At the top

You can pour your heart and soul into a thing, and nowhere is it written that anyone owes you any respect. But night after night, in his grease-slicked laboratory, Gary Entwisle cranked away on the road-hugging monster that was gobbling up his income.

Two things drove him. One was the wonkish devotion to craft you'd expect from someone who spent his youth helping Dad in the garage. The other was cocky killer instinct.

He was an average guy from West Seattle, lanky and understated. A tow-truck driver with a thing for cars that not only rode low but bounced high.

There was an old joke - that there were no lowriders north of Sacramento. Californians said this to your face. No, really - lowriders in Seattle? Don't you guys just wear flannel and drink coffee?

Primordial pool of everything cool, the state's sunlit boulevards embodied America's romance with the car. Do your thing anywhere else and you were just a dot in California's rear-view mirror.

The land of T-Birds and little deuce coupes also boasted the country's largest population of Mexican Americans, lowriding's pioneers and prime players. It had a thriving industry of resources and moneyed sponsors. Lowrider magazine, based in Fullerton, Calif., had become the biggest-selling auto magazine in the world. The message was clear: The road to respect included a California stop.

Entwisle would get there, and in a way that placed him among the legends of bounce. But a guy had to start somewhere, and the mini-showdowns of car hopping that were springing up in places like Seattle, Portland, Yakima and Chehalis were drawing attention from lowriding's citadel. Eventually, though, David would have to go knocking on Goliath's door.

`Bajito y suavecito'

First came hot rods, and as writer Tom Wolfe pointed out, they represented everything for kids: Freedom, style, sex, power, motion, color, all of it was right there on four wheels. Likewise, lowriders required money and oil-spattered commitment to form, but as a Latino-driven answer to dominant car culture, they also were statements of identity and prosperity in the post-war economy of the 1950s.

The difference was simple: Hot rods were high and fast. Lowriders were low and slow, bajito y suavecito, artful expressions of self.

"It's what you imagine in your head, your canvas," says Seattle's Marcelo Ovalles, 41, of his 1977 Buick Regal. "Then, when it's done, you can sit back and appreciate it. And have other people appreciate it."

Lowrider cruising peaked in the early 1980s as the slow-moving vehicles jammed weekend thoroughfares - Whittier Boulevard in Los Angeles, Central Avenue in Phoenix, Highland Avenue in National City, a San Diego suburb. In Seattle, it was Capitol Hill's Broadway. Frustrated cities put the brakes on the road-crawl in the mid- to late 1980s.

It's still mostly Mexican Americans who embrace lowriding. Lowrider magazine, whose porkpie-topped logo pays homage to the days of Chicano zoot-suiters, pegs its current circulation of 240,000 as 44 percent Latino. But African Americans are prominent West Coast players, and nationwide, a growing number of whites, like Entwisle, are opting for the ground-hugging look.

Some cars are simple, immaculate restorations of American classics; others reflect culture, religion or loved ones. Still others are pure show cars with swivel seats, mirror-flooded engine compartments, dreamy murals or thematic overhauls that turn vehicles into, say, mini-casinos on wheels.

Hydraulic pumps had begun rocking the lowrider world in the early 1960s. Cars at first bounced for show, some able to "dance" side to side or corner to corner. As technology improved, a new school of thought emerged - competitive hopping, with the sleek, easily modified Impala the car of choice.

This is what guys like Entwisle are all about. The rage of the 1980s, lowriders bred for the hop are back. Two-ton machines powered by battery-filled trunks, they crash onto asphalt in a splash of metal and back up again. Things break. It's a marriage of glamour and strength, Jennifer Lopez as Olympic weightlifter.

Not long ago, Entwisle unveiled to the world his creation - a 1964 Jolly-Rancher-red Chevrolet Impala SS hardtop - and went out and proved that white men can jump after all.

Showdown at Motel 6

Oh, man, did you see it? Dude WASTED the other car.

They're still buzzing over the high jump that just went down: Two '63 Impalas nosed up behind Yakima's Motel 6, and Ray Rizzy's orange convertible, pride of Portland's 503 Ridaz car club, trounced its rival. Victors strutted. Chests swelled. Money changed hands. People roared.

Now, as the July sun rides low over the valley, the hyped-up throng presses in like a sponge. T-shirted and halter-topped onlookers drape second-story balconies. Low-slung Impalas and Lincoln Towncars, flamboyant as Aztec gods, blanket the site with metallic paint jobs and velour upholstery, ready for the next day's custom car show at Yakima Speedway.

The people want the champ. They want the guy who rode into California and left a trail of destruction. Some want to see the legend live on; some want to see it die. Still, there's no denying it: Gary Entwisle is the man of the hour.

The silver Impala comes off the trailer, bass thumping on the stereo. The car belongs to Puyallup's J.T. Tumber, but its muscle is Entwisle's handiwork. People know: If you want zing in your springs, you go see Gary.

Taunts fly; $1,500 is wagered.

