Larson offers memorable trip down memory lane

Sometimes the most amazing stories come from the unlikeliest of sources. For example, how do you explain former NASCAR driver Mel Larson, a man who has a helicopter in his garage, a race track in his backyard, an airport control tower on his roof, a guest room set aside for Ernest Borgnine and Dickie Smothers' string bass in his closet?

OK, I'll try. But believe me, this won't be easy.

It all started with a simple call to Larson's cell phone after landing in Las Vegas for the Cup Series race weekend. I thought it'd be interesting to find out how Larson, who turned 80 on Oct. 1, wound up racing in NASCAR's premier series during a 23-year period, beginning in 1955. Little did I know that would perhaps be the least interesting piece of Mel Larson's life revealed to me that day.

He answered and I told him who I was. "Who is this?" was his response. So I repeated myself, and asked if he might have a few minutes for an interview. "Well, you can come by my office but I don't know how much time I'll have."

He gave me directions and his Cadillac Escalade was in the driveway, the garage door open at the guest house where he has his office. I walked in, and was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer amount of memorabilia -- racing and otherwise -- completely covering every square inch of space in an immaculately spotless three-car garage. There were aerial shots of the Las Vegas skyline, photos of the famous and not-so-famous, several cutouts of Circus Circus showgirls, a couple of dozen old Nevada license plates reading "Mel," "Larson" or some combination of the two. Oh, and the Maserati parked inside was nice, too.

And pink everywhere. But then again, everything on the property was the direct result of Larson's former job as vice president of marketing at Circus Circus, which may have the Las Vegas casino market cornered on multiple uses of the color pink.

I knocked on the door, and got no answer. It was unlocked, so I opened it slowly and let myself in. A short trip down a hallway and peered into one of the rooms. There was Larson on the phone, wearing a black checked silk shirt and leather jacket, and sitting behind a huge wooden desk, again surrounded by floor-to-ceiling photos of pets, people, cars and collectibles. He motioned for me to sit down and finished up his conversation.

"So what do you want to know?" he asked.

And that's how it started.

Larson was born in Michigan but his racing resume lists his hometown as Phoenix.

"I was living in Michigan and the Air Force decided I should go to Phoenix, Ariz. -- Luke Air Force Base -- and I left Michigan in December, with snow and ice up to my ears," Larson said. "I had a new Cadillac convertible, paid for it myself, a 21-year-old kid. Left the snow and ice one morning, drove into Phoenix the next evening -- drove straight through -- and it was warm, with a nice breeze.

"I put that top down on that car and went to an all-night restaurant to get a bite to eat, made a date with the waitress, and said, 'Boy, I'm never going to leave here.'"

Mel Larson finished 36th in the 1960 Daytona 500 driving the No. 35. Three races later he raced that same car to a second-place finish at Phoenix.

Larson then took off his tinted glasses and began tapping them against the top of the desk. Then he nervously reached under his jacket to straighten his shirt several times. It's obvious Mel Larson loves to tell stories, but he doesn't like to sit still for long periods of time. He's someone accustomed to a lifetime of activity, and sitting still makes him antsy.

After he got to Arizona, he wound up in a circle of buddies who liked fast cars. One of those offered to let him drive in a car.

"I always liked racing but didn't know anything about it," Larson said. "When I was in Phoenix, they had a little quarter-mile track -- South Mountain Speedway -- and Manzanita Speedway. I was a hot-rodder, always driving fast, and some guy said, 'Mel, you like to drive fast. We'll see how good you are. I've got a car for you to drive in the stock-car races out there.' I did and I liked it, and I finally got halfway good.

"So I worked my way up. In 1956, I got a deal with Pete DePaolo at Ford Motor Company to provide me with heavy-duty parts. He knew of me and met me. He said, 'If you buy the car, we'll get you all the heavy-duty springs and shocks and all this and that.' Still, I didn't have a bunch of money so I bought one at cost from the dealer. Then I took all the stock wheels, tires, springs, shocks and engine and sold it back to the dealer, because I was getting all this stuff."

While he was dabbling in racing, Larson began promoting races in the Phoenix area. It didn't take long for him to determine that he'd make more money getting people to watch somebody else race.

