Race Car Stuff

Yes, I have promised to start writing again in the past, and I am going to do it again. Maybe I will actually keep my promise this time. Life for me has gone through many changes since I was getting 10-20 articles a month here, some for the better and some not so much for the better.

Ideas for articles are always floating around in my head. Some of the ideas are the best ever written, but they never seem to get flushed out of the cerebral spheres to the digital media. That is a pattern that has to change for the better. There is too much pent up frustration in keeping good articles about racing in my head.

Tonight, my favorite racing news show, Wind Tunnel had a special episode for the week of the NASCAR All-Star race. The Jarretts, Ned and Dale, were special guests. They had the usual questions about their careers, and Dale’s impending last race of his career. But the thing that got my attention was the comment about Ned’s broadcasting with ESPN. Dave Despain said that the years of Ned, Benny Parsons, and Bob Jenkins were thought by most of the hardcore racing fans to be the best broadcasts ever done for a race.

This comment made me start thinking. I had always felt that way, but why? In prior years there had been teams that were usually made up of an “expert” and a couple of professional broadcasters. What was better about Ned, Benny, and Bob? The thing I liked about it was the fact that they realized this was a “series”. Prior to the ESPN years of the ’80’s and ’90’s racing was occasionally covered on mixed in with figure skating on ABC’s Wide World or Sports. The sport had to be “sold” to fans of stick and ball sports. That meant that every race had to have a presentation of the art of drafting, the examination of pit crew members jobs, and more crashes in the tape delay post production than laps of good racing. Saying it simply, we were being treated as 5 year olds every race.

With the growth of cable TV in the early days, the creation of 24 hour sports networks, and dedicated sports fans all came together to make the most of a special opportunity. Racing was an easy fit in that many of the races could be cheaply covered, and sponsor opportunities were everywhere. The influx of money gave the production team the opportunities to develop new ideas with moving scoring, in-car cameras at all angles, and reporters that were participants in the race.

Soon rather than coverage of 3-5 races a year, we had coverage of every race, live flag to flag. Instead of targeting a baseball fan, that only knew how to put gas in his/her daily commuter, now the broadcast was aimed at people who watched from week to week. The fans now knew all of drivers, they knew how drafting worked at Daytona and Talladega, and they were tired of being treated like 5 year olds. The broadcast team now could target a true fan for a change. They could discuss one car being stronger in the middle of a turn, and another being better at corner entry. They could handle discussions of camber and caster angles at Charlotte being different than Pocono. The fans could be treated like RACING fans.

The other big factor was the fact that the costs involved with the coverage were still fairly low. There were relatively few commercials. We got to watch racing… not graphics shows, constant repeats of the “best parts”. It was just good simple racing coverage. Just what the doctor ordered.

Today, the broadcast seems to be aimed more at entertainment, which honestly the racing has been geared more in that direction as well. The graphics and cyber replays are nice, but the true fan would probably rather see the battle going on for 14th place than an analysis of if Dale Jr. moved down or Kyle Bush moved up. The true racing fan appreciates what the sponsors had given then free of charge (at least directly) but there are as many commercials in a hundred laps now as there were in the whole race back then.

Thanks for what you gave us Ned, Benny, and Bob. It was something we will never see again.

Racecarstuff.com has been dormant for quite a while. Forgive me for that, but I hope to make up for it in the future. I have some good ideas for interesting articles that will come along shortly. But for now I am simply going to catch everyone up with what has been happening since sometime in the spring.

Personally I have been very busy with life other than racing. Sometimes the real world complicates our ability to be totally immersed in racing. It is a sad thing, but it does happen. So lets recap what has happened in my personal world (since this is my blog) since March or so.

I have run a number of autocrosses. Some have been in the RX7 and some have been in the family Shelby. Throughout the year most have been rather uneventful autocrosses, but the last one near the end of August was very worth mentioning. As you may remember I have been running the Shelby with 5 year old Kumho V710 tires that by the standards for E Street Prepared (ESP) are way too small for the car. We have been happy with the results, but we know we are slower than we should be in the class. I have a certain love for running in C Prepared (CP), which is a class that is mostly populated by gutted out, trailered race cars. I have run cars that were good CP cars over the years, but I don’t have one in autocrossable trim these days. But the Shelby is legal in CP, even though it is a street car. My good friend, Marc Lisner made some Hoosier racing slicks available to me (HUGE Thanks Marc!!!!). I mounted them on some nice American 200S rims that we used to use on our old SCCA road racing Mustang. They barely fit the Shelby, even though there is a little tire rubbing. The car looks awesome on the new (old) tire and wheel combination.

