The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 111, No. 5 - February 3, 2022
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.....................10
City Council..........................3
Classifieds............................4
Crossword/Sudoku.............4
Neighborhood Therapist..... 4
Legals.............................. 9,10
Obituaries.............................2
Pets......................................12
Real Estate.......................5-7
Sports.................................3,8
Weekend
Forecast
Congratulations Chief Bermudez
Last week, City of El Segundo - Government and ESPD held a badge pinning ceremony for Chief Bermudez. Thank you to everyone who attended. Photo courtesy El Segundo Police Department.
John Morton: From Sweeping Floors to
Becoming a Champion Race Car Driver
By Duane Plank
The first time I interviewed race car driver
and El Segundo resident John Morton was
29 years ago when this scribe was drawing
a paycheck from the Los Angeles Times. A
See John Morton, page 11
renowned motor car racer, a road racer, Morton
had recently finished an unsuccessful run at
qualifying for a slot on the grid in the Indianapolis
Adriana Ochoa Teaches
El Segundo to Play
By Kiersten Vannest
El Segundo has a history of cultivating
art and artists from all walks of life. The
city encourages creativity and innovation
from ESMoA to the summer Art Walk.
Even outside the world of fine art, crafters,
sculptors, teachers, and many more work
to bring art into the lives of our neighbors.
There is no better community contributor
in this realm than Adriana Ochoa.
Ochoa originally hails from the east
coast. She has always been interested in
art, even from a young age. “My brother is
a talented artist. He draws from his brain,
and it was always so easy for him, and it
was always much more difficult for me,”
she says. Perfectionism plagued her, and
she erased and drew, erased and drew,
until her picture looked exactly like the
image she was going for. It wasn’t until
high school that her life was changed.
“I had an art major program in my high
school,” she explains, going on to say
that it was these classes that first made
her realize that art is not about making
something look perfect. It’s about how you
get there. This program, which included
photography, life drawing, painting, ceramics,
and more, occupied her life for
those four years.
After high school, she went on to get a
Bachelor of Fine Art at Queens College,
with concentrations in black and white
See Adriana Ochoa, page 8
500 race, at the time the pre-eminent
car race in the world.
Morton and the team had ended their Don
Quixote-es escapades before the race on the
asphalt of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Still, Morton relished the experience of entering
the hallowed Indiana grounds for the first
time as a competitor.
“It was totally different,” he said. “I equate
it to the same thrill that a football player must
get when he walks on the field before the Super
Bowl. (Racing at Indianapolis) is the absolute
pinnacle of what you do.”
Two decades later, Morton was prevailed
upon to author a book detailing much of his
earlier career in the racing industry. He had
initially written a magazine article for a shortlived
entity, American Driver.
Once a book publishing company got wind
of the magazine piece, Morton was asked to
expand his scribblings and author the book
about Shelby and his empire. Morton’s automatic
reaction was ”no.”
But once the publishing company forwarded
a contract and Morton signed on the dotted line,
he felt obligated to produce a book.
Morton took on the task of penning a memoir
from a timeframe that had occurred almost
50 years ago. He said that he was a little bit
anxious to take on the project. “I knew how
to write,” he said, “but I didn’t know how to
write well.”
The book, Inside Shelby American, Wrenching
and Racing with Carroll Shelby, was published
in 2013 and details not only his formative years
when he caught the auto racing bug, but also
focusing on the four years (1962-65) that he
drew a paycheck from the powerhouse racing
team headed by Shelby, who was an automotive
designer, race car driver, and entrepreneur.
Backtrack to 1962. Morton, who was 20 years
old at the time, needed to get certified at a legitimate
driving school to continue chasing his
aspirations of becoming a paid race car driver.
He had attended the University of Clemson
for two years, post-high school graduation,
but figured out that the college route was not
for him. “I was not cut out to be a student,”
he said. He traveled to California to attend the
Shelby School of High-Performance Driving,
at the Riverside International Raceway, thinking
that the iconic Shelby would instruct him.
No dice. No Shelby. Instead, Morton’s instructor
was Peter Brock, who ended up playing a
pivotal part in Morton’s driving career about
a half-dozen years later. Morton’s selected car
for his five-day schooling? It was a Shelby
Cobra prototype.
Brock, an iconic name in the automotive
industry, remembers Morton very well. “He
Morton in his Indy car. Photo’s courtesy of Sylvia Wilkinson.
Friday
Sunny
68˚/45˚
Saturday
Sunny
68˚/50˚
Sunday
Sunny
71˚/51˚