(lights beep) (engine revs) - You've seen his tires. Maybe you know him from drag racing, either way, if you like cars, you've probably heard
the name Mickey Thompson. But did you also know that he was murdered in his own driveway? Who did it, and why are
they still walking free? Today we're going to
look at the tragic story of one of racing's greats. Let's get you up to
speed on Mickey Thompson. (upbeat music) (horse neighs) Big thanks to NBC's "American Auto" for sponsoring today's video. - Nolan Sykes, 28 years old. - Hi, I'm Jeremiah Burn. - James Pumphrey, 22ish years old. - Auditioning for NBC's new
comedy, "American Auto." - I'll be reading for
the part of the star. - [Director] Not an
auditions in any way, James. We're just doing a promo. - Sure we are. - So, to clarify, you just
want me to read a promo for "American Auto" on NBC? - [Director] Yes. - Which is also the show
I'm auditioning for? - [Director] Nope. No - Okay, I just had an idea. One of the characters I
play is cockney, mate. - [Director] Don't do an accent. - I'll do it just so you can have it. - [Director] You don't need... We don't... - Set in Detroit. - You just want me to read a promo for "American Auto" on NBC. Okay. I can do that. I can do that. - From the creator of "Superstore" comes a new workplace comedy that takes the wheels off
the automobile industry. Set in Detroit, the corporate
executives of Payne Motors are at a crossroads. Will they adapt to the changing times? - Or will the wee old lads
slip right to the junkyard? - [Director] Stop. - I like it. I like it. - I could do it one more time. - You can stream the first two episodes of "American Auto" right now on Peacock. And be sure to check
out the official season premiering on NBC January 4th at 8/7c and streaming the next day on Peacock. Is that it? - [Director] That's it. Perfect. You did so much better than everyone else. - Really? - [Director] Yeah. They all thought this was an audition, but you actually got it. - Wait, like, I got it? Like I got it got it? I gotta go call my mom. Mom, I'm gonna be on NBC! (gentle music) - Mickey Thompson was born
Marion Lee Thompson Jr. on December 7th, 1928 in
San Fernando, California. He went by Mickey because Marion is the name of a dictionary and would probably mean
even more fighting, something that he found
his way into regardless. Mickey grew up in the San Fernando Valley, the heart of California's
exploding car culture. Which means he became
obsessed with cars going fast and going fast in cars. He bought his first car, a 1927 Chevy, when he was 14 for $7.50. Even in 2021 dollars that's cheap. It's less than an autograph
Blu-ray copy of "Clownado." When he was 16 Mickey
met his first wife Judy in the most Mickey Thompson way possible. He met her at a stoplight
and challenged her to a race. Their budding romance was
defined by a mutual love of cars, in fact, many of their dates
included dumpster diving at car dealerships for parts. So, of course they got married. By the time Mickey was
in his early twenties, he was either blasting
down the quarter mile in a home built hot rod or working odd jobs to
support his young family. And finally in 1953 25
year old Mickey's life slipped into high gear where it remained for
the rest of his days. That year he drove in his
first major road race. And holy crap you guys,
did he pick a gnarly one. La Carrera Panamericana was a 2,000 mile, five day marathon rally
on Mexico's public roads running from Guatemala to Texas. And it's widely considered one
of the most dangerous races in the world. Though, unfortunately for
Mickey, it lived up to the name. La Carrera introduced our hero to the kind of tragedies
that would haunt him for the rest of his life. On the very first morning of the race, things were going well, Mickey roped a local
teenager named Roger Flores into acting as his navigator. And he sweet-talked a local car dealer into hooking the duo
up with a six-cylinder Ford sedan for the race. Now let me repeat that, a 25 year old Mickey Thompson convinced a local teenager
to help him navigate along the most dangerous
race in the world. Then the Ford dealer was
like, You guys look cool, here, top out this brand new car on Mexico's public roads for a week. Needless to say, Mickey and
Roger were stoked, dude. Unfortunately the good
vibes didn't last long, early in the race they
came around a sharp corner in a small town and found
a crowd of people gawking at another driver's accident. Now Mickey swerved around a little girl and his Ford flipped off the road into the middle of the crowd. By the time the dust settled,
six people were dead. The incident scarred Mickey, and certainly had something to do with him developing so much