Shortly before the August autocross, I got an email from our old friend Lee Mathias. Lee has gotten a new 2007 Shelby GT. Lee has been more excited about the new Shelby GT than he has been with any new car he has ever owned. You may remember mentions of Lee from some of my previous posts in that when my family started autocrossing, Lee was an autocross veteran in his ’65 Shelby GT-350, serial # SFM5S071. Any Shelby aficionados will notice that is one of the heavily sought after ‘65’s out of the first batch of 100 cars. These cars were sort of special and the most race car like street Shelbys built during the first run of cars. Lee is one of the drivers with very natural ability. Watching him autocross 5S071 was truly a religious experience to a Shelby lover like me.

Lee said that he and his son Matt, were going to come up to the Tidewater area from Georgia to visit some family and they would like to take in an autocross with the new Shelby. This would be a great chance to have the new and the old Shelbys at an event together. Plus we would get to catch up with a friend that we had not seen in years. Lee is the person who sold us our Shelby in 1974. He needed a new roof for his house and since he had 5S071 and was building a race car ’66 GT350 (SFM6S1774), the dark green ’68 GT350 had to go. Lee had owned some incredible Mustangs and Shelbys over the years. Recently he had been Shelby-less for a while, but when the 2007 Shelby GT was introduced, he found a great buy on one at Jackie Jones Ford in Georgia. He changed it to the CS66 rims (basically modern versions of the old ’66 Shelby ten spokes). Since he took delivery of the Shelby GT he has posted many great stores to the Shelby lists on the internet. He had said many times that this was the car he had waited 40 years to have.

So this was going to be a great opportunity to have our old ’68 GT350 at an autocross, and the car built 39 years later (would that be a grandchild to a person?). To make the long story short, the times of our two cars don’t represent anything about the performance of the two cars. We were on racing tires, and Lee was on pure street tires. I have also been autocrossing regularly, while Lee said his last autocross was about 20 years ago. In that time Lee spent much time road racing his vintage race cars, and he also has run a couple of open track type events in his Shelby GT. But there are many autocross specific skills that make someone a good autocrosser. Lee still has the natural driving ability, but those specific autocross skills are rusty.

But the important thing was Mom and I had a great opportunity to spend the day with several old friends that we don’t get to spend enough time with these days. One was with Lee and his son Matt. Another was the Shelby GT350 that has been a part of our lives for so many years. My daughter, Shelby, who has grown up to appreciate the cars that carry her name, also came out to the event. Finally it gave all of us the opportunity to say thanks in the proper way to an old Texan, named Carroll Shelby, that had a dream many years ago that made it all possible.

In the end we were faster with the old Shelby, but that is truly not a comparison of the two cars. Each was a proper icon of automotive performance of its time.

Since I started my appreciation for the quirky car known as the First Generation Mazda RX7, one of the people who has halped me learn all of the ins and out of the workings of the car has been David Lane. David has owned a 1985 RX7 GSL-SE since it was new. That happens to be the same year and model as my car. In his years of ownership David has subtley upgraded his car constantly. Today he has an incredible performing sports car. The car is original paint that looks phenominal. He loved the car, but wanted to make it a little better in every parameter, but still not lose the character of the GSL-SE. I had the good fortune of driving David’s car about a year and a half ago. He has achieved his goal to perfection.

David was invited to travel across the country and give the opening presentation at an event called SevenStock. SevenStock is the yearly pilgrimage to southern California where Mazda opens their doors to us, the rotary enthusiast, and allow the event at the Corporate HQs in Irvine. Mazda RX enthusiasts get together and celebrate one of the greatest sports cars of all time the Mazda RX-7, and the greatest engine ever, the Rotary!

With David’s permission I have reporduced his SevenStock intorduction here. At the end I let you see a few pictures of David’s wonderful RX7 that simply don’t do the car justice.

I had the pleasure of opening the presentations at the Sevenstock 10 banquet on Saturday, September 22nd. It was an honor to express my thoughts to friends and heros present. Several people suggested creating a version of the presentation for distribution on the internet. Here it is.

David Lane
1985 GSL-SE
Cartech Turbo
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We are here tonight for various reasons–good, rational reasons for some of us, but I’m thinking that for MOST of us the reasons would be hard to explain to others. I’m not an automotive professional of any sort. I’m just a clarinet player. Yet it was….somehow…important for me to be with you today. The reason we get together, of course, is that we own GREAT cars. Mine is a 1985 RX-7. I’ve owned it since new.

And that’s what I want to talk about. Great Cars.

