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This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.

The most obvious choices for No. 98:

Tom Harmon: Los Angeles Rams halfback
Kevin Cogan: Indianapolis 500 driver

The most interesting story for No. 98:
Parnelli Jones, race car driver (1949 to 1973)
Southern California map pinpoints:
San Pedro, Torrance, Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, Gardena (Ascot Park)

Reference books on the subject:
“As A Matter of Fact, I Am Parnelli Jones,” by Parnelli Jones with Bones Bourcier, 2012
“Parnelli: A Story of Auto Racing,” by Bill Libby, 1969

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In the preface to his 2012 memoir, Parnelli Jones recalls a time where he didn’t really fight the law, and the law didn’t win either. It just made for a fantastic encounter.

This goes back to 1964 and, as he wrote, “my name had really gotten around. I’d won the Indianapolis 500 in ’63, which earned me a lot of attention in the media. That was true pretty much everywhere, especially in Southern California because from the time I’d started racing I listed Torrance as my hometown.”

He admitted he was “honking down” the Long Beach Freeway, the 710, in a Ford Fairlane given to him by stock car owner Vel Miletich, someone who would be his partner in a chain of tire stores and car dealerships as well as engineer vehicles for his career. That would be Vels’ Parnelli Jones Racing team.

“This Fairlane had a souped-up engine with three carburetors,” Jones continued. “Vel said it would pass anything on the road; I told him in passed everything but a gas station.”

Admitting to “cruising along pretty fast,” Jones saw the blue lights of a California Highway Patrol car in his rear-view mirror. As he dug around for his license and registration, Jones said he had the documents ready for when the patrolman came up to his driver’s side door.

” ‘You were going pretty fast,’ he said. ‘Who do you think you are, Parnelli Jones?’

“Later on, I had a few incidents similar to that one, but there’s nothing like hearing a line like that for the first time. It was such a kick that for a moment I wasn’t even mad at myself for getting stopped. I handed the cop my papers and said, ‘As a matter of face, I am Parnelli Jones.'”

Jones’ book, and its likeable title, was released 50 years after that ’63 Indy win when he commandeered the No. 98 Willard Battery Special roadster owned by J.C. Agajanian. It may have been leaking oil but it slid past the competition for another piece of lore in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

That also opened the eyes and ears of car-crazy Southern California.

His surname may have been fairly common, even for a someone who uncommonly raced everything from old jalopies at Carrell Speedway in Gardena, NASCAR four-door stocks in Daytona, won Trans-Am titles, and even claimed a dune buggy championship in the Baja 1000.

It was that nickname catapulting him forward.

Most knew him by his first name, Rufus. Parnell was his middle name. His mother, Dovie, named him after Rufus Parnell, a judge who she worked for in Arkansas.

When he was 17 and legally too young to race cars, he and his friends came up with a name to get past track officials that wouldn’t be too recognizable. His friend Billy Calder would tease him that a girl in school named Nellie really liked him, so somehow Calder took Jones’ middle name and started call him “Parnellie.” In 1951, Calder was also in charge of lettering the race car. Painting the driver’s name on the door, next to their No. 66, Calder came up with the alias “Parnellie Jones.”

“We lost the ‘e’ somewhere along the way,” Jones adds in the book preface, “but I’ve been ‘Parnelli’ every since.”

He made quick work of it.

Continue reading “No. 98: Parnelli Jones (and J.C. Agajanian)” →