Your mention of the two club.... brings up and interesting point.... In my
youth I have always looked up to those guys who could dream up a car and
set a record... and ultimately those records ended them up in the Two
club... well it follows reason that now I am an adult and getting into Land
speed racing and I really feel this is the last place a little guy like
myself can set a national record...
The Two club recognizes that record as an established fact... not politics
or personalities and or current rules... and regulations governing how the
course is laid out.... I just wanna run my car and be part of the
faturnatiy you guys call racers....I don't want the pressures of big
sponsors..(though if you have the money and want to fund the effort feel
free... Snickering a bit here) I just want to go and drive a car on that
sacred ground and hang out... drink beer and generally have a nice time....
I would love to leave the politics of this to folks who don't have anything
better to do....... unless we are talking about the guys who make up the
sanctioning committees who work their hearts out so guys like me can
race....and not worry about the meet or about rain or failure to make
expenses... and so on.. to them I take my hat off and offer a word of
thanks...
oh and to all who made effort to preserve the salt.. so maybe one day my
sons can continue this effort... yeah that's the ticket...
Keith Turk
Austin Healey 100, Bugeye, Box sprites, Bonneville Camero ( Land Speed
Racer)
----------
From: Gregory W. Gillette <gillette@aiinc.com>
To: Keith Turk <kturk@ala.net>; land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: not forgoten or ignored
Date: Monday, March 08, 1999 12:27 PM
keith (et al),
i haven't forgoten about your request for a story (you may have asked for
more than you've bargained for. once i start writing i have a hard time
shutting it off.). i've got about a dozen irons in the fire right now.
i'll send in some entertaining stories. i'll even grab some from "the ole
man's" archieves. he's got some good ones from the '40s.
one of the irons i'm heating is gathering pictures of "the redhead" for
master modeler ugo fadini, of italy. he has just finished a model of the
hoffman/markley streamliner (i saw the master at b'ville in august). ugo
says it looks great. now he is working on the master for the redhead. i
don't know a whole lot about the mastering process. i do know ugo is good
at what he does. he took measurements and pics of the car in jim lattin's
museum, but wasn't able to get all of the photo angles he wanted due to
available space. the redhead is a very complicated car, as far as the body
goes. many complicated lines. ugo want's the model to be 100% accurate.
he works in 1/43 scale. if you have not seen any of his models you cannot
believe the detail for the size. al teague's streamliner looks like it was
put into a "shrink machine." ugo fadini is "the man."
i'm sending him all the pics that we have and so is my brother mark (who,
by the way, is the first person to break a land speed record at bonneville
at over 200 mph and be denied membership in the 200 mph club. the reason
being he is elmo gillette's son. they say they are trying to make the club
more exclusive. since i got in the club in '78 there are 3 times as many
members as then. how exclusive does leaving mark and just a handful of
others out make the 200 mph club here in 1999? the 200 mph club needs a
reality check. they are treating it like they are a sanctioning body.
when the club was formed in the '50s it was to recognize the driver who has
broken a land speed record at over 200 mph. now, the club has to recognize
the speed as being worthy. mark's speed was good enough for an
international record. who the hell are gordon hoyt and his pals to say
that that record isn't good enough for entry into the club. perhaps the
new 200 mph club administration has some balls.)
now where was i?
oh, yeah. . . if there's anybody out there with pics of the redhead, ugo
would like to look at them. if you do, let me know and i will see that he
gets them. he promises to return any photos that are not scans. i'm sure
you won't mind if he keeps the scans.
any way. . . stories of southern california (for one week wendover's
southern california) hot rodding will follow.
have a day,
greg
the facts:
http://members.tripod.com/~drofrockology/index.html
the fiction:
http://members.tripod.com/~montyandwilly/index.html
|