By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. I have been called anti-racing by many of my critics because of my frequent commentaries calling out racing for when it performs below expectations, as if deigning to criticize a sport that's in desperate need of a jolt of common sense is somehow out of line, or even treasonous. I don't see it that way, obviously.

Having been immersed in and around racing from a very young age, I have seen the sport at its best, but I have also observed it at its absolute worst. Racing is like that it seems. The moments when the sport of motor racing soars are fleeting, at best. Unfortunately, those moments are punctuated all too often by long stretches of mediocrity and flat-out stupidity. This isn't a knock on racing per se, because it happens in all sports at one time or another. But for me it's particularly galling when the sport's caretakers and overlords who are, for the most part, exceedingly smart, acquiesce to going along to get along just to keep the sport moving rather than meet its burgeoning problems head on.

I have called this "racing in a vacuum" almost from the very beginning of this website. I define it as racers and members of the racing community being lost in a world that only makes sense to those who are knee-deep in it, rendering common sense and objectivity as needless distractions. In other words, as long as the players in question have their sponsorship deals in place for this season and the next, the bigger picture is anathema and inconsequential.

Let's take the past racing weekend for instance, starting with F1. Despite the breathless reporting on Twitter filled with multiple exclamation points, the Austrian Grand Prix was a complete snoozefest. Was it surprising? Not to me. F1 has become an exercise in rote regurgitation, a facsimile of racing that has been sanitized to the nth degree. Any untoward variables have been purged, any discomforts to the competitors have been neutralized, and the weekends have become so predictable and boring that it's almost excruciating to watch. But yet, the powers that be in F1 - and its participating manufacturers - think that everything is fantastic and there is nothing to worry about. But then again what would they say other than that everything is just perfect? When you're in the vacuum-sealed "bubble" that is F1, Alfred E. Neuman's "What, me worry?" isn't just a daily mantra, it's an ingrained ethos that's glorious in its intransigence.

The problems in F1 are so deep and pervasive that I don't expect anything to change. Yes, they are talking about new engines for 2021, but, really? When the one single thing that has defined the sport in the past - the shrieking, sheet-ripping sound of the engines - has been dumbed-down to the point that it resembles finely-tuned flatulence? 2021? This is the very definition of racing in a vacuum, and the powers that be in F1 are comfortably smug in their belief that not one thing is wrong with their sport and no sense of urgency is needed. Which is pathetic.

And then there's NASCAR. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago in my column, "The 2018 NASCAR Schedule Revised," the powers that be in Daytona Beach are in such desperate need of a jolt of reality that the situation is beyond desperate. I am not going to delineate everything wrong with NASCAR today, because I've written about it repeatedly. Suffice to say while F1 has raised "racing in a vacuum" to an art form, NASCAR has enthusiastically burnished it as part of its standard operating procedure. In short, the races are too long and too predictable, the death march of a schedule is repetitive and interminable, and in NASCAR's zeal to equalize competition, the cars have become uninteresting and damn-near un-raceable. Brad Keselowski, who along with Kevin Harvick is one of the genuine deep thinkers among the NASCAR drivers, said after the tedious Kentucky race that the cars are a long way from being right, and even though NASCAR is allegedly working on a "Gen 7" car, who's kidding whom here? A new car is years down the road. And just how different will it be? Racing in a vacuum is part and parcel of the NASCAR ideal. No outside perspective is needed or wanted. And as long as the participating manufacturers continue to act as NASCAR's chief enablers, nothing will change anytime soon.

And finally, there's IndyCar. Look, I so desperately want IndyCar to succeed. I consider the Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar race at Road America to be two of the premier races on this soil. As for this past weekend's race at the Iowa Speedway, which was a feel-good story that included Helio Castroneves' first win in three seasons (see this week's "The Line" -WG) and the noteworthy performance of JR Hildebrand, the obvious question is: Where were the spectators? When some of the best drivers in the world are wheeling their blistering-fast IndyCar machines on a 7/8-mile oval at spectacular, breathtaking speeds and yet attendance was, to put it charitably, sparse, how is this even remotely sustainable?

When it comes to IndyCar, "racing in a vacuum" couldn't have been more clear than at the Iowa Speedway late Sunday afternoon. The team owners, drivers and crews were all engaged and switched-on, immersed in what they do and ensconced deep in the IndyCar "bubble." But how can they continue to be oblivious to the disappointing turnouts? How long can the powers that be at IndyCar and the team owners continue to operate by selling sponsors on the Indy 500 while having them kinda-sorta look the other way when it comes to the TV and in-person attendance numbers for the rest of the year?

Do the IndyCar management and the key team owners look at the "big picture?" Yes, of course they do, however it's clear that it's much easier to worry about the immediacy of problems associated with securing sponsors for the next twelve months than it is to step back and chart a new course for the sport.

The only bright light from last weekend's racing weekend was the spectacular show put on by IMSA at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (formerly known as Mosport), which featured cracking good road racing at its best (See "The Line" -WG) . When IMSA is on, especially in the GTLM class, it's the best pure road racing extant.

And to a much lesser degree, the Global Rally Cross races from Indianapolis were compelling too. GRC is evolving, and it seems to be on the right track, but again, better venues, longer courses and longer feature races are in order.

The reality for the racing world is that a palpable sense of ennui is too often present. It could be better. It should be better.

And that's the High-Octane Truth for this week.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present a noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Daytona Beach, Florida, 1956. In a staged Ford PR photo, Chuck Daigh is seen crossing the finish line in his heavily-modified Thunderbird during the speed trials. Earlier (and with helmet on) Daigh won the Standing Start Acceleration Run with a speed of 88.779 mph. He also set a time of 40.5 sec. in the 0 to 150 mph test. The Ford V8 was equipped with dual 4-barrel carburetors and put out 260HP.

Editor's Note: Peter's growing disenchantment with the state of contemporary racing has been easy to follow over the last few months if you've read any of his "Fumes" columns (scroll down and click on "Next 1 Entries" to read previous issues). As he puts it, in his bluntest terms, "Much of racing is mired in a sameness that has has become untenable. No problems are being solved, no progress is being made where progress is so desperately needed, and I see the big-time players who have control over the sport - including the series principals, team owners, and enabling manufacturers and sponsors - continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. It is not only relentlessly disheartening, it is flat-out inexcusable. Racing not only needs to be better, it must get better if it expects to survive, let alone thrive in the future." So we've decided that Peter's going to take a much-needed summer break from writing "Fumes," although he will write a new column if news from the sport dictates as such, and we will continue our weekly racing updates in "The Line." But as a bonus, we're going to be re-running Peter's riveting series, "The Glory Days," in its entirety over the next several weeks. The inside story of Tony DeLorenzo's racing career (Peter's brother), one of the most successful Corvette racers of all time - including the fantastic exploits of the famous Owens/Corning Fiberglas Racing Team - was one of the most widely read and popular pieces ever to appear in Autoextremist.com. So enjoy, because it was a different time and a different era, one never to be repeated. -WG

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

© 2017 Autoextremist.com

Detroit. Longtime readers of Autoextremist.com know that my brother, Tony, is one of the most successful Corvette racers of all time. Tony, along with partner Jerry Thompson (both members of the Corvette Hall of Fame), formed the famed Owens Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team and were the most successful duo in SCCA A-Production history, winning 22 straight races from 1969 to 1971. Tony also led the team to notable - and historic - GT victories in America's premier endurance racing events at Daytona, Sebring and Watkins Glen in the late 60s and early 70s. (You can see their Corvette Hall of Fame video here.) 

But that's not how it all started. To say we had the opportunity to experience a charmed automotive life growing up is an understatement. Our father, Tony, was leader of GM Public Relations in the company's heyday, from 1957 to 1979, so many of the GM legends you've only read about - Ed Cole, Bunkie Knudsen, Zora Duntov and Bill Mitchell - just to name a very few, weren't just historical figures, but were living, breathing, larger-than-life figures who played a role in the cadence of our automotive lives. (You can read one of Peter's most requested columns, about Bill Mitchell, here - WG)

By the time Tony got the automotive bug (he is eight years my senior), our household was crawling with the latest and fastest cars GM made. Bunkie Knudsen sent over a hot Pontiac for my mom to drive every summer, usually a red Bonneville or Catalina convertible with the highest horsepower drivetrain Pontiac offered at the time (at first 389's with 3x2s, then a series of 421's). Bill Mitchell customized a '63 Corvair for us that had the Turbo engine in it before it was even offered to the public (we, of course, took it down to the Detroit Dragway to see what it would do). Ed Cole lent us his personal driver one weekend, which was a '61 409 Chevy with a manual gearbox (how's that for an executive company car?). And then there were the Corvettes. My, oh my. There were so many I'm not sure I can recall them all, but, suffice to say, the weekend Ed Cole sent over his personal driver, which was a fuel-injected '63 Sting Ray Coupe in Sebring Silver - before the car was introduced - was one of many, many highlights.

But that's not all. Tony worked at Pontiac one summer - when the Pontiac Motor Division was actually in Pontiac - and discovered an interesting little black sports car in the executive garage. Lo and behold it was an early Shelby Cobra, so early in fact that it didn't have the side vents and it had the original Shelby Cobra emblem on the nose (pre-snake). And it sat there week, after week, after week. Since John DeLorean was Pontiac's General Manager at the time - and another of GM's legends we were on a first-name basis with - Tony finally got up the nerve one day to send him a message through his secretary, asking if he could "borrow" the Cobra some weekend. And the answer came back, "sure." Needless to say one weekend turned into damn near the whole summer, and we ran the shit out of that magnificent Cobra weekend after weekend, dusting everything in sight on Woodward Avenue, and everywhere else too.

Tony's automotive bug started to turn toward sports car racing and, well, we innocently asked "big" Tony if he could order a Corvette company car for the summer. As Tony says, "He made two errors: 1.) He agreed to do it and 2.) He let us order it!" And order it we did: A Black/Black 1964 Corvette Sting Ray Coupe with Heavy Duty finned drum brakes; Heavy Duty gearbox; knock-off aluminum wheels and radio delete. Little did our father know that Tony planned to take it to SCCA Driver's School in Watkins Glen, New York. So the moment we got it we took the interior carpeting out, took the bumpers off, removed the spare tire carrier, and then we had a roll bar put in and we were good to go. Or so we thought. While Tony was sitting at his desk at Chevrolet Sales Promotion (his summer job) a few days later the phone rang. This is how he remembers it: 

"Hello?"

"Tony, this is Zora Duntov."  Yikes, it was the God of the Corvette calling. "Your father has ordered a heavy duty Corvette. Who is going to drive it?" 

"Um… He is?!!" 

Silence. 

"Who is going to drive it?" 

"Um, I am."

“What are you going to do with it?” 

"Uhhh… I'm going to go to SCCA driver’s school at Watkins Glen."

“Ok.”

And “God” hung up. But not before requesting that we drop the car off at Chevrolet Engineering in Warren so he could "take care of a few things." Two weeks later we went back to get the car, and Zora took Tony out to the little test track that sits inside the Tech Center. And there it was, it was the same Corvette but it sat lower and it was wearing the biggest Goodyear Blue Streak racing tires that could fit inside the fenders on the knock-off wheels. Zora also pointed out that the stock exhaust system underneath now had flanges just in front of the mufflers. Those flanges had been put on by Bill Mitchell's famous Styling Garage mechanic, Ken Eschebech, so that once we got to Watkins Glen, we could attach 4' long straight pipes designed to hang on special hangers, so that they would shoot straight out the back. Because, well, you can't run a Driver's School at Watkins Glen with standard mufflers, right? Zora was a genius.

But those changes were just the tip of the iceberg. The car had been completely gone through, including the brakes, the suspension and sure enough, the engine. In retrospect, we were convinced that Zora had the engine yanked, gone through and tweaked, because the thing was a rocket.

That trip to Watkins Glen was an adventure unto itself. We arrived very late one night at the rustic Glen Motor Inn, and the one and only Vic Franzese checked us in, but not before he could show us his beautiful Lotus 11. The school went exceptionally well for Tony; at one point the Chief Instructor went to ride a couple of laps with him and emerged muttering something like "he's doesn't need any more instruction" - and that was the beginning of his racing journey. The return trip was eventful, too, as were so tired by the end of the weekend that we said "screw it" and left the straight pipes on, rattling hearts and bones all the way back.

There's more. It was getting toward the end of that summer, when dad informed us that the car had to go back to Chevrolet to be put back into stock condition. It turns out that our oldest sister's boyfriend at the time, who lived in Chicago, had expressed interest in buying the car. We took the roll bar out, piled the stock components in it and voila! It returned two weeks later as if none of it happened, with dad saying: “When that car comes back to the house, don’t touch it!” We didn't. The sad end to this chapter? The guy in Chicago had it for two days. On the second night it was stolen, stripped - and totaled.

From there it was racing, but racing something much more realistic and affordable, which was a '65 Corvair. We started out pounding around at our local track here in Michigan  - Waterford Hills - and from there it was on to Nelson Ledges, Ohio and Mid-Ohio; a one-time event at an airport in Grayling, Michigan; Lime Rock Park, Vineland (New Jersey); and on and on. Two years later Tony talked Hanley Dawson, who owned Hanley Dawson Chevrolet in Detroit at the time, into sponsoring a Corvette in SCCA Racing. And after he agreed to do that, we ordered one of 20 L88 Corvettes made in 1967, in Black, of course.

The first weekend we had it we installed a roll bar, replaced the stock exhaust system with a set of "OK Kustom" headers, added a set of American Racing wheels and Firestone racing tires, and we removed the windshield, cut the windshield posts and put a plexiglass windscreen on. The debut race - and win - for Tony and that famous L88 Corvette came six weeks later in an SCCA Regional race at an obscure road race track in Wilmot Hills, Wisconsin.

And the rest? Well, the rest will be in Parts II and III.

(The DeLorenzo Racing Archives)
The infamous black No. 40 "Zora-ized" Corvette Sting Ray Coupe at the SCCA Driver's School in Watkins Glen, New York, June 1964. Note those wonderful straight pipes looming out the back.

(The DeLorenzo Racing Archives)
Tony's first race in a Corvette - and first win in "A Production" - came at an SCCA Regional in Wilmot Hills, Wisconsin, in this brand-new 1967 L88 roadster sponsored by Hanley Dawson Chevrolet, May, 1967. It was also the first time a 427 Cobra encountered the new L88 in an "A Production" race.

(The DeLorenzo Racing Archives)
Tony winning The Detroit News Trophy at Waterford Hills, 1967. PMD holds the checkered flag.

In the rain at Mid-Ohio in 1967.

June 1968. The biggest SCCA National race at the time was the June Sprints at Elkhart Lake's Road America. Tony won "A Production" going away in his 1968 Corvette.

(Photo by Roger Holliday)
Ed and Dollie Cole were friends of our family. She became aware of Tony's early exploits racing a Corvette, and she was also aware that we were looking for a sponsor, as Hanley Dawson was looking to cut back his involvement. Dollie had a friend named Loris Norstad, who was an EVP at Owens/Corning Fiberglas in their New York office; so Dollie suggested that he take a look at our racing program. Since OCF was looking to gain Detroit's attention in order to land some new business, racing became the perfect marketing hook. Overtures were made and it became clear it was a natural fit, for both parties. A deal was agreed upon and the Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team was born. The first race in OCF colors was a SCCA National at Mid-Ohio in August, 1968. The result? 1st in "A Production." Pictured after the win are (left to right): Art Jerome, chief mechanic; PMD; Tony; and a Lampert Firestone tech getting ready for the victory lap.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present another noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Daytona Beach, Florida, February 6, 1966. The race-winning No. 98 Shelby American Ford Mk II driven by Ken Miles/Lloyd Ruby makes a scheduled night pit stop. They won the race by eight laps, leading a 1-2-3 Ford sweep. Dan Gurney/Jerry Grant (No. 97 Shelby American Ford Mk II) was second and Walt Hansgen/Mark Donohue (No. 95 Holman & Moody Ford Mk II) finished third. Watch a brief video here.

Editor's Note: Peter is taking a much-needed summer break from writing "Fumes," although he will write a new column if news from the sport dictates as such, and we will continue our weekly racing updates in "The Line." But as a bonus, we're going to be re-running Peter's riveting series, "The Glory Days," in its entirety over the next several weeks. The inside story of Tony DeLorenzo's racing career (Peter's brother), one of the most successful Corvette racers of all time - including the fantastic exploits of the famous Owens/Corning Fiberglas Racing Team - was one of the most widely read and popular pieces ever to appear in Autoextremist.com. So enjoy, because it was a different time and a different era, one never to be repeated. -WG

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

© 2017 Autoextremist.com

Detroit. In my two previous columns ("The Glory Days, Part I" and "The Glory Days, Part II"), I recalled for our Autoextremist readers the early days of my brother Tony's racing career, which saw us go from our adventure at an SCCA driver's school at Watkins Glen, New York, in 1964, to a growing posse of friends and volunteers getting together to help Tony field a car as he climbed the racing ladder. The story progressed through a couple of years of racing a Corvair in SCCA "A Sedan," to racing a Corvette in major SCCA National races in the Midwest, through a gradual transition to a full-fledged, fully-sponsored effort that not only brought sponsor Owens/Corning Fiberglas to the sport, but ushered in a whole new style of sponsor activation at racing events.

As I discussed last week, the burgeoning OCF Corvette Racing Team survived the debacle at the Daytona 24 Hour race and found a measure of redemption at the 12 Hours of Sebring - this country's most prestigious and toughest endurance road race - when Jerry Thompson and Gib Hufstaeder (another Chevrolet engineer) finished the race. But the bad luck continued for the other OCF team car wheeled by Tony and Dick Lang, as the machine was plagued with problems, among them an axle failure and finally, a broken half shaft, which ended the effort. There's a video out there on the Internet about that year's race at Sebring that gives a brief glimpse of Tony dragging a floor jack with the 90lb. rear axle and a bag of tools perched on it across the sandy ground. Brutal. (Back then drivers had to do the on-track repairs of their cars, or they would be disqualified from the event.)

As things progressed on the track, the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team began the transformation into a well-oiled machine. Seasoned by battles at America's two most famous endurance races at Sebring and Daytona, the OCF team became a force to be reckoned with everywhere they raced. The famous volunteer posse made up of some of the "best and brightest" from Chevrolet Engineering, GM Design and others (Chief Mechanic Art Jerome was a packaging engineer at Ford) began to really gel, which helped keep the team running at an exceedingly high level. But as success on the track grew, the notoriety - and the expectations - for the team grew with it.

