48 Years Ago - January 17, 1965 at Riverside - Jarrett Burned, Foyt Crashed, Gurney Won
Stock Car Racing History
Excerpt about Dick Wallen from 1989 Dave Argabright article in Open Wheel Magazine:
The irrepressible Wallen began his film career in 1958, when he bought a new 16mm camera for $300 and traveled east from his Los Angeles home to film the Riverside Grand Prix. He made $50 and earned the respect of Fred Bailey of Race Film Productions, one of the leaders of the motor sports film industry. He gave Wallen a chance to work with his film crew for the 1959 Indy 500, and Wallen was hooked. Within two years he had quit his grocery store job, packed up his young family, and headed to Indianapolis and a career in film making.
He survived a meager start through the early '60's, living with the legendary open wheel crowd of Foyt, Hurtubise, Jones, Unser, McElreath, and Marshman, who were the unstoppable world of USAC Champ and Sprint car racing. He survived the all night rides from Langhorne and Kansas City with Foyt or Jones behind the wheel, rocketing down two-lane highways toward home. His apartment on Georgetown Road hosted the social event of the week each Wednesday night, when most of the drivers, car owners, crew members and fans would gather for the viewing of the film from the past weekend's USAC events.
"It was different then, from a social standpoint," Wallen admits today. "There was a fellowship that you don't see today. It was a family deal. Guys fought sometimes, but after the races nobody stayed mad for long. That was what I loved, that everybody was so close. I filmed tons of other types of racing, but the Sprint and Champ cars were my love. They still are."
The key to survival for Wallen, from the professional standpoint, was not Sprint car racing. While he made a few bucks selling film to car owners and fans, he found the big money was in Hollywood. He sold his first piece of film to Universal Studios in 1961, scenes of a major crash that they wanted to build a entire movie plot around. Wallen, a shrewd and tough negotiator, threw out all standards in pricing for the 10-foot section of film, earning himself $5,000 and a reputation as expensive - but high quality - among major Hollywood filmmakers. He would ultimately provide footage for over 500 movies, and many contemporary TV shows.
"People back then thought I was the bum that carried my camera to all of the Sprint car races, and that it was my living. God, I would hate to think about making a living back then on just open wheel films. The Hollywood stuff kept me in business, and I started filming everything I could that I thought I could sell to movies. But I never let up on the open wheel stuff."
During this pre-video era, Wallen did all his work on 16mm "postitive image" film, called Commercial Ektachrome. It is a professional quality not unlike the widely used 8mm film of yesterday. By the mid-seventies he had established himself not just in Hollywood, but as the premier producer of commercial films catering to many aftermarket manufacturers that were heavily involved in auto racing. He became a legend in the business in 1973, when he produced "Hard Driving Man" for Champion, and in 1980 followed that with "Close to the Edge." Both are now classics in the commercial film world, and "Man" has sold over 1,000 copies in 8mm and 16mm.
"A lot of big companies like Champion, Wynns, Firestone, Ford, and GM would buy film and use them for promotions, meetings, and sales pitches. That was a big market for me until it dried up around 1980 with the advent of video."