Collectors might tell us that a great car is one that is rare and gains value over time. Collectors don’t want to drive their great cars very much. It decreases the value, and makes them dusty. Collector cars are not the sort of cars I’m talking about. Their greatness typically resides in a motionless state–stationary on the grass at Pebble Beach, or on the auction block.

Exotic cars are not always great cars.
Costly, yes.
Relatively rare, yes.
Fun to drive?……..Sometimes.
Practical for us average types? Hardly. Even if we could squeeze the money together to buy one, we’d never be able to deal with the upkeep.

Some might tell us that a great car requires the kind of power that results in instant immortality when the accelerator is pressed.

Two words: Bugeye Sprite.

So, What makes the kind of cars you and I drive GREAT cars.

Great cars were meant to be driven every day. There is no other way an owner can truly bond with a machine.

Great cars are visual candy. How many of you turn back to look at your car when you get just the right distance away? Research tells us that when a male sees a beautiful female, the physiological reaction is similar to the one a woman gets when she takes a bite of chocolate. That explains a lot of things, but certainly looking at a beautiful car is a pleasure of its own. After all, that’s what we have been doing all afternoon. At least looking at cars won’t make you fat, or get you fired for creating a hostile environment in the work place.

Great cars create great memories. Certainly we all have our favorite car stories–whether from the track, the street, or an event likethis one. But more than that, a great car creates memories in others. I can’t bring my 1st gen to an autocross without people stopping by:

“My Dad owned one of those.”

“I had an Aunt who drove a car like that to work every day.”

“I had 1983 RX-7. I beat the living hell outa that car for 70 thousand miles, and it never gave me a lick of trouble”

And–I knew it was going to happen eventually: “That’s an RX-7? I didn’t KNOW Mazda made an RX-7 that looked like that.”

I was putting gas in the car last week, when a fellow came up behind me and started to stare. All he said was: “Rotary!” I nodded myhead, and asked if he had owned one. “Not me,” he replied. “My brother.” I asked if he had a “pet car” in his past, and he had. A BMW 2002. Another great car.

Great cars are totally involving. Every sense is heightened when you are driving a great car–even if you are just moving the thing from one parking space to another. There are no words for this, but Mazda got it right when the little kid, who looked like one of the Munsters, whispered, “zoom zoom.”

It’s that quality in a car that makes you want to take the long way home.

It’s what makes you look at a twisty road, and wonder what would happen if you tried it just a little bit differently this time.

A great car doesn’t demand. It just wants to play.

There are highly capable cars out there that are simply too reserved to get excited about anything. You know the ones I mean–expensive, usually German, stylish, and capable of mighty feats. But most lack the spirit Mazda captures. It’s a happy puppy thing, responding to every move you make. “Come on! Let’s go for a ride!”

Great cars beget other great cars. It’s what happens when people like you and me take one of Mazda’s great cars, and make it our own. The results are, well, unpredictable, but as we all know, delightful.

….. which brings up the next item:

Great cars are not perfect cars. They are simply the cars worth fixing and worrying about.

Great Cars change lives. In 1967 I bought a Lotus Elan, and someone said: “Why not autocross it?” Three years later, my Mom was watching me get totally lost in a sea of cones when she struck up a conversation with a fellow enthusiast. She ended up marrying the gentleman.

In 1985 I bought the RX-7. A year later I put one of Corky Bell’s turbo kits on it–just to get even with the 5-liter Mustangs of the day. And here I am….

People thought I was nuts when I bought the Elan, and people thought I was nuts when I put the turbo on the RX-7.

They were right.

But sometimes you just have to do something quirky……and it can change your life.

Great Cars don’t just happen. They come from great people.
Great cars do not come from committees.
They do not come from bean counters.
They do not come from car companies that always play it safe.

Great cars come from people of vision and passion. And in the hands of nut-balls like us, they morph into personal expressions of our dreams and desires.

Okay……and our pocketbooks.

Some of us dream of what would happen if our cars had just fifty more horsepower. Others dream of racing. At a quarter of a century old, 1st gen RX-7s are STILL being beat to death as Spec-7 racers on tracks across the country. Can you imagine a Spec-8 racing class in 2028? That’s what you can do with a truly great car.

So, here’s to the great people at Mazda who dream of great cars and bring them to market. And here’s to the great people who provide us with what we need to keep them running, and to make them our own.
And here’s to the great people who bring us together around the country–but especially here at Sevenstock.