After the battles at Daytona and Sebring, the OCF team turned its sights back to racing in SCCA Nationals, while keeping their eye on the 6-Hour FIA race at Watkins Glen, which was looming for mid-summer. If you perused the photos from last week, you could see Tony leading Jerry in a torrential downpour to a 1-2 finish in an SCCA National at the famed Meadowdale Raceway on the outskirts of Chicago. This race marked the return of the team to SCCA "A Production" racing in the Central Division and it also marked the start of "The Streak" - an incredible run of 22 straight race wins - in which the team finished 1-2 in fourteen of them (it also marked the last race ever run at Meadowdale). "The Streak" ran from March of 1969 to November 1970. It included races in "A Production" (and Jerry's SCCA National Championship at Daytona International Raceway in 1969) and triumphs in FIA GT. You can actually get a (very) brief look at Jerry (No. 7) and Tony (No. 1) leading the pack (in black & white) at the SCCA Runoffs in 1969 in the opening of their Corvette Hall of Fame induction video here. Tony and Jerry qualified 1-2 at the '69 Runoffs, with Jerry going on to the win as Tony's race was ruined by two flat tires, dropping him way down the field at the finish.

I closed last week's column with a photo of the No. 14 Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette at the Watkins Glen 6-Hour FIA race, the team's first win in major league international competition. The OCF team approached the FIA race at The Glen with a measure of optimism, and for good reason. Tony and Jerry not only were intimately familiar with the track; the team was really firing on all cylinders, having decimated SCCA competition all over the Midwest. Tony and Dick Lang would be driving the No. 14 OCF Corvette 427 L88, while Jerry would be sharing the No. 15 team car with Bill Morrison. Bill was a good friend of Tony's and a veteran competitor in SCCA "A Production" competition in the Midwest as well. (Tony would go on to drive with Bill at several races including an IMSA race on the road course at Talledega in 1972.)

An interesting dimension to the story that weekend at The Glen? The 6-Hour FIA race shared the weekend with the legendary Can-Am series. Just being at The Glen and seeing the factory McLarens driven by Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme was a life-altering experience. To this day there is nothing, and I mean nothing like a well-prepared Can-Am car at full chat. I will return to The Glen weekend in a moment, but I'm going to interrupt this story to give you a little perspective for the next scene.

Tony and I and some friends had traveled to Meadowdale Raceway back in August of 1964 to see the USRRC series (United States Road Racing Championship) race weekend, which was the pinnacle of American road racing at the time. This was the first professional road racing I had ever seen in person, and it was Tony's second (he had been to Meadowdale the year before). The USRRC race weekends consisted of a GT race (Corvettes, Cobras, Jaguars, etc.) as the opener, followed by the big sports cars (Chaparral, etc.) as the feature. We watched as the factory Shelby American Cobra team led by Ken Miles (No. 98) and Bob Johnson (No. 99) dominated the field, finishing 1-2, followed by three independently-entered Cobras. The best Corvettes in the country were there and they were utterly humiliated, not only racing seconds a lap off of the pace, but none of them finished.

Then something fascinating happened. We watched as the crack Shelby American crew swarmed over Miles' Cobra immediately following the GT race. They took the full windshield off, replacing it with a tiny plexiglass bubble windscreen, filled it up with racing gas, and rolled it to the very back of the USRRC sports car race grid in 27th position. Dead last. It seems that the officials had allowed the team to enter Miles in the race with no qualifying time. 

We were then treated to one of the most dazzling displays of race driving we had ever seen, and it still resonates to this day. Jim Hall (No. 66 Chaparral 2A) dominated the race, followed by his now-legendary teammate, Roger Penske (No. 67 Chaparral 2A) for a memorable 1-2 for the Texas Road Runners. Dick Doane (No. 29 McKee Chevette Mk 1) finished third (sound familiar? Chevrolet would buy the rights to the Chevette name from McKee for the production car of the same name), and George Wintersteen (No. 12 Cooper Monaco T61M Chevrolet) finished fourth. And Mr. Miles? He would charge from the back of the field in a jaw-dropping run that would see him finish fifth - in his 289 Cobra - just one lap behind the winners. Believe me, this isn't a case of appreciating something from the past more now; no, we appreciated what we were seeing, in real time. It was simply fantastic and amazing, in the true sense of that overused word.

Back to The Glen. Tony recalled Miles' incredible feat from that Meadowdale weekend and thought, hmm, what if? As the team set up for the Glen 6-Hour FIA race on Saturday, Tony informed the stewards he wanted to run the OCF Corvettes in the Can-Am race on Sunday. Tony and Jerry went out during a Can-Am practice session with the hardtops removed to save weight. They posted times, remarkably enough, that would have put them in the top fifteen for the Can-Am race. As the team continued preparations for the 6-Hour, the stewards met with Tony and said that the OCF Corvettes somehow, "didn't match the spirit of the event" (!) and that the team wouldn't be allowed to run in the Can-Am race. As I've said countless times in this column, politics suck. And politics in racing really suck. Ah well.

The important thing was that Tony and Dick Lang won the GT+2.5L class and finished 7th overall in the No. 14 OCF Corvette, even making the New York Times sports section with a picture on Sunday morning. Jerry and Bill didn't fare so well as Jerry got off track at the top of the hill in Turn 3, which resulted in a big crash, severely damaging the car. As Tony recalls, "Jerry was okay, but the car? Not so much. To add insult to no injury, the storied 'Bog People' at The Glen stole much of the bodywork from the race car. Less for us to carry home, but that sucked too."

1969 was a fantastic year. The Owens/Corning Corvette Racing Team hadn't lost a race after Sebring in March, and the boys closed out the season with a SCCA National Championship for Jerry Thompson. But the stakes - as well as the expectations - grew higher for 1970, and the team spent the Michigan winter hard at work on nights and weekends, preparing for the 1970 Daytona 24 Hour race, which would be quickly followed by the 12 Hours of Sebring.
       
Daytona, which always seemed to be a long way off after the Runoffs in November, came up soon, and the nights and weekends transitioned to a non-stop ten-day frenzy in order to get everything ready for the transporter leave date. The cars would debut special paint jobs - again designed by famed GM designer Randy Wittine - that would feature black (the preferred DeLorenzo brothers color) on the tops of the cars. Tony had convinced OCF's ace PR man, Roger Holliday, and others in Toledo (where OCF's headquarters were) that it would be "fine."

When the OCF entourage arrived at Daytona, nobody said a word about it. But it wasn't just the addition of black paint that was a little disconcerting. Each car had a personalized touch, courtesy of Randy, that was supposed to symbolize Tony and Jerry, respectively. Jerry's car had an ear of corn hand painted on the beak of the nose, which was a tribute to his Iowa roots. While Tony's car had an intricate spider - with Italian overtones - hand painted on the nose of his car. Everyone on the crew loved it, and everyone who saw the cars loved the overall look. And even better, the race itself was another triumph for the team, as Jerry and co-driver John Mahler won the GT+2.5L class, finishing an impressive 6th overall. We had started to get our long-distance act together, and the OCF Corvette Racing Team was becoming well known in the racing world.

But that wasn't the end of the "black paint" story, oh no. It seems that certain Owens/Corning Fiberglas executives were none too amused by the introduction of black to the paint schemes. So when the team got back from Daytona, Tony and Jerry were summoned to Toledo for a meeting, whereupon they were publicly castigated and flogged for the sin of violating corporate color codes. Then, as Tony remembers, "They took us out and fed us, got us drunk and sent us home." The cars never appeared in that livery again.

And the 12 Hours of Sebring in that 1970 season would be another interesting chapter in the story.

Flush with success and brimming with confidence after the stellar run at Daytona, the OCF team would arrive at Sebring a week early to take part in a test session. We rented aircraft hangers to house the cars and equipment while we worked through the schedule. The big factory teams that year were led by the 5-liter Porsche 917K and the Ferrari 512M prototypes. Mario Andretti led the Ferrari team, while Pedro Rodriquez, Leo Kinnunen and Jo Siffert led the John Wyer Porsches. The Alfa Romeo T33/3 team also raced with Toine Hezemans and Masten Gregory together. The 5-liter prototypes were blindingly fast with around 600HP. The 3-liter Alfas and Porsches were also agile, light and fast. And Steve McQueen and Peter Revson shared a 908/02 Porsche powered by a 3.0-liter flat 8-cylinder engine.

During the week of the race, Tony was dispatched from the hanger to warm up one of the Corvettes so the crew could make some engine checks. Tony recalls: “I had shut the engine off and was waiting for the guys to push the car back to the hanger and a mini bike came putting up. Riding it was none other than Steve McQueen. Steve introduced himself and we talked for about ten minutes about racing, his broken ankle (dirt bike accident), and other stuff. He was just a regular, nice guy and was looking forward to the race. I never forgot that brief meeting."

The 1970 12 Hours of Sebring was the first to use a rolling start and the OCF team had qualified 1-2 in the GT +5.0 class. Previously, race organizers had used the famous “Le Mans” start where you run across the track and chaos ensues. The start went without drama and the OCF drivers settled into their rhythm. Dick Lang and Tony reported no issues. Sebring ’70 has been described by some as the greatest Sebring ever (watch a video here).  Mario and the Porsches were fighting it out for the lead all day but Mario’s 512M broke. The Porsches had issues too, so, later in the afternoon the lead car was the 908 Porsche of Revson and McQueen, with Revson doing most of the driving. The Ferrari team manager asked Mario if he would consider getting into the 512 of Ignacio Giunti/Nino Vacarella. Mario accepted. Later, Mario told Tony that the seat fit wasn’t too bad and he "could push the car pretty hard."

Tony had this to say: "Dick and I tried to mind our own business but a GT car is 'stuck in the middle' – faster than all but the big prototypes. So you constantly had to watch your mirrors as they approached. About an hour from the end I got back in the car with a five-lap lead over the Doug Bergen Corvette driven by 'Marietta' Bob Johnson, 'Columbus' Bob Johnson and Jim Greendyke. They were fellow SCCA Central Division 'A Production' competitors. I was aware that there was drama unfolding before I got back in the car to finish the race, as Mario was catching Peter Revson at a furious pace. With less than a half-hour to go I was passing the pits and into the flat out left-hander, which was followed by a short straight, then a 90 degree left into the infield. As I entered the left I saw three slower cars in front of me. At the same time I saw the telltale headlights of Mario’s 512 coming up behind me. The next set of turns were the esses, a fast left/right combination leading down to the famous hairpin that had a large sandbank waiting to catch you if you made any errors."

"The next couple of seconds was a late race demo of why Mario is Mario. I stayed behind the slower cars as Mario inhaled us. The fast left hand sweeper at the start of the esses would normally be apex left. Not Mario. He drove the 512 like he was on the dirt at Langhorne. He flicked the 512 right and slid across the apex in a right hand drift. That set him up perfectly to stand on the gas way early for the right hand ess leading down to the hairpin. He was gone in an instant. I remember it like it was yesterday!"

Mario caught Peter but had to come in for a splash of fuel and had to re-catch him. So the race ended with Mario leading by 22 seconds. Peter and Steve were second and won the 3-liter prototype class. The Hezemans/Gregory Alfa T33/3 finished 3rd. Tony and Dick Lang finished 10th overall and 1st in GT +5.0. Jerry and John Mahler finished 4th in GT and 20th overall. At Sebring they close off a portion of the pit straight for the winners enclosure. The Ferrari team, Steve and Peter, the OCF team and the Touring class winners were all there; it was happy bedlam. 

1970 had started with a bang, with the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing team delivering major GT victories in America's premier endurance races at Daytona and Sebring. And that made it three straight major GT wins counting back to The Glen in the summer of '69.

But the team was just hitting its stride, and the biggest win was yet to come.

Stay tuned for Part IV.

(Photo by John McCollister/Courtesy of RacingSportsCars.com)
After dominating the GT race during the USRRC race weekend at Meadowdale Raceway in August of 1964, the crack Shelby American crew swarmed over Ken Miles' Cobra immediately following the race taking the full windshield off, replacing it with a tiny plexiglass bubble windscreen, and filling it up with racing gas. They then rolled it to the very back of the USRRC sports car feature race grid in 27th position. Dead last. The officials had allowed the team to enter Miles in the race with no qualifying time. Miles (above) then put on one of the most dazzling displays of race driving we had ever seen, and it still resonates to this day. Miles would charge from the back of the field in a jaw-dropping run that would see him finish fifth overall - in his 289 Cobra - just one lap behind the winners. It was simply fantastic and amazing, in the true sense of that overused word.

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Jerry, Bill Morrison, and Tony share a laugh prior to the start of The Glen 6-Hour race.  Tony and Dick Lang won the GT +2.5L class finishing 7^th overall, as  Jerry and Bill DNF due to Jerry's big crash in Turn 3. The low light? The storied "Bog People" stripped much of the bodywork from the race car. It was the beginning of a string of successes for the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team in FIA long distance races. 

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
The Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team drivers (L-R) Dick Lang, Tony DeLorenzo, John Mahler and Jerry Thompson pose with Miss Speedweeks before the start of the 1970 Daytona 24 Hour race. 
(Photo by Hal Crocker/The DeLorenzo Collection)
The battered No. 6 Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette 427 L88 driven by Tony and Dick Lang heads for the finish at Daytona in 1970. With Dick driving, the driveshaft failed around 1:00 a.m. and Tony dragged the jack and tools out to the inside of the infield “Horseshoe” (Turn 2) to fix it. Tony recalls: "It was dark and scary! I don’t remember which crewman supervised the operation. When I got back to the pits the crew put another driveshaft in 'just in case!' Wait… what? " But that wasn't all. Around 10:00 a.m. the next morning, again with Dick at the wheel, the studs on the RR wheel sheared in Turn 1 and away went the wheel, taking the fender with it. Once again Tony dragged the jack and tools out to the car for the repair (he was getting good at this by now). This time the OCF team axle expert, “Spike” Ollilla, accompanied Tony to supervise.  The repair required that the wheel studs, what was left of them, be removed using a punch and hammer.  Here's Tony again: "I was not good at this as it required brute force, but Spike was very patient. When I managed to get two of them out, Spike said: 'Two lug nuts is enough, don’t go real fast on the way back to the pits!' I watched Spike remove the other three with one hammer blow each!" After those multiple thrashes it still turned out to be a Good Day for the team as Jerry and John Mahler (No. 7 OCF Corvette 427 L88) won the GT +2.5L class, finishing 6^th overall. The Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team was getting its long-distance racing act together. 

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Crewman Ken Weidbusch (Electrical) with Fred McKenna (tires) at rear of the No. 2 OCF team car on the grid, pre-race, 1970 12 Hours of Sebring.
(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Pre-race, 12 Hours of Sebring, 1970. Crew chief for the No. 2 OCF Corvette Racing Team car, Greg Syfert, relaxes before the race.  A pit steward is on the left. A true talent, Greg would go on to become one of the key crew members for Roger Penske and Mark Donohue at Penske Racing during the Porsche Can-Am years and with the F1 program.

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Driver change for the GT winners in the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring. Randy Wittine can be seen re-fueling, while Rollie Aiken gets ready to lift the hood.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
The 1970 12 Hours of Sebring was a defining moment for the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team. Tony (with Dick Lang co-driving) finished 1^st in GT +5.0L and 10^th overall. It was the team's third consecutive win in a major FIA endurance race, establishing the team as a force to be reckoned with in international racing.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present another noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Daytona Beach, Florida, 1966. The great Ken Miles sits in the cockpit of the No. 98 Shelby American Ford Mk II during practice for the 1966 Daytona 24 Hour race. He and Lloyd Ruby would lead a 1-2-3 sweep for Ford, finishing eight laps ahead of the No. 97 Shelby American Ford Mk II driven by Dan Gurney and Jerry Grant. Walt Hansgen and Mark Donohue would finish third in the No. 95 Holman & Moody Mk II. Check out a sensational collection of Dave Friedman images from that race weekend here.

Editor's Note: Peter is taking a summer break from writing "Fumes" although he will write a new column if news from the sport dictates as such, and we will continue our weekly racing updates in "The Line," this week featuring coverage from the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship weekend at Road America. But as a bonus, we're continuing to re-run Peter's riveting series, "The Glory Days," in its entirety. The inside story of Tony DeLorenzo's racing career (Peter's brother), one of the most successful Corvette racers of all time - including the fantastic exploits of the famous Owens/Corning Fiberglas Racing Team - was one of the most widely read and popular pieces ever to appear in Autoextremist.com. This week, in Part IV, Peter chronicles the high point for the team in FIA endurance racing, which was also the beginning of the end of a glorious run. So enjoy, because it was a different time and a different era, one never to be repeated. -WG

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

© 2017 Autoextremist.com

Detroit. My brother Tony's meteoric racing career, which started out at a SCCA driver's school at Watkins Glen in 1964 ("Part I") and transitioned into racing a 427 L88 Corvette in "A Production" in the Central Division of the SCCA, and then on to the special sponsorship relationship with Owens/Corning Fiberglas that began in the summer of '68 ("Part II"), was a rocket ride. And for those of us who lived it, it all went by in a blur. And it seems fitting that with the 2017 Daytona 24 Hour (Rolex 24) having just been completed (see our coverage in "The Line"), we pick up the inside story of the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team right where we left off last week, in "Part III."

After recording impressive victories in the FIA GT class at the the 1969 Watkins Glen 6 Hour (7th overall, 1st in GT +2.5L), the 1970 Daytona 24 Hour (6th overall, 1st in GT +2.5L) and the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring (10th overall, 1st in GT +5.0L), the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team had gone from being a backyard operation to a force to be reckoned with in FIA endurance racing in just 2-1/2 years. And this was on top of the team's domination of SCCA racing, which culminated with a National Championship for Jerry Thompson at the Runoffs in 1970.

But even though the team was just hitting its stride and despite all of the success that the team had delivered for its sponsor, change in the racing business is inevitable. And change in this case meant that the 1971 Daytona 24 Hour race would mark the end of the relationship between Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corporation and our racing team. The company had been very successful leveraging the high-visibility racing effort of our Corvette team to OEMs - particularly to GM - and to customers and employees at the races, thanks to PR man Roger Holliday's efforts. There was no question that the team had put OCF on the map. And Tony and Jerry contributed to the success of the relationship by making appearances at Owens/Corning Fiberglas plant facilities all over the country. So some executives at OCF headquarters may have concluded that the company had gotten what they wanted out of the sponsorship and didn't need to do it anymore. Or perhaps certain executives in Toledo were irritated by the fact that we added a two-car Trans-Am Camaro effort for the 1970 season to run against the factory entries in our "spare" time. At any rate, Daytona would mark the end of the road for one of the most visible sponsorship relationships in American racing.

