Snake and Mongoose coming in 2013

The untold story of how Southern California drag racers, Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen combined with corporate giants to change the face of sports and ultimately became the most famous rivalry in racing history.

From the trailer, it looks well done and seems chocked full of period correct cars and set pieces.

Attempt at Road Rally

As I indicated in my previous post we were wannabe rally car drivers.  So what is there beyond autocross that the amateur car guy can get into? First there is RallyCross....which is basically autocross on an unpaved surface.  As fun as it looks we viewed it as not the sort of event you want to take your brand new car to.

The other alternative is RoadRally. These events take place on public roads and obey speed limits (in theory). There are a few types of rallies but the most prevalent type of RoadRally is the Time-Speed-Distance (TSD) RoadRally. In a TSD RoadRally, the teams must not only follow the rally course, but are also challenged to maintain precise average speeds. This speed is always at or below the posted speed limit for the roads used. At various points along the route, unknown to the competitors beforehand, the cars will be clocked in. Since the organizers of the event have measured the course prior to the event, the exact time that each car should arrive at these checkpoints is known. Teams are penalized one point for every hundredth of a minute that they arrive late or early at the checkpoint. At the end of the event, the team with the lowest score is declared the winner. Since all speeds are at or below the posted speed limits, no special vehicle is needed. Rallies usually end at a restaurant or other social establishment. Here competitor's trade stories of their adventures and enjoy each other's company while waiting for the awards to be handed out.

So, my brother and I entered the Subaru in a local rally back in August of 2000. The course covered a very large area in the eastern part of Connecticut which is fairly rural (i.e. unpaved roads!).  The event started early and was an all day affair (or at least it seemed like it).  Even though this was our first rally we were fairly confident we'd do well since the gist was to follow the directions and calculate the anticipated speeds.  My brother's background as a furniture repair person basically had him drive everywhere in the state on service calls (pre-GPS) so the navigating directions thing was covered. I was an engineering student so calculating average speeds over distances should have been cake......I said 'should have been.'

The first challenge of the event is to not be an idiot....which can be harder than you think. You are in your car that you are so proud of, you are surrounded by other car guys in their rides and you are all going to the same place.....yet, the rules say don't speed!  So you have to suppress the 'racer' in you and focus on the fact that it is a precision timing event.

The second challenge was that my brother had already swapped is wheel/tire package on the car.....meaning the rolling diameter of his wheels didn't match the factory spec and the odometer was slightly off. The directions you are given don't necessarily say "Turn left on Main Street" instead they will read "Turn left in 6.2 miles" so an accurate odometer is kinda important.

So how did we do? Not well. Honestly, we could have done better, but as the day went on we chose not to....let me explain.

The event hinges on the fact that if you drive along at the speed limit along a predefined course you will cross certain points at the same time. Well, what happens if you take a wrong turn? Since you would only dare to drive the speed limit the time it takes to correct your route is 'lost.' You then have to provide the scorers an estimate of how long you think you were off course and they somehow calculate that into your score.  We did this the first time we went off course.

Then we learned that it was easier (and more fun) to 'make up' for the lost time.  I'd basically calculate the overall time we needed to finish a stage of the course, and then we'd do our best to stay on course at hit that time, however if went off course we still did everything in our power to still end the course section at the time we already targeted.....you understand what I'm getting at.

This new philosophy coupled with mounting competition throughout the long day resulted in a great afternoon which featured much more 'McRae' like action.

For instance, a wrong turn on a narrow country road in the morning was fixed with a careful K turn to get us headed  in the right direction again. In the afternoon it was a U turn across grass covered medians and road shoulders.

Our 'best' off-course was when we were traveling unpaved roads through serene tree-lined woodlands and we crossed a narrow wooden bridge. We knew that the course couldn't go over the little bridge so we turned around determined to make up the lost time (and there was a lot of it).  My brother slid the Subaru around corners as I tried to figure out where we went wrong. Then while flying up a gravel road we blew by the timing table.  Our blue blur of noise and dust obviously shocked the workers since they jumped for cover when we passed. We later asked the timing volunteers if they were able to get the number off our car and they claim they did.....but I'm still not sure if they did (at least this is what my excuse is going to be for losing the event).

