Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 4, No. 6 - February 10, 2022
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................8
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals............................. 4,6,7
Pets........................................5
Weekend
Forecast
The Super Bowl is Coming to
the South Bay this Weekend
Mayor James Butts joined LA City Mayor Garcetti and the Los Angeles Super Bowl Host Committee for the official welcome press conference to kickoff Super Bowl LVI week in Los Angeles. The group heard statements
from the Super Bowl Host Committee, NFL and local officials on the preparations taking place across the region in the lead-up to Super Bowl LVI on February 13, 2022. Photo courtesy City of Inglewood.
Friday
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Saturday
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Sunday
Sunny
80˚/56˚
Lawndale Tribune
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Hawthorne Press Tribune
Featuring the Weekly Newspapers of Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale
Morton Still Feels the Need for Speed
By Duane Plank
The first part of the John Morton story concluded
Life and Death Valley
Article and photos
by Ben & Glinda Shipley
Hard as it is to imagine, some of the
most scenic and spectacular lakes on the
planet Earth have never been seen by human
eyes. No, we’re not talking about the
hidden reaches of Antarctica, the Andes,
or the Himalayas—thanks to satellites
and high-resolution camera work, those
extremes have been thoroughly mapped,
photographed, and in many frigid cases,
traversed by human feet. But there’s an
entire class of lakes (and rivers too) that
have never been seen, only because they
dried up and disappeared thousands and
even millions of years ago. So sorry, fellow
tourists, you can cross these geographical
wonders right off your bucket list. The
puzzling question, in fact (for the eccentric
scientists among us), might be: Why did
we bother to name them at all?
One of the more impressive bodies of
non-existent water in America, sandwiched
between the enormous deserts of California
and Nevada, is called Lake Manly. William
Lewis Manly was a generous soul with a profuse,
tangled beard who earned his memorial
by rescuing stranded pioneers in the Gold
Rush of 1849. Yet if you search for Bill’s
favorite anti-lake on a map, all you’ll find
is a long, swollen finger of very low-lying,
dry-as-dust badlands called Death Valley.
A desert is typically defined as any land
mass that receives less than 10 inches of
rain per year. Death Valley, at 2.2 inches,
See Travel, page 8
last week with a riveting cliffhanger,
with Peter Brock re-emerging in Morton’s life.
Morton was working a “poor paying job” in
1969, and Brock tossed him a lifeline. Brock
ran his Brock Racing Enterprises (BRE) business
from a shop in town on Oregon Street.
Brock offered Morton a job to help build a
second race car for his team.
Looking at a significant bump in pay, Morton
said that he would accept Brock’s offer,
but only if he would be considered to drive
the vehicle. Brock agreed to the stipulation,
although Morton said his job-hiring demand
was a little tongue-in-cheek.
“The bluff worked,” Morton said.
Morton drove the Datsun #2 car and racked
up numerous championships as the lead-driver
for BRE. But Brock decided to pivot in 1972
and follow his dream of becoming a hanggliding
entrepreneur. Morton was disappointed
that Brock did not continue with his racing
team, saying that Brock could have become
incredibly successful in the sport like racing
icon Roger Penske, who owns the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway.
“I always resented hang-gliding a little bit,”
Morton said. Morton and Brock are still friends
to this day, with Morton relating that Brock
will soon be inducted into the Motorsports Hall
of Fame and that Morton has been tasked with
writing the introduction to Brock’s induction.
Post the qualification attempt at Indy, Morton
continued to drive (nine times) at the 24-hours
of Le Mans endurance fest, piloting Ferrari’s,
Porsches, Nissan Vipers, and Lola’s. Morton
won his class twice and finished third overall
once. He also continued to race in the states
and compete in South America.
“I stopped calling myself a professional driver
in 2001,” he said. “I did a lot of Vintage racing
after that,” he said, relating how Vintage racing
events are competitions between vehicles that
are no longer current, but that many of them
have become extremely valuable. “They were
not valuable when they stopped racing, but,
over the years, they have become extremely
sought after,” with the current value of some
of the vehicles in the millions.
Morton likes going fast. Old folks like me
remember the line from the Top Gun movie
years ago, where the jet fighter pilot portrayed
by Tom Cruise intones, “I feel the need for
speed!”
Morton feels the need for speed. One of
his hobbies is piloting his own plane, which
he guides to his residence in Utah whenever
possible, although COVID has curtailed his
excursions to the Beehive State.
Morton was “interested in flying as well
as racing when I was a kid. I never had the
money to take it up until I was in my 40’s,”
noting that maintaining and flying your own See John Morton, page 2
plane can be costly. “All the money has gone…
away from me. It never came back,” he said.
Morton used to travel to Savannah, Georgia,
to visit family. When he was traversing to the
Peach State in 1950, he and his Dad were changing
planes in Atlanta. A reporter approached
Morton’s father, who was a “pretty big baseball
fan.” The reporter said that the baseball great
and well-known bitter-man, Ty Cobb, was
soon to be landing, and the reporter wanted to
snap a picture of Cobb welcoming youngsters.
The picture was snapped, and the eightyear
old Morton has the memory of meeting
the baseball hall-of-famer. Other interesting
tidbits from the John Morton file: He became a
Hollywood star (OK, not a star) when by accident,
he ended up doing work on the celluloid
screen in the movies Gumball Rally and Greased
Lightning. He also appeared in a couple of