"Somehow I wangled a deal to promote stock cars and then Indy-cars on the 1-mile dirt oval fairgrounds track in Phoenix," Larson said. "And that went pretty well. Then I started racing around the west with my stock car for maybe a year. I wanted to go to Daytona and run the beach and road course. So I loaded up my stuff and went to Daytona and ran there. I don't know what I finished, but it wasn't that great because now the factories were starting to get into it and I didn't have a factory deal."

One of the people Larson ran into about that time was a young North Carolina native and stock-car promoter by the name of O. Bruton Smith.

"Bruton Smith and I have been friends 50 years now," Larson said. "When I was racing stock cars, he had the Charlotte Speedway, which was just a mile dirt track. And he had leases on a couple of other tracks. I had a '56 Ford then. I had no money and Bruton had a little more. But he was promoting these, and I was good at PR appearances on radio and TV and newspapers. So Bruton would hire me to do that for those races. He'd hustle a motel for me to stay at and a restaurant to eat at, at three or four of these tracks he had. Then we'd have the race, and I'd make some money and he'd make some money, and on and on we'd go to another place."

Larson looks a bit like another motorsports legend whose career was somewhat synonymous with Las Vegas: Evel Knievel. And in a way, Larson has the same mystique, aura and presence. It's a trait that obviously guided him throughout his successful career as a promoter and marketer. And his stories draw you in. Like how he ended up in the employ of Bill France, which morphed into his next foray into the world of business as the owner of an Arizona dragstrip.

Mel Larson's office is so cluttered with collectables, it's hard to tell exactly what's what.

"I went to work for NASCAR in marketing," Larson said. "It was a good job and they liked me, but I just missed Phoenix. Then a guy had a dragstrip. It was kind of a run-down place but he was moving somewhere and wanted me to buy it. I didn't have any money but everybody always thought I did. But I had a friend who was in the paving business and we made a deal. He loaned me the money and I had to pay it back on a certain guaranteed program, which I did. It wasn't always easy -- and a couple of times I'd say, 'I don't think I'll be able to come up with it' and he'd say, 'Mel, that's our deal.' And somehow, I did.

"It was a beat-up place and I somehow got the idea to build a big speedway but I could never raise enough money to pay for the oval. I was able to build up the dragstrip. It's still there. In those days, you had to have a wall 50 feet back from the dragstrip for safety. I had the idea of putting the wall against the edge of the track and then building up three feet, so the people could look right down onto the dragsters going right on by."

Larson eventually sold the dragstrip when he and wife Marilyn moved to Las Vegas. And that's yet another story which revolves around racing. Before ABC began showing same-day coverage of the Indianapolis 500 in 1972, people paid money to watch the race in grainy black-and-white television images in movie theaters around the country. With his promotion background, he acquired the rights for several southwestern states.

"I started doing the closed-circuit TV of the Indianapolis 500," Larson said. "I had it in Tucson. Somebody beat me out for Phoenix. Las Vegas would be available, but nobody thought anybody'd get up at 6 in the morning to watch it. They didn't realize there were real people here, too. Plus, Reno and Tahoe. So I had all those markets."

At that time, developer Del Webb -- who also owned the New York Yankees -- lived in Arizona and owned The Mint casino. But he didn't know much about racing, even though he was talked into sponsoring an off-road race in the desert surrounding Las Vegas. That's where Mel Larson comes in.

"Del Webb had an office in his building in Phoenix, and I'd see him on the elevator every once in a while," Larson said. "He said one time, 'Mel, them fellers up in Las Vegas are going to have some sort of a race out there in the desert. And I don't know what they're doing. Will you go up there and help them out?' So I came up and Bill Bennett was general manager and we made a deal.

"I got involved in the first one -- I wasn't in charge of it -- but it got all screwed up in the scoring. It was in Bill Bennett's office, with this big desk and maps everywhere, and they were trying to figure out who won and this and that. I kept watching and Bennett was getting frustrated, and the banquet was getting ready to start. So I started moving around and happened to bump into him. He said, 'The Mint 400 is not going to run again unless you're in charge of it, Mel.' So I did that for three or four years. And while this was going on, the closed-circuit TV deal came up."