Another notable highlight was the father/son team in which the father made the son relieve himself in an empty soda bottle rather than stop the car and throw off their average speed.

I highly recommend participating in a local rally. It is a simple form of 'competition' and the time you spend in between stages and at the end of the event socializing with other car enthusiasts is a great. Click this link for more information about SCCA RoadRally

Record Setting Subaru

As I mentioned earlier, the arrival of my brother's Subaru 2.5 RS marked our involvement in getting out and participating in the local autocross scene. We did the majority of our racing with the Connecticut Autocross & Rally Team,  a local club that held autocrosses every other week.  CART events were a great deal of fun.  The variety of cars that showed up on any given Sunday was fantastic.  You had everything from new C5 Corvettes to vintage Mini's. 

The events were also frequented by interesting people. One such person was Jeff Denmeade.  Jeff used to show up to the events in a full blown Rallyart prepped Mitsubishi Evo5!  This was way before Evo's were available in the States. It was the same car he drove in the Mount Washington Hill Climb:

Denmead on Mt. Washington

I just did a quick web search and Jeff is still at it. He has recently tackled Pike's Peak in a Australian built Skelta!

Another guy that was always at the events was Bill Rutan. William "Bill" Rutan holds the record for the quickest gravel road time to the top of Mount Washington in a car that came to be called the Bathtub--a home-built hillclimber powered by a quad-cam Porsche 356 Carrera engine mounted amidships in what was at one point long ago a stock VW Sedan.

In 1961, Bill drove his lightweight car 17.4 miles to the 6,288-foot peak in a stunning 9 minutes and 13 seconds. There were Porsches and even Jaguars there at the bottom of the mountain, but none of ultimate consequence. Bill trounced the standing record by a full minute and eight seconds. The previous mark set by Carroll Shelby behind the wheel of a Formula 1 Ferrari was permanently broken. The road to the summit was paved the following year, cementing Bill's run into the books as the record time up the gravel course.



Rutan's 1961 record breaking run

My brother and I always had a great time at the CART events. And while we never recorded the FTD (fastest time of day) among such experienced drivers my brother did set a record of his own.

He recorded what may have been the fastest off course in CART autocross history!  The way the club set up the starting line was interesting.  There was the starting line itself which was flanked by cones and the starting light. When it changed from red to green you were good to go.  However, the actually timing trigger was set up at the first set of cones usually a few feet away from the starting line. Once you got the green light and took off your official time didn't start till you went though the very first gate and tripped the optical trigger.  Apparently my brother got the green and launched hard and fast as he would always do in his all wheel drive Subaru. He made his entire run and when he finished to get his time he was told he went off course.  Under further analysis it turns out he somehow managed to not trip the timing equipment, meaning he missed the very first gate.  So he not only was off-course, but never really managed to be on-course!

 To this day we still aren't sure how this was even possible.

Some pics of the Subrau in action at a Renselaer Sports Car Association event:

 

I wanted to be a rally car driver

I like rally cars. If you read my very first post you'll see that the first toy I fell in love with was a little Fiat Abarth 131 rally car.  Follow that with my post about a ridiculous fictitious spending spree and you would have learned that I hold the Lancia Stratos in high esteem. Add to this pair the Lancia 037 and you have my Italian trifecta of rally awesomeness.

 

Nearly fifteen years ago the rally car bug hit my brother and I pretty hard. That specific holiday season was spent like most, home celebrating as a family.  As an Italian family the term "celebrating" actually means "eating."  While sitting at the dining room table (I think on New Year's Eve)  we had the TV tuned to Speedvision (now just called Speed).  As was (and still is) common during the holidays, many networks aired marathons and Speedvision's interpretation of this holiday tradition was to air a marathon recapping the entire 1997 World Rally Championship season.

We watched in awe as Tommi Mäkinen, Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae battled it out around the world. My impression was that the whole thing was just crazy. Crazy conditions, crazy speeds, and even crazier spectators.  How else can you describe a motorsport in which hitting a sheep at 100 mph is a real possibility?