There would be other things different about the team before the looming endurance marathon at Daytona too. For one thing, Jerry Thompson and Jim McIntosh personally assembled the 427 cu. in. L88 racing engines in Jerry's garage. Interesting side note? The cars showed up at Daytona with bright yellow engine blocks and heads. Why, you might ask? Well, it seems that there were several brand-new cans of yellow Rust-Oleum on the shelf in that garage, and when it came time to finish off the engines, convenience won out!

Despite the bad news that this race would mark the end of the Owens/Corning Fiberglas deal, the team arrived and unloaded at Daytona ultra-prepared and optimistic about its prospects for the long grind ahead. Don Yenko would be driving with Tony in the No. 11 Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette and Jerry would be driving the No. 12 OCF team car with John Mahler. And the team made a statement right from the get-go by being fastest of the GT +2.5L runners in pre-race practice. In qualifying, the outright speed of the OCF cars was evident. Tony qualified on the pole with a lap of 1:57.19 and Jerry qualified with a 1:59:00 flat to make it a 1-2 for the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team in GT+2.5L, ninth and tenth overall, in an impressive field.

The very front of the grid was dominated by the fastest prototype cars, including the factory Porsche 917 Ks and Ferrari 512Ms. But the fastest of the fast was Mark Donohue (No. 6 Penske-White Racing No. 6 Sunoco Ferrari 512M), who would put his impeccably-prepared, Sunoco blue Ferrari (that he would share with David Hobbs) on the pole with a blistering lap of 1:42.42. And then there were the other competitors in GT just itching to dethrone the OCF team, including David Heinz and Or Costanzo in the No. 57 Corvette 427 L88; and John Greenwood, Allan Barker and Dick Lang in the No. 50 Corvette 427 L88. The race was shaping up to be a real slugfest.

All of the competitors got through the starting melee in good shape and then it was down to business in America's longest racing day. Mark dueled with Pedro Rodriguez (No. 2  John Wyer Automotive Engineering Gulf Porsche 917 K, co-driven by Jackie Oliver) and those two set the early pace at the front, while the OCF Corvettes settled into their planned pace. But in endurance racing, as racers well know, sometimes things can change in an instant. Very early in the race - on its 82nd lap - the No. 12 OCF Corvette broke a timing chain, which put Jerry and John out of the race. The team decided to add John to the No. 11 car, with Jerry helping to coordinate pit strategy.

By around midnight, the No. 11 OCF Corvette was leading the GT class and running a very strong fifth overall behind Luigi Chinetti Jr./Nestor Garcia-Veiga/Alain De Cadenet (No. 21 North American Racing Team Ferrari 312 P). But there were incidents; there are always incidents at Daytona. Vic Elford (No. 4  Martini & Rossi 917 K, co-driven by Gijs van Lennep) blew a rear tire on the 31 degree banking in the NASCAR Turn 4, hitting the wall hard, then going down to the flat, and then sliding back up track, hitting the wall hard again before coming to rest on the track apron. Mark Donohue arrived on scene slowing for the dust cloud, but a trailing 911 Porsche didn't slow down at all and rammed the Ferrari hard, doing major body and suspension damage. The 911 then slid off the banking and hit Elford's 917, totally destroying what was left of it. Then, as if that weren't enough, that 911 rolled eight times completely destroying itself (the driver was okay). Elford had exited his 917 moments before, avoiding catastrophe.

The No. 11 OCF Corvette pressed on, but not without issues, however. The team was battling a recurring electrical problem. The voltage regulator was failing, requiring replacement of the back half of the alternator (FIA rules prohibited replacing the entire unit). The team's electrical "department" experts - Les Talcott and Ken Wiedbusch - worked feverishly gathering spares and changing parts during pit stops. The final part needed was liberated from the team's pickup truck, which had made the journey down from Detroit. All of a sudden, it had been a long night.

As rain began to fall just after dawn, John Mahler got the call to get in the No. 11 car. John did his usual excellent job, maintaining the team's lead in GT +2.5L. But the No. 11 OCF Corvette had also developed a clutch linkage issue that required some double clutching on up-shifts. After Tony went out for his mid-morning stint, Don Yenko asked Jerry if he thought Tony could handle the clutch work. Jerry replied: "Hell, he drives the semi, I think he'll be okay!" Laughter can come at unexpected moments in the heat of battle.

During Tony's stint, however, one of the strangest incidents in the team's history occurred. As Tony exited the "horseshoe" (Turn 3) in the infield, a mysterious explosion under the car briefly knocked his feet off the pedals. There was no damage, but there was no way to explain what happened, either. Tony would later speculate that maybe one of the denizens of the infield had tossed a M80 on to the track, or something. To this day it's the one racing incident in the team's history that remains unexplained. (There were other incidents during the race, including a plane crash on take-off at the airport next to the track!)

The Rodriguez/Oliver No. 2 J. W. Automotive Engineering Gulf Porsche 917 K won the race; Tony Adamowicz/Ronnie Bucknum (No. 23 North American Racing Team Ferrari 512S) finished second; and the No. 6 Penske-White Racing Sunoco Ferrari 512M driven by Donohue/Hobbs recovered to finish third. After the No. 21 Ferrari 312 P of Chinetti Jr./Garcia-Veiga/De Cadenet encountered transmission trouble, the No. 11 Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team 427 Corvette L88 driven by Tony DeLorenzo, Don Yenko and John Mahler finished fourth overall, the highest finish to date for a Corvette in major league endurance racing. After two straight days of zero sleep, the team got to see their car's number on the main scoreboard, making it worth every excruciating moment.

The reign of the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team had come to an end. It was a fleeting moment in time when wild dreams and grand expectations magically came together to power one of the most successful Corvette racing teams of all time. The team had pioneered many of the things taken for granted in today's racing when it came to image wrangling and on-site activation of racing sponsorships.

As for the often-rumored "factory" connection to the team, where everyone assumed that we were being given factory money or some such nonsense? That never happened. Despite the impressive array of GM design and engineering talent that contributed to the team's efforts on a volunteer basis, the only help we received from Chevrolet Engineering was a parts exchange arrangement. We'd break something on the track and Chevrolet Engineering would study, learn and replace it with a better part. That's how it worked. In fact, the team's on-track competition program became a living, breathing R&D program for Chevrolet that would contribute many of the improvements to future production Corvettes during that period.

But we found out the hard way that the team's glittering success in putting Corvette back on the racing map and delivering the marque's highest finish in a major endurance race didn't count for much. In fact, nine months before, when we decided to compete in the famed 1970 Trans-Am series in Owens/Corning Fiberglas-sponsored Camaros, we discovered in no uncertain terms that our "favored" relationship with the powers that be at GM and Chevrolet was well and truly over. Because the decision had already been made that Jim Hall would get the factory-supported Trans-Am deal, and we were now considered to be nothing more than just another independent racing team.

Translation? It was as if none of the success of the OCF team ever happened, or even mattered, and there would be no help coming our way from Chevrolet. It was the "thanks, and don't let the screen door hit your ass on the way out" kiss-off. We were treated so badly by a particular politician/scumbag who was in charge at the time (and who shall remain nameless) that after beating our heads against the wall during the Trans-Am series in the '70 season - where Tony delivered some very impressive finishes - we bought two of Bud Moore's factory-prepared 1970 Trans-Am Championship Ford Mustangs to compete with in the 1971 Trans-Am season.

So the win at Daytona in 1971 was not only big, it was immensely satisfying on a number of levels. Owens/Corning Fiberglas had departed, and Chevrolet may have decided that we were expendable, but we weren't finished yet.

There's more. Stay tuned for The Aftermath in Part V.

(Photo by Hal Crocker/The DeLorenzo Collection)
The No. 11 Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team 427 Corvette L88 driven by Tony DeLorenzo (above), Don Yenko and John Mahler avoided on-track carnage, electrical issues and a "mystery" explosion to finish fourth overall in the Daytona 24 Hour race, the highest finish to date for a Corvette in major league endurance racing. After two straight days of zero sleep, the OCF team got to see its car's number on the main scoreboard, making it worth every excruciating moment.

(Photo by Hal Crocker/The DeLorenzo Collection)
It was ironic that in the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team's final race - the 1971 Daytona 24 Hour - the team would deliver its greatest victory.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
Tony in the No. 11 OCF Corvette at Daytona in 1971. Even though the team delivered its greatest win, Chevrolet had already decided that the team had become expendable.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
John Mahler got the call to maintain the No. 11's lead early Sunday morning in the rain at Daytona in 1971. He delivered.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
After finishing a sensational fourth overall and first in the GT +2.5L class at the Daytona 24 Hour, the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team celebrated together for the last time. Crewman Fred McKenna (with back turned at front of car); Roger Holliday, the ace OCF Public Relations man (red jacket with camera); Deryl Denman (looking under the hood at right); Nick Ollilla smiling on right (Nick went on to have a great career with Penske Racing); and Tony with his back to the camera (in the filthy drivers suit!).

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
When Tony DeLorenzo, Don Yenko and John Mahler (No. 11 Owens/Corning Corvette Racing Team Corvette 427 L88) finished fourth overall and first in GT +2.5L at the Daytona 24 Hour race in 1971, it was a very big deal for Corvette fans around the world and a signature moment in Corvette racing history. Here is the cover for Corvette News, which devoted almost an entire issue in celebrating the achievement. The photo, taken during practice for the race, shows Jerry Thompson (left) and “Spike” Olilla checking under the hood, with famed GM designer Randy Wittine off to the side on the right.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present another noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
New Smyrna Beach, Florida, February 10, 1957. A crewman tends to the No. 98 Ford Thunderbird "Battlebird" that was driven by Marvin Panch in the road race held at the at the New Smyrna Beach Airport. The "Battlebirds" were Thunderbirds highly-modified with many custom road racing preparation tricks by Peter DePaolo Engineering in Long Beach, California. This particular car featured a hand-formed aluminum hood, doors, trunk, firewall and belly pans by Dwight “Whitey” Clayton and Dick Troutman. It also had a fared-in headrest and was lightened considerably. A completely new tubular chassis was fabricated and the suspension and brakes were non-stock as well. And the engine was prepared by  Jim Travers and Frank Coon, before they formed the famed Traco Engineering Co. An eight-turn, 2.4-mile road course was laid out at the airport that still sits alongside U.S. Highway 1, and about 100 drivers were lured for the SCCA races. The entries included a former Indy 500 winner, Troy Ruttman, NASCAR stars Fireball Roberts, Curtis Turner, Panch and Paul Goldsmith, and a lanky Texan by the name of Carroll Shelby. The future father of the Cobra won handily in his John Edgar-owned Ferrari 410 Sport. Richie Ginther was second in a Ferrari 750 Monza, and Panch finished third.

Editor's Note: Peter is taking a summer break from writing "Fumes" although he will write a new column if news from the sport dictates as such, and we will continue our weekly racing updates in "The Line," this week featuring the sensational MotoGP from Austria. But as a bonus, we're continuing to re-run Peter's riveting series, "The Glory Days," in its entirety. The inside story of Tony DeLorenzo's racing career (Peter's brother), one of the most successful Corvette racers of all time - including the fantastic exploits of the famous Owens/Corning Fiberglas Racing Team - was one of the most widely read and popular pieces ever to appear in Autoextremist.com. This week, in Part V, Peter writes about the team's Trans-Am adventure, a time fraught with issues and difficulties, but which ultimately made the team stronger. So enjoy, because it was a different time and a different era, one never to be repeated. -WG

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

© 2017 Autoextremist.com

Detroit. I'm going to backtrack a bit for this installment of "The Glory Days." Last week, I covered the triumph of the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team in the Daytona 24 Hour in 1971, with Tony DeLorenzo, Don Yenko and John Mahler finishing fourth overall and first in GT in the No. 11 OCF 427 L88 Corvette. It was the culmination of an incredible run for the OCF team, having recorded impressive FIA GT Class victories at the 1969 Watkins Glen 6 Hour (7th overall, 1st in GT +2.5L), the 1970 Daytona 24 Hour (6th overall, 1st in GT +2.5L) and the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring (10th overall, 1st in GT +5.0L). Not to mention "The Streak" in SCCA National races that continued unabated in 1970, which had followed a '69 National Championship in "A Production" for Jerry Thompson. But the triumph would be the team's last as the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team, as the sponsorship ended with the 1971 Daytona 24 Hour race.

As I suggested last week, there were a number of reasons for it. Despite all of the success for the team and the spike in attention - and OEM business - delivered for Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corporation, change in the racing business is inevitable. And change in this case meant that some executives at OCF headquarters had concluded that the company had gotten what they wanted out of the sponsorship program and didn't feel the need to do it anymore. But the real reason may have been the fact that certain executives in Toledo were irritated by the fact that the team added a two-car Trans-Am Camaro effort for the 1970 season to run against the factory entries in our "spare" time. In their view there was no direct connection between the Camaro and the Owens/Corning Fiberglas product, like there was with the Corvette. Shortsightedness on their part? You could say that, especially since the explosion of the use of lightweight materials in production cars was right around the corner. But so be it.

Why and how did the team's effort in the 1970 Trans-Am season come together? Most of it was driven by Tony's desire to advance his driving career. His ultimate goal? Racing in Indy cars. And to be a part of the hottest road racing series in the world, which the 1970 Trans-Am Series was shaping up to be, seemed like a tremendous opportunity. He felt the team had more than demonstrated its capabilities and it had more than enough talent - albeit a deep reservoir of mostly volunteers - to throw elbows with the big factory teams in the 1970 Trans-Am season, so it was time to step up the program.

The first team meeting with OCF to discuss the 1970 season took place at Daytona in November of ’69 at the SCCA Runoffs. A follow-up meeting occurred in Toledo shortly after the team's return from Daytona. The decision was made to run the Corvettes in A-Production and FIA long distance races again, and that the team would prepare two 1970 Camaros and run them in the Trans Am series. Since all the OEMs would be competing in Trans Am that season, it was logical that the OCF sales promotion efforts would get the increased exposure through the program. At least that was the pitch. Not everyone at OCF was thrilled, but the added incremental funds to support the program materialized, and the two-car Camaro effort would boast the red and white Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corporate colors.

This would be a serious commitment for the team. It would turn out to be 22 races with four cars in various racing configurations (FIA, SCCA, Trans-Am), all for the princely sum of $225,000.00! Nowadays, that would almost pay for the power unit (tractor) to pull your trailer to the races. A news conference took place at Daytona in January 1970, during the 24 Hour race week, announcing that the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team would be fielding two Camaros in the 1970 Trans-Am Series.

This was not an insignificant undertaking, in fact the OCF Corvette Racing Team was strained to the max to put together the effort for the '70 Trans-Am series. Starting with two bodies in white that were ordered from the GM Norwood plant in Cincinnati through Hanley Dawson Chevrolet, the team scrambled to put two proper Camaro entries together for the upcoming Trans-Am opener at Laguna Seca. The bodies were “prime only” but came with glass and door hardware. We also acquired the sheet metal - hoods, deck lids, front fenders, etc.  Jerry Thompson was getting various drawings and other information through his fellow Chevrolet Engineering contacts, and six 302 cu. in. Chevrolet V8 crate motors were obtained to begin the engine program. (The fact that Chevrolet was fielding a factory Trans Am effort with Jim Hall of Chaparral fame would turn out to be a major issue as the OCF program progressed. More on that later.)

As I pointed out last week, all of this was being done with zero help from Chevrolet, as the slimy bureaucratic Poo-Bah who was in charge of doling out Chevrolet funds to racing teams had determined that the OCF team was inconsequential, despite its prodigious success with their Corvettes. This made it more difficult, to say the least, because we were under the gun to construct two Camaros while still racing the OCF Corvettes in SCCA National races.

It did not go smoothly to put it mildly, as everything about the cars - engines, transmissions, suspension design, brakes, aero, you name it - was new and different. The full measure of the team's volunteer engineering talent from Chevrolet was challenged every step of the way, as the cars were constructed with lessons gleaned from two years of racing the Corvettes. One major lesson? We had installed roll cages in the OCF Corvettes prior to the’70 season and the improvement in chassis stiffness was notable, as well as the safety factor, of course. The work was done at Logghe Stamping in Warren, MI. (The factory-supported Chaparral Camaros also had their cages done at Logghe.) The quality of the cage work was notable. 

But we quickly discovered that building Camaros to the Trans-Am rule book was a monster task; everything was completely different in just about every way, which forced us to do everything from scratch and from our gut, basically. But that wasn't all, because as the workload increased, the stress on the crew increased exponentially. The first Trans Am race was held at Laguna Seca, in April, and it was clear that the team would not be ready, although Tony and Jerry went out to Laguna to show visibility for the upcoming OCF effort.

But there would be a seismic event upon their return that would alter the team forever. The OCF team's founding crew chief, Art Jerome, had been working incredible hours, as had the entire gang of OCF racing volunteers. At one point Tony suggested that Art go home and get some rest, and I'll let him describe what happened next: "The discussion degenerated into an argument and my Sicilian temper took over. The short story is that Art was gone from the team and would eventually surface at John Greenwood’s team, our arch enemy. That’s all I’ll say about that episode. We soldiered on." To say that this was a giant bowl of Not Good for the team was an understatement. This situation was about the abrupt cessation of loyalty and a calculated vindictiveness that was carried out against us over the next two years. And it wasn't pretty.

Needless to say, the team was shaken by the incident, but there was no time to dwell on it as the second race of the Trans-Am season, scheduled for Lime Rock, Connecticut, in May, was coming up fast. But remember when I mentioned that the political winds had turned against us at Chevrolet? And that our on-track success all of a sudden counted for nothing, especially since Jim Hall had been awarded the "factory" Camaro deal in Trans-Am? The following is a graphic example of the kind of bullshit we had to deal with.

We had been working on the front suspension modifications from drawings that Jerry had brought from Chevy, and from those Tony had the front springs wound at a local supplier. When we assembled the first car’s front and rear suspension and put the car on the shop floor to check ride height, the car’s front end was right on the deck. Uhh, WTF? The spring drawings - shockingly enough - must have been “wrong.” Come to find out that Chevrolet Engineering Center (CEC) had made special front spindles for the Chaparral Camaros that included mounting tabs for the Corvette J-56 heavy duty brakes. These parts were obviously crucial for the entire front suspension. When Tony inquired with his Chevrolet Engineering contact about obtaining some of the parts for our cars, he was told that "there are no extra parts available." Our entire program would be dead in the water without the special spindles.

