James Dean Run
Bill Wilner

5th Annual James Dean Memorial Run

Date: Saturday, September 27
Time: 9:00 a.m.
Place: Mel's Drive-In
           14846 Ventura Blvd., at Kester Ave.
           Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
           `818-990-6357

Note: If you want to join us for breakfast, plan to arrive close to 8:00 because we will depart at 9:00 sharp!

Host: Bill Wilner pr@socalm.org

(714) 724-2220 C

Description: From Mel's, we'll head up the 405/5 to Frazier Park. After a rest/gas stop, we'll hit the legendary curves around Mt. Pinos and descend to Taft, where we'll stop for a quick snack at Burger King. From Taft, the desolate straight-aways of 33 and 58 will bring us to the memorably twisty last leg of the drive. The exhilarating Bitterwater Road will deliver us to Cholame for a late lunch at Jack Ranch Cafe. Altogether, you're looking at a five-hour one-way drive.

Those who need to get back home Saturday can shoot east on 41 to the I-5 and head south. For those of us able to make a weekend of it, after lunch we'll continue west on the shady winery back roads winding along the north side of 46 down to Cambria. We'll get dinner and stay overnight at a favorite cheap motel and spend Sunday morning shopping Cambria's art galleries before enjoying lunch at the famous Cambria BBQ and heading home on Hwys 1 & 101. If you want to coordinate accommodations, call or email leader Bill Wilner.

Hope to see you there on the 5th Annual James Dean Memorial Run!

History: 2003 marks the 48th anniversary of James Dean's fatal crash in his Porsche 550 Spyder in Cholame ("show-LAMB"). This will be the fifth year SOCALM will be honoring Hollywood's greatest car culture icon with a journey to the site of his demise.

On September 30th, 1955 Dean was driving from Los Angeles up to Salinas (near Monterey) for a race being held the next day. He originally intended to pull his new silver Porsche Spyder on a trailer behind a 1955 Ford station wagon. However, at the last minute, he decided to drive the sports car to put some pre-race mileage on it.

Following in the station wagon-with-empty-trailer were Sanford Roth, a still photographer Dean met on the set of his last film "Giant" and Bill Hickman, an auto stuntman friend who went on to work on the famous car chases in "Bullet" and "The French Connection." Riding with Dean was 29-year old German Porsche factory mechanic, Rolf Wütherich ("VIEW-tear-ik"). Dean's fast Porsche left the slower station wagon behind as the two cars headed north.

At the "Y" intersection of routes 466 (now called 46) and 41 near Cholame, Donald Turnupseed, a 23-year old student at nearby Cal Poly San Luis Obispo driving a black-and-white 1950 Ford Custom Tudor coupe pulled into the intersection.

Turnupseed's Ford and Dean's Porsche hit almost head-on. Dean's car ended up in a ditch by the roadside against a phone pole, "looking like a crumpled pack of cigarettes," said Roth, who arrived in the station wagon minutes after the crash.

Dean was believed to have died instantly of a broken neck. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital. He was 24 years old. His funeral was held October 8, 1955 in his hometown of Fairmount, IN.

Wütherich survived the accident with a smashed jaw, a broken leg, multiple contusions, cuts and abrasions. He recovered and returned home to Germany to work at the Porsche factory. He died at age 55 in a 1981 car crash in Germany.