Prologue: This is a story that has long needed to be told. I have wanted to write this book since graduating college. I knew that if the stories were not collected and preserved that they would be lost forever, and no one would ever really have a firm understanding of what happened in the hills of Los Angeles in the past. After the NO PARKING signs went up in the 80’s, the glory days of Mulholland racing were over. I was in college at the time and I began to realize then how important it was to somehow save the stories and preserve the memories of those that shaped what we know as,Mulholland racing. This way as the years pass the future will be able to know what really happened up here in the 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s. Many years had come and gone while I was waiting, thinking, and planning for this book. All this time I have been living in the same place on Mulholland where my father had bought land and built a house in the early fifties. Through mutual friends I met Dan Magee, a talented writer. Finally it was time to tell this story. Dan and I collected over thirty personal accounts of what happened on Mulholland over several decades. All these real stories are a part of this book. Dan’s creativity and “Method Writing” style has worked together to enable this story to be told well. I take this time to thank him for making this dream come true for me, and for helping me to save all things we know as “The Mulholland Experience.” *** This book has been purposely written using a conversational format so that the reader can get a true feel for the stories recounted in “The Mulholland Experience.” That way it feels like the reader is in a personal dialogue with the original people that made the Mulholland experience a real event. ***

James Dean spent sixteen months shooting three films back to back, “East of Eden,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” and “Giant.” Only “East of Eden” was released to the public during Dean’s short life. “Rebel” was still in the editing phase and “Giant” was still in production in Burbank. He took some time off and rented a bungalow at 14611 Sutton Street in Sherman Oaks. James knew about Mulholland Drive because he used it as a direct route from the Valley to the studios in Hollywood. At night he would use the deserted Mulholland Drive, running his white Porsche Speedster, on his own personal racecourse. Mulholland was the perfect test ground for the fledgling racer. There he could practice his driving skills in tight hairpin turns and bumpy straight-aways without fear of anyone crashing into him or writing him tickets for excessive speed.Mulholland at that time was a wide-open, sparsely populated road, with no stoplights or guardrails and was not yet on the LAPD radar. Tim Considine shared a mutual friend with James Dean. Here are a couple of Tim’s stories. “A friend of mine that was one of his teachers was one of my teachers, a stuntman Cary Lockton. He was a stuntman on “Rebel Without A Cause.” He may have been the coordinator for the “Chickie Run” sequence on “Rebel.” He told me that James Dean had a white Speedster and it kept getting dinged up. Cary told Dean, ‘So you have been cheating on me.’ Dean replied, ‘I’m just learning you know.’ One time during filming of the “Chickie Run” sequence, Cary played a trick on James. James would have his hands stuffed in that little pocket on in his jeans. James was overlooking a little cliff and Cary popped the horn. The noise just scared the hell out of him. James couldn’t get his hands out of his pockets and rolled all the way down the hill.”

We had the privilege of interviewing Bobby Carradine in Beverly Hills, and he shared some great crash and burn events with us. One day he was trying to show off when an unforeseen mechanical failure steered him right into a brick mailbox. “I had hundreds of hours on Mulholland. I was always developing the car to work better. One of my goals was to clear 100 MPH in the Sweeper. I was finally able to do it after Guldstrand put in the new solid Delrin bushings in the front suspension. The suspension in the ’69 Vette is not that good. It can use a lot of help.We were able to finally reach 100 MPH in the Sweeper. I forgot about the brick mailbox. That was the burgundy ‘69 Vette. You know the ? inch bolt on the Trans leaf spring? There are these rods that are perpendicular to the ground, to that spring that it holds to. To get it exactly the way we wanted to, there is a little piece of steel past the bolt.When I was loading the car really hard in the corners, I did a right-hander or left-hander I don’t even remember. If you were really making a good run you were really loading the car. That tire would blow. I could never really figure out why I was blowing a tire occasionally. I finally figured it out, but not before I took out the mailbox. That’s how that happened. I blew the tire and took out the mailbox.”

It is very important that these stories are written down as they really happened. It is also crucial that they are told as they occurred and that they are not altered in any way. It is important to remember this history as well.When you gather information from several different sources and the information coincides within itself, then you have an accurate account of what is real and what is fantasy.We want everyone to know what really happened on Mulholland, not the Hollywood restructuring version. This book is the real deal. There is no need to guess about what happened or to have hearsay guide your impressions. It might not always be pretty, but it is real. After reading these accounts everybody will know what it really was like to have the Mulholland experience… After the movie came out a separate film crew were filming a documentary on how “King of the Mountain” was filmed. The documentary was much more real than the film. They put a camera in Chris Banning’s red Camaro racecar. The car he got his SCCA license in. He took out the crew and went racing on Mulholland with them. The crew was very impressed and a bit frightened from their ride along with Chris. They ended up interviewing John Hall and Chris. The documentary was pretty much a day in the life of the Mulholland racers. It turned out to be a very accurate piece which pleased the Mulholland crowd. David Barry steered the production company in the direction of the real road racers. This time they got it right and did not color it with Hollywood hype. The project was aired on the new medium of cable television.Mulholland Drive was now known the world over. It had achieved international acclaim as one of the most famous and popular roads in the world.