The orange convertible from Portland rolls up for battle again.

People press in, camcorders whirring. This is what they've all been waiting for.

The Impalas go nose to nose in the parking lot, Rizzy standing stone-faced beside his convertible, Entwisle next to the silver hardtop.

Each hits a switch signaling the pumps through cables leading into the cars. Front ends rise as fluid rushes into cylinders. Gravity brings them down. Ka-chung, ka-chung, like rocking Dumpsters.

Rhythm is key: Time your jumps right and you work the car higher. But the weight is testy; it can get out of control.

Rizzy's convertible edges toward the crowd.

He has to stop. His club mates rush to slide the car back into place.

Meanwhile, its silver foe is leaping like a stallion, tail slapping the ground in extreme fashion.

Yeah! Entwisle's supporters cry. Yeah! You're strong, Gary!

Back in place, the convertible hops madly, but people say it's too late. Chaos erupts, hotheads jawing at one another. A Portland fan slaps a wad of cash onto the silver car's hood - $4,500, he says, if Entwisle will hop again.

Kid stuff, Entwisle thinks. "They can say whatever they want," he says, flanked by members of his Seattle car club, Showtime. "They're mad."

The scene is unusually ugly - even for street hopping, where the crowd is judge. No one pays up. Still, lines are drawn for tomorrow's contest at the racetrack.

Trophies are won with a mix of automotive savvy, top-notch assembly and expert timing. But few around have mastered all three like the guy from West Seattle.

The old school weighs in

Let's hear now from the old school, where four men, the youngest of them 36, lounge in the Skyway home of Garret Dong, 39. The den teems with toolboxes and Turtle Wax.

Lowriding in Seattle, they say, has always been multi-ethnic. Its roots are in the Rainier Valley, where in 1959, back before Empire Way became Martin Luther King Jr. Way, 53-year-old twins Wilson and Willie Johnson remember a club called the Gray Ghosts and a low-swinging chariot they couldn't believe.

"You couldn't put a dollar bill under that car," Willie says. "It actually sat on the ground. It would pancake out of the parking lot, and people would just stand there with their mouths hanging open."

In 1981, denied entrance to a clubs-only car show on the Eastside, the grown-up brothers decided it wouldn't happen again. Thus was born Mixed Company, now considered the longest-running lowrider club in the Seattle area.

Throughout the 1980s, Mixed Company's blacks, Asians, whites, American Indians and Latinos were Seattle's premier lowriders, dominating the cruising scene on Broadway after rides along Alki Beach and Lake City Way. (These days, a handful of Seattle lowriders cluster at gas islands near Pioneer Square and the International District. It's not the same.)

They watched with old-school eyes as local clubs like Lifetime, Royal Image and USO sprouted in the 1990s, some of them spores of clubs based elsewhere. And the old-schoolers talk about hopping enthusiasts the way NBA all-stars might speak of the Harlem Globetrotters, dismissing the activity as a traveling circus.

They ask: How can you drive a car with a trunk packing 14 batteries? And if you can't drive it, what are you, really?

"Hoppers want to call themselves lowriders," scoffs Wilson. "Hoppers are people who hit switches."

Despite the club's disdain for the rock-'em-sock-'em-robots world of Entwisle and others, Garret Dong is no dummy. Every year, thousands of spectators pay up to $18 apiece to attend the car shows he puts on in Yakima and Chehalis.

What makes their day?

Guess.

Putting Seattle on the map

There are probably eight to 10 lowrider clubs in the Seattle area with two to 20 cars apiece - and dozens more unaffiliated lowriders - but lately, Showtime has been the club to beat. Its structure is rigid. Late arrivals and absences are subject to fine.

Potential members are judged on character first, car second. "We vote them in for what kind of person they are," says Showtime's Robert Calderon, a Chilean-born trucking-refrigeration company employee who credits lowriding with keeping him clean. "We don't want problems out on the streets."

Members are expected to continually upgrade their cars. Hubie Yuen bought his 1990 Lincoln for $5,000; $15,000 later, it's got a custom butterscotch paint job, chrome undercarriage and hydraulics. "This car hops," he boasts.

Like Mixed Company, Showtime's 20 members are ethnically diverse and automotively inclined - mechanics, tow-truck drivers, body work and auto-detail specialists - which allows the group to minimize expenses. They say you can drive battery-loaded vehicles. Just not very fast.

"A lot of people assume we're products of the ghetto," says club co-founder Ed Wagor, a Mercedes-Benz technician. "But we're all pretty hard-working folks."

Back when Showtime was trolling for its original nucleus, word came of a tow-truck driver who was getting 18-inch hops from a '64 Chevy. Never mind that cars had been jumping 2 feet and higher since 1980, during hopping's previous phase. The world was starting from scratch, and just leaving the ground was impressive. Gary Entwisle was someone to watch.

Says Calderon: "He put Seattle on the map. He's the Elvis Presley of lowriding."

