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Bob Glidden ● A Simple Tribute

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SaveKing Rose ArchivesPublished on Jul 11, 2009After 39 years at the wheel of one of the most famous and unusual cars in drag racing, the Hemi Under Glass, Bob Riggle decided to hang it up. We were there to capture the last runs of this iconic car and the driver who thrilled crowds at drag strips all over the country.

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New Drag Racing Podcast/movie Legend Big Willie
New Drag Racing Podcast/movie Legend: Big Willie
https://www.latimes.com/projects/lar...-life-podcast/

The story of a racist business man acid dipping Willies car to destroy it is BS......

Amid racial strife, Big Willie Robinson sought to forge peace, one street race at a time

By Daniel Miller

Digital production by Sean Greene

In 1960s Los Angeles, after the catastrophic Watts riots, a legendary figure emerged — one who found an unexpected way to unite people across race and class.

Odds are you’ve never heard of him.

Big Willie Robinson was a 6-foot-6, muscle-bound street racer who preached peace a quarter-mile at a time. Cops and criminals, movie stars and miscreants, even Crips and Bloods — out at the drag strip, Big Willie could get them all to see eye to eye.

His street diplomacy eased racial tensions and united L.A. But what caused Big Willie to fade into obscurity?









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  Jul 11, 2019
  Run Whatcha Brung
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  Jul 9, 2019
  Becoming Big Willie
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  Jul 9, 2019
  King of the Street
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  Jul 1, 2019
  Introducing Larger Than Life

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Essential California: The larger-than-life legend of L.A. street racer Big Willie Robinson

By Julia Wick
Jul 10, 2019 3:00 AM





Big Willie Robinson lobbied hard, including with demonstrations outside City Hall, for a safe place for L.A. racers to meet. (Fitzgerald Whitney / Los Angeles Times)


Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, July 10, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.


Enterprise business reporter Daniel Miller was still covering the entertainment industry back in 2017 when he received the assignment that would lead him to Big Willie Robinson — and down a yearlong rabbit hole — deep into Los Angeles history, street racing and the unfurling story of an extraordinary man who sought to end the violence in a city torn apart by the 1965 Watts Riots.


But first, back to spring 2017. The union that represents Hollywood writers was on the verge of a strike that year, and Daniel was sent to write a story about how that strike might affect the local businesses that cater to film and TV productions. The strike was eventually averted, but Daniel talked to florists, caterers, transportation firms and the like.


He was out on a dusty car lot in the deep Valley, interviewing a man whose company outfits vehicles for film and TV, when Ted Moser, the company’s proprietor, stopped in front of a broken-down race car. By then, Daniel had told Moser about his family history (the reporter hails from three generations of L.A. car dealers) and his deep interest in cars.




“I’m paraphrasing,” Daniel recalled, but standing in front of the faded race car, Moser said something like, “You know, if you’re a car guy you should know whose car this was.”


“I gave him a blank look,” Daniel said. “It was evident to him that I had no idea whose car it was.” The car, as you have likely figured out by now, had belonged to the legendary Big Willie Robinson.


“He started telling me the story about Big Willie,” Daniel recalled. “He dropped a lot of boldface names. He mentioned Tom Bradley. He mentioned Otis Chandler, the former publisher of the L.A. Times. He mentioned some of Big Willie’s Hollywood ties and I honestly couldn’t believe it was real.”



With the support of then-L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, Big Willie Robinson saw his dream of opening Brotherhood Raceway Park on Terminal Island become reality. At center is Big Willie’s wife, Tomiko, herself a street racer. (Howard Koby)
But when Daniel returned to the office and began to research Big Willie, it became clear that much of what Moser had said was verifiable. “I just knew that there was a great story there,” he said. Daniel set Robinson’s story aside for a while, and then returned to it at full force last year, beginning work on what would become the seven-part documentary podcast “Larger Than Life.”


I sat down with Daniel to talk about the podcast, who Big Willie Robinson was and what kind of a role he played in the city.


Who was Big Willie Robinson?


Big Willie Robinson was the founder and leader of the Brotherhood of Street Racers. It’s a group that preaches peace through wheels. The idea is that you can bring people together around cars, and in particular, street racing. And that people’s differences — whether it’s race, class or culture — melt away when they’re working on cars and racing them.


