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There I was at turn 3 – Part 1 7 Well, it’s been a while hasn’t it? I’m sorry for the delay in continuing the series (you may not be) but the computer I had access to just wasn’t up to doing what I wanted. The printer usedlittle chisels to etch prose on to thin slabs of stone and it is really a pain trying to find those slabs anywhere. Now I have a real computer! This time I’m going to rabbit on about stern chases, also known as coming from the back of the pack. Some of the most entertaining races happen when some poor soul in a really fast car has to start at the back for some reason and must work his way to the front. The stock car boys at local races have even made this standard practice just to add to the excitement, and it does. We have all seen Michael Shumacher and Kimi whatshisname blast up through the pack in F1 but it’s more exciting when there are a lot more cars on the track. I’ve seen a few of these edifying (look it up) sessions and even participated in a few. The one I saw at Seattle in the late 70s was an extreme example. It was the big bore sedan and sports car race. There were all the usual suspects, Cameros, Mustangs, Corvettes, and sundry other fast cars (by our standards that was!) There was also one lone Chevy Monza which bore about much resemblance to a real Monza as a NASCAR car does to it’s namesake. This car belonged to a team that had bought it from an IMSA team which had run it the GTO class the previous year. There had even been an article in Road&Track about this evil device. The only stock component was the roof! It was a tube frame replica with a monster motor and steamroller tires. It shook the ground while it idled and looked to be a brutal handful on the track. It also had more bugs in than a slum tenement, the team spent all their sessions trying to get the thing to run right. It appeared to be blindingly fast down the straight but they failed to get any qualifying time because of the problems. This meant that they would have to start from the back of the pack - which should make it really interesting! Usually I don’t bother to watch the other races because I’m too busy working on my own car but I decided to make an exception in this case. I watched the cars rumble away from the grid and the Monza was stuck way back in about 30th place behind a lot of really fast cars. The pack set off on the pace lap and the tension and anticipation rose as we all speculated as to just how long it would take the Monza to work its way to the front. The green was out and the race began. The Monza blasted up the pit side of the straight like a runaway missile, storming by about 20 cars before it disappeared into turn 1. Wow! That was impressive! We awaited the arrival of the pack with great anticipation. The Monza burst onto the front straight all by itself and blew by us at well over 160 mph. It disappeared over the crest into turn 1 before the others had even entered the straight! Now that was fast - but it was all in vain. The sound meter said tilt! and the black flag ended the run on the second lap. Apparently he had passed the race leader going through turn 4 on the first lap. Said leader drove a very fast late sixties style Trans-Am Camero which was bloody quick. Ten years or so in race cars is like 10 years in computers. The new ones are always fastest. Yet this was last years car! I actually did one better than that during a race at SIR in the summer of 1977. The powers that be decided that F sports racing would run with the small bore production cars since we were too “slow” to run with the other sports racers. I was running the 970 S Mini in FSR that year so this meant I had to race with the production cars. Just to compound the situation some bright spark decide to grid my class at the back. Bill Stevens and I were the only FSR’s so we formed the back row. This was going to be interesting! I spent the pace lap figuring out where I would go on the start. As I was on the right side and the field usually went down the left side of the wide front straight I figured I had a good chance of getting well up by turn 1. The field slowed right down as we came up on the green flag. I downshifted into first and held her at 7000 rpm. The green waved and I nailed throttle, 10500 in first. shift, 10500 in second, shift, 10000 in third as I stormed past the field and slotted into 4th place as we filtered through 1. It had been like Douglas St at rush hour with my throttle jammed wide open. I was 2nd by the time we exited Big Indy and I grabbed the lead going into 3a only to lose that lead to Bill as we exited 3b. Bill and I scrapped for a while but he finally prevailed in the end. This was the last time they made us start at the back! Later in the day one of the production drivers came up and asked me how I made such great starts. My answer was simple “arrange to more horsepower than anyone else”. I did have one occasion at Portland in 77 to make a voyage of recovery that went on for the whole race. It was a typical Portland weekend with a huge entry so the organizers were forced to juggle the grids around so as to accommodate all the cars entered. There were not a lot of E&F sports racers there that weekend so we ended up in the small bore production race again. Because a series of minor mechanical problems. I arrived at the grid just as the front group was pulling onto the track so I was forced to tag onto the back, 43rd out of 43 cars! I knew I had a huge task ahead of me if I wanted to get up to the front. I couldn’t even see the pace-car I was so far back. The green came out even before I had exited the last turn so I didn’t get my usual Banzai start which meant I was forced to pick them off one after another. The traffic was horrendous and none of them wanted to give way. I went left and right, passed on the inside, passed on the outside, under braking and while cornering, any way at all. It was like a video game with no reset button! I figured out later that I must have passed over a hundred cars since I lapped many at least once and quite a few twice or even 3 times. Near the end of the race I was catching a very nice prodifeid Ford Pinto. I was halfway down the straight to start/finish when I noticed they were giving him the last lap board. Well, maybe I can get by him and move up another place because I was sure I had not seen him before. I closed relentlessly pulling back several car lengths on every corner. I was on his tail as we exited the last corner and headed for the checker. I popped out of the draft and tried to slingshot past. I was level with his rear wheels at the line and actually completed the pass just past the flag. Expressions of discontent! When I returned to my paddock spot I was greeted by a swarm of excited Mini lovers. That when I found out that my attempted pass was for the lead. The Pinto had lead from the start and I nearly ruined his perfect race. So, I had finished 2nd - just think- if I had of taken my grid spot I would have won the race going away. However, one of the Mini people had a tale to tell me. The group was sitting in the stands watching my progress through the field when they became aware of a fan sitting in front of them who was yelling “go Honda go” every time I appeared. Then he said “that’s the fastest Honda 600 I’ve ever seen! Comes the dawn! My friends realized he had confused my car with the similar appearing, but far slower, Honda. One of them leaned forward and gently told him that that car was a Mini not a Honda. He sat there in silence for a few laps and then started yelling “go, Mini , go”. It had been an exciting race even from the outside and it was my personal high-water mark for number of cars passed. In these days of fixed run groups and timed qualifying and smaller grids of more matched cars it is unlikely I will ever do that again. In some ways the old days were better!
