The Cal-look Lounge

Back in December I started working at a machine shop up here in Southern Oregon. Ever since I started there I had a guy named Chad Radig on day shift tell me he really loves my car and he has owned a a few bugs and buses but he doesn't currently. Seemed like a cool guy, maybe in his  late 30s, early 40s. He had moved up here to Oregon in 1989.

So 4 or 5 months go by and he has some trouble with his work ethic so he gets sent to work graveyard with the rest of us rejects. I got to talking to him one night and he tells me he grew up in Huntington Beach and his brother worked for Pete Santini in the 80s. He had told me for 2 months he had some pictures of VWs and mini truck his brother painted but always forgot to bring them in.

Last Friday night he finally remembered to bring in some stuff. He had a stack of Hot VWs and VW Trends from the early to mid 80s and a stack of pictures. The pictures were mostly mini trucks, muscle cars and vintage racing cars. He had few pictures of Joe Hullet's ghia, the Hot Tub drag buggy, Pat Nelson's carbed drag bug, Danny Deacon's convertible, Dave Folts yellow drag buggy and a few other drag bugs from the mid 80s.

He opened up one issue of Hot VWs that featured the Hot Tub buggy owned by Greg Borras. He wanted to point out his brothers name in the text. Sure enough his brothers name was listed amongst the other builders which included Greg Borras(owner), Mark Herbert(exhaust, heads) and finally paint by my coworkers brother Curt Radig who passed away 2 years ago.

I mentioned I had met Mark Herbert 3 or 4 times in person and had emailed him a time or 2 and he told me he thinks he remembers the name but don't remember the face. I just by pure coincidence had on my Mark Herbert shirt with his face on the back. So I whip of my shop apron and show him  and he says "No flippin way, I knew him well". He said Mark had a long pony tail and a mustache the last time he saw him. He told me Mark lived in his shop and had an orange panel bus with hippie cut wheel wells and they used to go camping and baja'ing with the bus. Chad was a lot younger than Curt and Mark so they used to try and scare him. He said Mark was a really cool, really laid back soft spoken but still opinionated guy but put a steering wheel in front of him and he was a nut.

Since Curt worked for Pete Santini, Chad would hang out there. He told me he had the biggest teenage crush on Pat Nelson's wife Cindy, who was Santini's secretary.

It just showed me how small this world really is.

Small world indeed! Great story! And as for Pat's ex g/f Cindy... what a babe! ;)

what a cool ghia   :o

Cool story, small world...? California never seem further away than when you read these "stumble upon a good ol boy" stories...

I'm more than a 1000 miles from Orange County in Grants Pass, Oregon.

When you add 4352.12 miles to that the chanses are even slimmer... the closest I have gotten to bumping into someone is seeing Blue Nelsons New beetle parked on a street in Oslo :-)

I run into Santini now and again. He races HO slot cars as does a good friend of mine. Occasionally my friend will host a race and I'll get invited to race but mostly to run the timing and scoring computer.

cool story....and nice pics of the cars, But
 Where's a pic of Cindy??  :D