Bennett would play a major role in changing Larson's life shortly thereafter. Bennett and Bill Pennington, with casino managing experience, took over operations of the struggling Circus Circus casino in 1974, and wanted to speak with Larson.

"One day, Marilyn and I were up here for something," Larson said. "We were staying at the Tropicana. This was on a Friday. [Bennett] said, 'Mel, I need to see you tomorrow morning.' Well, we were going to drive back to Phoenix, because we were through.

"So I said I could come by in the morning, and he said, 'I'll meet you at Circus Circus.' At that time, Circus Circus was a joke. So I go, gave Marilyn $2 worth of nickels to play the slots, and told her, 'I'll be right back.' "

At the time, Larson had no idea of Bennett's plans.

"I told the receptionist I was supposed to meet Bill Bennett there, but I didn't know if he was a guest or what," Larson said. "And she said, 'Oh, he's up in the executive office.' So I go up there, and he's sitting behind a big desk. And I asked, 'What are you doing here?' -- since we're both friends in Phoenix.

"He said, 'My partner, Bill Pennington, and I bought this place from Jay Sarno, and I said, 'What?' He said, 'We've got all our team put together and we're having a dinner tonight with all the key executives, and we want you vice president of marketing.'"

Larson, obviously stunned, wasn't sure what to say.

"So I'm thinking fast, since Marilyn's expecting to go back to Phoenix shortly, and I've got a home there, a dragstrip and stuff," Larson said. "So anyway, he says, 'How much money would it take?' And I'm thinking of all the complications and problems this would cause, so I thought, what the hell, I'll throw out a number -- and it was a pretty good number in those days -- and he said, 'Mel, that's a little bit more than we planned to pay.'

Mel Larson loves his Legends cars so much he built himself a three-eighths mile track in his backyard.

"But I had long hair, as a lot of guys did then, and he was ex-military and his hair was always neatly trimmed," Larson said. "But I see him looking at me, and just off the top of my head, I said, 'Well, for that price, I'll cut my hair.' And he said, 'You've got a deal.' And I asked when he wanted me to start, and he says, 'Monday.'

"So I came back to Marilyn, and she's still sitting there and she asks, 'So what was that all about?' -- since I was gone for quite a while. And I said, 'Well, I've got a job.' I was a promoter and entrepreneur, doing this and that, but never had a full-time job. She couldn't believe it so I said, 'Well, I'm going to get paid pretty good,' and she asked how much. I told her and she said, 'Now what do we do?'"

He ended up taking the job. And made enough money to keep racing, buy everything here, and then some.

About that time, the phone rings on Larson's desk. He answers, and it's a woman's voice on the other end, telling him to turn on the television. Clark County sheriff's deputies are serving Wayne Newton with documents pertaining to a lawsuit over Newton's failure to pay off a loan -- money loaned by Bruton Smith. And how did Smith come to loan money to Newton? Because Mel Larson introduced them to each other.

Wayne Newton and his brother Jerry moved to Phoenix in 1952 and met Lawson there while they were still in high school. If there are six degrees of separation between every actor and Kevin Bacon, it's quite possible that everybody ever associated with NASCAR, Las Vegas or aviation knows Mel Larson personally and has been to his house.

Larson wants to watch the proceedings on television, but there's a problem. He has a 40-inch TV in his office, but doesn't know how to work the controls. He hands me a pair of remote controls, each containing several dozen buttons. I'm able to get the set to come on, but can't figure out the satellite.

So the interview on hold for the time being, off we go through his four-bedroom guest house in a search for a working TV set. And that's where the fun begins. The next room has a TV but it's not attached to the cable. The room after that has a TV in the closet but there's not a plug close by. The third bedroom? Again, we can get power to the set but no signal from the antenna. The cell phone rings again, and Larson explains to the person on the other end, "We can't make the TVs work but I've got a guy here working on it."

Then he confides to me: "Boy, you must think I'm crazy. I can't even work the televisions in here."

Back through the kitchen, dining room and living room to yet another bedroom, this one with a sign on the door: Ernest Borgnine. Yep, when the Academy Award-winning actor and star of McHale's Navy visits Las Vegas, he stays in Larson's guest house. Larson then opens the door to the closet and points at a huge musical instrument in a case lying on the floor, the property of another frequent guest celebrity.

