May 9 – We Posthumously Send A Happy Birthday Story About Tennis Great PANCHO Gonzalez – By Greg Gonzales

Written by: Staff on 27th May 2017

May 9 - We Posthumously Send A Happy Birthday Story About Tennis Great PANCHO Gonzalez - By Greg Gonzales |

When I consider my uncle’s competitive passion, I remember his love for and success in competitive auto racing. Southern California, during the time Pancho grew up, was the world’s hotbed of both tennis and hot rodding. Generally, if you were towards the top in either of these sports in Southern California you were performing at or near a world-class level. Pancho did so in both. Like tennis, he loved the speed and acceleration racing provided. So in remembrance of his birthday, I’ll share some racing memories and stories of which there were many.

Pancho was mechanically gifted even as a kid. He later would become known as a perfectionist, which was a trait he learned from his father Manuel, who all say was even a greater perfectionist than Pancho. Manuel taught Pancho to build things when he was a young boy and he would build his own wooden scooters. And it was on his scooter crossing the street that he was struck by a car, whose door handle tore his face open placing a large scar on his left cheek. This unfortunately is the scarring accident that some would later write or say was from a knife fight because he was of Mexican descent.

He was crossing the street to see an African American man who was a big inspiration to him. His name was Armless Willie. He performed exhibitions shooting marbles with his feet. Pancho, who had won the LA City Marbles championships around the age of 9, was amazed at his Willie’s ability but even more at his jovial attitude despite his physical shortcomings. Pancho would tell others later that it was because of this example that as a young person he realized he could do anything he put his mind to. He applied this “if there is a will there is a way” attitude towards many challenges in life, including racing.

Pancho was “hooked” on tennis at the age of 12 ½ when his mother gave him a cheap racket so he wouldn’t get hurt playing more dangerous sports. She was worried about him after his scooter accident. His introduction to the exciting and dangerous sport of racing was by chance. When he wasn’t “invited” back on to the pro tour for several years he played poker occasionally in the Gardena City poker parlors. One night he won a 1934 Ford Coupe which he gave to his little brother and my father, Ralph. Because Hot Rodding was so popular in the 1950’s Southern California, my father and his buddies were soon trying to “soup up” the Coupe, meaning they were trying to improve its speed performance. One day Pancho saw them tinkering with the car and started asking them questions and soon was “hooked” on hot rodding which, like tennis, became a lifetime love.

He eventually reacquired the ’34 Coupe and soon he was buying high performance flat head engines built by renowned racer and engine builder Lou Baney. My father told me they blew up the first engine within two weeks. When they went back to Lou, he simply shrugged his shoulders and said “that’s racing”. Eventually Pancho started running the new overhead cam Cadillac engines that were a lot more powerful than the flathead. His ’34 Ford just might have been the fastest in all of Southern California and I have a few articles saying such along with a few on records for the Coupe drag racing class.

There were many auto shops in the Gardena area and Pancho soon began spending a lot of time at the shop of a pretty well-known racer and builder named Joe Ito. At some point they decided to put his Cadillac engine in a Joe Ito built dragster chassis and within a short time the Pancho tuned dragster broke the world record for gas powered dragsters. Soon Pancho bought another chassis and they began racing it as the “Gonzales Bros” with Ralph driving. They won many races in Sothern California and actually qualified second at the 1958 US Nationals, the equivalent of the US Open in tennis. While world pro tennis champ, with Ralph driving, Pancho’s was tuning his car to run as fast as all the top names in drag racing.

At this time drag racing was at its early stages and it was very dangerous. I heard about or personally saw many accidents, some fatal. These drivers were true gladiators. Pancho still drove the dragster often and was an exceptional driver too. Eventually Jack Kramer restricted him from driving the dragster though as it was capable of running almost 175 mph in the quarter mile which was fast back then. One bad accident could have ended his career. Years later, when he was about 50 years old, he did have a bad one when racing his go-kart at Watkins Glen road course in New York. Pancho’s kart was going about 140 miles an hour when air got underneath it and sent him directly into the wall. That accident had a bad effect on his right ankle and movement for several years.