As a musician, I understand that the most powerful part of being human comes from our ability to feel; to be passionate; to experience life more fully. In truth, there are no words for it. But for people like us, it’s about great cars. And to paraphrase my favorite philosopher–Tom Lehrer: “When there are no words for what you wish to say, the least you can do is to SHUT UP. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Most of you probably thought I had gone away and given up on this site. I have had a great many personal issues happening, in addition to a couple of months of unemployment and starting a new job, getting adjusted to various other aspects of life that have changed in my world. Add all of these corruptions of life and combine them with the racing off-season (except for the various Australian and New Zealand racing series) and the end result is that Racecarstuff.com has suffered. For anyone that reads this site, please tell everyone you know that it is back. I have some plans that will make it better than it was before — promise!!!

The one thing that doesn’t change for me is my love of racing, both from the grandstands and the drivers seat. So this past weekend I ran my first autocross event since the report I gave on the Joy Fund Autocross last year. If you want to see how the autocross went then check out the “Event Reports” section on Autocross.us and look for the reports on the TidewaterSportsCarClub.com (TSCC) event on February 18th 2007. You will see it started snowing during the event!!!!! I did not fair so well in the competition, as the car had a small coolant hose failure. It was fixed in time to drive the car home, but unfortunately the problem could not be solved in time to finish the remainder of my runs. In spite of that it felt GREAT to be back at any sort of motorsports event after the long downtime that life had imposed on me.

Oh yeah, this is a Daytona report. Well it is going to be a pretty thin report, but included will be a few of my observations.

The Daytona Prototype coupes are setting new standard still in sportscar endurance racing. After 24 hours the top two teams finished seconds apart. In the last hour or two the top three teams spent much time trading positions during pit stops often with the three teams running nose to tail. Similar levels of competition were seen in all of the other classes.

Scott Pruett is still proving that he is truly the best overall sportscar racer in the US. In my opinion there are only a few who can challenge him. One of which is beginning to show signs that his talents are beginning to be on the decline as he is counting the years, and the other is currently unemployed as a competitive driver. Those are Ron Fellows and Tommy Kendall. Maybe there is some bias on my part showing through, and I do think Boris Said on any given day can run with these guys, but he is focusing his efforts in another direction these days, trying to make another go at a NASCAR career.

And then the NASCAR part of Speedweeks was one of the most exciting ever. My personal Ford bias left me with high expectations. The results did not leave me disappointed surprisingly. In the recent years the Fords have not faired vary well at the Daytona 500. This year there was simple inexperience on the part of the part of Travis Kvapil that kept his Roush F150 from victory lane. That is not to take anything from the fantastic job by the winner, Jack Sprague and second place finisher, Johnny Benson who both edged out Travis in the last hundred feet or so.

Then there was the finish of the Daytona 500. Mark Martin is one of my favorites. With the laps winding down, it would have been a great thing to see him pull his Bobby Ginn owned Chevrolet (WHAT???) into victory lane. Mark lost the race because of his gentleman racing style. He should never complain about losing a race because of that, and he did not have any complaints after the race. He was disappointed, but took it in stride. In addition, the ending of the race ended in some controversy.

Ever since NASCAR started their policy of not racing back to the line when a caution flag came out, there have been controversial finishes. I have felt like they should modify the policy in some way for cautions on the last lap. I have always felt like the cars ahead of the accident should be allowed to race back to the finish line. Cars behind the accident should be told to hold their position. NASCAR can surely work within this ideal and come up with a workable set of guidelines that would retain safety and still give the exciting last lap finishes back to the fans that were commonplace before the current caution flag policy.

If it was by accident or by circumstances or whatever, this raced ended the way I have felt a race that had an accident on the last lap should have ended. NASCAR held off with the yellow flag until the race leaders had passed under the finish line. After the accident Kevin Harvick nudged his car ahead of Martin giving Harvick the win. As much as my heart was with Mark Martin, my ideals said that Harvick is the person who should have won that race.

More to come next time.

This has been around the internet for some time. If you have never seen it, take a few minutes and watch the video. The workmanship is literally amazing.

I have always been a fan of Morgan Shepard. He is a past NASCAR Late Model Sportsman champion, and is the winner of 4 NASCAR Winston Cup (Nextel Cup) races. He has raced for 36 seasons in NASCAR’s top division, and has raced stock cars for nearly 40 years total. Nintendo is known for games for the yourger generation, but they have given due recognition to Shepard recently as reported by Faith Motorsports PR:

Shepherd wins 2006 Nintendo Ageless Award

Date Posted: 12-01-06

REDMOND, WA - Veteran NASCAR racer Morgan Shepherd is one of 100 people across America who have been honored by game-maker Nintendo for their ageless endeavors, the company announced December 1.

