Posted on 05/10/2017 4:31:45 AM PDT by Loud Mime
On July 12, 1970, a white Chevrolet pickup truck towing a trailer pulled into the paddock at Watkins Glen International Raceway for the third Can-Am race of the season. A small crowd gathered to watch the team unload. The small white race car atop the trailer looked like nothing else: no wing, no velocity stacks, no scoops or side pods or wild cutaways or NACA ducts, hardly a curve of any kind. The rear wheels were encased in bodywork as flat and unadorned as a diner kitchen. "Like the box it came in," the crowd observed. They moved to the back of the car: two fans like jet engines, supported by three black Dagmar-shaped cones, looking more like a Star Wars escape pod than a road-going automobile.
(Excerpt) Read more at roadandtrack.com ...
They were cool. I remember Chaparral slot cars, they were cool too.
and i was there...
Interesting story.
I was an avid follower from the mid-50’s until about the mid-70’s and then the magic just seemed to go out of it.
F1, Can-Am, Trans-Am, NasCar, Indy, you name it, and it was pretty much over for me.
But, those were the days.
Stirling Moss, Fireball Roberts, Yunick, Jones, the chicken farmer, to name a few.
You have a point. Back in that time the cars had some styling and beauty to them, now they look like the critters in Starship Troopers.
Stock cars used to be modified production models, now they are full race cars without a bit of “stock car” in them.
NHRA has gone full-computer. Gone are the manual throttles. The garage mechanic has no hope of competing with the $$$$ teams.
Gary Scelzi told me that each run of a top fuel dragster costs $7,000 in the long run, $5,000 if you didn’t want to win.
I had one of those! Looked way cool and it was big, even for the commercial slot car arenas. Had a tendency to flare wide on curves, probably because of the size. I got special rear tires and it helped, some.
Amazing innovative car I was unaware of.
I remember as a kid when the Blue Flame set land speed records in 1970.
http://www.landspeedrecord.org/blue-flame-gary-gabelich/
It came to town on a promotional tour.
What a thing to see as an 8 year who was Fascinated by spacecraft and model rockets!
It seemed in 1970 that Everything was possible, ie: 2001 Space Oddesey colonization was a plausible goal.
Look at us now...
My old slot car tracks were the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline! =)
....and I was there, as well. The Glen was a wonderful place to watch racing’s best close-up in those days. Sneaking into the pits on practice days was very cool.
Jim Hall was innovative. He put the first variable wing on his race car and had the first ground effects race car.
If you google around Chaparral, you’ll see that his earlier cars were beauties.
IMO the most beautiful cars ever built were the sports racers of the 1960's. I was born a few years too late to see them in their prime, but I never get tired of looking at cars like the Cobra coupe, Lola T70, Chaparral 2C and 2D, and (oh God that's too sexy a car to really exist) the Ferrari 330P4.
I had a Chaparral slot car, too. Very cool. I also raced a Cox slot car with a Cheetah body, I practically lived at the local slot car track.
They were cool. I remember Chaparral slot cars, they were cool too.
Yep, still have my “L&M” Aurora AFX cars.
That Ferrari 330P4 is beautiful!!!
Longtime fan of both Jim Halls— the racer and the guitarist.
[Amazing innovative car I was unaware of.
I remember as a kid when the Blue Flame set land speed records in 1970.]
I remember going to the New York Auto show back in the early 70’s.
They had the Blue Flame on display there and I was mesmerized by it. Craig Breedlove was driving it at that time and was there. What a thrill for a 12 year old kid.
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