We were incredulous, pissed-off, you name it. Tony called Jerry and said, essentially, WTF?, which was becoming the team's reluctant mantra at the time. Jerry called back a short time later and said that three skids (that's a lot of parts, folks) had just been shipped to Midland, Texas, for the "factory" Chaparral Camaro team. As Tony recalled: "I only called my dad (GM's Vice President in charge of Public Relations at the time) for help twice in my entire racing career. This was one of them. I told him the story and he made a call, to whom I’m not sure, but it was probably to a fellow GM VP. A short while later I received a call from my CEC parts contact and was told that the special front spindles were - shockingly enough -  actually now available! So I ordered two car sets and a spare set (six pieces). And, oh by the way, they charged me $800.00 each!" From then on we knew what it was going to be like on the outside, looking in.

So what were we really getting into by deciding to compete in the 1970 Trans-Am series? After Mark Donohue had dominated the series in 1968 with his famous No. 6 Penske Racing Sunoco Camaro (one of my all-time favorite racing cars), humbling the Ford contingent along the way, okay humiliating the Ford contingent, and winning it again in 1969 (although Ford had stepped up their game considerably after Chevrolet had ruined the aero advantage of the '68 Camaro with the blunderbuss design of the '69), war was declared and there was an explosion in factory participation, with some of the best drivers in the world lined up by the factories to compete in the 1970 Trans-Am Series.

The atmosphere was electric even before the start of the 1970 Trans-Am season as Roger Penske, in a stunning move, had defected to American Motors to run the Javelin. It was a Hail Mary pass by the No. 4 Detroit manufacturer to gain visibility and get the Javelin nameplate in the discussion of desirable "pony" cars, and they had paid a steep price to get Penske (rumors suggested at the time that they had paid Penske more than double what his 1969 Trans-Am budget was). This was a jaw-dropping move in the racing world, believe me. So to counteract the loss of the famous racing team that delivered two consecutive Trans-Am Championships for Chevrolet, the aforementioned Jim Hall and his Chaparral Cars got the Chevrolet factory deal. Hall would be in the No. 1 Chaparral Camaro, while Ed Leslie would be in the No. 2 Chaparral team car.

The Owens/Corning Fiberglas Racing Team was given No. 3 for Tony's Camaro, and No. 4 for Jerry Thompson. A remarkable side note? As he did for the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvettes, GM design ace Randy Wittine would do his usual superb job laying out the paint design/graphics scheme for the OCF Camaros. The famous "speed blocks" were present and accounted for and the cars looked distinctive and very racy on the track in their red and white with black trim livery. (I almost got asphyxiated the day we painted the cars. I became disoriented in the fumes and started to pass out as I was painting the underside of one of the Camaros and had to be pulled out from under the car by Art Jerome and walked outside to get air. That incident could be filed under Not Good, to put it mildly.)

That said, take a long, hard look at that No. 3 on the side of Tony's car. As I mentioned in "The Glory Days, Part I", Randy Wittine would go on to become quite famous designing paint schemes and graphics for Roger Penske for many years and for many other teams in sports car racing, F1, Indy cars and yes, NASCAR as well. One of Randy's early clients beyond our OCF Racing Team and Penske Racing was none other than Richard Childress, of NASCAR fame. Yes, Randy's design for the "No. 3" that first appeared on the Tony DeLorenzo OCF Camaro in the 1970 Trans-Am season became the famous "No. 3" for Richard Childress Racing and Dale Earnhardt. Now you know.

Mark Donohue would run his familiar No. 6 on his brand-new red, white and blue 1970 AMC Sunoco Javelin, and his teammate Peter Revson would be in the No. 9 Penske Racing team car. Other notables? None other than Parnelli Jones (No. 15 Bud Moore Engineering Ford Mustang Boss 302) would lead the Ford factory effort with "school bus yellow" Mustangs (he won the first race at Laguna Seca), and he would be joined by George Follmer in the No. 16 Bud Moore Engineering team car. The great Dan Gurney would field two, deep blue All American Racers-prepared Plymouth Barracudas, his traditional No. 48 would grace Gurney's machine (although he didn't run all of the races), while Swede Savage would join him in the No. 42 AAR team car. And Sam Posey (No. 77 Autodynamics Corp. Dodge Challenger) would carry the Dodge spear in the series with a bright green Challenger. The notable independents besides the OCF team were Milt Minter (No. 68 American Racing Associates, Inc. Camaro), Roy Woods (No. 69 American Racing Associates, Inc. Camaro), Warren Agor (No. 13 Camaro) and Mo Carter (No. 88 Camaro), all in '69-bodied cars.

Because of the OCF team's massive personnel uproar, and our new non-favored status with Chevrolet, we were up against it, big time. So we would only have one car ready for Lime Rock, which none of us was happy about, but given everything that had transpired, it was a minor miracle unto itself that we were able to show up. We arrived at Lime Rock after a 72-hour non-stop thrash with bloodshot eyes and still needing to finish the car. As anyone familiar with The Grind in racing can attest, when you start going uphill, things don't level out anytime soon. Had we bit off too much to chew? Possibly. But we were present and accounted for and we weren't shirking from the task at hand. The car, however, just wasn't right. It needed to be lighter and we needed more power, but given the circumstances it was the best we could do at the time. Tony's race ended with a head gasket failure after 22 laps. Parnelli won followed by Ed Leslie, Sam Posey, Jim Hall and the rest. Notable DNFs included Jerry Titus (Firebird), Donohue, Follmer, Revson and Savage. We didn't feel so bad about Tony's DNF after all.

The rest of the season went by in a blur. We got Jerry’s No. 4 OCF Camaro ready for the next race at Bryar Motorsports Park in Loudon, New Hampshire. It turned out to be one of the team's best efforts considering the caliber of the competition we were up against. We were racing against OEM Factory teams with some of the best drivers in the country and world. Follmer won with Revson second, Donohue third, Hall fifth. Jerry finished seventh and Tony was ninth. Ed Leslie was eleventh and Warren Agor’s Camaro came in twelfth. Again, there were notable DNFs, including Jones, Savage, Mo Carter (Tony's good friend in his privateer Camaro) Titus and Posey. And while the OCF team was fully engaged in the Trans Am wars, the team continued to kick ass in SCCA National races, as "The Streak" continued (see "The Glory Days, Part II").

Back to the Trans-Am. Next up was Mid-Ohio, and the team made a crucial error in car set up that cost us dearly. As Tony recalls: "I’m not sure why we had time to even consider it, but somebody said: 'That rubber vacuum line from the brake booster to the intake manifold sure is ugly. We ought to replace it with Aeroquip line and fittings.' Big mistake. While the Aeroquip steel braided line and aluminum fittings looked good, we had innocently removed the check valve that attached it to the power brake booster mounted to the firewall. The booster gave 'power' to the power brakes by drawing vacuum from the intake manifold on acceleration. Crewman, Cadillac Engineer and brake expert Fred Wood was not yet on the scene to watch this error unfold. The brakes would 'work' but extended full throttle runs would bleed vacuum from the booster.  Simply put, application of the brake pedal would result in the pedal going to the floor. You had to pump the brake pedal to get the braking action you needed." All together now: Not Good.

Tony continued: "Transfer the above to going down the Mid-Ohio straight at full chat and then braking at the last possible moment to make the 90 degree right hand corner at the end. Jerry unfortunately drew the short straw and when he got to his brake point the pedal went to the floor, leaving him no room to avoid the woods at the end. The Camaro went into the woods and mowed down the biggest tree there. The impact 'cleaned off' the front end to the firewall.  Miraculously, Jerry was not seriously hurt but he was hurting with severe aches and pains. We still didn’t figure out what we had done but I was wary enough to be pumping the brakes a lot in the morning practice on race day. The brake issue still bit me too but I was lucky enough to get the Camaro slowed enough at the end of the straight to avoid the woods but not the ditch at the end.  The front end was damaged but not bad enough to put me out of the running."

Tony managed a tenth-place finish. Parnelli won followed by Follmer and Donohue. Mo Carter finished a tremendous fourth in his Camaro. Mo was a formidable competitor and he and Tony would become fast friends and do a lot of races together, including delivering a memorable overall win at the Pocono 500 IMSA race in 1973 in a brutally fast big block Camaro. Posey and Agor finished fifth and sixth respectively. We had a wrecked Camaro to rebuild but we were lucky that Jerry wasn’t seriously hurt.

The next stop, which was at Bridgehampton, among the rolling hills and dunes on Long Island, in New York, turned out to be a contentious weekend as the competitors were beginning to feel the pressure of the "win or else" mentality from their factories and corporate sponsors. There were even rumors of a fist fight after one of the drivers meetings. SCCA Chief Steward Berdie Martin admonished the competitors in no uncertain terms at the drivers' meetings, and John Timanus (the Trans-Am Series chief tech inspector) kept busy trying to keep the factories in line, which was a thankless task, as you might imagine. The tech inspections at each Trans-Am race were amazing examples of cajoling, whining and political gamesmanship on a grand scale, as factory representatives all pushed the rules to the limit to gain any advantage they could.

The OCF team showed up at Bridgehampton with the No. 3 Camaro only, as the No. 4 Camaro was still being rebuilt. Swede Savage captured the pole, but Donohue won the race. Follmer was second, Parnelli third, Hall fourth, and Carter fifth. Tony was a DNF with 59 laps completed. Another DNF followed for Tony at Donnybrooke, in Brainerd, Minnesota, as Jerry's No. 4 team car was still not ready.

Next up was Elkhart Lake's Road America, the beautiful 4.048-mile natural-terrain circuit cut out of the rolling hills of Kettle Moraine country in Wisconsin. And it was there that the ugly side of racing reared its head, as Jerry Titus was killed driving his Pontiac Firebird. As Tony recalls: "During practice we got an unwelcome lesson in what is always an unspoken possibility in motor racing – a fatal accident. Turn 13 is a fast uphill left hand corner that passed under a paddock access bridge at that time (the bridge has long since been removed). I saw the waving yellow caution flag as I approached turn 12, Canada Corner, and I slowed.  I saw the Jerry Titus’ Firebird next to the outside bridge abutment with its front end heavily damaged. As I passed I could see Jerry sitting up in the car but he wasn’t moving that I could tell in the brief instant I saw him. Later the news came that he had succumbed to his injuries. It’s a sobering thing and we keep all drivers in our prayers." Qualifying was ruled by the factory Ford Mustangs of George and Parnelli. Leslie’s Chaparral Camaro was third; followed by Savage, Posey, Donohue, Revson, Hall, Minter, Agor, and Roy Woods. Tony qualified way back in twenty-first position and Jerry was dead last, with no time. 

Mark Donahue rose to the occasion and won the race followed by Swede, Posey, Hall, Parnelli, Minter, Woods and Tony. The eighth-place finish would be Tony's best result in the 1970 Trans Am season. Considering the team's level of preparation - which was constantly in flux - and the fierce competition, it was as good as it was going to get. But we pressed on, and we never gave anything less than our best shot at all times.

Another DNF for Tony followed at St. Jovite, in Quebec, while Jerry brought the No. 4 OCF Camaro home in seventh place. Vic Elford won at Watkins Glen driving a Chaparral Camaro, Donohue was second and Follmer finished third, followed by Parnelli, Revson, Leslie and Carter. Tony finished ninth that day. After the race, Vic Elford stopped by our paddock spot and wanted to speak privately with Tony. He confided that they were running “angle plug” cylinder heads and would he vouch for their availability if/when John Timanus came over to ask about them? Well, well, well, politics is a bitch! Tony told Vic it was no problem. We had heard about the new heads but they were certainly not a “production” item yet by any stretch. Tony used his PR skills when John Timanus came by to discuss it with him. He told Timanus we had the new “production” cylinder heads but had not had time to put them on our engines yet.  When we returned to Detroit there were, magically, three sets of the new "angle plug" cylinder heads waiting for us. Imagine that! 

The next race was in the state of Washington at Seattle International Raceway in Kent, south of Seattle, in September. Parnelli won the race followed by Donohue and Posey. Tony and Jerry were both classified as DNF. The team limped to the final race of the 1970 Trans-Am season - at Riverside International Raceway southeast of Los Angeles - with tired engines and with no parts to refresh them. The outlook was bleak. Tony had engine trouble in the pre-race warm-up and Jerry was a DNF in the race. Parnelli Jones delivered a magnificent drive for the win and the Trans-Am Championship for himself and Ford. Follmer was second and Donohue finished third. They were followed by Savage, Gurney, Leslie, Minter, Woods and David Hobbs.

Our maiden foray into the Trans-Am Series was finished. It didn't go as well as we'd hoped, to put it mildly, but as Tony says, "I learned more about race driving that season than ever before. Surrounded by some of the best drivers in the world was a rare opportunity and well worth it."

The team regrouped to post its triumphant result at the Daytona 24 Hours the following February, but we would never race those Camaros again. And even though the Owens/Corning Fiberglas support was over, we - as a team - were not finished. The '71 Trans-Am season would be an entirely different story altogether, having seen the writing on the wall and tired of playing games with the powers that be at Chevrolet, we would buy two of those ex-factory Ford Mustangs from Bud Moore for the '71 Trans-Am Season.

And we haven't even gotten to the story about our infamous Budd-sponsored "super" Corvette yet.

Stay tuned.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
The Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team debuted one of its new Trans-Am Camaros at the second race of the 1970 Trans-Am season at Lime Rock, Connecticut. It was another monumental thrash for the team to get ready for that race weekend, and a frustrating result too. Tony would suffer a DNF after 22 laps due to a blown head gasket. The car gleamed in its new Randy Wittine-designed OCF livery.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
A closer look at the famous "No. 3" design by Randy Wittine on the side of Tony's car at Lime Rock. Randy would go on to become quite famous designing paint schemes and graphics for Roger Penske for many years and for many other teams in sports car racing, F1, Indy cars and yes, NASCAR as well. One of Randy's early clients beyond our OCF Racing Team and Penske Racing was none other than Richard Childress, of NASCAR fame. When it came time for Randy to work up a graphics package for Richard in NASCAR, Randy used his original design for the number "3" that had first appeared on Tony's OCF Camaro in the 1970 Trans-Am season. Yes, it became the famous "No. 3" for Richard Childress Racing and Dale Earnhardt. Now you know.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
Tony DeLorenzo (No. 3 Owens/Corning Fiberglas Camaro), Ed Leslie (No. 2 Chaparral Cars Camaro) and Mark Donohue (No. 6 Penske Racing Sunoco Javelin) at the Mid-Ohio Trans-Am in 1970.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
The Trans-Am race at Bridgehampton, among the rolling hills and dunes on Long Island, in late June in New York, turned out to be a contentious weekend as the competitors were beginning to feel the pressure of the "win or else" mentality from their factory overlords and corporate sponsors. There were even rumors of a fist fight after one of the drivers meetings. Here SCCA Chief Steward Berdie Martin (with back to camera) admonishes the competitors in no uncertain terms at one of the drivers' meetings that weekend about on-track behavior.

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Crewman Harry Lambert (right front of car) at the weigh-in of the No. 3 Camaro at Bridgehampton, with Blaine Ferguson visible behind Harry (Blaine was another OCF team member who went on to work for Penske Racing). Rollie Aiken is at the left rear of the car, while Tony stands by the driver's door. John Timanus, the Chief Technical Inspector for the Trans-Am Series, was kept extremely busy trying to keep the factories in line, which was a thankless task as you might imagine. The tech inspections at each Trans-Am race were amazing examples of cajoling, whining and political gamesmanship on a grand scale, as factory representatives and crew chiefs all pushed the rules to the limit to gain any advantage they could.

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Tony DeLorenzo and Crew Chief Rollie Aiken stand by the No. 3 OCF Camaro, pre-race at the Bridgehampton Trans-Am.

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Tony at speed at Bridgehampton. Another DNF, this time after 59 laps.

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
The No. 3 OCF Camaro in the pits at Bridgehampton. Note the clean graphics and the "No. 3"; the Minilite racing wheels (the hot setup back in the day) and the OCF transporter in the background. And the scars are evident from the Trans-Am "wars" too. 

(Photo by Roger Holliday/The DeLorenzo Collection)
The Bud Moore Engineering pit crew is in the foreground as Jerry Thompson (No. 4 Owens/Corning Fiberglas Camaro) speeds by in the background at Riverside International Raceway in 1970. It was the last appearance for the OCF Camaros.

(The Petersen Automotive Museum)
Parnelli Jones, Tony DeLorenzo and George Follmer at a special Trans-Am reunion event at The Petersen Automotive Museum, November 2009, in Los Angeles.

Editor's Note: Peter is taking a summer break from writing "Fumes" although he will write a new column if news from the sport dictates as such, and we will continue our weekly racing updates in "The Line," this week featuring IndyCar from Pocono, NASCAR in Bristol and the new Penske Acura entry in the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. But as a bonus, we're continuing to re-run Peter's riveting series, "The Glory Days," in its entirety. The inside story of Tony DeLorenzo's racing career (Peter's brother), one of the most successful Corvette racers of all time - including the fantastic exploits of the famous Owens/Corning Fiberglas Racing Team - was one of the most widely read and popular pieces ever to appear in Autoextremist.com. This week, in Part VI, Peter recounts a time of transition as the Owens/Corning Fiberglas relationship comes to an end; acquiring two Bud Moore factory Ford Mustangs for the '71 Trans-Am season after Chevrolet operatives deemed us as being "expendable" and the creation of the infamous "Monster" Corvette. So enjoy, because it was a different time and a different era, one never to be repeated. -WG

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

© 2017 Autoextremist.com

Detroit. If you’ve been following along in the previous segments of “The Glory Days” (Parts I, II, III, IV and V; Scroll to the bottom and click on "Next 1 Entries" to read previous columns -WG), we’ve given you a front-row seat to my brother Tony’s racing career and the incredibly successful run of the Owens/Corning Fiberglas Corvette Racing Team. From late summer in 1968 through to the win in the 1971 Daytona 24 Hour race, it was the most successful Corvette team in both SCCA “A Production” racing and FIA GT endurance racing here in the U.S.

But after running the Corvettes again and additionally hammering around in the 1970 Trans-Am Series in our OCF Camaros without factory help, the ’71 Daytona 24 hour race marked the end of the relationship with the Toledo, Ohio-based Owens/Corning Fiberglas corporation. I delineated the reasons in last week’s column, but suffice to say the 1971-72 racing seasons would mark a huge transition for us.

Before the team’s final triumph at Daytona in February of ’71, the previous summer had been a painful lesson in racing politics. We found out that restoring the Corvette name to prominence on America’s racetracks counted for absolutely nothing with certain powers that be within Chevrolet. It didn’t sit well with us, at all. And Tony was determined to make some changes. Tony formed Troy Promotions, Inc., which would now be the official entrant whenever we showed up at a racetrack. And after the bitter experience with Chevrolet racing politics in the ’70 Trans-Am Series, Tony decided to make an emphatic statement as to what he thought about the experience. He pitched a local businessman successfully, which allowed us to buy two factory-prepared Ford Mustangs from Bud Moore Engineering, the same cars that we had run against in the 1970 season.

I’ll never forget that day in March when we unloaded those two Mustangs into our shop after the trip from Spartanburg, South Carolina, and found out just how “non-stock” they were. After crawling all over and under them, we discovered that these were two, highly-modified Mustangs that bristled with factory tricks and some old-fashioned stock car secrets from Bud Moore. They may have been in the “spirit” of the Trans-Am rules, but don’t kid yourself, these were radically reinvented Mustangs that won the 1970 Trans-Am Championship for a reason.

Not long after we acquired the Bud Moore Mustangs, the phone rang at the shop and the voice on the other end of the line introduced himself to Tony and said, “You need me.” Tony said, “I do?” The voice belonged to accomplished race engineer Mitch Marchi and he said, “Yes you do.” A meeting was set up to discuss what Mitch could do for us, and it proved to be fortuitous. Educated at GM Institute (GMI), now Kettering University, in Flint, Michigan, Mitch spent a brief stint at Chevrolet Engineering in Warren, Michigan. When he found out that Ford was hiring racecar engineers, off he went. He spent many years at Ford, with the most exciting work being his stint at Ford’s Kar Kraft operation doing engineering on the Ford Mark IV. He also worked on a Land Speed Record car, other go fast projects and the Trans-Am Mustang racing program. Mitch would use his valuable experience in chassis design, fabrication, and race craft to improve the performance of our racing cars. Needless to say, we would not have had the success we had during the 1971 Trans-Am season and beyond without Mitch’s help.   

The 1971 Trans-Am season would be different in that there would only be two factory-supported teams as opposed to the four that competed in 1970. Roger Penske returned with the new-look ’71 AMC Sunoco Javelin, which would be driven again by Mark Donohue. And Bud Moore Engineering would be back with two factory-supported Ford Mustangs driven by Parnelli Jones (for one race only) and George Follmer and Peter Gregg.         

After doing our usual pre-race thrash over several days, Tony and I headed out to the opener for the ’71 Trans-Am Series at Lime Rock with our new trailer, which was newly-acquired from Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers and painted in the new-look Troy Promotions colors of black, white and blue. Randy Wittine had performed his usual magic and our new Mustangs and the transporter looked fantastic.

As anyone in racing will tell you, mental and physical exhaustion plays an integral role in the sport. It’s just the way it is. I had fallen asleep in the cab somewhere on the Ohio Turnpike, while Tony was at the wheel. I woke up suddenly to discover that Tony was fast asleep, and the whole rig was heading toward the median, at a severe angle. After I yelled loudly, Tony woke up, straightened the rig out just in time, and we stopped at the next rest area for some coffee. Ah, racing stories, we got a million of ‘em.

Lime Rock was a real eye-opener, for a number of reasons. First of all, the weather forecast for the weekend wasn’t good. It was supposed to rain all weekend with even heavier rain on race day. And it took us all of about five minutes to discover that our Firestone rain tires were no match for Goodyear’s brand-new racing rain tires, as in seconds a lap slower, which in racing is an eternity.

We secured a set of Goodyear rain tires for the race, and the promised deluge appeared right on cue. Jerry Thompson went off coming out of Turn 1 in the early going and promptly got stuck in the mud in the No. 4 TPI Mustang, with Tony going on to finish second to Mark in the No. 3 car. Donohue spanked everybody that day running like a freight train lap after lap.

And it was at Lime Rock that I learned a valuable lesson about Roger Penske. We had arrived at Lime Rock prepared, but barely ready, if you know what I mean. And the rain added chaos to the mix. I remember standing in the pit lane, soaked through to the bone in my T-shirt and jeans, handling pit signals for Tony during the race. I looked down the pit lane and there was Roger, cool, calm, collected – and bone dry - in a head-to-toe rain suit complete with a hood. It was right then and there that I learned that Roger is always prepared, and it’s easy to see why he remains the most successful racing team owner in history to this day.

We ran nine races in the TPI Mustangs that season, with Tony recording a second, third and fourth for a very solid effort, but not good enough when winning is the name of the game. Another lesson learned? We had contracted with Bud Moore to build our engines for the season, but after Tony and Jerry ran very strong in the first few races, Tony said that the engines were all of a sudden not as good. We started doing our own engine rebuilds about halfway through the season. Oh well, onward.

Though the 1971 Trans-Am season provided a measure of redemption for Tony and the team after being marginalized by Chevrolet in 1970, 1972 would be the toughest year. With no sponsors on the horizon, Tony and Jerry ran the “Daytona 6-Hour” (the race had been shortened due to the energy crisis) with Ron Weaver in a Corvette co-owned by Weaver and Steve Mair (son of Alex Mair, Chief Engineer at Chevrolet at the time). Thanks to troubles with the experimental radial construction racing tires that the team had agreed to run, the Corvette was a DNF in the first hour of the race with Jerry at the wheel.

With the 1972 12 Hours of Sebring coming up, the team decided to enter one of its TPI Trans-Am Mustangs in the race with partial sponsorship from Marathon Oil. We were part of a four-car effort sponsored by Marathon, which included two Chevron B19 machines and a Ferrari 365 GTB4 Daytona driven by David Hobbs and Skip Scott. Our plan was to win the over 2.5-liter Touring Class (TO) and finish as high overall in the race as possible. The idea was that the PR value for our win would help us land sponsors for an all-new Corvette effort planned for IMSA/FIA races in 1973.

Tony and Jerry planned with Crew Chief Deryl Denman to run a conservative, 6,000 rpm rev limit while using the tires and brakes like it was a sprint race. In the course of the ‘71 Trans-Am season we had learned to change two tires and add fuel in sixteen seconds, so it seemed like a good plan. And the strategy worked beautifully - with Tony and Jerry running sixth overall and second in class in the early hours of the race – right up until the point when the team discovered that the ride height was set too low and the rough Sebring track had pounded the oil pan into submission, running all of the oil out of the engine. File that one under the best-laid plans… The 1972 12 Hours of Sebring would mark the last time that Tony and Jerry would team up in a racing car.

The rest of the 1972 racing season for Tony was marked by a few guest drives, including one in a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 at the Watkins Glen 6-Hour race. But there was one memorable event in particular, an IMSA road race that was run on the Talladega Superspeedway infield road course the day before that summer's Talladega 500 NASCAR race. Tony would run a all-aluminum big-block Corvette entered by his old friend Bill Morrison in a race where the IMSA cars were combined with NASCAR’s Grand American series for "pony cars" led by none other than Tiny Lund. Even though the Grand-Am cars would start first in a split field of cars, Tony and Bill would move into the lead of the race handily, kicking everyone’s ass. But then a valve seat disintegrated with five laps to go, and Tony and Bill had to settle for second place. Ironically enough, the winner that day was Tony’s now late friend Dr. Wilbur Pickett, who was driving an ex-Owens/Corning Corvette that had been purchased by team owner Bobby Rinzler. But another important lesson was learned that weekend that would play into the building of “The Monster” – the Budd-sponsored 1973 Corvette.

Tony envisioned an all-new Corvette that would incorporate the countless lessons learned in running the championship-winning Owens/Corning Corvettes, plus new thinking from some of the most creative engineering minds in the business. This “Monster” Corvette would be the culmination of everything we knew. Mitch Marchi would team with Lee Dykstra (the famous racing car designer and fellow ex-Kar Kraft engineer) to design this all-new Corvette racing machine for Troy Promotions. At the time it would become the most sophisticated (and fastest) Corvette in the IMSA series. Here’s how it came about.

First things first, we needed a sponsor. One of Tony’s proposals landed on the desk of Jose DePedroso at the Budd Company in Detroit, a maker of automotive body and chassis components for the major auto manufacturers. He was an unabashed racing fan and thought the sponsorship of a Corvette racing car could help promote Budd products to their OEM automotive customers. Tony then sold the idea up the ladder to Gil Richards, the Budd CEO, and we had a program. Armed with the first full sponsor since the OCF days, we had five months to design and build a world-beating FIA Corvette racing car for the first race of the season, the 1973 Daytona 24 Hour, which was coming up fast in February.

Crew chief Deryl Denman, who had worked at Cadillac engineering and was then working for Borg-Warner, had gathered a brain trust of his former mates at Cadillac engineering. Most had worked on the OCF cars, but some were new to the group. Fred Wood was a chassis development engineer working at the GM Milford Proving Ground. Rick Cronin and Bill Boskey were working in service engineering in Detroit. Ken Wiedbush worked in manufacturing engineering, also in Detroit, and was one of our electrical gurus. Les Talcott worked at Chevrolet Engineering and was an electrical and engine specialist, and the aforementioned GM Design legend Randy Wittine, who had been with us since 1967, would develop the paint scheme for the Budd Corvette. There were also a limitless supply of engineers and engineering students clamoring to help for free (they only got travel expenses if they were actually part of the crew that went to the races).

There were others, including Bill King, whose engine shop was down the street from our Troy Promotions shop, and A. I. LeGrand Wood III, “Woody” as we knew him. Woody was an engine expert, painter, and all around character. Despite the political upheaval aimed at us by certain bureaucrats at Chevrolet, we had maintained close contact with Gib Hufstader at Corvette Chassis Development. He was an inexhaustible source of the latest goings on with the Corvette heavy-duty parts development activities. Gib also drove for the OCF team at Sebring in 1969. Gib also let Zora Duntov, the legendary Corvette Chief Engineer and Father of the Corvette, know what we were doing and kept him advised of our progress with the all-new “Monster” Corvette.

The first two scheduled races in 1973 were 24 (Daytona) and 12 hours (Sebring) long respectively, and the rest of the season’s IMSA races were usually 250 or 500 miles. We needed to rethink our approach to car building, and Mitch Marchi and Lee Dykstra were the ones who would do the design work and drawings to make that happen. Deryl and the crew would work on the powertrain and electrical systems to apply what we had learned the hard way in the last three years. They would be responsible for the entire project, making sure everything came together as planned. 

We contracted Bill King to build and dyno two over-bored 454-cubic-inch big block Chevy engines for Daytona. The final displacement for Daytona worked out to be 467 cubic inches. It was significant that we were getting away from the 427 cu. in. L88 engines that had served us so well in the OCF Corvettes, but Tony had learned while driving Bill Morrison’s Corvette at Talladega the previous August that the 427 was no match for the 454 “long stroke” motor. Bill and Woody were working on our “mini” (as in low budget) engine development program down the street from our shop. 

The rest of the power train would be built by our long time axle and transmission man, Ehrling “Spike” Olilla.  Spike worked at Chevrolet engineering in the axle build room, so we always had the latest parts and assembly modifications in our axles and transmissions. Spike worked out of his garage at home in Warren, Michigan. A gruff, tough, but friendly man, Spike had crewed on the OCF cars when we won the GT class and finished sixth overall at the 1970 Daytona 24-Hour, with Jerry Thompson and John Mahler driving.   

Spike’s two sons, Nick and Mark, also worked for us on the OCF Corvettes and Camaros before they went off to work for Roger Penske and Mark Donahue. Nick stayed with Penske Racing for most of his career and did extremely well, eventually winding up running their NASCAR engine operations. Troy Promotions was referred to as the “Training School” by Mark Donahue, and at one time at least five Troy Promotions alumni worked for Penske Racing. We joked about it a lot.

Meanwhile, back at the shop, Tony and Deryl were going though parts lists and bugging the parts manager at Bill Wink Chevrolet in Dearborn to get what we needed in time to make our schedule. One of the major items was a new frame, which would be heavily modified and reinforced prior to the body getting bolted on and the construction of the roll cage completed. The other crucial component was a body. We had ordered a body from GM service parts when we built the L88 Corvette to make the 1968 Daytona 24-Hour as part of the Sunray DX Corvette team, but we didn’t think we had enough time to do it that way again. We had located a Corvette roadster body in Wisconsin, just north of Deryl’s family farm near Antioch, Illinois. All we had to do was go over there and get it.

Tony and Deryl hitched the trailer to the TPI Chevy pickup and headed west (but not before making a memorable overnight stop to visit Bill Morrison and friends in Chicago along the way). They located the farmer/drag racer who was selling the Corvette body and, after determining that it was suitable for our purpose, paid the money, loaded it on the trailer and headed back to Detroit. Once back at the shop, we set about prepping the frame with reinforcements and re-welding critical areas. 

Mitch had sketched drawings for the roll cage and we attached the body to the completed and freshly painted frame. Randy Wittine visited the shop for a couple of nights, attaching the fender flares to the body. We sent the body/frame assembly to Tom Smith at Wolverine Chassis in Romulus, Michigan. Tom was an accomplished car builder, specializing in Pro Stock drag cars, and he fabricated the roll cage and some of the chassis and interior pieces as well. The finished product was beautiful.

While all this was going on, Mitch and Lee were producing a blizzard of drawings for the chassis parts.  Nothing was left to chance as all the rubber bushings in the car were replaced by solid bushings or spherical bearings. A-arm cross shafts were machined from solid billet; new sway bars were fabricated by a local shop; and many other chassis parts were fabricated out of stronger stock for greater stiffness and precision.  Chassis geometry was also changing while we were at it. The Budd Corvette was going to handle like no other Corvette before it. 

The front and rear hubs were re-machined for zero run out, as were the front and rear spindles. All the parts were x-rayed and shot-peened in critical areas. Boltholes for wheel studs were expanded to ½ inch and trued for radius. We had the wheel studs manufactured out of high strength steel alloy, with rolled threads and pilots so the lug nuts would seat while being driven with an impact wrench set at 200psi. We had a groove machined on the nose of the heat treated lug nuts that would capture the inside diameter of a plastic plug, the outside diameter of which would snap onto the steel bushings that were inserted into the Minilite magnesium wheels. It was a simple, clean way of retaining lug nuts on the wheels when making pit stops.  We had used them on our Trans-Am Mustangs during the 1971 season while others were gluing lug nuts onto their wheels. (Our pit stops that year equaled the speed of Penske Racing.) We also had a selection of special rate springs wound for the front and new leaf springs made for the rear suspension.  Most of this “new” technology had been in use in our Trans-Am Mustangs, compliments of Mitch and Lee.

Our work tempo increased as time began to be an issue. Fred Wood worked on the brakes. The IMSA rules allowed us to improve the braking system, and improve we did. The decision was made to use Lincoln calipers similar to the ones used on the Mustangs we raced in the Trans-Am. We had quick change spring loaded brackets instead of cotter pins to retain the brake pads, as well as a vacuum retraction system on the master cylinder. We had used the vacuum retraction system on the OCF Corvettes for the long distance races. Fred worked out all the calculations for master cylinder and push-rod size and all the other details needed to have a bullet proof braking system. After years of struggling with marginal brakes, we knew things would be a lot better in the new car. And the Budd Company would supply us with special curved vane Corvette brake discs to aid cooling.

Anybody familiar with building race cars knows that the devil is in the details, and where the car’s systems are concerned, there are myriad details. We needed an electrical system that would give no trouble over the long hours of an around the clock race. We had won the GT class and finished fourth overall in the 1971 Daytona 24-Hour, but we had fought a running battle with the electrical system. We didn't want a repeat of that. To solve the alternator problem, Bill Boskey and Ken Wiedbush came up with a heavy-duty Delco 125 amp alternator that would handle the increased loads. They designed a cog belt and pulley accessory drive system that would run trouble free for a lot longer than 24 hours. Modern circuit breaker panels were designed, replacing glass fuses, and, for some time, we had already been using a switch to change ignition modules in an emergency instead of manually plugging in the new one. We were way ahead of our competition on that item, thanks to Les Talcott.

We found an aircraft battery supplier, in Marathon. They agreed to provide us with very lightweight batteries (8lbs.) that would crank the 467 cu. in. V8, with no trouble. We couldn’t believe how well the batteries performed and they never gave us any trouble. We also found Highland Bolt and Nut in Highland Park, Michigan. The company provided TPI with an unlimited supply of grade 8 fasteners, essential ingredients for a proper racing program. 

Meanwhile, crew chief Deryl Denman was working on an oil cooler system for the transmission and rear axle. The OCF cars had been using twin marine bilge pumps with high-temperature-resistant impellers. That system worked but it was a high maintenance item and we had begun to experience some impeller failures. Using a Lincoln electric motor to drive a small aluminum reduction gearbox, chain coupled to two heavy duty cooking grease pumps equipped with Teflon® impellers, Deryl attached the entire system to a T-shaped aluminum plate. Ignoring derisive cries of “mad-scientist” and other endearing terms from the crew, Deryl soldiered on, determined to demonstrate the system’s durability. He mounted the plate on a five-gallon bucket of 90-weight gear lube and plumbed it to act like the closed system with the two oil coolers in the race car. Every day, all day, at the shop he would run the system hooked up to a DC power source. Other than the faint stench of green gear lube, the system built up three weeks of running time without a hiccup.  We were forced to bow to superior engineering power, and somebody who was adept at surfing though the industrial products catalog  But that is what good engineers do, and Deryl was definitely one of those.

But the biggest task was shoe horning the lube pump system, two oil coolers, the ducted fresh air blower system, the Marathon battery, and the 22-pound Halon fire-suppression bottle into the rear compartment of the race car. The system also fed cooling air to the rear brakes. We reasoned that 200°+ air from the oil coolers would cool the 1000° rear brakes. Somehow the crew got it all to fit and everything worked as advertised, including the fire suppression system, which would come in handy two years later during an ill-advised street race in Pontiac, Michigan. (More on that in another chapter.) 

The team agonized over how to run the engine since they were using the long stroke motor for the first time. Since Bill King’s dyno runs were showing the 467 to be a torque monster, we reasoned that we could run the engine at a lower rpm and use a “longer” gear. We had been using a 2.73:1 gear ratio at Daytona for four years. We discussed our plans with Gib Hufstader at the Corvette Chassis Group. He said that Chevrolet had produced a few special 2.42:1 ring-and-pinion sets for some Corvette Bonneville racers, and he agreed to have one of the racers ship the parts back to Detroit so we could use them for Daytona. Spike built the 2.42 axle, and we would use a 2.73 for a spare. So we made the preliminary decision to run the engine at 5,500 rpm in the lower gears and let it run to whatever it would pull on the straight; 200+ mph was our goal, along with “bullet proof” reliability. (This would prove to be a fateful decision later.)

In typical racer fashion, final assembly of the Budd Corvette began to demand ever longer hours as time grew shorter. The drive train, plumbing, electrical, and safety systems all went forward, but the inevitable details would keep the team busy right up to the planned departure date. 

Tony and Deryl had been reading and re-reading the IMSA and FIA rules for the 24 Hour. IMSA was sanctioning the race and there was a section in the rulebook on exhaust systems and the collector length. The rule, for front engine cars, was that the collector had to go at least to half the length of the wheelbase, exiting toward the rear of the car.  Up to this time, most Corvettes would end the exhaust just in front of the rear wheel. The dyno runs had indicated that “short” was the way to go. Installed, the short exhaust collectors were startling in appearance to all of us, and, as it would turn out, to our competition also.

The race date was Saturday, February 3, 1973. Practice started on Thursday, February 1, so we wanted to be there on Tuesday night so we would have time to get set up for practice and the race on Wednesday. This would mean that we would have to leave no later than Monday night for the nineteen-hour tow to Daytona.

Tony asked Mo Carter, legendary racer and Chevrolet dealer from Hamilton, Ontario, to be his co-driver in the Budd Corvette. Mo was very fast and good with the equipment. He was also used to big, high-powered cars since he drove his own Camaros very successfully.

We had ordered a Chevy van from Wink Chevrolet (Bill Wink III was a grade-school and high-school classmate of mine) for a tow vehicle, and it was overdue from the factory in Union City, Indiana. We’re talking a “bread van,” a medium-duty truck powered by a 454 engine, not the van you see in the church parking lot. But, there was an issue. It seems that the new truck had suffered a blown engine in Bowling Green, Ohio, while being driven from the factory to Detroit, while it was towing a second truck. There was no time to refit the truck with a new engine, which would mean that we would have to rent a truck big enough to haul the team’s considerable amount of “stuff” to Daytona. It’s always something in racing. 

Besides the crew and Mo Carter, Lee Dykstra would make the trip representing Mitch and their engineering efforts. Fred McKenna would be flying in from St. Louis. Fred worked for Lampert Firestone and would be handling our tires for the weekend. The OCF team had used Lampert the previous five years, and they were good friends. Last, but not least, was our “crack” PR man Chuck Koch who was coming in from L.A.  Chuck and Tony had met several years earlier when he interviewed Tony for articles he did on the OCF Corvettes.  Chuck was ably taking over for Roger Holliday from Owens-Corning. 

Word of our Budd Corvette project had even reached the executive level at GM, and Tony got a call from Bill Mitchell, VP of GM Styling (now Design). My father had introduced us to Bill and we had seen him regularly, since he lived only a block from our house. He was enthused about the effort and asked Tony if there was anything he could do to help us out. Tony thought about it for a moment and then asked if Bill could arrange for us to get one of the heavy, padded car covers GM Styling used when they towed cars from the GM Tech Center to the Milford Proving Grounds. Bill made sure we had a specially-fitted Corvette cover in time to use it on the trip to Daytona.     

We were getting into the third week of January and our workdays were getting to be 16–18 hours long. It became clear that we were going to have to leave some minor things for finishing in the garage at Daytona, including final suspension settings and electrical checks. The engine was ready to go because it had been run in and hot-torqued on Bill King’s dyno, but we were still working on the fuel system and a number of other things as time began to run out.

A huge item missing from the equation? Getting the car painted. Spike’s neighbor across the street was Jerry Pennington, owner of Pennington Collision in Troy, MI. We had known Jerry for a number of years and his work was always flawless. Jerry was a regular entrant in the annual Autorama, Detroit's Hot Rod Show. His custom car creations had won numerous trophies there and at car shows around the country.

Tony called Jerry about getting the car painted and they talked about timing. When Tony told him that we couldn’t get him the car until Saturday morning, the weekend before we had to leave, Jerry smiled and allowed as to how it would be “close.” He also told Tony that there was no time to get a super job done, but he knew we were desperate. Randy Wittine helped out with surfacing and laid out the striking white, blue, and black color scheme. We’re pretty sure Jerry, Randy and the Pennington guys worked around the clock that weekend.

The team picked up the Corvette on Monday morning from Pennington’s. There had been no time to put clear lacquer on the car, but it still looked beautiful to us. Photos of the car at the track confirm that the paint job was excellent. (Jerry would redo the paint for the upcoming Sebring race to include the clear coat.)

Monday morning?  That’s right, our departure time was blown and we grimly began loading the truck while Deryl and the guys tried to get more work done on the car. We had to take “everything” in the shop to be able to change anything on the car that might break in addition to all the pit equipment, spares, fasteners, tools, and related items. We worked late into Monday night, finally declaring the truck loaded and the car done as much as it was going to get done in the shop. The list of “things we’ll do at the track” had gotten a lot longer. 

Several of the team members had worked nearly 24 hours a day for the last week and exhaustion was setting in, but that’s racing. Early on Tuesday morning the Troy Promotions vehicle fleet consisting of a rental truck and trailer carrying the Budd Corvette (no big trailer rig this time), the TPI pickup, Bill Boskey’s Cadillac Fleetwood engineering vehicle and an assortment of other vehicles pulled out of the shop and headed for Daytona. Tony didn’t remember who was driving what when he got into the back seat of the Fleetwood and collapsed. I’ll let him describe it: “I do remember waking up and asking where we were. ‘Chattanooga’ came the reply from the front seat. I realized that the definition of exhaustion was sleeping in the back seat of a Cadillac Fleetwood for 700 miles without waking up.”

The team arrived in Daytona Beach at 3:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning and managed to grab a few hours sleep at the hotel before going to the Speedway. There was a lot of work to do on the car before presenting it for tech. A front spoiler needed to be fabricated and the closeout for the fuel filler on the rear deck needed to be addressed, among many other smaller projects. 

Chuck Koch recalls his arrival at the track on Wednesday morning: “My roommate was Lee Dykstra, and he arrived Tuesday evening. We got to the track the next day and found you guys weren’t there yet, so we stood around in the assigned garage area and waited. Sometime later Tony finally showed up looking a bit harried with a half-built racecar on the trailer, and the crew set about finishing the car. At one point Zora Duntov made a surreptitious appearance (as he had to in those days since GM wasn’t in racing, you know), and surveyed the scene with a certain amount of concern in his eyes (perhaps he was reliving 1957 Sebring when the SS Corvette was pretty much completed at the track while practice was in session). Tony and Zora huddled together in the corner for a while, making important-looking hand gestures and sharing the occasional pensive look at the crew’s work. I always wanted to know what was said.” Tony had this to say: “I can’t remember what Zora and I talked about, but I’m sure it was really important.” 

The team got Mo Carter fitted to the seat and the car was presented for tech inspection. There were no issues, although there was a brief discussion about the short exhaust collectors, but the rules were consulted and we were deemed race worthy. It helped, of course, that the sanctioning body was IMSA, if it were the SCCA it might have been a different story.

While the tech inspection prep was going on, other crew members were busy setting up the pit space for the long race. That consisted of setting up lights, a generator, timing benches, an inventory of spare parts, tools, and all the items needed to perform routine pit stops, as well as the emergencies we knew we might have during the long night of the race. Practice would start the next morning. 

So, here we were. We had struggled mightily to get the Budd Corvette ready against all odds, and now we had to do battle with the toughest competitors in the business, some of who used to be on our side. No quarter would be asked; none would be given. We would do our best to avoid a mistake, and we hoped to make our own luck.

There were four classes at the 1973 Daytona 24 Hour: Sports 3000 (3-liter); Sports 2000 (2-liter); Grand Touring +2000 (big engine GT cars); Touring 5000 (5-liter sedans); and Touring 2000 (2-liter sedans). 

The Budd Corvette was in the Grand Touring +2000 class along with 24 other cars. Most of these were Corvettes, but Luigi Chinetti, Jr. was there with his N.A.R.T. (North American Racing Team). They brought four Ferrari 365 GTB/4 machines, one of which was being driven by Milt Minter, Tony’s old friend from the Trans-Am series.

The other Corvettes entered were being driven by a gallery of competitors that we knew very well. Jerry Thompson was driving with Mike Murray and Ike Knupp in the Murray Racing Corvette. Don Yenko, one of Tony’s co-drivers at the ’71 24 Hour, was driving for arch rival John Greenwood's team, along with Jim Greendyke and Bob (Robert R.) Johnson. Greenwood would be driving with Ron Grable in his other Greenwood team car. Dave Heinz was sharing his Corvette with Bob McClure and Dana English. This group of drivers had all spent the last five years racing with and against each other, and they all had the same thing on their minds: win the race and let everybody else fight over the scraps.     

The next biggest class was Touring 5000 sedans, which were mostly Camaros save for a lone Firebird driven by Tiny Lund and Steve “Yogi” Behr, and two Ford Mustangs. 

The 3-liter sports cars were led by two Mirage M6-Fords entered by Gulf Racing for Derek Bell/Howden Ganley (No. 1) and Mike Hailwood/John Watson (No. 2); an Equipe Matra-Simca MS670 entered by the factory driven by Francois Cevert, Jean-Pierre Beltoise, and Henri Pescarolo; a Joest Racing Porsche 908/03 driven by Reinhold Joest, Mario Casoni, and Paul Blancpain; a Porsche 908/02 driven by Rudy Bartling, Harry Bytzek, and Bert Kuehne; and a lone Scuderia Fillipinetti Lola T282-Ford was driven by Riene Wisell, Jean-Louis Lafosse and Hughes de Fierlant.

Also running in the Sports 3000 class were Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood in the Brumos Porsche Carrera RSR, along with Mark Donahue and George Follmer in the Penske Racing Carrera RSR.  The Carrera RSR was in the top class because it was a new model and had a bigger engine than the other 911s in the race, which ran in our Grand Touring +2000 class. We had raced against all of them in the ’70 and ’71 Trans-Am, so feelings of wanting to beat them all were running pretty high in the Budd Corvette team.       

There were two untimed practice sessions and three qualifying sessions stretching over Thursday and Friday before the race got underway at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday. The trick was to bring the drivers up to speed at a deliberate pace while scrubbing in tires and brake pads, and checking all the systems to make sure everything was working.  And, there was an all-important night practice on Thursday. That would let the drivers get used to the track in the dark and allow the team to aim the lights properly. 

Finishing the fuel filler and close out for it on the rear deck proved to be a pain in our list of things to finish at the track. It worked and it was safe, but it was butt ugly. Fortunately the back of the Budd Corvette was black so it all blended in, and from 20 feet away it was just fine. The front spoiler was much more difficult of a project; and it shows in all the photos. Dynamically, the spoiler was fine, but aesthetically it needed a lot of work.

Finally, after five months of thrashing, it was time For Tony to get into our new race car and see what we had. He buckled in for the early session on Thursday morning, and after some brief discussion with Deryl, Mo Carter, and Lee Dykstra about what we wanted to get done, he pulled out of the pits and onto the race track.

Tony spent the first few laps feeling out the controls, brakes, clutch, gearbox, and steering. This is what he recalls: “The Budd Car was unlike any Corvette I had ever driven, that was obvious. The biggest change was having brakes that were very strong, and a chassis that reacted instantly to my control inputs. The engine was like that locomotive Deryl described after looking at the torque curve in Bill King’s shop. It reminded me of Bill Morrison’s ‘rocket’ motor at Talladega the previous August.”

“An equally big change was the new 2.42 gear ratio we were using. After spending five years with the 2.73 gear and the 427 L88 engine at Daytona, I had to learn new shift points all around the track. The neat part was pulling out onto the oval between NASCAR Turn 1 & 2 in second gear. The engine pulled that long gear and built up speed at an amazing rate, but I didn’t have to shift into fourth gear until I was on the back straight after the 31° banking flattened out! I could tell that I had built up big-time speed by then, maybe 165+ mph. By the time I got to the NASCAR Turn 3 on the oval, the engine was pulling nearly 6,000 rpm.  After enough laps to get comfortable I pitted and turned the car over to Mo Carter. He was enthused after his stint, and we worked through the session getting tires and spare brake pads scuffed in.”

In the Thursday afternoon practice session, Mo was out in the car and it began to rain so he brought the car in. Fred McKenna had some full-wet R106 Firestones and Tony decided to see how the car worked in the rain. It was actually a good idea because it always seemed to rain during the 24 Hour at some point. Tony had this to say: “I got out on the track and soon realized I had the whole place to myself. My competitors didn’t seem to want to deal with the rain so soon in the proceedings. At Daytona during heavy rain the infield portion of the course is treacherous, with lots of places that puddle and can cause the car to aquaplane. My R106s were doing their job and I quickly got into the groove. The good thing about Daytona in the rain is that the banking, including the long back straight, drains very well. The pavement is like sandpaper and provides traction very close to dry conditions. To the spectator, and sometimes the driver, it can appear horrifying, but to this driver racing in the rain at Daytona is a hoot.”

Tony was having a good time with the track all to himself, and when he decided to pit he found a crew - several crews actually - wide eyed with ear to ear grins on their faces. To a man, 45 years later, they all told the same story. Here is their impression of what transpired when Tony was on the track in the rain, in their own words, starting with Fred McKenna:

“Damp doesn't equal wet. If you'll remember, you were the only car that went out on the track during the practice session where it rained heavily enough that the deep-skid 106's could be tried but not torn up, and some of your best races were wet ones. (Meadowdale for instance.) The car could be heard all around the track and the sound down the back straight was awesome. And that's awesome before the days of Tony Stewart's or Jeff Gordon's awesome.”

PR man Chuck Koch adds to the memory:

“One memory is forever burned into my brain, and that is the practice session when it rained. Everyone else came in when the rain started, but you actually went out; as you said later, a good chance to check out things in the wet. The Budd Corvette was the only car on the track, so it was quiet except for you, a sensation only enhanced by the low cloud cover that served as a sort of natural sound board, isolating and almost amplifying whatever noise there was. As you came off the infield section and accelerated onto the banking in NASCAR Turns 1 and 2, that big old 454 started making the power and emitting the most glorious roar you'd ever hope to hear. The echo chamber of clouds reflected it back towards the pits, and as the car blasted down the back straight, the sound was dopplering off the banking in NASCAR Turns 3 and 4 with increasing frequency as the distance between the banking and the onrushing car rapidly diminished. You were out there alone for several laps, and it was the coolest, most awesome thing to hear, this car literally booming around the place, and the entire crew simply stood there smiling, just enjoying the sound. Several other crews were doing the same.”

And Fred McKenna contributes the epilog to an amazing impression left by the Budd Corvette at the wet Daytona practice in 1973:

“You’ll remember the time that there was a break in the practice session in ’69 – between afternoon and night practice - and the Holman & Moody boys wheeled out the Torino Talladega from their little secret garage for some hot laps on the oval, and the way a car that large (taxi size to them) captured the attention of the foreign crews. They looked like kids on the fence at the zoo with their eyes and mouths wide open. Your practice laps, running solo, had the same effect on the pit lane crowd in ’73. It sounded like a tape from one of the dyno cells or one of the old Riverside Records “Sounds of…” LPs. You remember LPs; they are like CD’s only much bigger!”

After wowing the assembled teams in pit lane, the team took a little break before getting ready to run night practice and discussed where we were with our program. We joked that the engineering and mechanical departments were getting the hang of it, but the drivers needed work. Tony and Mo stood their ground and said that we could go faster if the motor guys could find us another hundred or so horsepower. In reality, Tony and Mo were quickly getting comfortable with our new Budd Corvette, and the crew was beginning to realize just what a good car we had put together. Some quiet confidence was beginning to build, but we had long ago learned that it was best to put our noses to the grindstone and keep working.

The crew rolled “The Monster” over to the Cibie headlight garage to get the aiming of the lights dialed-in and do final checks before Tony and Mo went out for the night practice. When Deryl pulled the Budd car into the pits we noticed a strange pair of green lights on the roof about a foot back from the windshield header. We had always used some form of nighttime ID lights for our cars at Daytona, but usually they were trailer marker lights or something like that. Tony asked Ken Wiedbush and Bill Boskey where they got the lights and they seemed a little nervous, saying: “Um, they are bicycle lights.” They had wired them into the car’s electrical system, but we never did get an official explanation about where they came from. 

Night practice went off without any major issues. Tony went out and got comfortable with the lights and the routine of driving in the semi-darkness that is Daytona, and Mo Carter did the same. Tony tells it: “I like night driving and at Daytona, the time between about 2:00 a.m. and dawn is what I refer to as 'the Graveyard Shift.' It seems to go on for an interminable amount of time, but just when you think the night is going to last forever you see that faint white line above the East banking in NASCAR Turn 3 that signals a new dawn, and the hope that you might survive the 24 Hour unscathed.”

We got to the track at 8:00 a.m. the next morning and it actually felt a little strange to have had a decent night's sleep for a change. Our crew had warmed to the task of getting ready to run the race, and had the pit area set up and everything organized by the end of the day. 

Tony would handle the qualifying effort and when the session stopped the front row was occupied by the No. 1 Gulf Mirage-Ford of Bell/Ganley with a 1:45.512 lap, and the Matra MS670 of Cevert/Pescarolo/Beltoise. The No. 2 Gulf Mirage and the Scuderia Filipinetti Lola T282 would make up the second row. Tony and Mo shared the third row with the Harry Bytzek Porsche 908/02. Tony had qualified the Budd Corvette sixth with a time of 1:58.895. 

Chuck Koch recalls Tony’s qualifying performance: “You qualified 6th on the grid, 1st in GT, at 1:58.895 (I looked it up); the only GT car faster than two minutes. There were five prototypes in front of you, and six behind. The next GT car was about two seconds slower. (That would be the Jerry Thompson/Ike Knupp/Mike Murray Corvette.) Roger Penske had just re-upped with Porsche and was there in the Sport 3000 class for the first time in a while, with a 911 Carrera RSR that Mark Donohue was driving with George Follmer. He was almost four seconds off your pace (2:02.794) and was 6th among the GT cars. So, uncharacteristically, RP’s Porsche was many rows back. Roger was not at the track during practice and qualifying, but I remember that he came up to you on the grid and said, ‘So, Tony, this is the cheatin' Corvette that Mark's been telling me about?’ You allowed as how it was about all you could do to get the car done in time for the race, and that there was no time to do any cheating. As Roger left to find his way to the back of the grid, you looked at me and said, ‘Actually, we're a little bit slower than we were a couple years ago. Roger's been out of GT long enough that's he's forgotten how competitive it is.’ In fact, in 1971 you qualified at 1:57.19.”

We were slower than in the ’71 version of qualifying because of the 2.42 gear we were pulling, and the conservative 5,500 rpm limit we gave ourselves. The long stroke motor was up to the task though, as qualifying times indicate. Tony adds: “The key, to me anyway, was the way the Budd Corvette ran on the straight. Even with our 5,500 rpm rev limit, the car gained speed on the straight like a Great White Shark after a bunch of seals. The other reason we went a little slower in qualifying than before was that nobody was pushing us. Jerry Thompson’s Corvette was the next fastest car in our class, 7th on the grid, but they were nearly 1.5 seconds slower.  We didn’t feel the need to push the car in qualifying; if we had, we would have used the 2.73 gear and 6,000 rpm. We felt our chances in the race were very good.”

The 3:00 p.m start of the 24 Hour gave us plenty of time to do everything needed to get ready. It was actually sort of relaxing to get to the track in the morning and know that you had seven plus hours to prepare for the start. The guys working on the car did all the pre-race checks with an outwardly calm tempo.  Those in charge of the pit set up had their own routine too. Everybody had a job to do and did it. We had a meeting about noon to discuss final plans with drivers and the guys who would be working the pit stops. Drivers would run two fuel stops and change at the second stop. This would give each driver about three hours in the car, and an adequate rest period before the next stint.

Tony and Mo Carter did their thing with Chuck Koch for the media types who were in attendance. They also schmoozed with the other drivers on the grid as we got closer to the start. The fact that we were on the Grand Touring +2000 pole and sixth on the grid of 57 starters had not escaped their notice. We had made a statement, but we would have to back it up when the green flag waived. We were tense but confident. I will let Chuck Koch have the honor of describing Tony’s run at the start:

“Okay, so the parade laps start and it's kind of funny; here's five low-slung prototypes, then this big hump of a Corvette rumbling in the midst of them, and then more low-slung prototypes behind. It just seemed somehow strange looking, almost incongruous. Then the green flag waves and everyone accelerates away. The first time past there were the high-pitched screams of the leading few prototypes, then this big, roaring, thumping behemoth, and then some more screaming before the next V8 GT car came by. You were 5th the first time past, and 4th the next. It was almost as cool as the solo laps in the rain. There'd be a wheeeeen, wheeeeen, wheeeeen, (or whatever onomatopoeia you use to simulate the sound of the OHC prototypes' engines) as the lead cars went past, then the air would be rent and your chest assaulted as the Budd car thundered by, RRROOOAAARRR, and then some more wheeens. You held 4th for several laps before settling into race pace.”

Tony recalls it this way: “The start of any race is a high stress event for the driver. The 24 Hour is no exception. The mindset for us, back then, was to try to race according to our plan and the track rather than have things degenerate into a street fight with the other cars the way things seem to go in today’s long distance races. I gently worked the brakes and tires up to temperature during the two pace laps. I was surrounded by 3-liter sports cars and tried to ignore them while I was getting my own act together. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Mirages, Porsches, and Matra sports cars at the start. We didn’t spend any time around them in practice and qualifying since they were much quicker, the pole sitter being more than 13-seconds a lap faster than we were. 

Surprise! When we came out of NASCAR Turn 4 to get the green flag, everybody seemed to be on their best behavior going into turn one into the infield; nobody wanted to earn the wrath of their crew by doing something stupid on the pace laps, and the start of a 24 hour race. I consciously kept to my 5,500 rpm red line and expected the sports cars to disappear quickly, but we stayed in a bunch through the infield and onto the banking. Now they’ll disappear, I thought to myself. To my surprise, I passed the Lola T282 of Reine Wisell, and the Porsche 908 of Harry Bytzek, leaving the two Gulf Mirages and the factory Matra in front of me. The lead cars were not leaving me on the long back straight and 31° banking of NASCAR Turns 3 and 4. 

Now my mind began to race; fuel I thought, they are fat with fuel and they don’t have any torque. Well, torque compared to my car that is. Once more through the infield and the Budd Corvette wasn’t losing any ground to speak of; any that was lost was quickly made up on the oval. Now I was genuinely conflicted. In one or two corners in the infield during the heat of the start, I had let the rpm drift to 6,000+ and felt the entire character of the car change. There was even some wheel spin coming out of the infield Turn 5, heading for the hairpin leading onto the banking.”

This was no ordinary Corvette, that is for sure. Tony adds: “After all these years, I can now confess to thinking the following as we climbed onto the Daytona banking to start the second lap of the race: ‘I can hammer this thing and drive by these guys like they are tied to a tree and lead this race for a lap or maybe two.’ Sigh! The devil on my left shoulder said to hammer it; but the angel on my right shoulder said to remember the plan and I can win the race. Another trainload of Catholic guilt just left the station. So I stuck to the plan and drove like an altar boy for my first stint and then pitted for fuel.

Everything was running according to plan. We were leading the GT +2000 class and running in the top six overall with no issues.  My second stint went like the first, and I handed the car over to Mo Carter around 6:00 p.m. When I got out, the guys were smiling. I think that meant I was doing a good job. We were on schedule, and Mo was doing a great job too. I tried to relax a little in the trailer we had rented for the race and got back to the pits just after Mo had made his first stop. I saw my friend Greg who was on a break from the signal pits.  He was grinning from ear to ear, and allowed as to how the Budd Corvette was a 'monster'. Little did he know just how much of a monster it was.”

But remember, this is racing, and racing runs the gamut from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, in a matter of moments. And sometimes it just flat-out sucks. Shortly after 8:00 p.m. we got the bad news: Race control told our timers that Mo had parked the No. 11 Budd Corvette in the grass just past NASCAR Turn 2 with a reported engine problem. The car was in a safe spot so we couldn’t retrieve it until the next morning.  We just stood in the pits with a numb feeling spreading over us. A few minutes later Mo got out of a track vehicle and came over. He said that everything was fine as he was going through the West banking, and then the engine just quit cold. He recognized the massive engine failure, took the car out of gear, and coasted to the grass on the inside of the track. “The Monster” had died somewhat quietly on the back straight, according to Mo. We had completed 101 stinkin’ laps. 

For the record, Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood won the race overall in the Brumos Porsche RSR, completing 670 laps. The N.A.R.T. Ferrari 365 GTB/4 of Milt Minter, Francois Migault, and Claude Bellot-Lena was second with 648 laps. Dave Heinz was third in his Corvette, completing 644 laps. The Grand Touring +2000 cars occupied the first six finishing positions. The first, and only “sports car” Sports 3000 finisher was Harry Bytzek’s 908 Porsche in 12th place. There were only 15 cars classified as finishers out of 57 starters.  

We would get some rest before the non-stop drive back to Detroit, but the good night’s sleep didn’t make anybody feel any better about the outcome.

The day after we got back to the shop we pulled the engine out of the Budd Corvette and took it down the street to Bill King’s shop for a teardown and post mortem. Chuck Koch describes the scene at the teardown:

“When the pan was dropped, Bill looked up the cylinder bores and said something like, ‘Well, that would probably do it.’ We all, in turn, got down to look, and were greeted with the sight of the top of the piston staring down at us in the bore. Tony said something about how loud the little man must have screamed. From the bottom of the pan, Bill retrieved the two halves of the con rod that had split neatly right down the middle, starting at the oiling hole drilled on the small end. Bill Howell, an engine engineer from Chevrolet was there, and when he saw the rod, he allowed as how that they had found out the 454 had a harmonic vibration in the 5,500 rpm range which caused the rods to break at the oiling hole. And, in fact, it had been determined that actually no oiling hole was needed at all. Of course, 5,500-5,700 rpm is right where the team had decided to run the motor since, based on experience with the 427, the engine should have lasted forever at such low revs. Tony and Bill thanked Bill Howell for passing the information along so expeditiously, he shrugged and it was sort of agreed that that was racing."

Tony had this to say: “In reality, it was a bitter pill to swallow. For 40+ years I have agonized over the decision to run the engine the way we did at Daytona. I have lost count of the number of times the race scenario has played out in my mind, but it would have been nice to see the result of shifting the car at 6,000 rpm and running the “normal” 2.73 Daytona gear. Oh well.”

It was "just one of them racing deals" as racers like to say.

“The Monster” Corvette had been designed, engineered, built and executed by some of the best minds in the business at that fleeting moment in time. It was a stunning piece of work. And even though things didn’t work out the way we wanted them to, it was worth each and every memorable moment. 

The team would gain a measure of solace at Sebring about six weeks later as Tony would put “The Monster” on the overall pole position (it was an all GT field that year). But more on that in next week’s installment. Stay tuned.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
After being marginalized by certain Chevrolet racing operatives, we went out and purchased two Bud Moore Engineering Mustang Trans-Am cars used to win the '70 Trans-Am Championship for Ford and Parnelli Jones. This is how they looked in our new Troy Promotions Inc. livery, designed by the legendary GM designer Randy Wittine, of course.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
After using up our first trailer, we purchased the trailer used by Dan Gurney's All American Racers team in the 1970 Trans-Am season. This is how it appeared at the first race of the 1971 Trans-Am season at Lime Rock.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
Pit action at the 1971 Trans-Am race at Mid-Ohio. The TPI team consistently executed its pit stops as fast as Penske Racing that season.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
The No. 3 TPI Ford Mustang had a great on-track look. There were several models made of it, including a scalextric-usa slot car.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
Tony at speed in Bill Morrison's bad ass big-block Corvette in an IMSA/Grand-Am race at the Talladega Superspeedway back in 1972. The lessons learned from that car's engine played into the development of "The Monster."

(Photo by Hal Crocker/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Tony (No. 11 TPI Budd Corvette) made a splash in the rain during a practice session for the Daytona 24 Hour in 1973. Note the shortened side exhaust pipes.

(The DeLorenzo Collection)
Big power, monster torque - a look under the hood at the 467 cu. in. V8 in the Budd Corvette.
(The DeLorenzo Collection)
The instrument panel was functional and up to the task. Note the Cadillac emblem - it was put there by the boys on the team from Cadillac Engineering who worked on the car.

(Photo by Hal Crocker/The DeLorenzo Collection)
The No. 11 Troy Promotions Inc. Corvette on the east banking at the Daytona International Speedway in 1973.

(Photo by Hal Crocker/The DeLorenzo Collection)
Tony turns "The Monster" on to the banking at Daytona in 1973.

(Photo by Hal Crocker/The DeLorenzo Collection)
The first few laps of the 1973 Daytona 24 Hour race, with Tony running fourth in "The Monster." The No. 11 TPI Budd Corvette was a brilliantly conceived and executed racing machine, representing the best and the brightest of that era. And with a different gear and a less conservative race strategy, the outcome might have been decidedly different. But then again, Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas count for exactly zero in racing. Thus it was ever so, unfortunately.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present another noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Daytona Beach, Florida, February 24, 1963. Tiny Lund (No. 21 Wood Brothers English Motors Ford) runs with Freddie Lorenzen (No. 28 Holman-Moody LaFayette Ford) in Turn 3 at the Daytona International Speedway during that year's Daytona 500. Lund would win that day followed by Lorenzen, Ned Jarrett (No. 11 Charles Robinson Burton-Robinson Ford), Nelson Stacy (No. 29 Holman-Moody Ron's Ford Sales Ford) and Dan Gurney (No. 0 Holman-Moody LaFayette Ford). Watch a video here.

Editor's Note: As Peter's summer break from writing "Fumes" comes to an end, we're of course continuing our weekly racing updates in "The Line," this week featuring IndyCar from Gateway Motorsports Park; F1 from Spa; NASCAR Xfinity from Road America; and Trans-Am from Road America, featuring more sensational photographic work from John Thawley. And we're also running the last chapter in Peter's riveting series, "The Glory Days." The inside story of Tony DeLorenzo's racing career (Peter's brother), one of the most successful Corvette racers of all time - including the fantastic exploits of the famous Owens/Corning Fiberglas Racing Team - was one of the most widely read and popular pieces ever to appear in Autoextremist.com. This week, in Part VII, Peter recalls the 1973 12 Hours of Sebring, where Tony put the No. 11 Budd Corvette on the pole for the all-GT running of the race that year. So enjoy, because it was a different time and a different era, one never to be repeated. -WG

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. Since my most recent column on revising NASCAR's schedule generated tremendous interest (much of it negative from the NASCAR community, which was to be expected), you would think that writing about the NASCAR circus would continue to be all-consuming. Hardly. While it's easy to target NASCAR for its head-in-sand refusal to acknowledge its ongoing downward spiral, everything is far from rosy in sports car racing, specifically the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

As someone who was exposed to road racing from an early age, it remains my favorite form of racing to this day. But given the myriad problems facing all of racing of late, including the unending quest for sponsors and the constant appeasement of manufacturers so that they stay interested and engaged, it's no wonder that I consider a hard look at the IMSA schedule to be worthwhile, and long overdue.

First of all, you have to understand that racers just want to race, so it's easy to see how a schedule evolves. The constant quest of finding sponsors consumes team principals and their marketing arms on a daily basis, so a locked-in schedule is a needed constant that is reassuring and something they don't necessarily want to have to think about. This is an understandable take to be sure, but it doesn't negate the fact that IMSA's schedule could be better, if serious consideration was put into it. This is in no way meant to denigrate the tremendous effort put forth by Scott Atherton & Co at IMSA, because their task of dealing with the individual tracks on the schedule, plus the promoters, manufacturers, sponsors and racing teams - not to mention the FIA and ACO - is a steady thrum of back-and-forth negotiations that is never ending.

But in order to accomplish a meaningful rethink of the schedule, it requires a major attitude adjustment, one that progresses beyond the, "we're just happy to have a race and be sponsored enough to compete" platitudes expressed by the competitors or the, "our schedule is locked-in even earlier this year so that our teams and sponsors can plan accordingly, which is huge for us," usually conveyed by IMSA management. Those two perspectives are certainly worthy and well-intentioned, but I think too much is being left on the table.

From my frame of reference, the recurring considerations for the sport of road racing in this country have to revolve around these two questions: What's best for the growth of the sport going forward? And how can a schedule be constructed to mine every advantage we have? So, let's take a look at what a reimagined 2018 IMSA schedule might look like:

January 19 - 21, Daytona Beach, Florida: The "Roar Before the Rolex 24" is moved to the weekend before the Daytona 24 hour race to reduce cost. Scheduling this exercise two weeks before the race is a giant boondoggle that blows up budgets and schedules, and it needs to end.

January 25 - 28, Daytona Beach, Florida: You don't mess with history, so the Daytona 24 Hour stays exactly where it belongs on the North American racing calendar.

March 14 - 17, Sebring, Florida: Speaking of history and tradition, America's oldest and most prestigious sports car race - the Twelve Hours of Sebring - stays put. In addition, both Daytona and Sebring would be put back on the international racing calendar and the WEC will not be allowed to run its own event at Sebring, which is pretty much the dumbest idea I've heard for racing in a very long time by the way.

April 13 - 14, Birmingham, Alabama: I really don't care about the hoary "happening" raison d'etre that defines the Grand Prix of Long Beach racing weekend. IMSA doesn't belong there functioning as the "Sideshow Bob" for IndyCar. This is one of those prime examples of just because it's available it doesn't mean the series should be racing there, so a trip to Barber Motorsports Park is in the offing instead.

May 4 - 6, Lexington, Ohio: Mid-Ohio was put back on the IMSA calendar for 2018 because it belongs there. I concur.

May 17 - 19, Charlotte, North Carolina: On the "roval" at Charlotte Motor Speedway one week before the Coca-Cola 600, replacing the NASCAR "all-star" race, which is a recurring joke. Have the teams bring some "extra" cars and put some NASCAR stars in them to liven up the proceedings too. And no, I'm not a fan of "rovals" per se but I'm even less of a fan of IMSA running at Belle Isle Park in Detroit. As well-intentioned as Roger Penske and GM are by being the prime movers behind that weekend, the fact remains that ingress and egress to and from the island remains a perennial issue. On top of that, this race qualifies as a true "CSS" ("Can's See Shit") event that confounds true racing enthusiasts every year it comes up on the calendar. I'm not a "homer" for this city and I am definitely not a booster of this event, and I question the true value of it every year that it is run. I wouldn't miss it in the least. And note how this date is moved up considerably. Why? See below.

June 13 - 17, Le Mans, France: Okay, so this is where the ACO - now that they've completely screwed up its event - falls on its sword and begs IMSA to bring its top prototype teams over to run the 24 Hours of Le Mans, including the DPi machines.

June 28 - July 1, Watkins Glen, New York: If you read up about genuine tradition in major league American road racing it's no secret why The Glen occupies a permanent place on the calendar.

July 6 - 8, Bowmanville, Ontario: Yes, of course, Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (aka Mosport) belongs on the calendar. It is a fantastic track and it is the home for some of the most rabid road racing fans in the world.

July 20 - 21, Lakeville, Connecticut: If I could find another natural-terrain road racing circuit to take the place of Lime Rock I certainly would, because even an all-GT race at this track is barely acceptable. But in lieu of doing that, Lime Rock stays.

August 3 - 5, Alton, Virginia: The Michelin GT Challenge at VIR makes a move up on the calendar to an earlier date.

August 17- 19, Salinas, California: IMSA's appearance at Laguna Seca (Mazda Raceway) is also moved up, a full three weeks earlier.

September 7 - 9, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin: Road America, "America's National Park of Speed" and this country's greatest natural-terrain road racing circuit moves to a fall date as the second-to-the-last race on the IMSA calendar.

October 10 - 13, Baselton, Georgia: The IMSA finale at Road Atlanta - The Motul Petit Le Mans - remains as the climax of the American road racing season.

Yes, I know, the "roval" at Charlotte Motor Speedway is heresy, but I would take it all day long over another race on Belle Isle. Besides, it might perk up the crowds in Charlotte to witness something that's actually different than what they're used to seeing. Also, other than the obvious distance races at Daytona, Sebring, Le Mans, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta, all other IMSA races would be cut to two hours total in length. More heresy? Not really. The two-hour-and-40-minute slog for the non-endurance races has outlived its usefulness. Make the IMSA TV coverage a two-and-one-half hour window allowing for a solid pre-race show and plenty of post-race coverage.

Are these schedule changes radical? Not as radical as I'd like them to be, but nonetheless a fresh perspective.

And that's the High-Octane Truth for this week.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present another noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Watkins Glen, New York, July 21, 1973. The No. 1 Gulf Research Racing Co. Mirage M6 Ford driven by Derek Bell/Howden Ganley on its way to a fourth-place finish behind Gerard Larousse/Henri Pescarolo (No. 33 Equpe Matra Matra-Simca MS670B); Jacky Ickx/Brian Redman (No. 10 Ferrari SEFAC SPA Ferrari 312B); and Arturo Merzario/Carlos Pace (No. 11 Ferrari SEFAC SPA Ferrari 312B) in the Watkins Glen 6-Hour race, Round 10 of the FIA World Championship for Makes.

Editor-in-Chief's Note: Rather than do a new "Fumes" column this week I thought we'd feature the exceptional photographic work of John Thawley from the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 2017 season finale - Petit Le Mans - which was run last Saturday at Road Atlanta. John is an old friend of mine from our previous other lives and it's a privilege to showcase his work in these pages. You can see more of John's work from Road Atlanta in this week's "The Line" and you can also access the full gallery of John's work from Road Atlanta and from other races throughout the 2017 season in the Autoextremist Image Gallery here. -PMD

(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)

(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)

(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)

(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)

(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)

(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present another noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Photo by Dave Friedman courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Sebring, Florida, March 21, 1964. Dan Gurney in the factory No. 11 Shelby American Cobra (co-driven by Bob Johnson) during the 12-Hour race. Gurney qualified the machine in eighth position in GT 5.0 and ran well but the duo DNF due to a crash at the very end of the race and were classified tenth overall.

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. It's no big secret that racing as we know it is heading for change and upheaval. The auto companies' push into electrification is having them look for ways to justify their massive investment in R&D, which is why you're seeing major moves into Formula E by multiple manufacturers. Is Formula E going to replace Formula 1? No, but that avenue of racing is going to be making a lot of noise - not on the track, unfortunately - especially in its fifth year of existence, when the cars will be able to complete the entire race distance on one charge.

I used to be more bullish on Formula E than I am now. I don't discount the efficacy of developing electrified powertrains through racing, after all, my Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation proposed just that more than ten years ago, only with the added component of hydrogen, which I still believe will be the ultimate power application for electric vehicles down the road. But one crucial part of the rules package for the HERF series was that every manufacturer had to develop their own "sound signature" through electronic amplification, or using the air flowing over the car, or both. Because it was obvious to me that racing without the visceral appeal of sound would be seriously lacking. And that's why Formula E has only limited appeal for me now. Yes, I get it, the research and development of future electric powertrains is best accomplished by pushing them to the limit in racing, but without sound - the glorified slot car noise of Formula E is not compelling in the least - it doesn't work for me.

Where does that leave the rest of racing? I think we all have to get used to the fact that conventional racing - using internal combustion engines - will become a variation of "vintage" racing. Make no mistake, the ICE will be around for another 40-50 years, because the fact of the matter is that electrification just will not work for all transportation applications. But a large chunk of our future transportation fleets will be electrified, which means that ICEs will become an anachronism, whether we like it or not.

And if you think about it, we're already halfway there. Formula 1 is reviewing its engine rules package for the next decade right now, and there's a strong push to not have those engines be directly linked to current passenger engine standards. And why should they? With Formula E occupying the electrification/green space, why should Formula 1 go down that road too? Here's to a new, unapologetic engine package for Formula 1 that is more than a nod to previous generations of power. After all, if ICEs are going to fade from view in a few decades, the visceral appeal of a screaming F1 car will become magnified and a huge draw.

The same can be said for Indy car racing. Without the shriek of ICE engines at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where would we be? I don't see that changing either, although Turbo V6s are not my cup of tea. If the Indianapolis 500 becomes the biggest single nostalgia/vintage motor race in the world, so be it. (I proposed a "Hydrogen 500" to be run the week before the "500," not to actually replace "The Greatest Spectacle In Racing.")

As for NASCAR, the reality is that it has been its own vintage racing series for years. And I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with a wide range of issues associated with NASCAR (as longtime readers of this publication know) that I won't go into today, but the sound of booming V8s isn't one of them.

And IMSA? Remember when Audi showed up with their TDI engines? I distinctly recall being at Road America and thinking that, yikes, they may be fast but they sounded like shit. There, I said it. I am in favor of IMSA having engines that sound like racing engines, and I am confident that will be the case for a long time to come. (The sound of the factory Corvettes, the factory 911 RSRs and the Chevy-powered "Cadillac"-branded DPis are my current favorites.)

So as we go forward, the future of racing will have a clear demarcation. On the one hand, there will be forms of electrified racing that will hold varying degrees of appeal. On the other hand, most of racing will continue to be a celebration of ICE power because there's just no getting around the fact that those engines deliver a visceral appeal that can't be duplicated, electronically or otherwise. In fact, as the years go by, attending a proper motor race will largely be appealing because of the sound, especially as those sounds slowly but surely fade from being part of the American landscape.

And that's the High-Octane Truth for this week.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, this week's image is from the DeLorenzo Racing Archives. - PMD

(The DeLorenzo Racing Archives)
Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, June 15, 1968. Tony DeLorenzo (No. 50 Hanley Dawson Chevrolet Corvette 427 L88) on the gas and on his way to the win in "A Production" in the biggest SCCA National back in the day - the June Sprints at Road America. This was the last appearance of this machine in our preferred black racing colors. The next time the car appeared was at an SCCA National at Mid-Ohio in August, where we debuted the Owens/Corning Fiberglas sponsorship and distinctive racing colors. You can read more about those days in "The Glory Days, Part I."

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. Lewis Hamilton became World Champion for the fourth time in Mexico City last Sunday. Not his preferred way of closing out his fourth title - he came together with chief rival, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel on the first lap, finishing ninth - but it was enough, and now he's the most successful Grand Prix driver from Great Britain in history. And that's a remarkable feat in and of itself, considering the all-time greats from his country who came before him, including Jackie Stewart with three World Championships, Jim Clark with two and Graham Hill with two. Besides his four World Championships, Hamilton has 62 Grand Prix victories, and his 72 pole positions are the most, all-time. 

Hamilton's story is remarkable. Not gifted with the best of financial circumstances to put it mildly, Hamilton's father supported his early racing endeavors, sacrificing everything to see that Lewis had every opportunity to succeed. And then the story about Lewis being discovered and encouraged by Ron Dennis, at McLaren, is almost out of a storybook. From an early age Lewis's dream was to be a Grand Prix driver and race in Formula One. And he never wavered from that dream, demonstrating a relentless desire and retaining a singular focus to be the best of the best. 

And unless you've been over in England and have seen it for yourself, it's hard to convey how important racing is. Beyond being a key industry in the country's economy, racing itself is a noble calling and respected profession. There is a distinct difference between the U.S. and Great Britain in that regard. Here in the U.S., there are regional "pockets of respectability" for racing, like Charlotte and Indianapolis. In Great Britain, however, racing occupies a hallowed position in the country's fabric, and the fact that Lewis Hamilton is now the most successful British Grand Prix driver of all time, well, to say it's a very big deal is a gross understatement.
 
Racing in Formula One is everything to Lewis, it's all he ever wanted, and now he has reached the pinnacle of the sport, being one of five drivers, along with Schumacher, Fangio, Prost and Vettel, who have won four or more World Championships. This is what he had to say after clinching his fourth championship: "Wow. I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who came out to see us," said Hamilton. "The Mexican fans I think are the best around the world. I did everything I could. I had a good start and I don't really know what happened at turn three but I gave him plenty of room, but I tried my hardest to come back." "A big thank you to my family and my team," Hamilton continued. "Mercedes have been incredible over the last five years and I am so proud to be a part of it." He concluded, "I never gave up. It was not the [type of] race I wanted. I kept going right to the end. I just want to lift it up to my family, and god and my team."

Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton and his family and team. He's the quintessential definition of a racer's racer.

And that's the High-Octane Truth for this week.

(Getty Images/BBC)
With four World Championships, Lewis Hamilton is now Great Britain's most successful Grand Prix driver.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, this week's image is from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Three of Great Britain's all-time greats: Jim Clark and Graham Hill; and Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. It's clear that the future of the automobile is in flux. The gloomiest of prognostications suggest that private car ownership and driving independently will become obsolete, and instead we'll just summon autonomous pod cars, pay by the ride and that will be our transportation future. I don't subscribe to the idea that this will become the norm across this vast country - in select urban centers, maybe, but only a heavily modified version of that idea. But get outside of the urban centers and the automobile - and automobile culture - as we know it will continue for a long, long time to come. 

But as the sport becomes more and more detached from the realities of everyday transportation, and the notion of "proving" new technologies for consumer vehicles on the race track fades from importance, what will be left? Enthusiasts who buy into the electric future point to Formula E as the new focal point of racing, but I disagree. The reality is that the glorified slot car noises generated by the Formula E cars leave much to be desired.

As enthusiastic as I was initially about electrified racing, it's clear to me that without the visceral appeal associated with the magnificent sounds of racing and motorsport, there is very little attraction left. 

So what about the future of racing and motorsport? I think we're entering into a new phase where racing will exist unto itself, a combination of nostalgia and appreciation for internal combustion machines that once dominated the motorized world. In fact, as we move toward this electrification/autonomous transportation future, the sounds of racing machines will become the attraction, and as long as there are enthusiasts out there who appreciate that sound and fury, racing will still occupy a special place in our sporting world. As for driving enthusiasts who still crave the speed and power - and independence - of driving high-performance machines, track days will become the norm and amateur racing will be the last bastion of that kind of driving freedom. 

The reality for racing going forward is that whether it be IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula 1, sports cars, short tracks, rally cross, etc., etc., as racing becomes more and more detached from the grim realities of where our public and consumer transportation is going, it will all become some form of "vintage" racing. 

And I'm actually fine with that, because participating in, or attending racing events will become a celebration of the golden age of our magnificent motorized era, and I see that having a distinct appeal for decades to come.

And that's the High-Octane Truth for this week.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, this week's image is from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Photo by Dave Friedman, courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Riverside, California, 1963. Bob Bondurant (No. 99 Shelby American Cobra) on the way to the win in a special 1-hour GT race at Riverside International Raceway. Cobras finished 1-2-3-4 with Allen Grant (No. 96 Coventry Motors Shelby Cobra) second; Lew Spencer (No. 98 Shelby American Cobra) third; and Dan Gurney (No. 97 Shelby American Cobra), fourth. Watch a cool video here.

Editor's Note: Peter's column about the future of racing is still resonating in the racing world, so we're going to run it again. Peter will return with a new "Fumes" column next week. -WG

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. It's clear that the future of the automobile is in flux. The gloomiest of prognostications suggest that private car ownership and driving independently will become obsolete, and instead we'll just summon autonomous pod cars, pay by the ride and that will be our transportation future. I don't subscribe to the idea that this will become the norm across this vast country - in select urban centers, maybe, but only a heavily modified version of that idea. But get outside of the urban centers and the automobile - and automobile culture - as we know it will continue for a long, long time to come. 

But as the sport becomes more and more detached from the realities of everyday transportation, and the notion of "proving" new technologies for consumer vehicles on the race track fades from importance, what will be left? Enthusiasts who buy into the electric future point to Formula E as the new focal point of racing, but I disagree. The reality is that the glorified slot car noises generated by the Formula E cars leave much to be desired.

As enthusiastic as I was initially about electrified racing, it's clear to me that without the visceral appeal associated with the magnificent sounds of racing and motorsport, there is very little attraction left. 

So what about the future of racing and motorsport? I think we're entering into a new phase where racing will exist unto itself, a combination of nostalgia and appreciation for internal combustion machines that once dominated the motorized world. In fact, as we move toward this electrification/autonomous transportation future, the sounds of racing machines will become the attraction, and as long as there are enthusiasts out there who appreciate that sound and fury, racing will still occupy a special place in our sporting world. As for driving enthusiasts who still crave the speed and power - and independence - of driving high-performance machines, track days will become the norm and amateur racing will be the last bastion of that kind of driving freedom. 

The reality for racing going forward is that whether it be IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula 1, sports cars, short tracks, rally cross, etc., etc., as racing becomes more and more detached from the grim realities of where our public and consumer transportation is going, it will all become some form of "vintage" racing. 

And I'm actually fine with that, because participating in, or attending racing events will become a celebration of the golden age of our magnificent motorized era, and I see that having a distinct appeal for decades to come.

And that's the High-Octane Truth for this week.

Editor's Note: Many of you have seen Peter's references over the years to the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), which he launched in 2007. For those of you who weren't following AE at the time, you can read two of HERF's press releases here and here. And for even more details (including a link to Peter's announcement speech), check out the HERF entry on Wikipedia here. -WG

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, this week's image is from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Photo by Dave Friedman)
Riverside International Raceway, 1965. Hap Sharp (No. 65 Chaparral 2C Chevrolet) and Jim Hall (No. 66 Chaparral 2C Chevrolet) during practice for the "Riverside 200," the Eighth Annual Los Angeles Times Grand Prix for Sports Cars. Sharp won the race, Jim Clark (No. 1 Team Lotus Lotus 40 Ford) was second and Bruce McLaren (No. 4 McLaren Cars McLaren Elva Mark II Oldsmobile) finished third.

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. As many readers know, I've written about the future of racing and the ramifications of a changing world on the sport in this space often. Last week's column - "When All Racing Becomes 'Vintage' Racing" - was another in a long line of columns concerning the future of the sport. For people who love and are enthusiasts of the sport, and for people directly involved in the business of motorsport, the future should be of serious concern and my reasons for writing about this subject on a continuous basis are well documented.

It's easy for the players in this sport, the team owners, drivers, technicians, etc., to get lost in the immediacy of what they do. Supporting a modern racing organization with the proper funding to retain talented employees while chasing sponsorship is a never-ending task, and it understandably must be a top priority. But while doing this it's easy to lose sight of the Big Picture because, after all, once a team's personnel and budgets are secured, overriding concerns about the overall health of a racing series become secondary. 

But when a given racing series plays out before empty grandstands and excuses are continuously made about minuscule TV ratings, and the key players involved operate as if wearing blinders while insisting that everything is all good, this is what I call "racing in a vacuum." And it's a seriously myopic way to go about the business of racing, because to pretend that this is all going to continue on without repercussions and consequences is to display a level of naivete that almost defies understanding. Witness the Brian France remarks at Homestead-Miami Speedway last weekend, whereupon he insisted - yet again - that everything is good with NASCAR, which is flat-out laughable as even the most prominent NASCAR teams are struggling to find sponsors. Or the fact that the sport of Indy car racing is almost back where it started, which means that there's the Indianapolis 500 and a bunch of other races of varying degrees of substance making up the IndyCar Series schedule. Not to mention the glacial pace of change in F1, which has become a recurring joke, while the players argue about new engine rules for 2022.

I constantly prod and push the powers that be in this sport to get their heads out of their asses and take the long view, because if they fail to do so, racing will continue to fade in importance except for a few premier events, which would be a real shame. 

If you follow me on Twitter (@PeterMDeLorenzo) you know that I've been posting images and commentary covering a lot of the compelling historical stories of racing's golden years. Of late I've focused on the story of the fabulous Chaparrals of Jim Hall, which marked one of the high points of "blue-sky" thinking and advanced technical developments in the sport. Through the course of my Twitter postings, one of my Twitter followers was incredulous to find out that Chevrolet was deeply involved in a technical partnership with Jim Hall, one that was completely kept under the table due to the fact that some of the suits on the famous 14th Floor of the GM Building were decidedly anti-racing. 

Though I prefer the way Ford went about its racing in the 60s, which was part of an aboveboard, orchestrated marketing push called "Total Performance," the story of the Chaparrals and other racing endeavors by GM/Chevrolet Engineering's True Believers and Best and Brightest is one of the most fascinating stories in the history of motorsport. If you can get your hands on Paul Van Valkenburgh's vivid account of those incredible years - "Chevrolet = Racing...? Fourteen Years of Raucous Silence!!" - you will be amazed at the stories and photos documenting Chevrolet Engineering's deep involvement in the Chaparral program, and other racing forays with John Mecom, Roger Penske and a host of others.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that those fourteen years coincided with one of the most creative eras in motorsports history, long before the sport devolved into a maize of restrictions and specifications. I would like to think we can somehow muster a new era of creativity in racing again, but as long as "racing in a vacuum" is racing's standard operating procedure, I'm afraid the sport will continue spinning its wheels along the road to its inevitable decline.

And that's the High-Octane Truth for this week.

(Amazon)
"Chevrolet = Racing...? Fourteen Years of Raucous Silence!!" was Paul Van Valkenburgh's vivid account of GM/Chevrolet Engineering's under the table racing programs. A fascinating read.



Riverside International Raceway, 1966. Jim Hall's innovative No. 66 Chaparral 2E Chevrolet during practice for the Can-Am race. He finished second to John Surtees (No. 7 Team Surtees Lola T70 Mk. 2 Chevrolet). Graham Hill (No. 3 Team Surtees Lola T70 Mk. 2 Chevrolet) finished third. Few people knew at the time that Jim Hall and Chevrolet Engineering had a very close technical partnership, the depth and breadth of which is staggering to think about now. In fact every Chaparral racing machine had a corresponding Chevrolet Engineering research vehicle attached to it back in Michigan so a mirror development program could be conducted at GM's Warren Technical Center and the GM Proving Grounds in Milford. The signature bright white of the Chaparrals was the direct result of the cars being developed in the sun and heat of Jim Hall's home and headquarters in Midland, Texas.
The Corvette GSIIb was the Chevrolet Engineering research version of the Chaparral 2 and its iterations.
12 Hours of Sebring, 1965. Jim Hall (No. 3 Chaparral 2A Chevrolet, co-driven by Hap Sharp) started from the pole and dominated the race remembered for the "The Deluge." A massive storm hit the circuit after 5:00 p.m. with 50 mph winds and torrential rain. It rained an incredible 5 inches in 30 minutes, and ten-minute laps were not uncommon at the height of the storm. The water was so deep in pit lane that unattended wheels/tries floated away!