Baxter's Historic Car Races, 2006

Jeffrey Butts

I was really looking forward to this year's edition of the Historic Car races. Independent of the sponsor, and there have been several; these races always provide great rolling art, wonderful sounds, and some exciting racing. Saturday morning dawned bright and early and I hooked up with Bob McFadden's XKE just after 7AM for the ride up to the Skyline Drive rendezvous. On the way I managed to run a red light, narrowly avoiding being center-punched by a large red SUV. He was justifiably pissed and I was embarrassed. I thank the Good Lord that we had no contact, although I had to visit the proctologist this week to have the upholstery removed.

There were 10 members and 3 acolytes in nine cars at the top of the hill. We conducted our usual club business, consisting of 45 seconds of voting all members in as President for another year followed by 30 minutes of assorted bench racing stories and lies. President Sweeney and President Sweeney (The Younger) then lead us off on the usual route down the hill and through St John's to the track. I'll have to say that the Sweeney's must have had a triple espresso prior to arrival because there were several sections where the Suby was flyin'. It turns out that we gabbed a little too long because the track went "hot" about half an hour before we arrived and we got stuck in the line to the corral, which caused us to miss the first two warm-up sessions. The management of the Turn 8 track crossing was a bit of a cluster, but once inside we found that Sandy Bauer (Campbell Productions) once again gave us a fantastic location for our corral. Both Sandy and Chris Crabb (who handles media relations and got us our photo passes) are top-notch folks when it comes to handling their job. I hereby nominate them as Ambassadors for GTS! All those in favor say "Aye."

Once the cars were suitably arranged (and the whiners in the corral behind us passivated), we broke off into groups and headed into the pits to feast upon the wonderful selection of cars. I should mention a couple of personal disappointments before I launch into the description of some of the eye candy. This year we had no NASCAR legends and I saw no Chevron B19 (a favorite of mine). On the other hand there were plenty of nice cars, some repeats from previous years and some new players. A good collection of personal and racecar photos can be seen from the pics taken by Adam Harrison at the website located at http://images.adameros.net:8000/ (go to the album marked July 10th). It was nice to see the V-Moto vintage motorcycle group back again. Also this year had a large contingent of Corvettes since the Chevy sports car shared the honored marque mantel with Allard. An unusually fine group of big production iron was also present and they may have put on one of the best shows Saturday afternoon.

As I trolled the pits I stopped to see Dave Isselhard and racing partner "Short Cut" Billy Allison of Mk 1 Racing. Billy would be driving one of the two team 1969 Caldwell D-10 Autodynamic Formula Super Vees. Dave, though, had made a new acquisition. On the verge of retiring from vintage racing because his Caldwells, although fast for their day, were no match for many of the others in this class. Dave was tired of running mid-pack. His wife Susan urged him to get something more competitive rather than throwing in the towel and he ended up with a 1969 McLaren M10A F5000. The car was one of two originally purchased by Ray Caldwell. Dave is getting used to it. He says it's a little bit faster than the D-10. Ya' think? Billy said that the first practice on Saturday (while we were sitting in the entrance line) was the first time he got it into 5th gear. In a gesture of kindness, not to mention unbelievable trust, Dave and Billy helped me to crawl in and try it on for size. Certainly faster than anything I've ever been in. It was more difficult to climb out what with the woodie I'd grown from just sitting in it. Awesome.

During my walkabout, as mentioned above, there were some spectacular racers but there are three that I'd like to expand on a little. In a fairly modest pit box sat a yellow 289 Cobra, numbered with black roundels and white 96's (photo on left by Russ Lindborg). A trim gentleman in tan shorts was dinking with the car and I mentioned to him that I had seen this actual car race at both Laguna Seca and Candlestick Park as driven by Allen Grant. "Well" says he, "that was me." No foolin'. Here was a guy that was driving racecars when I was just out of high school and he is still chauffeuring them around a racetrack in rapid fashion. Although this isn't the precise car that raced, he purchased this Cobra about 20 years ago and had it painted in the same livery. I was surprised to hear that he didn't really have that much race history in his background but it was pretty much all at the world-class level. Back in the late 50's and early 60's he autocrossed a Healey 3000. In those days you had to be 21 to compete and so he did what anyone of us would have done, he lied about his age. This was at Sacramento, San Jose, and the Pleasanton Fairgrounds (where at least three of us have Auto-X'd too). With the Healey he was able to win the class but never TTOD. That changed when he bought an AC Bristol with which he won TTOD seven times and was the fastest U2L car on the track. He did his SCCA driver's training at Cotati with Ed Leslie as his instructor (again, there are at least four of us in GTS who know this track and that name). By 1963 Allen was working for Carroll Shelby's team, but not yet as a driver. However, he did buy his own car, the original from which he copied into the car we saw racing this weekend. By 1965 he was a driver on the Shelby team and was a member of the group of drivers who raced the Pete Brock designed Cobra Coupe successfully for the Sports Car Manufacturer's title that year. He and Ed Leslie co-drove at Daytona (6th OA, 3rd in class) and Sebring (13th OA, 3rd in class). He co-drove with Bob Bondurant at Monza garnering 8th OA and 1st in class. Allen was entered for LeMans with a raft of co-drivers, including Dr Dick Thompson, the racing dentist famous for his Corvette drives. An interesting sidelight was that Allen also raced one of the Cheetah's back in the 60's and his former car was here this weekend too, driven by someone else. Allen said that the Cheetah was a horrible handling car but he never spun one. During the Saturday afternoon qualifier, Allen started towards the back of the pack and steadily and very smoothly moved the Cobra past car after car. Awesome.

Fresh from this interview with Allen Grant, I saw a familiar Stingray close by (photo right). Midnight blue (or at least that is how it looked to me) with naught a decal save the number 6 and the BP classification on it, this was Paul Reinhart's '63 split-window coupe, or at least I thought so at the time. Nearby was a blue and orange 1957 'Vette with the same number. This too was a Paul Reinhart car. I quickly looked around to see if I could maybe spot his Genie, the one with the Wurlitzer style exhaust stacks but, alas, it was not there. Better for me though, Paul was. He told me that this '57 was his original car and so was the '63, although that is now driven by Susan Armstrong (whose husband Tom used to race one of the Corvette Gran Sports in the historics but recently purchased a 1966 Ford GT-40...these guys have an amazing stable). Unlike Allen Grant, 72 year-old Paul didn't start in racing until age 30 (except for some circle track stuff in the 1950's). He bought the 57 'Vette new and raced it for three years starting in 1960. He sold this car to buy the Sting Ray, which was the fifth factory racer made by Chevrolet. Paul also drove a smooth and progressively faster pace on Saturday. Awesome.

Switching gears, and machinery, I went over to check out a Triumph pitted with a bunch of other V-Moto bikes. A guy was there, allowing a family to take photos of their children on another bike, a little Honda, that was under the canopy with the British 500 twin. I was checking out the bike while the guy was talking. Nice scooter. Twin pipes, one up on the left and one down on the right, quite simply esthetic and functional at the same time. Older Brit bikes are really pieces of art. When the guy was through, I introduced myself. The rider's name is Craig Haggart. At 52, this is his first foray into road racing. In fact, this was his second race. I should interject a couple of qualifiers here. First, he does ride a road bike. Quickly. Craig works at the Linear Accelerator facility at Stanford. He belongs to a bike club at the University that takes lunch rides such as up the hill to Alice's Restaurant on Skyline. Here we go again. There are at least four of us in GTS who know the road, and three of those have done it on both four wheels and two. His street ride is a Honda CBR600F4. Besides that he has a (get ready Julie, here it comes) Montesa trials bike. That brings me to the second qualifier. The Triumph belongs to his friend and he was riding the 1966 Honda CB-160 twin that was so recently the photo mule. He belongs to a group of CB-160 riders that hit 4 races per year. Laguna was the first, PIR the second. He got roped into buying it by his friends and spent at least a couple of minutes in our conversation trying to get me to go out and buy one too, as in "We only need 18 riders to make a grid of our own. We have a dozen. You'd love it." Well, I'm sure I would but I have too many toys right now and I'd likely be sent off to the funny farm if I tried to convince my family that this was a good thing to do. It would be the same (though incredibly cheap by comparison) if I wanted to race a McLaren M10A. But I digress. Craig bought the bike for $1000 late in 2005. It is original. The only mods he has made are a modern coil and an electronic ignition. This bike is 40 years old and it looks like it. I asked him about the Mohawk that was attached to the top of his helmet (photo left). He grinned and said that it probably cost him 5 MPH in top speed. So I asked how fast that might be, 80? He laughed again and said that the bike would be lucky to see 70 MPH and even that would only be with the benefit of a tailwind and downhill. Then, turning serious, he said that while the road bikes that he and his friends ride could supplement rider skill with horsepower, suspension, and sticky tires. The CB-160, on the other hand, was all about maintaining a constant, consistent speed. I may only go 60 MPH on the straights, he said, but I try to go 60 in the corners as well. What can you say about a philosophy like that? Awesome.

I joined the gang down in the Festival corner after lunch and we watched some terrific racing in the qualifying heats. The bike race was a runaway for Richard Haas on a 1972 750 Ducati. The thing about runaways though is that even though you are winning, it couldn't have been as much fun as the little bikes were having as they freight-trained all around the circuit together. Next up were the big bore production cars and it was a nice duel between the 1969 427 Corvette of Eric Dolson (1:33.8 best lap) and the yellow '67 (also a 427) of Curt Kallberg. Both drivers are from Sisters. This race was also the one that Allen Grant drove in. As mentioned above, a steady drive through the pack. Susan Armstrong also looked fast in the ex-Reinhart Stingray. The FIA sports car race, a grid that took a lot of imagination to match to the name, was another runaway. For the first couple of laps there was a formula car, big motor, that held the Parker Johnstone-Spice Acura at bay but before long the newer technology and the world-class driver simply left everyone in his dust (1:13.9 best lap). Grocer John Zupan (a former sponsor of the historics) looked strong in the lovely little Chevron B8 coupe. (Sorry Kelly, this is the one I kept calling a Ginetta). The ex-Don Wester Carrera Six was being raced too but the 2L motor, and perhaps a little paranoia about possibly damaging the car, kept him at the back of the pack (1:34.5 best lap). Perhaps the most exciting race of the day was Group 1, early production cars. At the start of the race the announcer said that this was A-H 3000 driver Richard Mayor's to win. Go back to last year's race report and re-read the last paragraph. Richard is the "new" Monte Shelton based on his fearless attempts to pass at the festival. Most times he was successful, but this year was a different story. His best lap was a 1:34.07. Unfortunately for Richard, the 1958 Corvette of Noel Park ran a 1:33.86. It pretty much worked out that the bigger engined car had the advantage by coming out of the last turn smoothly every time and using horsepower to carry the straightaway. Mayor would try to out brake Park coming into the festival. Geez, I thought to myself, if he could just be patient and tease the big 'Vette every lap, he'd have an advantage with a lighter car and disc brakes on the last couple of laps. Instead, he drove deep into the corner most every time, smoking the tires in an attempt to get by. Park would have none of it and protected his line to the inside. About three laps from the end, Mayor tried the banzai special on the outside for a change and locked the left front wheel, which spun his car nose first into the wall. That was the end of the game but for a while there it was quite a chess match. Awesome.

I stayed until the end, watching all the races. There were some great cars and bikes. Surprisingly there were quite a few cars (or rebuilds) that I had seen in their heyday. There were many cars with significant historical interest, including the Gilles Villeneuve March 76B that catapulted his career into F1. There were drivers and riders that were willing to talk about the past and the present. I was delighted to hear from Sandy Bauer that Scott Stewart's Sprite was awarded the best car in our corral. Newbie Diana Patterson asked me how long we've been coming to the races. Good question. Prior to the resurrection of this club (an act of desperation by Russ and I after dealing with the PCA crowd), the first attendees were Mark Nast (TVR), Scott Stewart (Sprite), and me (914) back in 1984. 22 years and I've only missed a couple. What can you say but AWESOME.