Messages

16

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: 1969 Trans-Am season review

« on: December 12, 2015, 03:16:49 AM »

          Mike great picture thanks for sharing .........According to a newspaper report from back in the day Shelby told his crew chief he wanted the wrecked cars back in California in by Monday morning or heads would roll..............I hope they had a fast plane.

AL

17

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: 1969 Trans-Am season review

« on: December 12, 2015, 12:22:21 AM »

      Good stuff Jon this thread sure brings back a lot off great memories, in regards to the St. Jovite race Dick Hofman did not compete at the 69 race although I do remember crewing for him there in the later in seventies............ That weekend I was hanging out with the Rusty Jowett crew and I think they had a strong top 5 finish. My other memory from that weekend was watching Carol Shelby go into meltdown after the big crash wiped out both his cars that incident eventually cost Ford the championship.
    Attached to this post is an image of Dicks car at the Mosport race in 72 and another shot from the paddock at the 69 Riverside  ........ Footnote the gentleman on the left was a engineer from Ford keeping eye on his expensive camera equipment we were carrying for the race.

AL
   

18

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: Headers

« on: November 24, 2015, 12:46:09 AM »

Interesting interview with American Racing Headers’ CEO Nick Filippides ............ His company American Racing currently build some of the finest headers available on the planet. 
http://carcastblog.adamcarolla.com/
http://www.americanracingheaders.com/Home

AL

19

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: 2016 50th Anniversary Tour

« on: November 06, 2015, 11:47:17 PM »

Bob,
  Perhaps we could photo shop a fake I.D. after all it worked for Dave Lawler.

AL

20

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: 2016 50th Anniversary Tour

« on: November 05, 2015, 12:07:26 AM »

    Bob I think you should dust off your helmet and find yourself a ride, and by the way when you get to Lime Rock try and remember the escape road is not the preferred line through turn one ....

    AL

21

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: Podcast interview with 1970 Trans Am Series champion Parnelli Jones

« on: November 01, 2015, 01:54:35 AM »

Bob,
    You must feel very blessed to have competed in the Trans am series against legends like Parnelli ...
To quote Mario Andretti ....... "Parnelli Jones was the greatest driver of his era. He had aggressiveness and also a finesse that no one else possessed. And he won with everything he put his hands on, including off-road."

Sadly Parnelli doesn't seem to get much respect from the model car aficionados that frequent this forum

22

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: Podcast interview with 1970 Trans Am Series champion Parnelli Jones

« on: October 29, 2015, 11:33:07 PM »

Jon you are so right I still have vivid memories of the terrific duel that he had with Mark Donahue at the 1969 Riverside Mission Bell 250 Trans-Am....... I believe our driver Dick Hoffman got some great footage of the battle on his in car cameras but for some reason Ford decide not to use it in their film Ford Flat Out ...... Perhaps Ford didn't like the final results.

23

Trans-Am Camaros / Podcast interview with 1970 Trans Am Series champion Parnelli Jones

« on: October 29, 2015, 12:40:37 AM »

    Here is a link to a recent podcast interview  with 1970 Trans Am Series champion Parnelli Jones that you might find interesting .... I my opinion Parnelli was one of the most exciting drivers to ever strap into a race car. http://carcastblog.adamcarolla.com/category/carcast/

AL

24

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: Kelsey Hayes adjustable proportioning valve

« on: September 15, 2015, 01:17:47 AM »

Why would anybody in their right mind pay $1200. US for a proportioning valve  when a $30. part would do the same job ......... Obviously if someone buys this item he should immediately consider joining Jay Leno's more money than brains club.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GM-factory-Brake-Adjustable-proportioning-Valve-Universal-/281794685711?hash=item419c45ab0f&vxp=mtr

AL Richards

"speed cost money how fast would you like to go"

25

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: 1968 12hrs sebring video 10 min Good Donahue Penske footage

« on: September 10, 2015, 01:14:05 AM »

Great stuff ..... Really enjoyed hearing Chris Economakis voice again, undoubtedly the greatest race car interviewer of all time.

AL

26

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: Crossram manifold

« on: June 22, 2015, 02:33:12 AM »

  Jon 
   The picture was taken at Lawrence transmission shop in Toronto ...... We shared a large garage with a bunch of stock car racers but my friend Bob Speck would let us use his shop to build our motors. In fact I think we assembled the manifold on my kitchen table. The only help we ever got from GM was from a friend of mine who worked in the parts department at the GM plant in Oshawa, he could get us anything we wanted as long as it would fit in his lunch box.

Bob
Lost track of Dennis originally he was slated to drive the car but we ended up striking a deal with a used car salesman from
St. Catherines and as they the say rest is history. Reflecting back on our race team Churchill's words come to mind " no one has done so much with so little "

AL

27

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: Crossram manifold

« on: June 21, 2015, 12:37:46 AM »

This manifold was a fantastic piece of engineering it gave us more raw HP per $$$ right out of the box than any modification than any modification we ever made .......... I could never understand why SCCA outlawed it in 1970, perhaps they were trying to save us fuel.

AL

28

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: Pit lane tradegy ....

« on: April 30, 2015, 02:37:19 AM »

We had a Nascar style fuel filler mounted on our ramp truck so we could practice our pit stops, using the free gas supplied at the track of course .......

Remember speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?

AL

29

Trans-Am Camaros / Pit lane tragedy ....

« on: April 30, 2015, 02:02:56 AM »

       The recent pit lane fire at Richmond International Raceway during a mid-race pit stop at last weekend's Xfinity Series race with Brendan Gaughan's number 62 Richard Childress Racing car sent two crew members of the RCR crew, along with one member of a neighboring team to the hospital with sever burns.
 This event caused me to pause and reflect on how lucky we and the other Trans-Am teams were not having to suffer the horrific consequences of having to survive a similar event.
 Unlike the NASCAR boys who wear nomex fire suits, helmets and have a battery of fire suppression equipment on hand, we were clad in only t shirts and jeans and our fire suppression consisted of a 5 lb fire extinguisher that would be challenged to control a good BBQ fire.
  
     Back in the day we couldn't afford a fancy fueling rig like the Penske boys so our answer was a 20 gallon Nascar style refueling can wielded by 2 big burly crew members ..... Did we spill some fuel you bet your ass but compare our paltry 2 or 3 gallons to the Exxon Valdez like stops of  Penske boys we were definitely  minor leaguers .

Remember speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?

AL
 

 

30

Trans-Am Camaros / Re: TRACO Fans

« on: March 27, 2015, 12:03:43 AM »

Thanks Chad for starting this great thread I find the posts here  a refreshing upgrade to the giant waste of bandwidth found in the Toy Car section on this site.
Many thanks to Pigpen for taking us behind the scenes at Traco Engineering I find his insight and information some of the best stuff ever posted on this site...... Back in the day we could only dream of having a Traco power plant under the hood of our 67 Camaro

AL

    Remember speed cost money how fast do you want to go