Anyone road race?

I know there are a lot of people who drag race or top speed their cars, but does anyone road race their car? I would like to build a hot rod, but I would also like to build a road race track car. Why not combine the two and build a 50's (or older) road racer?

Here is a picture of me on the track yesterday in my 1994 Impala SS.

Mike

 

I roadraced motorcycles for 15 years off and on. I've got a buddy who races shifter karts and is trying to trade me his ride from last year for some work on his AMX (which I worked on all during high school). I'm definately considering it. Haven't thought about doing it in a car in a while, but did a build a car for a buddy a year or so ago for NASA's Honda Challenge. He's doing pretty good with it to....

 

I do DE's when I can, too many projects to "Race".
I wouldn't mind running a SpecMiata though.
I have a 93LE Miata and a 74 Porsche 914S.
Cured me of that point and shoot stuff.
Running with Ferrari Cup Cars and Panoz is too much fun.

 

I'm in training

 

I've road raced on and off for about 20 years, all in 4 cylinder stuff. Most fun was a '59 Bugeye AH Sprite in SCCA H-Production.

If you want to run a '50's style racer, it would be in either a vintage club (VVRA, VSCDA, etc.) event, or a 'run what you brung' open track event. If you want to go fast, you'll end up spending at least 20 hours prepping or repairing the car for every 1 you drive. These vintage guys, if they invested their own sweat into the thing, don't drive them hard enough to do any damage. It's the gold chainers who pay for the car to be race ready for them that end up on their roof, or in the tire wall.

In a real race, cars raced in the '50's would not be safe or reliable today. You are either there to cruise around and have fun, or you modify the _hit out of them in order to go fast (and safe).

Check out the deuce roadster that Max Balchowsky raced back then. Ran it at first with a Caddie flathead! Later, went much faster with a Buick nailhead. Duplicate this today with a plastic body, now that would be fun!

 

If you want to know a little history of road racing hot rods I would recommend "The Hot Rod-resurrection of a legend" by Brock Yates. It's about the rebuilding of Duffy Livingstone's T-bodied, flathead powered road race car that gave the high dollar imports fits for a while in the 50's. Rusty.

 

I've been trying to talk my friend into going halves on a Panamerica car. I love 550's but I'd need something a bit bigger like a early fifties mopar.

I'd like to run the cannonball run. It's pretty pricey now adays though. I think it's $4000 per team.

 

I've been toying with either trying to run the Hudson or my Chevy in the new Carrera Pan America, just gotta save up all the dough! My dad was VERY involved in road racing during its golden days out here in Cali and there were some wild cars on the tracks. Lots of hot rod pilots became top flight racers......

 

I'm in the Formula SAE program as well. It's a good time.

Now I wonder.... if you took your typical chopped and channeled A, tuned the suspension for handling, and ran some vintage Indy Firestones... and a nice revvy short stroke V8..... that might be fun on a road course . You could do double duty on the salt flats too.... the versatile, all around hot rod.... maybe someday.

 

I grew up on the Road Race Tracks.
I pitted for my Dad and his buddies before I was old enough to be behind the pit wall, legally.
When they all switched to Vintage Racing I got to work on some pretty cool Cars...
Later I drove my own Cars. ( on the Track and Solo2 type Racing )
I still own the ones that are the most important to me, but I haven't Raced for the last 10 or 12 years because of lack of Money and Time.

But I will Road Race again... Hopefully soon.

Untill then I am having a lot of fun with my Roadster ( It has quite a bit of Road Race infuence in the way I built it...)

 

Glad to see some road racing fans! I have only participated in the “run what you brung” events. At any one time I am on the track with Ferrari’s, Corvettes, Vipers, Mustangs, Miatas, etc. and usually a handful of full on race cars. On Saturday we had a 1965 Mustang coupe, 1966 Mustang fastback and a 1970 Mach I all of them built trans am style. We also had a couple of Dayton Coupes. I don’t think I am that interested in anything that new, but it got me thinking.

I was thinking of maybe dropping a 1955 Chevy body on a modern chassis (like a tri-9 Impala SS) or how about a 40 ford on a Corvette chassis (or something like this). Section the body, weld in a cage and hit the track! I have a lot of experience with making late model Impala SS’s go around corners, so using that chassis would be a natural for me.

When I think of vintage road racing, I usually think foreign sports cars like Porsche, Triumph, MG, etc. I would like to build a Ford or Chevy. The car would not be able to be “traditional” as the safety and performance demands would be too high. But man would it be fun to blow the doors of the “gold chainers” at the track with the mustangs still with paper plates.


Michigander, I don’t know Max Balchowsky. I just read about him on the net. Do you have any pictures of his deuce? I would want to build a fendered car. It is getting harder to find track days for fenderless car around here.

Rusty Karz, cool book! Thanks for pointing it out. I will be picking it up.

Thanks,
Mike

 

I don't have any pics of his Deuce, but there are some of the car he Raced after that.

 

As much i love traditional 'rods and custom's, i've also had a real interest in Porsche's..mainly 550 Spyders and 356 speedsters..
I had a 911sc for a while that was partially set up for autocross..never ran it though.
I'd love to build a 550 spyder some day.. I olmost bought a Beck body back in 97..
someday..

Big Chief on here has run his '69 mustang for years at Watkin's Glen.
He even started racing his SVT focus there as well..
He showed me a pic of him driving that little bastard cutting a corner with the two inside wheels off the ground..very cool.
In fact i believe now he's also an instructor..

Tony

 

These are sort of what I have in mind.





Mike

 

Definitely more of a road race fan. I'm down with speed record lake runs, so-so on drags. But road racing is way mucho cool to me. (And Rally). And save the NASCAR style too, there needs to be more than just left hand turns. I want to see the road course they run out Pittsburgh way, Beaver Run I believe they call it.

 

there's actually a guy up here in michigan that built two fifties bodied cars for the pan america races , ones a 55 merc and the other is a 54 olds i believe , they look primarily stock on the outside but the undersides are loaded with nascar type suspensions , they are very nice looking cars with insane craftmanship

 

I don’t personally run a car , but im involved with this one. It belongs to a good friend of mine and it totally kicked almost everybody’s ass its first season out in SCCA super production last year. I know its way OT for here but its one bad motherfucker.

 

I raced an H Production MG Midget in SCCA road racing for ten years in the 70s. Mucho Fun!! Pretty basic car and easy to maintain.

 

I raced Production and Formula cars for about 10 years around the midwest tracks with a National license. Started with MG's, then on to Formula Fords. I'm restoring a Formula Atlantic car now, hope to race in vintage races sometime. The entry fees plus having kids ended my career for awhile. Your idea of building a hot rod road racer sounds pretty cool if you can find some open class and you can adapt to the rule books.

 

I was part of a crew on the 1991 Carrera Panamerica.We took down a Curtis Coupe and a slew of 356's. It was fucking insane. Mexico is a crazy place to be doing anything, let alone racing cars on open roads. The trip just about ended on the secound to last stage, the team organizer/leader ended up in jail, one of our support trucks (an 18 wheeler) impounded by Federales. But all our cars finished. I walked back across the border to the US from Nueveo Laredo to Laredo, Tx.
As fucked up as it was, I still think about going back and doing it again some time.

 

When in school I used to spend the weekends at Motorsport ranch, which is basically a country club for road racers. I also worked for this guy for a while, when he was competing in Trans-am. Watching a trans-am car go down a city street through saturday traffic is awesome.

 

Damn ric! that sounds like a story.

No road courses around here, but after hammering my Touring around the civic center on the way to the car show (neat twistie stuff) and taking the scenic route home, I plan on some autocross with it!

My tire guy races a race prepped Mustang in our autocross, he and I made a deal, he takes me for my first run in his car, I take him for a run in the Touring!

For the record, I got noise outta the Hursts tonight in some wicked little S curves going home. They squeaked but still stuck pretty good for a recap drag slick

Also had a great talk with a customer of ours at the show, first time we met in person. I knew he was a raodrace guy................................nothing big just Trans Am and Can Am, some guy named Donahue drove one of his cars

 

One of the surviving Mercs used in Cobra was turned into a roadrace car...I seen it when it surfaced on E-Bay a while back....Pretty kool but nuts i thought...I believe there is an article about it in the new Old Skool Rodz....

BigChief- If you post a pic,,i'll buy ya a 40!

Dirty

 

I've hit a few Track Days the last few years and am definitely bitten by the road race bug. I've been encouraging the use of muscelcars for these non-competition events. I like driving wide open in street-licensed cars but not banging fenders.

I'm building my '67 Malibu wagon and my '65 GTO clone for road racing prowess. They will hold their own at the dragstrip too, and are pump gas compatible.

The move toward g-Machine style is being well-documented.

To see more about classic musclecars modified to handle, look around on www.pro-touring.com. It's the HAMB of its genre'...

Vintage builds for improved handling are fun. Better brakes, tires, and suspension never hurt anyone.

I predict more open track day events in the future, and more interesting rides attending them. No one gets hurt and everyone has fun. It's a good deal.

Scotch~!

 

I used to run DE's in my Audi all the time, then I finished
my A pickup. I get the bug to road race every now and
again.

Nothing like taking an all wheel drive car into a 90 mph
4-wheel drift at Texas World Speedway coming off the
oval. I don't miss blowing through $300 worth of Kevlar
brakes on my street car every weekend though.

 

I've raced in touring cars (ITC) and in Spec Neon- just stopped last year when I moved. Road racing is a blast, but it's even more expensive than hot rodding- we used to figure that if we could get out of a weekend for $1000, we were doing well, and that was for less than two hours of seat time. The vintage guys, who you'd run against with anything as old as what you're talking about, are less competitive than SCCA guys, for the most part, and are probably cheaper to run with after the initial cost of the car. Swapping paint in a Mercedes gullwing is much more expensive than in a Honda Civic, so they tend to put on a good show in most classes, rather than really race.

If you wanted to build something for open track days and autocrossing, look into buying a well-used GT car- that would give you a tube chassis and a good adjustable suspension for less than you'd probably pay for the Impala SS starting point. Just measure wheelbases to find something close to what you want to use for a body, then start swapping body panels like a stock car. You couldn't race with any of the strict vintage guys in a mongrel like that, but I don't like hanging out with many people who own Mercedes anyway.

 

That's Mr. Donahue to you ...

Mark Donahue is one of my favorites, the man whooped ass in an AMC... how cool is that? You're a luck man Mr. T, does he still have the cars?

 

Haven't done any track days (lack of rollbar prevents it so far), but I've been autocrossing my Sprite for 3 summers now. It's a damn blast! There are a couple of clubs up here that host track days at road courses or driver training facilities, and I'd like to check them out someday.

Scotch -- check out www.mnautox.com for local autocross stuff, and www.aarrf.com for some road racing stuff. They hold track days, and a lot of their cars are retired and converted IMCA oval track cars. Cheap, durable, and fun!

I've long toyed with the idea of an autocrossing track roadster. Always liked that Simca "303" that used to do the "streetkhana" events at the Nats back in the '70s. Anybody know where that car went?

Steve.