanchez This 50th Anniversary Special Section showcases SCORE International’s history, events, and great moments in SCORE Baja RacingHistory, and will be ongoing throughout the 2023 calendar year. As we begin a year of celebrating the 50th Anniversary of SCORE International, it’s common knowledge that this racing organization began with an opportunity presented to automotive innovator, racer, and businessman, Mickey Thompson. In 1973, the Mexican Government approached Thompson to take over the organization of the Mexican 1000 race, and SCORE International began. It was no fluke, however, that Thompson was the right person for this task. He had already made headlines by breaking the 400 mph land-speed barrier, competing in both the Pan American Road Race and the NORRA Mexican 1000, as well as winning national drag races, setting speed and endurance records, and innovating racing safety and automotive components. These were all things that the press and the automotive racing industry gravitated to, putting Thompson in the spotlight. But how did Mickey Thompson come to the development and ideas that would become SCORE International? Perhaps no one knew Thompson better in this role than Sal Fish. Fish ran SCORE International from 1974, and eventually had ownership, running the organization until December 2012. Fish kept the legacy of SCORE racing alive, and aside from necessary evolutionary changes, also maintained the original vision Mickey Thompson had for Baja racing. “If you were into any kind of motorsports or had any knowledge about cars and hot rods, you would have heard of Mickey Thompson,” said Fish. “Back then he was known as an innovator and a very unique individual in all forms of motorsports. While Mickey was good at all those things, he was also a great promoter, and because of his unique personality, he also got the attention of the media.” A CHANCE MEETING It would be some time before the evolution of SCORE International that Sal Fish and Mickey Thompson would eventually meet. Fish recalls what led up to meeting Thompson for the first time and the first impressions of the man who would convince Fish to leave a lucrative publication job to help start an off-road racing organization with an unknown future. “I began working at my dad’s auto shop after college and would get together with my friends to go surfing at Hermosa Beach on Sundays,” said Fish. “It was during these fun times surfing that I met Dick Day, who was the publisher of Car Craft Magazine. He told me I would make a great advertising salesman. I laughed and told him I didn’t know how to sell ads. But Dick took me under his wing and mentored me.” After several years, Fish’s involvement with the magazine allowed him to become a part of the car custom and racing industry’s elite in Southern California. Fish would come to know the top innovators in drag racing and the car culture, while also attending races and race tracks all over the state. “In a single day, I would go from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, Riverside, and Long Beach, meeting people at their houses and garages,” said Fish. “These were guys making a widget for drag racing or something to make their cars faster.” Soon Fish was hanging out with the racing elite such as innovators Fred Offenhauser and Vic Edelbrock, along with drag racers such as Don Prudhomme, Dick Landy, Danny Ongias, and others. “I had heard from one of my editors at Car Craft that Mickey Thompson was making some new cool parts for race cars,” said Fish. “I can’t recall if it was some kind of intake manifold and exhaust combination, but I was told it was revolutionary, so I went to check it out. I had not met Mickey and I had him pictured as this suave businessman in a sanitary racing facility. When I got to his shop in Wilmington, California, he was not the guy I thought he was.” “Mickey was instead, a real bib-overall type guy, talking with his mouth full of food. The shop was unlike the other super clean shops of other racers I had met. Mickey’s was a real old-time mechanic shop with grease and parts all over the place and not real sophisticated equipment. He was just one of those ‘good-ole-boys’ and the epitome of a Southern California Hot Rodder.” Dumfounded, Fish still knew Thompson was as innovative and important to the motorsports community as anyone else he had met or known, and gave him the respect he deserved. “I couldn’t believe this guy was THE Mickey Thompson that was making headlines and who everyone was talking about,” added Fish. “We did an article on his innovative product, and of course, I tried to get him to buy an ad. He never did and I was a little pissed at that, to be honest.” COMMON INTERESTS After several years, Fish’s success in the automotive advertising and publishing industry with Petersen Publishing, led him to move into becoming the publisher of Car Craft and Hot Rod Magazines. Fish needed help and hired a woman, who he thought was very classy and sophisticated, as his secretary. Her name was Trudy Creach, who eventually met and married Mickey Thompson. “I didn’t know at the time that the two of them had met or that they had a relationship going,” said Fish. “Nonetheless, as a result of it, I was invited to their wedding. It was after this that Mickey and I formed a closer relationship and I began to know Mickey in a different way.” By 1969, Fish and Thompson would later become more involved as friends after Fish was invited to race a Baja Bug that was the basis of a new Revell model car kit. “We would often do articles on Revell model cars as they were a big deal back then,” said Fish. “There was a Baja Bug that was made into the model car kit and the actual vehicle was going to be raced in Baja. So we went down to Mexico to shoot this Baja Bug and I fell in love with Ensenada, Mexico, and all of Baja. I met a ton of interesting people and eventually, I got an opportunity to race this Baja Bug in the Mexican 1000. That’s when I got to see Mickey Thompson in his race-mode, and got to know him better.” It was at this race that Fish and Thompson would both have a common passion for Baja racing that later developed into SCORE International. “At the race, Mickey and I were staying at the same hotel. Racing with me was my ad salesperson Bob Wegglan, and we had a NORRA map of the course,” said Fish. “It was a single piece of paper with directions and checkpoints. I think it was a race where you kind of went anywhere you wanted to.” “So we’re walking down the hotel lobby and I hear all these guys talking loudly in another room with the door open. I look in and it’s Mickey Thompson, his son Danny Thompson, and other members of their team. Mickey had all these papers tacked to the wall and I overheard he had been pre-running the course for about three weeks. The papers had locations of rocks, washes and the areas of where to slow down to ten miles per hour. There were notes indicating trees on the left side, and so on. I looked at Bob and said what in the hell are these guys doing? We hadn’t even pre-run the course and we’re going to do this race? We had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into? Just as I thought this, Mickey yells out ‘Hey how are you guys doing?’ He invited us to look over his maps and I realized he had copied what the rally racers were doing and brought these elements to his team. They had everything plotted on his maps from a cactus, a coyote, and even where there would be a cow. I told him that a cow is not going to be there unless you kill it during your pre-run! Mickey just laughed and asked what we had on our map. Man, I knew we were in over our heads. All we wanted was to be a part of this adventure.” “After the race started, we ended up way behind Thompson. We were pulling into San Inez and a motorhome passed us. The people inside were partying and having a great time. We just looked at them and wondered what the hell was going on? We were in a race and we got passed by a motorhome!” After a full day and night of driving, Fish finally catches up with Thompson and other racers who were bogged down in the tidal flats just passed San Ignacio. “We got to this area and people were standing and waving,” said Fish. “I thought maybe it was a photo op, but in fact, they were warning us to slow down so we wouldn’t get bogged down with everyone else, and we did. All the teams had a tow strap so each one was trying to pull out the racers behind them. Parnelli Jones was just ahead of Mickey but their tow straps wouldn’t reach, so we got there and pulled Parnelli out, but got stuck in the process. Parnelli then pulled out Mickey and dropped the tow strap and left, even though we made a deal that if we pulled them out, they would not forget to help us too. Once Mickey was freed, he came over and pulled us out. It was then that I fully understood who Mickey was and we finished the race and third in our class.” The experience left Fish with a more enduring love for Baja and desert racing. Over time, Fish re-visited Baja and because of his publishing background, became friends with various politicians and hotel owners there. “I’d go down to Baja and just goof off and have a good time,” said Fish. “I became very close with many of them, including Nico Saad, Pepe Limon, Mike Leon, Ricardo Cruz, and Memo Rodriguez.” These friends would later become instrumental in helping Fish make things happen for SCORE in the future. THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME Time had passed since Fish and Thompson had their experience in Baja, but it was now 1973 and the two would meet again, this time with the idea and opportunity for an off-road racing sanctioning body. “I saw Mickey again, I think it was at Indy, Bonneville, or one of many other events,” said Fish. “He came up to me and said the Mexican government is wanting him to help with the Baja races. ‘I’m going to start an organization,’ he told me. He was putting on an event in Riverside, California and he invited me to see what he was doing. Then he told me he wants to put on a 500 or 1000 mile Baja event and suggested I’d be interested in what he was doing.” Fish suggested he could cover the Riverside event for the magazine. “But I wasn’t thinking of anything other than that,” said Fish. “When I got to Riverside, I met a lot of the same off-road guys I had met while racing in Baja. Shortly after the event, I got a call from some of my friends in Mexico, who said they took over the Baja race and that they wanted to talk to me and Mickey. They knew that I had the power of the press and Mickey was a celebrity, so they invited us to lunch with then Governor of Baja California, Mexico Milton Castellanos Everardo.” Fish had planned to drive down to Baja as he normally did, but he soon got a call from Thompson. “Mickey found out I was also coming and he wanted to fly me down with him in his plane,” said Fish. “We flew together to Mexicali, Mexico, and met with then Governor Castellanos Everardo. He asked us to help expose the event, as Raul Sanchez Dias, the son of a government official, had started an organization called the Baja Sports Committee. They asked if I could do an article on it, and Mickey could support it with all of his off-road racing friends.” “We had a great lunch and they treated us way over the top. It was on the plane ride home that Mickey told me that he doesn’t mind helping the Mexicans with this, but he was going to start a racing organization and wanted me to be president of this company. ‘I want to start an organization larger than Indy and bigger than NASCAR,’ he told me. So here I am sitting in his plane, not even knowing if Mickey was an actual pilot. He flew like he was driving a race car. He got in the plane and did not talk to the tower or anything, and just took off. The tower would radio him and ask where he was going and if he had clearance to take off. ‘It’s Mickey Thompson,’ he told them. They would tell him, "Oh okay Mickey, Go ahead!.” I was thinking, "What the hell is going on here?” “The bottom line was that he was trying to get me to help him start this organization, and make me president because I had already established great relationships with Mexican officials. As a result of my publishing days, I had a unique relationship with the auto manufacturers in Detroit and a knowledge of how to produce a publication. I didn’t know it at the time, but Mickey and I were like water and oil, salt and pepper. Between my personality and Mickey’s. I told him that was a really nice offer but I’ve already got what I think is the number one job in the world as a publisher of the number one automotive magazine in the world. Why would I want to do this even though I love Baja?” To be continued… SJ