"Dickie Smothers keeps his string bass here when he's in town," Larson said, almost matter-of-factly.

So in the span of five minutes, we've chatted like old friends about Bruton Smith, Del Webb, Wayne Newton, Ernest Borgnine and Dickie Smothers. That's not exactly how I thought my day would start, to be honest.

Larson finally gives up on his quest and we return to the office to discuss some more racing. Specifically, his involvement with Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was all Richie Clyne's idea, Larson said, after the casino executive bought a track called Las Vegas Speedway Park in 1989.

Larson got involved first by flying Clyne in his helicopter over the proposed track site -- more about helicopters in a moment -- and then traveling with the major players to North Carolina to look at Bruton Smith's Charlotte Motor Speedway.

"Richie Clyne, he ran the auto collection for Ralph Engelstad [at Imperial Palace]," Larson said. "Somehow, he had the idea of a speedway. I had my helicopters and we flew out in the desert. Where it now is, the young guy who used to run Indianapolis -- Tony George -- [Clyne] somehow was friends with him and so he had this idea to build a track and had Tony come out. I recall it was so far out.

"He was talking with Englestad about financing, and Engelstad and Bennett were similar people: hard-working guys who worked their way up and so forth. So they talked regularly. And [Engelstad] talked Bennett into going partners with him on the speedway Richie was building. Now they got it going, and somewhere along the way, it became time for me to retire. I accumulated all this money and was having too much fun. But Richie and I became friends and he did get the speedway built, and it's very nice. Then Ralph was pouring more and more money into it and Bennett wasn't going to, so I saw this all happening, and Richie was in trouble."

And of course, Clyne and Smith found each other through Larson, with Speedway Motorsports Inc. purchasing the track for a reported $215 million in 1998.

"It was getting bigger quicker than Richie could keep up with it," Larson said. "And the partners quit putting money into it. I called Bruton to come on in and visit and see if he could help the speedway. Richie was getting over his head and Ralph and Bennett were backing out. Anyway, he and Bruton made a deal."

By now, Larson's definitely tired of sitting.

At an early age, Mel Larson discovered a love of flight due to his father working at the local airport. He lost interest in airplanes but found a new love in helicopters.

"Want to see my toys?" he asks.

On the other side of the road, next to Larson's house, is a full-fledged helicopter facility, which currently houses the area's medivac outfit. An on-call doctor lives in one of the mobile homes, while another serves as the operation's office. In addition, there's a mobile home for Larson's full-time mechanic, an outbuilding that serves as the helicopter repair shop, and a large steel hangar. We pile into the Escalade for the 100-foot trip across the road. Larson opens the hangar door, and inside there's a full-sized helicopter, a helicopter transport trailer, three motor homes, a pair of matching Legends cars, two open-wheeled Formula cars, a Sportsman stock car and pace cars from the Indy 500 and Daytona 500.

As we leave, Larson points out what looks to be a ribbon of asphalt in the desert behind the hangar. In order to test his Legends cars, he built himself a three-eighths mile track loosely modeled after Pocono. Had I asked, I'm certain Larson would have fired one up and let me take it for a spin.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I'd rather know more about his obsession with helicopters. Using his own private chopper, he personally rescued several people from the roof of the burning MGM Grand casino in 1980. Larson explained his fascination with aviation goes back many years.

"My father dug ditches to help build Wayne County Airport in Michigan, where we lived, and worked his way up to airport manager," Larson said. "So he was around aviation and being a little kid -- I was 12 or so then -- I'd go to work with him. He worked swing swift then and I liked being around the planes. The main reason was, he let me drive to and from the airport that was 18 miles from the house, and I'd get 36 miles of driving at 12 years old. I'd take my books with me and study up in the offices, since they were closed, and do my homework. At midnight, we'd go home.

"Then a friend of his had an airplane-flying school, so my dad worked out something so that by 15 or 16, I got a license for airplanes. When I was in the Air Force in Phoenix, I bought a little Aircoupe, a two-seater. And I'd fly back and forth from the base. Sometimes I'd have to land at the field about a mile away and one of my girlfriends would pick me up and drive me to the base."

