An article for the Keystone newsletter:
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/a...ml#post9422853
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Mario, I understand. An article for the Keystone Motor Club

"The engine sounds, they are my song" - Andretti Image by Campsite Media House
By: RACER Staff | 4 hours ago
“I look at a photo or a trophy today, and you know what? It’s more than a memory. I get the feeling. I can hear it. Those engines, those sounds, they are my song. Stock, NASCAR, Formula 1 — they all played a different sound. And I loved them all. And I still do.” – Mario Andretti
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Mario, I understand.

It was years ago I was at Sebring shortly after they made two race tracks.

It was dark, late at night, and I wanted to see what the new track was like.
After I walked the new track,, I decided to walk the track I had known to be the original track.
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I remembered my first year there and white short tailed Porsches. Long tailed prototypes had been run at Daytona 24 hours
only a few weeks before.

I remember the first time I saw disc brakes so hot that they were glowing red, almost yellow as the cars went by.

I remember one night when the sky to the North was lit up and I thought it was some kind of storm, but later learned
that the Air Force did night time bombing runs in Avon Park, and the whole Northern Sky was lit up.

I could faintly hear the sounds of the cars from the days when they raced in T-shirts, no roll bars, no guard rails, with telephone poles right next to the infield pavement.
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One year I saw the original Grand Sport Corvettes......dark Sunoco Blue with Yellow side exhaust pipes......I thought how hokey it looked with yellow
side pipes.......before I knew that 12 hours of bare flames traveling down the 4 inch pipes was so hot that the steel changed to yellow on it's own
......and stayed that way.

I remember the year that a red Ferrari street car came blasting the horn, flying down pit road too fast, being late to line up for the start, without regard for the spectators who were walking packed in the roadway. Because of that one rich jerk, Ferrari lost a lot of respect in my eyes.

The Ford GT 40's had to have "luggage space" and the officials used a wooden Coca Cola crate slid into the back end of a cooling
air passage to be the "official suitcase".

Roger Penske's Camaro "won the race, and Porsche was first in class" according to Car and Driver magazine.
I have the poster from that year. I have a lot of Sebring posters, One with the Chaparral, The GT 40's,..................... bunches of them.
That Camaro engine was built by TRACO, Travis and Coons near the Penske race shop. It was a show engine......It had an excellent engine breathing system.

I remember that every year there was less and less spectator area and more and more spectators. Over the years, I acquired a collection of driving lights and headlights from race cars, that found their way onto some of my street cars. I could see first hand when the race cars were inspected, I got a lot of ideas, and my autocross car had ducting from the headlight to the carburetor.
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I remember when Mark Donohue did not slow down when there was ankle deep water on the course. I thought that was remarkable that when I could barely see,
Mark was still racing. I later figured it out........ As he was driving onto the Runway to head South, he swung wide in the rain, and actually drove BESIDE the runway as he raced South while others couldn't see either, and others had slowed down. Years later when I was racing sailboats, when conditions got really bad and wind was 50 mph, others were surviving.......but I was still racing. I recall one sailboat race when I was out front leading..... and dumped the boat over! I had rigged lines on the boat so I could bring it back up faster........I had drilled holes in the Hobie Cat metal frame so the water would dump out faster and get going again. I caught the pack, and dumped it again!.....brought it up and passed the pack again.... I dumped the boat 5 times in one race, caught and passed them each time and won the race! Like Mark Donohue, I learned that bad conditions are always worse on the other guy.
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I saw how the race cars set their suspension alignments. I drove to Jacksonville one Sunday morning and measured every Hobie cat.
I toed my twin hulls slightly in and the boat went faster. I epoxied the frame, made a stainless steel brace and added extra bolts to stop frame flex.
When the wind would spurt, my boat instantly accelerated, while others took out the slack before moving.

I adjusted the rear twin rudders, so my boat would turn quicker and put a little negative camber into those rudders. I could tilt the mast forward and it would accelerate, tilt it back and it had more top speed. Sail it with one rudder out of the water, and it went faster....Tilt the boat onto one hull and it went faster.

I beat the Hobie Cat World Champion 5 times on the same day, and no one had ever done that before me or since then.
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That night
I could faintly hear the sounds of the cars from the days when they raced in T-shirts, no roll bars, no guard rails, with telephone poles right next to the infield pavement.

