Cheeezuuss! don't you just hate it when your Daytona is on fire, and you left your best sungl***es on the dash? Most important they got out without a scratch.
Has anybody here ever done the Panamericana? Make all the gold chainer jokes ya want, but if I had the funds I would most definitely be down there.
I agree completely! I was just talking to Tudor about it this weekend, fantasizing about building a '54 Buick to run it. -Brad
I crewed for a large team, 6+ cars in 1991. It was ****ing insane, swore I would never go back to Mexico again.
Both the driver and navigator got broken arms, I think they should buy lottery tickets. oh yeah the car was a 1963 chev nova. I dont think they'll be rebuilding that one.
That's not bad, considering. I'd be more worried about the treatment at the hospital! I can't find the pics, but I've seen before and after shots of that yellow Gull-Wing Mercedes (it was heavily lettered with Corona sponsorship). Nothing like wadding up a Gull Wing Mercedes! the shots I saw looked like they rolled it about twice. -Brad
Fortunetly the racers get really good medical treatment, probably because some of the racers are also M.D.'s . The guy who usually drives that car has won historic C cl*** in it in the past if I had to guess, they were trying to set a stage record for that speed stage. If Doug Asay was driving they were at the cars limit . by the way the other guy in the car is the American organizer for the race, so when he says racing is dangerous it now has new meaning, for him anyway.
wonder what went wrong, cause damn! but those boys aint screwing around. i agree that would be a blast.
I just saw an e-mail from the guy who bought my buddy's '53 Stude and ran it this year. The guy in the Nova was going about 120-130mph, came up over a rise, hit the brakes, lightened the back end, started sliding, then started rolling. Like 10-15 times. He said the guys broke their arms because they were running with their window nets down! Damn lucky they don't have mangled stumps left. The rollbar did one helluva good job though! -Brad
I agreee I think it would be a lot of fun to race that. I would love to race historic trans am. Don't have that kind of money though. Can only dream. Be cool to find an old trans am car though restore it and race it. Either way though no cheap way about it.
I just got an e-mail from a guy who was on the scene of the Daytona fire, he said the driver left the electric on because the fire suppression system was electronically controlled of course so was the fuel pump , as the starter motor wires fused together and the car was in gear it caused it to bunny hop down the road 4 or five times, he said it was the freakiest thing he had ever seen. I guess thats why the car appears in different locations on the road in the pictures.
Damn, I've never heard of an electronically controlled fire supression system in a race car. Granted, I haven't seen that many of them, but it seems to me every one I saw had a big push ****on with a rod going directly to the bottle, or the bottle was mounted close enough to the driver that they were able to turn the handle directly (usually a big "arm" on top of the bottle). Seems like that's EXACTLY the reason you wouldn't want it wired to the electrical system! -Brad
My fire system has nothing to do with the electrical, in the Daytona guys case he believed he needed to leave the electric on, but that left the fuel pump on feeding the fire, if he had just turned the electric off and hit the ****on he would have had some repairable damage. The car was really well built, Tortuga racing team .
I couldn't find any pictures of it, its an xj6 sedan with a chev 350 and 700r4 what is it you are interested in? my other car is at www.mexicanroadracecars.com
Check out the flamed Olds that turns up every year in those galleries. It looks like it had a serious crash in in 2003, but it was there in 2004 and 2005 again (if its the same car that is). If I had the money, I would be there too.
If anybody is interested, I still have a scan of the april 54 issue of hop up with a very indepth article on the lincoln team.
He got one to me, and it KICKS ***! I still can't believe anyone ever thought carrying a 55 gallon fuel tank in place of the back seat was a good idea... -Brad
The Jalopy Journal