Years later, Larson caught the flying bug again, this time as a helicopter pilot. He and Marilyn owned Action Helicopter Services, primarily doing aerial photography and sightseeing, and at 80, he still flies regularly.

"Now I'm making plenty of money and I lost interest in airplanes," Larson said. "But I thought to myself, 'Helicopters. Man, I could land them right at the hotel. Fly to Phoenix and see my parents.' So that's how the helicopter came into the situation. Along the way, Bruton came in to see me while I was at Circus Circus. And I introduced him to Bill Bennett and they hit it off."

I'm guessing at this point, the tour is over. But instead of back across the street, Larson reaches up and pushes a button to open the gate -- prominently displaying a "Danger: Attack Dog" sign -- and we drive up to the garage under the main house, which is octagonal in shape. A huge Husky trots alongside the Escalade, and I wonder if he's had lunch.

Larson lets me out next to the garage door. His dog is wearing a collar that will shock him if he gets within 10 feet of the building, but even with Larson's soothing words, he's not real keen on welcoming visitors. And I'm glad when Larson gives him a dog treat and we escape inside.

"I built this in case I wanted to store an airplane," Larson said.

It is filled wall-to-wall with more collector cars and souvenirs of Larson's career, both on and off the track. On the wall are posters from every race he promoted. On a railing are all his racing helmets.

In the back is a mint-condition 1958 Mercury stock car, painted in yellow and blue. It was built by Bill Stroppe, who managed Ford's factory racing operations at the time.

Larson takes me into a workshop area, and I immediately notice every cabinet is covered with signatures of those who have toured the house. I quickly recognize two -- Darel Dieringer and Cale Yarborough -- before Larson is off to show me something else. But before we leave, he demands that I sign my name (which seems blasphemous). But I comply.

As we head back outside, I ask Larson about the unusual roof decoration. It looks almost like an airport control tower, which was a good guess, since that's exactly what it is. And that sets off another story.

"When they built the new control tower at McCarron, they didn't have any use for the old one and it was just sitting there, rusting," Larson said. "I called them up and asked what they were going to do with it, and they said they were going to sell it. So I told them I'd take it off their hands.

The old air traffic control tower in Las Vegas was rusting away so Mel Larson took ownership of it and placed it on the roof of his house.

"It stayed that way for some time, then finally I called them back and they said, 'Go ahead and haul it off.' I think they wanted to make sure I wasn't going to melt it down for scrap or something. So I got a crane and a flatbed and brought it over here."

Larson said the old control tower sat on his property for quite some time before he figured out a good use for it.

"We were in the middle of building this house and one day, I got the idea of seeing if the builder would put it up on the roof, just to see what it would look like there," Larson said. "We had already built it strong enough to support something like that, because I was planning on landing the helicopters up there.

"Well, Marilyn came home and I asked what she thought of it. She thought it looked OK, so we went ahead and left it there."

I think we're heading back to the office. Instead, Larson takes me on a tour of south Las Vegas. We go all the way down Larson Road -- yes, it's named after him -- and he points out every house. Then we go the other direction on Las Vegas Blvd., swing past two recreational vehicle dealerships and into the parking lot of a paintball facility.

"I don't particularly get the drift, but I know the guy who owns this and they're doing good," Larson said.

As we pull back into the parking lot, Larson's mechanic is coming out the driveway, and Larson asks when he'll be back. He wants to take the helicopter up later in the afternoon. And I half expect to be invited for a ride.

Finally we head back to the guest house, where he rummages through his desk drawers and hands me a couple of silly business cards, a pair of tiny flashlights, a roll-up tape measure and small wooden coins with "TUIT" written on it -- yes, I've gotten a round to it. But he can't find something, and finally asks his assistant to help search. Apparently he's looking for his penknives, although there's no way I can take that home on the plane.

I've been there nearly four hours, and I'm due back at the track. So I reluctantly say my goodbyes and turn north on Las Vegas Blvd., leaving Mel Larson to his toys and "his stuff."

If there's one word to describe Mel Larson, "memorable" will do nicely.