As I walked past the pits I could see Team Penske physically pushing the Sunoco Blue, Kirk F White Ferrari at every stop, when it went back out.
Pretty soon every team was pushing their cars as they were accelerating out of the pits.
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The sounds of the cars that night were getting louder as I walked past the pits, the voices were getting louder.

The ghosts of Sebring will always be with us.

Mario, I understand..................... Thanks for listening.
-Bob Vail

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/a...ml#post9422853

 

This car reminds me of the one driven Coast to Coast by Keystone Motor Club members Milt and Rosemary Roorda.

At the July 20 2019 club meeting, Milt told us a little about driving with no windshield in the heat, and how Rosemary participated and stood by him the whole way with no complaining...a real trooper.




https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/e...or-club-2.html

 

Here is the interview Click:

Migz interviews Milt and Rosemary Roorda and their historic Ford #2

MIGZ
Published on Mar 20, 2019

Migz interviews Milt and Rosemary Roorda and their historic Ford #2 car

 

Article for Keystone newsletter:
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A Stirling Moss story.
The 1955 Mille Miglia was Stirling Moss's greatest drive.
Motorsport Magazine has an article which was Dennis Jenkinsons description of the race. Try and find it.

SM made a minimalist reference to the bridge airborn take off but there were many.The first one was in the middle of a long straight. Dennis signalled flat out and straight ahead after. They went over this rise at nearly 8500rpm and that was just a bit over 200mph. They went over it and then was a sort of silence and they counted it...4 seconds ...........and touch down.

Do the math. Another one was when Dennis trip notes disconnected from the roller. Over another crest except the road curved to the right. They just went on straight over the wire fence on into a paddock. SM kept it under control and they drove back onto the road. Amazing. Stirling Moss said the there were only two states when you race a car. One is full throttle and the other is braking so hard the tyres are chirping. Tires chirping
is truely maximum braking.....I have done that a few times.....in my '69 Chevy Nova...

In between those is where the magic is. He demonstrated this quite some years ago. We have an annual race here, the Bathurst 1000. He was invited to co-drive one of the works GM cars. Second practice lap out, having never driven the car before on this 4 mile mountain circuit, he was lapping to within 2 seconds of the factory drivers.

Stirling Moss pulled into the pits. The car had all four brakes on fire and the engine smoking out of the valve cover breathers. He asked for some tyre pressure changes and "it could do with another litre of oil. I wont switch it off in case it doesn't start again." This was just untimed practice. Off he went again and broke the class lap record 4 laps later. Other drivers were in awe including some overseas ones.

They said following him into corners showed some of the technique. He would lift off a little just to settle the chassis forces, dive into the apex and come out the other side already at the red line to go up a gear, ready for the next one. No power slides as he said that meant you were slowing down............. Fascinating.

He does not race today for only one good reason. He said he no longer has the reaction times to be fast and safe.

 

Car movie: Checkpoint
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/e...ml#post9423002
Vintage 50's cars.....actual sports car racing scenes

 

OK folks.
I agree that the newsletter should not be used to express political views.

Yes I agree that the newsletter should be used for generally car-related items, articles, pictures, etc.
Business notices and/or spam should be posted in another forum.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
-Bob

 

An article for Keystone newsletter

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Honoring the architect of Rodger Ward's strangest win In July of 1959

Honoring the architect of Rodger Ward's strangest win

In July of 1959 a race was staged at Lime Rock Park which, according to the wonderful story written by Brock Yates for Car & Driver in 1999, was supposed to elevate the status of sports cars and road racing. Instead of running for trophies, there was to be a sizeable cash purse in hopes of attracting name drivers instead of doctors and lawyers. And it did, as Mexico’s heroes Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez were entered, along with Indy 500 stars Duane Carter and Bettenhausen. But Brenn had no plans to run until he got a phone call. Image by Don Cooke; courtesy Dave Nichols/Barcboys.com


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By: Robin Miller | July 30, 2019 2:16 PM


Ken Brenn is one of the most decorated car owners in open-wheel history, with a career that spans six decades and includes a phone book’s worth of talent behind the wheel.

During his years of owning, towing, wrenching and maintaining midgets, sprints and Indy cars, Brenn won a lot of races with guys like Tony Bettenhausen, Don Branson, Bobby Unser, Pancho Carter, Larry Dickson, Len Duncan, Johnny Coy, Jack Turner, Jiggs Peters, Bruce Walkup and Jimmy Caruthers. He also gave Mark Donohue his first-ever ride in a rear-engine midget.

