Warren Bullis Bio from 2004 Dry Lakes Racing Hall of Fame induction
Growing up during WWII didn't give an opportunity for seeing much new stuff, there was always plenty of old things to fix and make due until the great war was over. The old family Chrysler served well until after the war but there was always something to fix. My father wanted me to be a doctor but I ended up a mechanical engineer instead and fixed cars instead of bodies. Maybe if my neighbor hadn't started taking me to the midget and hot rod roaster races cars wouldn't have been so exciting. My brother was a sports car nut and my first car was a MG sports car, it didn't go very fast and didn't carry much. Bigger cars with bigger motors seemed to be the answer. My father help me build my first hot rod, a '40 Ford coupe with a Chevrolet V-8. He was a shop teacher but didn't know much about building hot rods but at least all the equipment I needed was available.
My first trip to the salt was in 1960 to see why people closed their businesses and put a sign on the door "Gone to Bonneville".. Well, I found out why people went to the salt, I decided to build a race car and come back in 1961. The race car was a '40 Chevrolet with the head lights removed and a 260 cu in V-8 replacing the 6 cylinder engine. Studebakers go faster than tall '40 Chevies so the next race car was a '53 Studie. After a couple of years on the salt, the 260 cu in Chevrolet was put in Neil Thompson's Comp Coupe where it held the record for several years. During the racing time, I spent most of my money and time building cars and not much attention was paid to how the racing meets were run. In 1971 I was elected as secretary/treasurer, I still don’t know why. At lease I could type and had to take dumb bell English in Junior College. The secretary/treasurer job was also split up and is now done by two people.
During the following years I was secretary and or treasurer of SCTA, I probably can't tell you how many times I've been elected. It was time go give something back to the Association for all the good times running on the salt and on the dry lakes. The jobs have been fun and easier with the advent of the computer. The minutes and results used to be typed with an old IBM Selectric typewriter and printed on an old spirit (alcohol) printing machine that SCTA owned that made purple copies that could hardly be read. You could get a little high just running off the results. The first computer I bought made the minutes much easier, changing things was just a stroke on the keyboard instead of cutting out the offending word from the master and then taping in a new word. Even the dot matrix computer printers made it easy to read things after being typed. Another job that has been a lot of fun that I have been doing for SCTA for more than 25 years is registration at Bonneville and the Dry Lakes. I get to see all the vehicles and watch them run down the salt and talk to the drivers and crew, it's great.
Today I'm secretary of the SCTA and have been for several years and also still help with the registration at the Dry Lakes and Bonneville. I've been a life member of SCTA since 1974 when I received the Sportsmanship Award. As president of the Lakers Car Club, I get all the fun of getting the guys to show up for duty so we don't get fined.