When was this?


Big Willie started pushing this idea in the 1960s in the wake of the Watts riots. He got a surprising amount of support from the powers that be in Los Angeles. Cops, politicians — all sorts of people — saw his vision and got behind him. They gave him the backing he needed. And it worked.


As part of the story, I talked to people in law enforcement who said that certain types of crime did go down when Big Willie got involved, particularly crime related to street racing. We should note that street racing is obviously illegal. But Big Willie pushed a safer, more organized way to do it. He eventually opened a racetrack where people could get off the streets and drag race. Willie and his group pushed a message of positivity at a time when L.A. really needed it.


[Read “Man and myth: Uncovering the legend of Big Willie Robinson” by Daniel Miller]


Can you set the scene for us? What was 1960s L.A. like when Big Willie emerged as a civic figure?


Big Willie really got his start after the Watts riots of 1965. In 1966, Willie began to organize as a street racer.


I think it’s important to point out that even though these days the world can feel like a dark and divided place, in the wake of the Watts riots, L.A. was deeply damaged and even more troubled. The riots exposed the depths of L.A.’s problems when it came to race. You had a city that was largely segregated, with African Americans mostly living in South Los Angeles. The LAPD was considered by many to be a brutal and racist force, and for some that had been exposed by the riots. I think you had city leaders who were looking inward to try to see how they could improve things, while also examining the mistakes that were made that led to the riots.


What kind of role did Big Willie play in the aftermath of the riots?


Thirty-four people died during the Watts riots. Twenty-five were black. Nearly 3,500 people were arrested and more than 1,000 were injured. It was a catastrophe. But, it gave Willie an opportunity. I think that the authorities were desperate for a reset button, and Willie could be a bridge between law enforcement and the communities that they were policing. Maybe at another time, they wouldn’t have given Willie a chance, but he seized the moment and got help from the LAPD and others. With help from the police, Willie was able to better organize street races — making them safer. Later, his racetrack on Terminal Island took things to another level.


Why haven’t more people heard of Big Willie?


Well, I will say that he got plenty of media coverage back in the day. It’s just that it was a long time ago now. It was fun to comb through our own archives and see that we covered Willie pretty regularly in the 1960s, ’70s, and even into the ’80s. Some might say that he got so much coverage because of his friendship with Otis Chandler — that’s a relationship we explore in our podcast. National car magazines also wrote about Willie, and he appeared on local TV news, too. But to your point — he did fade into obscurity as time wore on. And I wanted to find out why.


[Listen to “Larger Than Life,” Daniel Miller’s documentary podcast about Big Willie Robinson]

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Big Willie, IDRC

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CarCrazyCentral
Published on May 14, 2009







Willie Andrew Robinson, III ("Big Willie&quot - Country's best-known street racer, as well as the founder and president of the National and International Brotherhood of Street Racers.

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A Tribute To "Big Willie" Robinson

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/ladygurljayJay Thomas
Published on Jun 15, 2012







Just Showing Love.

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Big Willie Interview Pt1

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ethelkilledfred
Published on Jul 28, 2012

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Remembering Street Racing Legend “Big Willie” Robinson

Big Willie’s contributions to our sport are certainly immeasurable, but there’s no doubt that his visionary efforts in the 60s and 70s helped shape the sport as we know it today, and the big man will certainly be missed.



By Andrew Wolf May 22, 2012


Image credit: Jalopnik


No doubt the legends of our sport are leaving us far too often these days.

Big Willie Robinson, the iconic southern California racer and race promoter who united people of all color and creeds in the name of drag racing, died on Saturday at 70 years of age following a lengthy, undisclosed illness.

An imposing figure if there ever was one at 6-foot-6 and 300 pounds with massive 21-inch biceps and a 58-inch chest, William “Big Willie” Andrew Robinson III was the founder and president of the National and International Brotherhood of Street Racers, and it was racing that he utilized to bring people of all walks together. During a race, Robinson was once quoted as stating, “Ain’t no colors here, it’s all just engines.”