For the next three nights Kyle Larson, will wheel a midget for Keith Kunz honoring the 92-year-old Brenn as part of USAC’s Pennsylvania Midget Week. But one of the best chapters of this New Jersey native’s career came compliments of Rodger Ward in a very unlikely pairing that produced a very unlikely victory.

“I came home one night and my wife Dottie told me that Rodger Ward had called,” said Brenn, who was in the business of building roads to feed his racing habit. “Well, he’d just won Indy and was a big star, and he didn’t know me from Adam. I didn’t believe her, so I didn’t call him back right away. Besides, I couldn’t afford to hire a guy like Ward, he’d want too much money.”

Well, they finally connected, and Ward revealed he was to get $2,000 in appearance fees so he suggested splitting that with Brenn and taking 40 percent of what he won in the race. A deal was made and they finally met just before Ward strapped in for the first practice session. “He was right at the track record in just a few laps,” recalled Brenn, who attends the IndyCar race at Pocono every year.

Oh yeah, one small detail that needs to be pointed out. Ward was driving a Kurtis-Kraft midget with an Offenhauser engine and a standard in-and-out gearbox against the Aston Martins, Ferraris and Maseratis which had complete gear boxes.

Image by Don Cooke; courtesy Dave Nichols/Barcboys.com


After Ward broke John Fitch’s track record and won the pole position, the captain of the Maserati team, Rex Wingate, congratulated Brenn and then predicted his car wouldn’t be around at the end because the track would kill their brakes. The program called for a pair of 20-lap heats followed by a 60-lapper.

“Rodger cooled it in the first one and finished third and then we won the second heat and we changed brakes after each race,” continued Brenn, who still possesses a fantastic memory and looks as good as he thinks. “We had to load it up with fuel for the main event, so we dropped back at the start while we burned off some fuel.”

But when Ward passed an Aston Martin on the outside to take the lead a third of way into the finale, he immediately began pulling away.

“Tony Bettenhausen had got out of the car he was supposed to drive because it was a dog, so he was running our pit board,” said Brenn, chuckling at the memory of the USAC national champion volunteering for that job. “Rodger had a five or six second lead but Tony kept putting up one second, and I kept asking him why. He said ‘because Ward is lazy and we don’t want him relaxing too much.’”

When the checkered flag fell, the Indy champ and his mighty midget had dusted the field and humbled the sports cars on their own turf.

“Ward had a Champ Car race the next day so he had a helicopter waiting on him, and after we shook hands he told me he’d just keep all the deal money and I could have all the purse,” said Brenn. “Well, it was $4,900, and that was a haul in 1959.”

The 6-foot trophy that supposedly went to the winning team had vanished shortly after the victory celebration, so Brenn tracked it down. “A few Mexicans were taking it apart and loading it into a box, and I yelled at them that it belonged to me,” he said. “They said ‘No, this is Pedro’s (Rodriguez) trophy, he was supposed to win and if he doesn’t get it, nobody does.’

“So I didn’t get the trophy, but I got one of the most satisfying wins of my life and a damn good payday. No midget race ever paid like that.”


IndyCar

 

The Route 66 museum


The ruins and the road

by JustinScarred

The desert is full of mystery... and history! Abandoned buildings and old highways, plus some radical Route 66 museums! The only way out is through it, so its time for another Randomland Adventure!

Today: Route 66 through Victorville, Helendale, the Bottle Tree Ranch, Barstow, Dagget, Newberry Springs, the Bagdad Cafe, Ludlow, Goffs, and Needles California!

 

Get me the hell out of Chicago......on Route 66...

by recordpickers

This film provides a "vintage" look at Route 66. It was shot in the early 1980's, before the old highway was decommissioned, long before the "Route 66 nostalgia" of today. Take a look back at the Route 66 of 30 years ago. Then get in your car or hop on your motorcycle and go get YOUR kicks!
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Most amazing views of Route 66 An aerial documentary

by

Roamin' Rich
Published on Jan 24, 2017

Thousands of miles, fuel, and dollars and over two and a half years of obtaining footage have resulted in never before seen perspectives of Route 66. I'm proud to show you Route 66 like it has never been seen before. From Chicago to LA, you'll get your kicks with this video from 66!

This feature is so amazing, you'll want to share it with your friends.

Take time to read some of the comments if you care about the nostalgia
that some of us still feel.-Bob