Long before dune closures and long travel cars, there were water-pumpers. Water-pumpers were home built buggies that ran water-cooled V8 engines, hand-grooved tires, and straight pipes. I guess you could say they were the hot-rods of the desert. Most buggies were built to cruise but with the large, smooth dunes of Glamis and Buttercup, it didn't take long before organized sand drag racing and hill climbing competitions were a common occurrence. Back then it wasn't so much about racing the hill. You earned respect if you could come to a dead stop halfway up Oldsmobile Hill and then lite off those hand-grooved tires and still make it to the top. Competition Hill, at both Buttercup and Glamis, was actually steep and some buggies couldn't even climb them. The dunes on the north side of Glamis were open to off-roading and I've heard that there was a bowl so large and so smooth that if you got down into the bottom of it, you had no choice but to circle around and around until you got back up to the top. In fact, I heard that the bowl was so smooth that once you got going and caught high gear, you'd be going so fast that you'd actually be sliding uphill as you went around.
That's just a little bit of history behind how sand duning was when the sport first started out. Browse the galleries below for a look back in time and see some of those old water-pumpers for yourself. When you're done with the photo galleries, make sure to go over and watch the videos. SandRazor.com is the only site that I know of on the Internet that has actual video footage of sand duning in the 1960's.