Amber McCollom, senior manager of public relations for Nintendo, said as part of his recognition as a 2006 Nintendo Ageless American, the 65-year-old Shepherd will be presented with a Nintendo DS player and Brain Age software to help allow him to “keep his mental muscle flexed.”

“Your devotion to challenging the limits of what one can accomplish is remarkable,” McCollom said of Shepherd. “Your unbounded enthusiasm sets such a positive example for all ages.”

Shepherd will celebrate his 40th year in stock car racing during the 2007 season, beginning in February at the historic Daytona 500. Shepherd will again pilot the #89 Racing With Jesus Dodge Charger for Faith Motorsports in 2007.

Anyone at a Winston Cup race early in the morning in the 80’s will remember Morgan moving around the paddock on a pair of roller skates. He is truly one of the good guys in racing. Though he will enter Nextel Cup races in 2007, it is unlikely that he will qualify for any races. The expansion of several of the larger teams and the appearance of the new Toyota teams will make qualifying very tough for all of the smaller teams like Morgan’s Faith Motorsports team. There will be many cars going home after qualifying. I wish Morgan all the best, and I would like nothing more than to see him with 2007 finishes, but it is going to be tougher than it ever has.

All the Best Morgan.

http://www.morganshepherd.com

The last major racing event of the 2006 season was yesterday, with the exception of some awards banquets, winter time arena racing, indoor monster truck events, and racing in the southern hemisphere. So looking back I was wondering about the major stories of last year. Locally I was able to participate in a handful of events that were quite enjoyable for me, but I doubt they are the big stories of the year, except to me.

The big story of the weekend were the events at Homestead. Jimmy Johnson won the NASCAR Nextel Cup championship, but there was also the story of Mark Martin’s last race with Jack Roush. I suppose it would be a bigger story if it were his last race. It feels like we have had two years of farewell tours for Martin, and in the end, he is still going to be at Nextel Cup races next year.

Toyota made the big announcement that they are entering Nextel Cup, and the shuffle of teams and drivers scurrying around for a piece of the Toyota pie. It is a bigger story that there will be somewhere around 55 well funded teams qualifying for 43 starting positions. That is going to be lots of disjointed sponsors not getting their moneys worth. The sad side effect of this is that teams like Kirk Shelmerdine and Carl Long will probably never qualify again. It also could well mean the end of teams like the Wood Brothers and PPI Motorsports. The strong will survive and those teams may be vulnerable without some major help.

In ChampCar racing (yaaaaawwwnnnnnn) the only entertainment were the antics of Paul Tracy. Unfortunately the tremendous skills he once had seemed to slip a little for whatever reason. He was in the news time after time about incidents both on and off the track. I am a Paul Tracy fan, but he seems to be on a path of career destruction. It is a shame that the championship of Sebastian Bourdais, or the breakthrough of AJ Almandinger could not make bigger headlines, but the competition level of the series that is scrapping to fill the field is lacking.

In the other half of the American open wheel world, the IRL the news was almost as uninteresting. I think Sam Hornish won the championship and the Indy 500. The championship went down to the wire, but it was fairly much a given that a Penske car would win it all. Danica Patrick had a bit of a sophomore slump, to all except those really in the know. She actually drove better this year, but was in a slower car, but the bottom line is that she did not generate the mainstream media headlines she had made the year before.

In sportscar racing the ALMS series made attention with the appearance of the diesel Audis. But there were no other real surprises on the track. The Grand American series had some great racing, but nothing that was really news worthy.

In NHRA drag racing there were two big stories. On was John Force winning yet another championship. But the last round comeback to win the championship by Tony Schumacher. Tony needed to win the last round and set a national record at the same time to win the championship. As he said, there were about 2000 ways to lose the championship and one way to win it, and he found that one way. It was truly one of the stories that keeps true fans interested when we get tired of the commercialism and bland-ness of all forms of professional racing.

Then there was exactly one story that can be the story of the year. It was the retirement of Michael Schumacher. Michael had rewritten every record in the books. He won when he had the best car, but he also won when others had better cars. He retires with seven F1 world championships, but could have very nearly had ten or eleven with just a few breaks. With two races left it looked like he was on a roll for his eighth championship, but two very uncharacteristic mechanical failures with his trusty Ferrari relegated him sadly to second place.

The feel good story it would have been if Schumacher and Mark Martin won their respective championships as they retire would have been unparalleled. But as it turns out they are just the best stories of the 2006, not in the history of racing.

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