Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Auto Cross

Anybody raced in it?
Buddy pushing 80 going to give it up and I stopped by this shop. Building up another Fiat. "Hey you are young enough for senior class and my reflex has gone to ....!" You drive, I wrench.
On anybody's bucket list? Used to run dirt track 40+ ago?

No, but worked with a young machinist once who raced a Mustang Fox body at the time. Had it all set up with race suspension and had tricked out the engine...

He gave me a ride once across Arlington, TX to the DFW airport....

Note, I said ONCE.! That thing stuck to the road like there was glue on the tires but I thought the suspension was going to make me cough up a kidney...

Dude was half crazy....

I got the chance to navigate in SCCA ProRally 20 years ago for a couple races a year. What a blast - amazing skills in those drivers, especially when the trees are jumping out at you around 3 am back in the woods. The smoothest driver I rode with was upper middle age, worked at the Pentagon and drove rally to relax. The most fun - an immigrant from Russia that could really make your hair stand on end, especially in the hauler on the way back from the race. Every new driver should spend a couple minutes strapped into one of those cars at speed to really see how important seat belts are.

It's the way my wife and I started our 30 year racing adventure. My first was in 1970 (Datsun 510). I also auto crossed a Shelby GT 350, an Alfa (a friends), a 1969 Camaro Z-28 (a friends, and what brakes!) and several formula fords. It was lots of fun. But once we started road racing, it just wasn't the same.

I was NV State champion back in the late 1960's. I got lucky!

We were having the auto cross in Tonopah at the old WWII B29 base, where one runway was maintained for the local airport. I showed up with a Porsche 912 and new Semperit radials (new things back then). It poured rain, and almost all the cars were open at that time and most full SCCA class racers. It was a relatively high speed course.

The rain made driving between the pylons hard at any speed. My car had the perfect combination of just enough power to scoot good and not break tires loose, and I was inside with a great set of windshield wipers.

I also raced SCCA regionals and nationals in a 1959 TR 3. I liked HILL CLIMBS the best, however. How I survived is another story.

Auto crosses are the Best everyman motor sport, IMO.

Did you ever run the Keno Hill Climb just outside of Klamath Falls?

No, but I heard about it. I did run the Donner Summit and Virginia City climbs. I won my class twice in VC, and Donner nearly killed me. I had the E-production TR 3 at that time. I had a Laycock DeNormanville overdrive that gave me 7 speeds forward...perfect for hill climbs with all the split ratios.

In 87/88 with a 16V Scirocco in Pensacola. We raced at Baron Field that was a Navy Outlying field we used for touch and goes. That and track time in my 76 Alfa Spider convinced me I have no latent talent as a race car driver but it's fun!

The Keno Hill Climb was great. It was held on a 3.5 mile long road that went to the Air Force radar station for Kingsley Field. It was closed to the public except for the hill climb week end. Great pavement! I won my class (B Production) twice. My lonely Shelby GT 350 against a swarm of Corvettes. A friend that got me started in racing (Art Pollard (he was killed at the 1973 Indy 500)) introduced me to Parnelli Jones. Jones was the Firestone distributor for Firestone Indy car tires and did all of the Indy Car testing for Firestone. Jones sold me test tires (fronts) for $25 each. Many of them had only a lap or two on them. They fit my car with little modification and the extra weight (compared to an Indy Car) brought them quickly up to temperature, which was great for hill climbs. They were the only racing slicks to be seen at the hill climb - the one and only time that I truly had "an unfair advantage".

Merle Brennan got me started hill climbing. I got to do a slow lap at Laguna Seca in his McLaren M10 in 1971, and at that, the car scared me. Those old group 7 cars were powerful!

It was a good thing I couldn't afford car racing for very long. I wouldn't have survived it.