Race Car Stuff

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.