The manufacturers' race was a battle between Mitsubishi, Toyota and Subaru.  For some reason, my brother and I were automatically drawn to the rally blue Subaru Impreza of Colin McRae.  We watched race after race.

Eventually at some point (not sure if it was prompted by commercials) the conversation shifted towards our jealously of the fact that the European market had street versions of the rally cars.  We then discussed the one variant we did have available to us.  The Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS.   It was nothing compared to turbo charged version overseas but was all we had. It had the right boy-racer look as it was available in the iconic rally blue with gold-colored 16-inch five-spoke alloy wheels and featured several external cues from its overseas brethren such as hood vents, a hood scoop, and a rally-inspired rear spoiler. 

At some point later in 1998 my brother traded in his pickup and bought a 1999 model. The naturally aspirated 2.5-liter wasn't anything to write home about (especially by today's standards), but the car was still a blast.  Most importantly, it was the launching pad for us becoming active in organized motorsport. We started autocrossing and rallying with local clubs. I even eventually started running the racing club sponsored by my university and my brother would bring the Subaru to our events.

It was also a very cool way to navigate the Honda-ladden sport compact car scene that was erupting at that time.  My brother spent a great deal of time modding that car (details to come). 

As the holidays approach I'll tell you more about our little wannabe rally car. I'll even detail our exploits in a Time-Speed-Distance (TSD) Road Rally and my brother's record setting autocross accomplishment.

But for now just remember this: I always wanted to be a rally car driver...and still do.

The Merritt Parkway - Commüterring

Mike Spinelli recently authored a review of a VW GTD on Jalopnik.com. In his review of the diesel powered hatchback he took the car on Connecticut's Merritt Parkway. He wrote:

One doesn't drive the Merritt Parkway,a pulsing arterial bywaylinking the New York suburbs to Connecticut's Housatonic River basin; one courses through it.

Beneath a great canopy of sun-shielding oaks, you vault upward to near-weightlessness and then dive down into sweeping, neutral-camber bends, urged on by gravity and luscious waves of machine torque. In the right car, on the right day, it's like a spirit ride through the Enchanted Forest on a magic mushroom. Some locals call it the commüterring.

Built with pride in the 1930's, the Merritt is mostly used by locals as an alternative to I-95 when traveling from Connecticut to New York City. It is two lanes in each direction and much more sinuous than modern highways, winding its way through park like landscaping and under Art Deco and Art Moderne bridges. As a result, it has become one of the only roads listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The ornamental bridges also cause the Merritt to be truck-free (since they don't fit under the bridges).

I personally commüte the Merritt Parkway on a daily basis to and from the office (traveling 60 miles in each direction) in my MK6 VW GTI! So you can see why Spinelli's article struck a chord with me. My daily drive gives me an appreciation for what a 'good' car can be. I wouldn't want to take my '67 Cougar on this trip five days a week, but my GTI does it without any complaints, getting around 30 MPG, and putting a smile on my face whenever the traffic allows.

My two recommendations for driving the Merritt Parkway.

1 - Do it in the Fall, its a great way to enjoy the New England foliage

2 - Avoid weekday morning and afternoon rush hours (because I need to get to work on time)

A drive down the Merritt Parkway at the right time is a memorable driving experience that anyone can appreciate.

Side Note: Since it goes through Connecticut affluent Fairfield County its common to see exotics (Porsches, Astons, Ferraris, etc) also enjoying the drive.

Some things are universal!

Here's a quick language lesson.  What do you think 'lavami' means in Italian? Kinda funny how universal some things are.

By the way, one other similarity, both of the subjects typify what consumers consider the most 'practicle' vehicles in their respective market. The similarity ends when that ends up being a compact hatchback in Italy and a mini-van in the US.

How cool is this guy?

Massive cool garage, awesome collection of Porsche 911's, driving like a maniac, dreadlocks and the first name 'Magnus'......how cool is this guy?

