It was a tabloid in the 60s. One day in 1966 I was buying developer and paper at The Camera Shop on Bryant Street in Palo Alto. I knew all the salesmen (and they were all men, and they showed up at Keeble and Shuchat when Terry started that store a few years later) from the days when I was photo editor of the Stanford Chaparral. One of them said that there was a local racing photographer, Tom Montgomery, who was looking for an assistant. He gave me Tom's number. I called, and it sounded interesting. No money would change hands, but Tom would get be photo passes for the races, would introduce me to the corner workers and some drivers and tell me how to behave out on the race track. I had a Nikon FTn, a NIkkormat, and 55mm, 135mm, and 200mm lenses. Tom shot Nikon stuff, and he had everything: Nikon Fs with motor drives, 300mm lenses, etc. He was happy to loan me anything he wasn't using. I did have to wear a dorky shirt with Tom Montgomery Photo on the back. I'd shoot in the pits on Friday, and out of the course on Saturday and Sunday; that was the way tom wanted it. We'd turn in our film at the Start/Finish line when the race was over, and, if we were lucky, we'd get the negs back when CP&A was done with them, overdeveloped and scratched. After a while, I started to get more cover shots than Tom. I could tell he was a little miffed about that, but that isn't what ended the relationship, as I remember. I stopped doing that kind of photography when I went to work for HP in 1969 and got very busy there.
A couple of Mark: