Baxter’s Historic Car Races, 2007

Jeffrey Butts

Summer again. Time for the only dependable GTS event of the year, the Historics. This was the 31st annual event for PIR and the 9th annual running for our club. As per historical traditions, we met up at the top of NW Cornell Road on a beautiful, sunny morning. I rolled the 914 out of the garage early enough to wake the neighborhood dogs and waited for Bob McFadden and Steve Sanz to show up. Last year we started a little later than usual and were among the last to arrive at the rendezvous. As a result we got to the track after the morning warm-up sessions had started and had to wait until the track opened so that we could access the corral.

This year I was determined to get there on time and so you can perhaps understand that I was getting a little nervous when the departure window came and went with no sign of my friends. It’s not like I could drive down the road and pick them both up; they live in opposite directions. I posted a “GONE” sign on my garage and headed down to McFadden’s. His garage popped open within a minute of my arrival and there was considerable commotion going on although from the bottom of his hilly driveway I could not see much. Imagine my surprise when the Lotus backed out. You will recall that a couple of years ago he was moving it when a tree made a surprise attack on the back end of the Europa, cracking the fiberglass big-time. I saw the rebuild project shortly thereafter. Bob had taken some botanical revenge and had the body supported on several sawed off lengths of tree trunk. I thought it wise, at the time, not to ask if those were parts of the tree that maliciously assaulted the Lotus. But there it was, all repainted and ready to go and his wife Susan was making the trip too. Great!

When we arrived at the meeting spot, there were already a good number of cars there and, after some introductions, everyone set about catching up on their car stories. More members arrived (except for Steve) and we finally dispensed with the annual elections (congratulations to the new office holders…like it or not) and followed Kelly Sweeney on the route to the track. Our 11 club cars and one guest vehicle made for quite a chain and we startled more than one bicycle rider on Skyline Drive. Germantown Road was freshly paved and made for an exciting ride down the hill. When we arrived at the track we at last found Steve. He had missed us by only a minute or so and drove the super-slab to the track. He was waiting at the entrance gate for our arrival and so we finally had everyone.

This was our fourth year with our own infield corral and it was in the same prime location as last year. Thanks go to Sandy Bauer (Operations Manager, Campbell Productions) for her attention to our little group. Let me say thanks also to Chris Crabb, the media contact for HMSA. She provided the club with two press passes. Ladies, we salute you!

There was a slow disintegration as some members stayed to look at the other corrals and others of us went off to cruise the vendor displays and to look at the action in the pits. We stopped by Dave Isselhard’s pit to congratulate him on his presidency and learned that he had felt ill the night before and elected not to race this weekend rather than put others at risk. Sorry Davey. Get better soon. There were plenty of examples of expensive eye candy in the immediate area. Included among those were two beautiful Lola T-70 coupes. Tom Armstrong and his wife Susan have a wonderful collection of outstanding cars. Last year Tom showed up with a new (to him) GT-40. He was back this year too and much faster. He has also purchased one of the two original Penske/Mark Donohue Sunoco Camaros. Susan was driving the ex-Paul Reinhart 1963 Stingray coupe. John Goodman (no, not THAT John Goodman) brought a pretty N.A.R.T. Ferrari 312P. This year there were even some Chevron’s again.

Featured marque was Porsche. Although there was a 935, some hot 911’s (including the Follmer ROC RSR and a Kremer 914-6 GT), it was a pretty meager showing for the Stuttgart boys. There was a nice 908 in the Emory pits, but that’s where it stayed. I never saw it run on Saturday morning and I was there all day on Sunday and it never moved a wheel.

Featured event was the historic Trans-Am cars. These were not replica racers. All had real provenance; the above mentioned Sunoco Camaro, for example. The Edelbrock family was there with their stable of cars including the ex-Smokey Yunick #13 Camaro (Photo by Adam Harrison). Smokey was well known in NASCAR, Indy, Trans-Am and other venues as being one who excelled at bending, or breaking, the rules. This particular Camaro was driven by Jim Hall and Bruce McLaren at Daytona and by Al Unser and Lloyd Ruby at Sebring. Among its owners prior to the Edelbrocks was Don Yenko of Corvair fame. Terry Miller from Simi Valley, California brought the ex-Alan Green Traco-engined Camaro and we also saw the Classic Wax ’70 Dodge Challenger and the ex-AAR Swede Savage ’70 Barracuda. I was personally thrilled to see these cars run as I had seen them all in their heyday. Apparently they weren’t kidding when they said I’d have flashbacks from my hippie days.

Due to a family commitment to attend a friend’s daughter’s wedding, I could only stay half the day on Saturday and so I thought I’d seek out an interesting story line on Saturday and watch the races on Sunday. I have to say that, regardless of the budget or fame of the teams I’ve talked to over the years, everyone has been more than willing to give me their time and share their stories. There was a lot to choose from this year. I wanted to spend some time talking to the Emory’s, the people behind the Outlaw 356’s, but they seemed pretty busy.

For sure, one car caught my eye on both the track and in the pits. Step into the Wayback machine with Sherman and I for a moment, and fly back to The Original Gutundfast Touring Society in 1969. Current GTS member Bob Lawson had an outrageous VW Beetle. Huge stinger. Grey with black stripes. Reversed rims. Negative camber. It was flashback time again as I stopped to look at the 1965 Type I VW now owned by Steve Smith of Lake Oswego. The car was purchased new in Corvallis by Bill Gilbert and was raced in the northwest in C Sedan class for five years. It was retired in 1970 and stored in a barn (one of THOSE stories) until Gary Emory (see above) bought it in the 1990’s. It became a back-of-the-shop fixture for many years until Smith finally convinced him to sell it under the condition that it would be raced again. The car has a very strong 1300cc engine with twin dual-throat Webers. Whaddya’ think, Bob? Does this bring back a memory or two of racing up Highway 9 or cruisin’ El Camino Real?

Instead of doing an interview with one of the big teams, I drifted over to the “low budget” section of the pits looking for someone who towed their car on a trailer behind their pick-up. If not the major draw of the historic cars, this is the heart of the vintage car movement. Nestled among the Spridgets and Formula Vee’s I came across a man and woman connecting a battery charger to an extension cord that was being run from across the way…in a competitor’s pit. A little more camaraderie here in the low rent district. Steve Hare and Linda Johnson, from Gig Harbor, were juicing up the battery on their stock 1963 Triumph Spitfire. Well, stock motor that is. I recognized the 1 ¼-inch SU’s as being the same as the ones on my old Sprite. He did tell me that the car has a GT-6 front suspension and brakes, which were stronger than the ones on the original Spitfire. Steve, 57, retired from his job as an engineer for the Washington State Ferry System a year ago. After watching vintage cars run at Seattle Raceway (a.k.a. Kent Raceway) when he attended the vintage motorcycle races, he decided that he’d like to give racing a try. He saw this car on eBay and drove back to Long Island to purchase it and tow it home. This was his fourth race and his first time at PIR. Bikes? Yep, he has a bunch of those including Triumph’s and BMW’s.

On Sunday, Steve’s class was the first one racing and it was the biggest field of the day with 43 cars and a split grid, the small bore production cars in the first and largest group, followed by nearly a dozen Formula Vee’s. There was a great race between two 356’s for the lead. Greg Campbell’s ’64 coupe edged out the ’58 roadster of California’s Leonard Turnbeaugh. This is the same coupe that is in the photo on our GTS home page, the one with the Fiat on two wheels right next to it. Steve Hare’s race was a DNF, but he was looking strong until the gremlins bit. The best race in the group was further down the pack, however. Tacoma’s Charly Mitchel, in a red C-Production TR-6, had his hands full with the little yellow G-Production Sprite of Salem’s Dave Sweet. Great dice and very clean racing.

The Trans-Am cars were next. The ex-Alan Green Camaro was the class of the field. There was a good dice between the two Mopar cars as well and a spirited drive by Jim Hague’s Javelin was interrupted by a spin in the Festival which dropped him back out of the top five.

The formula car race was next up and Kelly and I sat up in the Festival bleachers and watched his cousin Dave drive a respectable race in his Brabham BT-14. Dave was running times as low as 1:28. Carolyn Dimmer (Tacoma) was fast both days in her Lola T-200. Steve Thayer out of Vancouver followed her across the line on Sunday.

Group 3 was the sports racing cars. There were a lot of good looking cars but, in my mind, the sight to see was Tom Armstrong in the GT40. He wasn’t battling for the lead or anything but he was much more comfortable in the car than last year and was cranking it up (Boogity, Boogity, Boogity) pretty well. San Jose’s Chad Raynal was wicked fast in the DeKon Monza. Only 11 of these tube framed racers were made for racing in the IMSA series. It reportedly had 600 horsepower in racing tune.

Let’s skip ahead a bit to the big bore Production cars. This was a dandy race with the Corvettes once again leading the way. The top four runners were in a tight race with Woodinville, Washington’s Steve MacDonald in a 1969 427 Vette leading most of the laps. Eric Dolson, out of Sisters, Oregon, put up a good fight but in the end it was MacDonald all the way. Third place was Bill Cotter in another 1969 Corvette. For about half the race the ‘66 Shelby GT-350 of Mark Cane (Los Angeles) made a good show of it. Honorable mention for unique rides goes to a ‘65 Falcon Sprint V8 and a ‘67 Cougar. Former race sponsor John Zupan was in this race with his beautiful 914-6 GT and was doing well (for a two liter car) until an attempt at late braking in Turn 1 resulted in a trip down the escape road.

Perhaps the best race of the day was fittingly saved for last. The “European Sports Cars under two liters” had a huge field and it was amazing that they all made it through the festival on the first lap with no damage. What a bag of cats! Monte Shelton held the pole in his Ginetta G4 roadster but was pipped early by a swift Ginetta coupe. From the mid-point on the coupe stretched his lead while Monte fought a tight race with fellow Portlander Ernie Spada’s 911 for second. It was a great battle and the Porsche made the pass and took off after the little silver coupe. Spada just didn’t have the cornering of the smaller car and, after over-cooking the approach to Turn 1, faded to fourth. Farther back in the field, starting last due to no qualifying time, was the pristine white TR-6 driven by Vancouver’s (WA) Tom Kreger. He moved halfway up the large field by the end of the race. This is one fast Trumpet.

Another great year at the races. Thanks to all members, spouses, and friends who came along. Thanks again to Sandy and Chris for treating our low rent club like we are high rollers. Oh yeah, a couple of notes… Travis Tolman, Diana Patterson, and I all spent lots of money on artwork in the vendor row. Real support for the event, if not for our domestic responsibilities. The winner of the Corral best car was Steve Sanz’ Mercedes (for the second time in three years). OK folks, we’ve gotta do something about this. He can’t keep winning, can he? I think I’ll bring a bucket of mud along next year.