The Porsche 911 is an icon. If you didn’t want a 911 before watching this video, you certainly will afterwards.

URBAN OUTLAW is a portrait of Magnus Walker, the rebel Porsche customizer who turned a hobby into an obsession, and an obsession into a successful business. From a workshop in downtown Los Angeles, Magnus obsessively harvests fragments from donor 911s, grafting them onto vintage frames to create one-off automobiles with the spirit of Ferdinand Porsche but an ethos entirely his own.

Powerball List - Just In Case

A few weeks ago the Powerball jackpot was around half a billion dollars!  I don't play the lottery, but if I did, and I won, and you made me buy 6 classic cars, this is what I'd come home with...

'63 Corvette Grand Sport (just to annoy the neighbors)

 '65 Shelby Daytona Coupe (took this over a '67 Shelby Cobra)

'67 Ford GT-40 (yes in the Gulf racing colors)

'74 Lancia Stratos HF (The HF stands for High Fidelity) 

'62 Ferrari  250 GTO (need something with a prancing horse on it)

'55 Porsche 550 Spyder (just cool)

I'm sure if I actually gave my highly plausible scenario more thought I might tweak my list a bit. But this is what came off the top of my head.  So what would your list be?

60 Years of Awesomeness

This came out a while ago but I had to post it anyway. 

Scuderia Ferrari actually pulled several near-priceless Formula One veterans out of storage and flew them around the world to film them running hard through the streets of Rome , Rio , New York , Hong Kong and Monaco.

And there are no special effects or dubbed sound here, just original 14,000+rpm cars tearing up the streets... as the genuine audio will attest. Do put on your headphones and/or crank the volume and enjoy that symphony of cylinders.

First New Car

I graduated from college in May of 2000. Once class was over we were given a few 'reading days' to get ready for finals and then a few more days off prior to graduation.  Most of my friends were making plans for the few days off. I opted out and bolted home after my last class and went car shopping!  With only a job offer in my hand (I was to start work at the end of May) I went from Ford dealer to Ford dealer looking for the new Mustang.  It was only the second year of the new Mustang and they were still rather rare in Connecticut. I had my heart set on a Bright Atlantic Blue Mustang GT (to go along with my '69) with a charcoal gray leather interior but as I went from dealer to dealer I realized that the pickings were very slim.  I eventually spoke to one salesmen who said he could locate the car I wanted if I gave him a deposit (even though no other dealership offered that commitment). So I made my deposit and waited for the call to go get my blue Mustang.  

The very next day (Sunday) I was up early and on my way to church I decided to swing by the Ford dealership in town.  To my amazement there was an eye catching yellow Mustang GT out front. What confused me is that there was no yellow offered in the 2000 model year.  The Chrome Yellow from 1999 was discontinued (and would have been the color I chose instead of the blue if it existed in 2000).  Upon inspecting the window sticker I learned that the car was a special Spring Feature Edition. The color was called Zinc Yellow (a little mellower than the color from the previous year) and it had hood stripes, machined wheels, and a hood and side scoops. I went back 3 or 4 times to go look at that car that Sunday and then hatched my plan.  I was at the dealership when they opened on Monday morning and the salesman had a sale waiting for him.  I never even test drove it.

The kicker is I was able to buy the car without a pay stub. I simply showed him my offer letter from my soon to be employer!  And actually, I didn't even graduate yet.  Once I took delivery of the car I took it back to school  so I could finish up my finals and then attend my actual commencement ceremony.

From what I understand there were only 916 yellow Spring Feature Editions made in 2000.    That car garnered attention where ever it went.  I stuck out like a sore thumb as I entered corporate America.  My colleges were all middle-aged men in beige Honda Accords and I (22 years old) rolled up to work in this thing everyday.....it was awesome.  

Maybe I'll get inspired - The Real Thing

Here's a short documentary called 'The Real Thing' about custom hot rod builder Bodie Stroud and his build up of a 1969 Mustang powered by  an extremely rare Boss engine built specifically for legendary racer Mario Andretti’s 1969 Can Am series car. 

The Real Thing from Union HZ on Vimeo.