racing safety equipment later in life. Like water filled crash barriers, and that little cloud guy who tells you when you're
going the wrong way. (man coughs) The incident was tragic, but it didn't keep young Mickey boy from entering La Carrera
the very next year. This time he drove a V8
powered Ford nicknamed Ensaladera, or salad bowl. (engine revs) Mick finished in the lead on day one, but the next day he broke a tie rod and hit a wall at 90 miles per hour destroying his car and any
chance at finishing the race. I don't know, maybe this string of
bad luck showed Mickey that road racing wasn't his thing. So he switched his attention to the fastest growing motor
sport in SoCal, drag racing. As a lifelong tinkerer with an uncanny ability to
make cool stuff out of junk, Mickey was enthralled by the innovation going down and drag racing's early years. He was a bit of an innovator himself. In 1954 fresh out of Mexico, he designed and built the
first Slingshot Dragster, by moving the driver's
seat behind the rear axle. The upside; it improved traction thanks to increased weight
over the back wheels. The downside; with the engine directly
in front of the driver, any kind of mechanical failure sprays flames and or hot
oil straight in your face! (man retches) Did this guy has a death wish? Despite riding in the literal danger zone, the Slingshot style was
the industry standard until the seventies. And Micky, at just 27 years old, was at the forefront of drag racing. As his wife Judy once said, "Mickey has a lot of ideas, and he had all the energy
anyone could ask for. He fed people the most
impressive lines of bull(beep) and then he made it all happen." That's how Mickey Thompson
moved his career forward. It's certainly how he
made a name for himself as the manager of LA's Lions Drag Strip, where he was hired in 1955. At Lions Mickey introduced the world to the so-called Christmas
tree staging light system that's now a standard at
literally every drag strip in the world. Mickey Thompson invented that. Before that they just
had a guy go like this. Under Mickey's management, Lions was one of the biggest
drag strips in the nation. It was also kind of a mad house. If he thought someone was
cheating, he'd fight 'em straight up. One time he brought in a
horse to race against a car because he thought it was funny. He was a wild man and he was smart enough to capitalize the best parts of his
memorable personality to further his career. But he wasn't just a bull(beep)er, he was a genuine, loyal guy. At Lions Mickey met and
befriended a like-minded guy, Fritz Voigt. Fritz had a thing for breaking
down barriers of speed just like Mickey. So they decided to try their
hand at land speed racing. In 1958 they dropped two fire
breathing Chrysler Hemi V8s into a homemade four-wheel drive torpedo with a streamlined aluminum body and took it to Bonneville Salt Flats to see what it could do. What could it do? How
about 294 miles per hour! Okay? This shattered the previous
US land speed record by 28 miles per hour, which
doesn't sound like a lot, but it's quite a bit. That wasn't crazy enough, Mickey and Fritz built a bigger, faster, even more eight (beep) land
speed racer, the Challenger 1. This baby had not one, not
two, not two and a half, not three, not three point seven, four supercharged Pontiac V8 engines. Mickey and Fritz hit 406.6 miles per hour at Bonneville making
Mickey the first American to break 400 miles per hour. Unfortunately, due to
a broken drive shaft, Mickey couldn't perform a return run and the international Land Speed Record couldn't officially be his, because you gotta do one out and one back. And then they take the average of the two. In 1959 Mickey expanded into manufacturing forming Mickey Thompson Enterprises, which started out building
custom aluminum pistons and branched out to
include the racing tires Thompson is most known for today. That year he also adopted a pet lion and named him Charlie, things were crazy. But I guess they weren't crazy enough 'cause Mickey was in his thirties now he had an insatiable appetite
for breaking records. But Bonneville had done him dirty. So he and Fritz set their
sights on the Indy 500, 'cause, you know, why not? And in classic Mickey Thompson fashion he had to go against the grain and make things way more
complicated than they needed to be. In 1962 he entered three
unique cars into the Indy 500. The engine sat behind the
driver similar to Formula 1. They didn't win, but they got the mechanical
achievement award that year, which is the nerd prize. They got the nerd prize. Nothing's cooler than
a nerd that can fight. (Van Damme grunts) The next year Mickey entered
five cars into the Indy 500, two of 'em from the previous year and three of what he
called "roller skate cars." These oddball race cars had