There I was at turn 3 – Part 16 Thiwat3 p15 prodded some of my scattered memories of the Seventies to congeal together and produce the following un-edifying (but mildly amusing – at least I think so and I'm the one writing this – and you are the one reading it ?!?) tale. It was 77 and I was racing my Mini at Western speedway in the 1st VMSC race of the season. I had made some changes to the Mini over the winter. I had installed some new and better (supposedly) valve springs and fitted one of the latest Longman-3 branch headers. All in the search for more revs and more power. The only result so far had been that engine stopped revving at 9500 but it seemed to have a broader torque curve. This meant it had enough torque to peel the skin off a banana at 5000 instead of 6000 as before. The power band was 5000 to 9500 instead of 6000 to 10500. No increase but a decrease in revs is always nice. 1977 was not a vintage year in "D Improved Sedan". My cars utter domination of the class had led most competitors to give up so attendance was minimal. I could only be beaten if I beat myself by mistakes or breakage. Everyone else was just a spear-carrier at best. Still, others did show up – only to be annihilated. I could lap most of my competitors 2 or 3 times in a 30 minute race at most tracks so they did the reasonable thing and gave up and bought something faster in another class. However some still turned up and took their drubbing, always hoping I would break. This was the situation at the VMSC race that year. I only had one competitor in "D" and he was driving a Fiat 850 coupe that was underpowered and ill-handling at best. I out-qualified him by several seconds (at Western if you were a second faster it was like being 5 seconds quicker at a "real" track). The race promised to be eminently forgettable. And it was - except for an incident part way through the snore-fest. I had just lapped the Fiat, which was exciting because I caught him exiting the oval and I was on him so fast we nearly collided as he wandered aimlessly into my path. I managed to out-fumble him and was off into the middle distance when a problem reared it's ugly head. Once again there was horrid outburst of noise from under the car but this time there came an ugly clatter and rattle as well. The exhaust had come loose and dropped on the pavement. I backed off and crippled around to the hot pits. I shut the engine off and a crowd of people descended on the car, someone grabbed a jack and lifted the right side of the car into the air. An intrepid soul – Paul Bonner I believe- dove underneath and ripped the offending system out. I could see it was not just the exhaust pipe but also the whole collector, exhaust pipe and muffler system that had come free. Yipes! The drooped the car back on the ground and said "Go!" By then the Fiat had gone by twice to unlap himself and now he was leading "D". I fired the car up and, miracle of miracles, it lit (970's did not like to hot start) As I scuttled back onto the track I learned why collectors were necessary for headers. There was no power below 7500 rpm and the motor went flat at 8500. Plus the noise was dreadful – almost as ugly sounding as miss-firing rotor motor. I had to change my driving style completely. Instead of running flat out in 3rd from the hairpin to the hairpin I had to row the car around trying to keep in my narrow power band. I was shifting 9 times a lap instead of 2! And the car sounded bloody awful as well! At least this time I wasn't being gassed as well – I had no door windows! My head ringing, I rowed on at a good rate of knots and closed rapidly on the Fiat and soon was past him again. But, I still had to get by him one more time to ensure a class victory and I only had a few minutes to do it. I slashed my way though traffic, running as hard as I ever did at Western in my need to catch him. That pesky 1000 RPM power band did not make it easy! I had to take desperate chances to avoid losing any momentum – fall off the power-band and I was in trouble. I caught him with just a lap or two to go and muscled by him going into the hairpin. Victory – I had beaten my exhaust jinx. So what did I do about the exhaust system you ask? Well, I decided to put the old design long center branch manifold back on because the engine had proved to be so sensitive to exhaust tuning. As soon as I did that the engine reverted to it's previous rev happy ways and all was peaceful (well sort of) in my little toy. Faithful followers (both of you) will remember I mentioned in one of my previous maunderings that this was one of the advantages my car had over John Erith's. So we come full circle.
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