Taking it to Mr. Bounce

Joshua Entwisle, 3, the youngest of Entwisle's three sons, already "hops" his big kiddie car, just like dad.

"You're a good hopper, Daddy!" he yaps as Entwisle watches a video of his car in action.

"You just be quiet and eat your dinner," says Tammy Glover, Entwisle's partner of nine years.

Glover was there when Entwisle bought the '64 Impala in 1993 and has watched Entwisle burn the midnight motor oil ever since.

With typically few words, Entwisle explains: "You put all your time and life into it." And a lot of money; he lost track, he says, around $20,000.

Last summer, it all paid off when he went down to California and whipped the big dogs.

Showtime had sent a delegation to Hopfest, in Wilmington, Calif. - the clutches of the Angeleno empire, where it's not just about bragging rights, it's about business. Winners can earn cash and unlimited parts from sponsors.

The competition finds Entwisle marching into the home of lowriding's true veteranos and, as an outsider, enduring it all - taunts about his hometown, about the color of his skin. He answers by hopping his '64 monster and the club's green Cadillac to wins in separate divisions. What happens next is almost mythical.

After loading up the cars, the Showtime guys head out like pool hustlers looking for a game - street hops draw $500 bets or more, and some put cars themselves on the line, hopping for titles. They run into NBA star Stacey Augmon, who brings a pair of bouncing Impalas.

Down off the truck comes Entwisle's red machine. The battle goes down in a bank parking lot. Entwisle skies to victory.

Augmon tries again, pushing his second car to its limit. With a crash, its ball joints shatter; both front tires fly off simultaneously.

Word has spread. Another club arrives with its prize hopper. The thrashing is taking its toll on Entwisle's car, but again he wins, prompting a maelstrom. Finally, the respected owner of a local hydraulics shop speaks up. Says Seattle's James Schueler, a longtime lowrider who was there: "He said, `Don't be mad 'cause the white boy beat you. He's just smarter than you.' That secured the win right there."

The next day, Entwisle is challenged by a whole armada assembled at a local hydraulics outfit - a menacing mini-truck, a car dubbed "Mr. Bounce" and a '63 station wagon with tires so huge the car is 4 feet in the air.

The truck goes first: 52 inches. Entwisle's Impala hits 57. After hopping for four days straight, pieces are starting to fall off his car, but the challengers demand a rematch; this time their truck reaches 56. Entwisle again hits 57 and finally breaks a ball joint. The car is done, but still king for now.

Emboldened, the challengers hop it all, but the monster wagon barely hits 40. Mr. Bounce, the ace in the hole, struggles to 52.

People come off the street to meet the champ, having heard the news. Suddenly, he and his '64 Impala are the stuff of legend.

"That thing was just possessed," Ed Wagor says.

King of the hop

In this world, few heroes trot into the sunset. They have to get up in the morning and beat the bad guys all over again.

Today, perhaps even as you read this, Entwisle will defend his Hopfest title down in Wilmington, Calif., but in the meantime, we've left unresolved that little matter of last month's fourth annual custom-car show at Yakima Speedway.

It's a hot Sunday in July, and 220 tricked-out cars and lowrider bikes represent more than a dozen Northwest clubs, including Legion of Doom (Tacoma), Just 4 Looks (Moses Lake), Individual Styles (Kent) and Local Pride (Yakima).

T-shirts read, "No Chippin' " - lingo belittling any hopper that can't clear a big bag of Fritos. And it's hopping the crowd is up for. Fifteen contenders bounce up one by one, judges measuring their airborne tires against a 75-inch, Plexiglas scale thrown together in someone's garage.

Finally, Entwisle takes the switch of his mythic red monster. Not the coolest-looking cat around, he is a master at the controls, turning the car into a bronco that snorts a 20-foot path from its starting spot. His highest jump: 52 inches - the day's best so far.

That leaves only Portland's Ray Rizzy and his convertible. Patiently, he works the car upward . . . to 50 inches. He'll have to try again.

The crowd warbles in excitement. As cars climb, they know, so do reputations. And champions exist only to be taken down.

Rizzy's lips purse on his otherwise stony face. The convertible spanks the pavement. As it nears 50 again, cheers grow until - CLANG! The left wheel snaps inward, spilling a big coil spring onto the ground.

The crowd squawks wildly, a mix of appreciation and disappointment. Entwisle is still king. Afterward, he helps Rizzy reassemble his broken chariot.

Not until later, when the crowd has thinned, does the commotion come from the fringe of the fading show. It's Entwisle, throwing down a final display of power.

"There's always a day," he likes to tell people. "Everybody's got their day." His Impala rises, falls back to earth, then crashes in a heap with its own busted ball joint and turned-in wheel. Gawkers appear, taking pictures.

It's a big-dog howl, a rock star smashing his guitar for fans at the end of a show. Just because he can. Because today belongs to him.

Marc Ramirez's phone-message number is 206-464-8102. His e-mail address is mramirez@seattletimes.com.