He kept his dragster at our house when his wife didn’t want him racing anymore. I believe it was after his first retirement after just winning the 1960 easily against Rosewall, Segura and Olmedo, holding a 31-2 record at one point on the tour. Soon they tried to change the various playing rules to minimize his serve. None worked. Eventually, they gave up on any rule changes. Anyway, I recall he would work in the garage about 6-7 hours a day 5 days a week in preparation for the weekend’s racing . He worked hard on his cars like that for the rest of his life.

He was really into the racing scene. My father told me he would sometime receive calls in the middle of the night from him when he was travelling and wanted to talk about making changes to the dragster. There is a funny story about when Pancho flew back from London one weekend just to go drag racing. Kramer was very concerned he wouldn’t get back in time to play his match. Pancho was flying in to California for a couple of days, all the way from London, just to race. Unfortunately, the guys ran the car and blew up the engine just as he arrived at the race track. Pancho didn’t get to race when he flew home that weekend. But as they say “that’s racing”.

He eventually sold the dragster but then placed the blown Cadillac in his Ford Thunderbird which he raced for a couple more years. Back then was when I got my own first taste of speed. He had bought a 1963 ½ Ford Galaxie with a 427 cubic inch Cobra Jet Engine. Ford released the car mid-year as soon as they had perfected the engine so it could be raced in NASCAR. He and I would usually go for “pass” when he would “get on it” at least once a day. If we didn’t go, I’d bug him to take me as it was a lot of fun and he really loved “getting on it”. I was only four years old but really needed my daily speed fix. He probably needed his too. Former touring pro and announcer Barry McKay told me the first time they went to practice Pancho picking him up in his Thunderbird and took him for a ride and scared the heck out of him. He liked taking people for rides in his hot rods and getting on it a bit. That always made him smile.

Panchos “T- Bird” ( Thunderbird ) photo courtesy of Greg Gonzales

In 1967 he bought a light blue Camaro with a 427 cubic inch engine. During this time if he wasn’t on the tennis tour we went to the races every weekend, usually Lions Drag Strip on Saturday night and San Fernando Drag Strip on Sundays. At that time Pancho ran in the B-Stock class, which was pretty fast. His car was running under the national record and was one of the two fastest B-Stockers, if not the fastest, in Southern California. He would always give me the trophies he won. But he won so many, almost every weekend that I couldn’t keep them all. Pretty soon I had to start giving them to my friends or throw them in the trash the same weekend he won them. I wish we had a few now though. Fortunately, we still do have some the dragster trophies.

For the most part he was very passionate and competitive about his racing, just like his tennis. But in July 1967 we went to Lions when by chance it was holding what has been called “the biggest one day drag race of all time”. I’ve been to a lot of great tennis matches and sporting events and this day ranks towards the very top of my memorable experiences. There were so many nitro burning dragsters, about 125, that they decided they couldn’t run any stockers that day; it would be just dragsters. The boys and I wanted to stay and watch this great race. He wanted to go to Irwindale Raceway instead and race but we fortunately talked him into staying and we all had a great time. He often had great fun being around racing. We spent the day watching and betting dimes on each race. You got switch off picking which of the two dragsters you thought sounded the best and would win as they push started the dragsters towards the starting line. There was always some type of competition with him.

Around this time there is the funny story of an incident with John Newcombe at the Los Angeles Forum. After the matches some of the players were all having a good time which eventually moved out to the parking lot. This might have been 1968, the year 40 year-old Pancho won the tournament beating Rod Laver in the finals. Anyway, at some point Newcombe jumped onto Pancho’s car in the parking lot. He shouldn’t have done that. Pancho accelerated his hot rod and then slammed on the brakes throwing Newcombe on the ground tearing his pants. Pancho then pulled up next to him and said “don’t mess with me kid” and sped off.

Pancho began racing go-karts in the late 1970’s. Not too long after, in the early 80’s, his tuned his go-kart twon to win the International Go-Karting Championship. He continued racing for most of his life. Working on cars allowed Pancho his place of seclusion, where he could get away from it all. And he loved driving and working on cars. According to a late 1950’s Sports Illustrated article, he said he really had wanted to drive at Indy but had to give that dream up because of tennis. Many use to jokingly say over the years that “Pancho played tennis so he could afford to go drag racing”. It was a bit part of his life. Happy Birthday uncle Richard!