Rich Hill wrote on the british-cars list, quoting me \
\>My next ice racer (circumstances of the first's demise omitted for the
\>automotively squeamish)....
\OH COME ON! sounds like a good story here. Inquiring minds want to know!
I tried to respond to Rich that I didn't know if this was a real british-cars
list subject, but kept getting bounces. In the meantime, I found this article
I had written in THE RIGHT LINE in 1990. It is somewhat evocative of the
"Britcar Era", although the only reference to a britcar is an MG 1100.
There was a gravel-pit autocross in these parts before my time. Yes, we are
talking ancient history here. It must have been about 1966 or so, I got
started in late '68. The reason it came to my attention then is because of the
SAAB story it generated. It seems a three-banger SAAB was negotiating a
particularly tricky bit when it rolled over and landed on the wheels. The
driver shifted to first and pressed on. He set the second fastest time of the
event. He was crying in his beer at the party that if he had just had the
presence of mind to change down WHILE the car was rolling over, he could have
won the event outright. No one seemed particularly upset at the damage to the
car.
In my experience with early SAABs, I have found there to be minor damage in
such incidents with pre-68 models. The USA specs starting in '68 required a
larger windshield, so later cars tend to crack the windshield. Earlier cars
generally preserve the windshield. I rolled my '61 twice, a week apart. The
second time was particularly violent and finally broke the windshield. Both
incidents were in late-Saturday practice at ice races.
The first was absolutely my fault, I was trying to catch a Mini and was driving
over my head. I made it through the first half of some esses, but whacked the
bank hard with the rear at the exit from the second. It was one of six
rollovers that weekend. At least I was not the (not-to-be-named-here, because
he is still around) driver who had his helmet fall off whilst his MG 1100 was
sliding upside-down past the pits under the eyes of the Series Chief Steward!
The second, I was hit in the rear quarter by a (different) Mini and flipped
end-for-end about seven and a half times when I caught the snowbank. The last
time it landed on the top, caught a bank again and started spinning. The car
was black with fluorescent orange trunk lid. One of the corner workers said it
looked like an orange strobe light.
The roll bar was of absolutely no use in either incident. The SAAB structure
is so strong, the roof never touched the roll bar. The car was drivable right
after each incident, although I was tossing pieces of honeycombed windshield
over my shoulder into the back of the car following the second incident. We
did not race the junker after that. We took parts off it for my autocross V4
and the '63 850GT I used for ice racing the next year, and maintained for John
Dymond, our "driver from England the year after that..
(The original subject was the pull-rope starter on the black 850)
Phil Ethier, THE RIGHT LINE, 672 Orleans Street, Saint Paul, MN 55107-2676
h (612) 224-3105 lotus@pnet51.orb.mn.org
w (612) 298-5324 phile@pwcs.stpaul.gov (list goes here)
"The workingman's GT-40" - Colin Chapman "It's a Mistake" - Colin Hay
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