tiny twelve inch wheels, which were seven inches wide upfront, and nine inches wide in the back. And the chassis were made of titanium just like Zach Jobe's leg. True story, dude's got a titanium leg. No wins for the team that year
either, but the next year, the next year also saw no wins! One big thing did happen
at the '64 Indy 500 though, Mickey witnessed the second
major tragedy of his young life. One of his drivers, David MacDonald, lost control of his car and
crashed in a fiery explosion, which killed him and
another driver, Eddie Sachs. This devastated Mickey. His daughter said that
she used to hear him crying about it late at night, which was the first time
she'd ever heard her dad cry. After the crash Mickey took
a break from oval racing to focus on what he did best,
break records at Bonneville. And break records he did! Between 1965 and 1968 Mickey set an astonishing
295 speed records. He also debuted a new land speed car, the Autolite Special, a skinny
little earth bound rocket that clocked 411 miles
per hour during testing. This thing was 30 feet long,
less than three feet wide, barely big enough to hold the two Ford
single overhead cam engines that moved it down the salt. And unfortunately, conditions
once again interfered with his official speed runs and he wasn't able to put
a record on the books. Now, I'd lose my mind if trash like that kept happening to me. And I don't even have a
lion to hang out with. So Mickey was like, you
know what, whatever man. I already set like 6,000 records, let's go try something new! So he founded Short Course
Off-road Enterprises, or SCORE to promote off-road racing. Long story short, SCORE made off-road
racing what it is today, a big dollar sport with
fans all over the globe. Before this it was a weirdo sport with no money and no fans, just a bunch of maniacs
careening around in the dirt acting crazy. Which sounds amazing, actually
it sounds like Burning Man. No thanks. (crew laughs) Now around this time in the late sixties Mickey divorced his wife Judy. But Mickey wasn't single for long because he's a race car guy and race car guys get married fast. He met a fetching woman
named Trudy Feller. When was the last time you met a Trudy? Well he met her camping in Arizona, 1971. He's like, damn, sup Feller? The two fell in love, they got married and founded The Mickey
Thompson Entertainment Group, which held short course off-road
racing events in stadiums. They loved working together, but with Mickey's health in decline, they realized that they needed some help running the business. So Mickey did the same thing
that he did with Fritz, he found another wild
man to help run the show. Mike Goodwin was a rock and roll promoter who branched into motocross
in the early eighties, you know, like ya do. He was known for wearing
knee length fur coats while boasting about his
international hunting trips and his three story mansion
with an indoor waterfall. Yes! Yeah! Mike was bold, crass, crazy. So naturally him and
Mickey got along great. He seemed like the
perfect business partner. With Mike onboard, Mickey and Trudy could spend
more free time together camping in Arizona and elsewhere! Trudy and Mickey were very in love and I wish that I could tell you that they lived happily ever after, but in 1988, Mickey and
Trudy were murdered. Why? On the morning of March 16th, 1988, two hooded gunman sat waiting outside Mickey and Trudy's home in the wealthy community
of Bradbury, California. Their enormous house was heavily secured with gated entrances and
a high concrete wall, but that apparently wasn't enough. When Mickey opened the
garage door for his wife and then walked to his car,
the gunman opened fire. The gunman sprayed Mickey with bullets. Then one dragged him out of the garage while the other fatally shot Trudy. (gun bangs) Mickey was then unceremoniously
shot in the head. These guys came to kill. The trailblazing
speedster was 59 years old and Trudy was only 41. And as a final (beep) you
to the car loving Mickey, the two assailants fled on bicycles. Don't trust cyclists! When the police arrived on the scene, they were surprised to find
the victims jewelry and cash were undisturbed. That eliminated robbery as a motive. So what else could it be? It wasn't long before the couple's friends tipped off police on who
might want Mickey dead, his ex business partner and fur coat aficionado Mike Goodwin. The first two events the Mickey
Thompson Entertainment Group held with Mike as a partner lost money. Now that sucks, but it's
pretty normal in business. Well, Mickey's office noticed an accounting
discrepancy shortly afterward. Turns out Mike hadn't put up
for his share of the losses. So Mickey and Mike parted
ways somewhat amicably with Mike promising to