Robinson grew up in the segregated New Orleans area, and despite his large, athletic figure, was unable to fulfill his dream of playing football for LSU due to his color. Racial incidents, some of which involved vandalism of his prized car, sent him packing across the country to the bustling city of Los Angeles. Robinson spent two years serving as an Army Special Forces Green Beret in the Vietnam War before returning to L.A.

The infamous Watts Riots in 1965 that devastated Los Angeles heightened racial tensions, but the big man chose the peaceful route in dealing with the situation, instead using street racing to end gang violence and racial unrest and unite people that might otherwise be embittered to one another.

One year after the riots, Robinson began organizing street racing events, and right away, people of every color and of every age began showing up. The Brotherhood, founded in 1966 upon Robinson’s return from the war, conducted races on blocked off streets in East L.A. in what was then known as South Central. Interestingly, Police noted that there was less crime being carried out when Robinson’s races were being conducted, and thus, in 1968, Capt. Frank Beeson and other members of the LAPD began assisting the Brotherhood in blocking off a mile of downtown streets for all night drag racing. The first night more than 10,000 people showed up for the quasi-legal street races, and that number was doubled on the second night.

“Black, white, yellow, brown, skinheads, Nazi party members, Muslims, we got ‘em all,” Robinson once said.

The Brotherhood was open to anyone, with the only requirement being the pledge to race under safety supervision, abstain from alcohol, drugs, fighting, and squirreling (acting stupid and showing off with your car).





In the early 1970’s, the Brotherhood began lobbying the LA City Council and with the help of the Harbor Commission and L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley – also an imposingly large black man – Robinson founded the Brotherhood Raceway on Terminal Island located between the harbors of Los Angeles and Long Beach in 1974. The track used land provided by the Harbor Department and borrowed railing from the Long Beach Grand Prix course. After passing a basic safety inspection, racers could enter for just $10.



Brotherhood Raceway operated on the weekends for 21 years and many credit it as the birthplace of the import and sport compact racing movement. Like most race tracks in California however, progress spelled the demise of the Terminal Island facility in 1995 as it was replaced by a coal dock and shipping container storage lot. Despite Robinson’s valiant attempts to revive the track, the Harbor Commission opted for the money created by global trade before drag racing.

Robinson, a gentle giant despite his massive stature, was said to have three distinct trademarks during his life – his vintage “bowler” hat, his 1969 Dodge Charger named “King Daytona”, and his wife, Tomiko, who had a matching Charger and was a guiding force of the Brotherhood with her husband. It was in 2010, following the death of his beloved Tomiko that Robinson’s health reportedly began to decline.

Big Willie’s contributions to our sport are certainly immeasurable, but there’s no doubt that his visionary efforts in the 60s and 70s helped shape the sport as we know it today, and the big man will certainly be missed.

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Big Willie Robinson, street racing legend, dies

Jim Donnelly on May 21st, 2012

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Photo courtesy International Brotherhood of Street Racers

We’d known for a while that Big Willie Robinson was sick. It really started when his bride, Tomiko, died in 2010, you could say. Willie had had a pacemaker installed, but vascular disease had cost him both his legs. Physicians still couldn’t save him. We learned from the International Brotherhood of Street Racers, the group of drag enthusiasts that Willie and Tomiko founded, that Willie died over the past weekend.

Big Willie, who one account said was 70, was outsized in every respect. He was born in New Orleans and served in Vietnam as a member of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces. Willie was a giant, towering at 6 foot 5, with tremendous arms accentuated by his biker-style leather cutoffs. Returning from war, he settled in Los Angeles just after the devastating Watts riots of 1965. Already a notorious South Central street racer, Big Willie decided that getting youth of all ethnicities into organized racing would keep them safe from gang violence on the streets.

In hindsight, we think we can say that history will vindicate Big Willie as a visionary, even though the simple drag strip at Terminal Island he fought so long to open was forced to close in 1995. It was an Ellis Island of car craziness set amid the giant Los Angeles port complex. People of all backgrounds and all car cultures, from nostalgia Super Stock types to tallboy-hopping lowriders, had a home at Terminal Island. Big Willie and Tomiko kept watch over everything in a matching pair of Keith Black-powered Dodge Daytona Chargers. The Robinsons were a loving couple who will be missed.