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HISTORY OF
GOODIES SPEED SHOP:
It was
1962. John F. Kennedy was the President, John Glenn
became the first American to orbit the Earth, the
Rolling Stones were making their debut in London and the
big three auto makers were doing away with huge tail
fins. There was a young entrepreneur in San Jose, CA.
named Richard Guess who saw a trend from which he could
make some money.
He saw
that people were hot rodding their fairly new to the
market and affordable Chevy Corvairs and Ford Falcons so
he opened up a small business in the garage of his
apartment to tailor to them. The business was named
"Goodies for Compacts".
By 1964
the business outgrew his garage and was doing well
enough that Richard started looking for real shop
space. He found a vacant building at 342 Lincoln Ave in
the Willow Glen area of San Jose.
 When
he moved his business to the new location he decided to
broaden his customer base by offering performance parts
for all kinds of cars. Since the audience wasn’t
just compact cars anymore he changed the business name
to Goodies Speed Shop.
He was
catering to drag racers that were running wide open at
Fremont Drag Strip.
Business was booming. Guess had a little orange Corvair
shop van that went out to Fremont drag strip on a
regular basis to support a few sponsored racing cars.
Within a few months Goodies Speed Shop was too much for
Guess to run by himself, so he hired extra help.
 One
of those employees was Jim Miraglia who started working
for Guess in 1965. Miraglia recalls, “Goodies Speed
Shop was a friendly place for hot rodders to hang out
and swap stories”. He also said, “Customers and friends
of the employees would gather for bench racing sessions
and spend money well after regular business hours. More
money was spent after Guess went home for the day than
was spent during regular business hours.” Apparently
Guess wasn’t there to make friends. He was there to
make money. Goodies was a fun place to be because the
employees made it that way.
Bob
Truesdel, a regular customer recalls, “I remember seeing
"Samson" sitting on the
 showroom
floor (60's Dodge Dart-injected Chrysler Hemi) and I
also remember seeing the (supercharged Big Block Chevy
powered)
 Corvair
sitting outside the shop that appeared on the (Goodies
Speed Shops) decal”. Guess sure had a knack for getting
the right cars and people to help publicize the shop.
In 1966
Guess knew there was money to be made by selling to
racers who frequented the Salinas Drag Strip so he asked
Miraglia to start and run a second Goodies Speed Shop in
the town there. Since there was more than one store
now, the name turned into Goodies Speed Shops. Guess
was always looking for new ways to promote the
 business
so he bought a new orange 1966 Chevy El Camino and had
the Goodies logo plastered down both sides as Miraglia’s
company car.
 Goodies
was going strong by late ’67 so Miraglia turned the
Salinas Goodies Speed Shop over to a new manager and
opened a third store in San Carlos.
By 1968
Guess was getting the Goodies name out to his target
audience by sponsoring some very savvy drag racers so he
could start plastering his business name on their cars
and dragsters. 
The racers and their rides were: “Jungle Jim” Liberman
with his second and more famous Chevy II, Don Williamson
and his Plymouth Valiant named
 “Hairy
Canary”, Rich Abate and his Dodge Dart named “Samson”,
twin brothers Gary and Jerry Malicoat (Turbo 1 and Turbo
2) with their Plymouth Barracuda, Ron Corbari with his
SBC powered altered, Lew Arrington and his Plymouth GTO
named “Samson” and many more.
 It
wasn’t long before the old Corvair shop van was replaced
by two bright orange Dodge A100 vans that helped support
the sponsored cars out at the track.
 The
vans and the drag cars were not only hitting the local
drag strips. They were making trips down to Southern
California to compete on Friday night, Saturday morning,
Saturday night and Sunday morning making appearances at
4 separate tracks and then home again for work on
Monday.
The
Southern California trips helped get the Goodies Speed
Shops
name to a larger audience. Photographers like Steve
Reyes, Bob McClurg, Dick Towers, Jere Alhadeff, Dan Bott,
Mike Ditty and others were snapping tons of photos of
the cars at the strip. 
These photos were making their way to newsstands across
the United States in Hot Rod Magazine, Drag News and
other publications. Goodies Speed Shop was fast
becoming a household name.
In 1968
Guess had also partnered with Arnold Chaves of Dos
Palmas Machine. Chaves said, “Those were different
times. We made the deal with a handshake…”. Guess
would sell the parts and Chaves would do the machine
work and assembly. Together the two businesses were a
force to reckon with.
 About
1970 Goodies branched out again to a fourth store in
Walnut Creek. In 1971 Goodies and Dos Palmas moved
across the street to 345 Lincoln Ave into a building
Guess had built. Guess was into the business pretty
deep financially after having the new shop built.
Shortly after moving into it he had to turn the business
over to a silent partner. It wasn’t long and the second
party closed the doors of all 4 stores.
Later
in 1971 a shop from Santa Clara named Speed Merchant
opened its second store in the Goodies 345 Lincoln Ave
location. 
It supported the Silicon Valley hot rodders for many
years. It lasted through the gas wars, the end of the
muscle car era and the closing of Fremont's famous drag
strip. In 2007 Speed Merchant was sold to a very smart
business man named Tracy Edmonds who changed the name
back to Goodies Speed Shop.
For a
few years after the original Goodies closed its doors a
couple of other variations of Goodies opened up in the
San Jose area, but they were not a powerful force like
the original stores had been in the past. It wasn’t
until 2007 that the Goodies Speed Shop name has shown so
much promise to rival the power of the past.
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