stick to motorcycles and Mickey continuing
with off-road buggies and trucks to keep it non-competitive. Well guess what? Mike didn't keep his promise. In his very next event
he added buggy races. Mickey sued his former partner and won a settlement for $750,000 in 1985. Mike retaliated by filing for bankruptcy and counter suing Mickey. And for the next three years these guys tried to outdo one
another with legal maneuvers. And as you might imagine,
things kept escalating. Mike made threats against
Mickey and his family to anyone who'd listened. He did this so much that
a friend of Mickeys, Detroit OG rock and roll
dickhead, Ted Nugent, advised him to start carrying a gun. But to be fair Ted Nugent advises everyone
to start carrying a gun. Mickey didn't think that
Mike was capable of violence, but Trudy however was terrified. Mike was clearly crazy and at this point he was
hovering just above rock bottom. You don't push someone when
they got nothing to lose. By March 14th, two days before the murder, Mike made a settlement
offer to Mickey's lawyer for the most recent lawsuit. And they turned him down. Was this the final push? At this point Mike owed Mickey $760,000. He'd also hired an ex-cop to
follow Mickey's lawyer around purchase $275,000 worth of gold coins and wired half a million bucks
to banks in the Caribbean. Honestly, I imagine this
is pretty normal behavior for a guy like Mike. And maybe the cops thought so too, because when they investigated him in connection to the Thompson murders, they couldn't find enough evidence to charge him with anything. A few months after the murders Mike and his wife left the
country on their 57 foot yacht. The two avoided California
for the next four years. And despite the hit TV
show "Unsolved Mysteries" coverage of the case in 1989, nothing concrete has ever
materialized, at least not yet. More than a decade later, another true crime TV show,
"America's Most Wanted" covered the case. The episode was a hit
and it led to a mountain of fresh tips. One of them came from
Mickey's former neighbor who said that he saw two white
men parked in a rusty Malibu, scoping out Mickey's house with binoculars a week before the murder. I guess it took this guy 20
years to come forward with this? He identified none
other than Mike Goodwin. Mike Goodwin was arrested. When they put Mike in the police lineup, both Mickey's neighbor
and the neighbor's wife picked him out as the man
sitting in the station wagon scoping out the Thompson house. When Mike finally went to trial for planning the murders five years later, the prosecution called over 40 witnesses to testify of his bad character, including eight people who had said they had been personally
threatened by Mike. Mike's defense lawyer claimed that even though
her client was a jerk an egomaniac and a braggart, that doesn't mean he was guilty of murder, especially when there
was no physical evidence tying him to the scene. In January 2007 after six
days of jury deliberation Mike Goodwin was found guilty on two charges of first degree murder. He got consecutive life terms with no possibility of parole. So what about the two guys who physically carried out the murders? Well, nobody knows.
They've never been caught. As for Mike Goodwin, he remains in prison where
he keeps himself busy with a new hobby; offering theories on who
really carried out the murders. But I guess if there's one thing to take away from this story, it's be careful who you do business with. - I wish I knew who
killed Mickey Thompson. (gentle music) (James sighs) (birds chirp) (rock thunks) Hey friend, I know where you're at. You forgot to get a gift for
the Doughnut fan in your life and it's too late for
anything to be shipped. Well you're in luck because
Donut Media gift cards are a thing. And you can get 'em in
some phenomenal increments. I'm talking $25, $50, $75, $100, $150. And if you want to do
something crazy, like $7,500, give me a call and we'll
work something out. The Donut Media gift
cards are 100% digital. They don't rely on old
school guy on a horse delivering things, which is how I assume
things still get to people. And each of 'em are designed
after an 80's credit card, which is a genius idea that I came up with in literally three seconds. So head on over to donutmedia.com and pick up your perfect
stocking stuffer today. Thank you guys so much
for watching this video and everything else on Donut. If you're not already subscribed, go ahead and hit that subscribe button so you don't miss anything. I hope you liked this story. Follow me on Instagram and
socials @jamespumphrey. Go to donutmedia.com,
get yourself some merch. We got a new item dropping
every single week. Get on the mailing list for discounts. We have a point system now for discounts. I love you.
