I started racing in 1963 in a Sprite. At a race at Road America I saw a
TR3 flip at corner 14, killing the driver, and vowed to never set foot
in a Triumph as a race car.
Never say "Never", as they say. In 1973 I bought a couple of TR3's to
make one good one for the street. After lathering it up with filler and
wearing out my little power sander, I decided that it would never have a
beautiful body, so I made it into a race car, and raced it for two
years.
Young guy, two little kids, big house payment, etc etc. so I built a
competitive and safe car for $1500, including home-made trailer. Truly a
shoestring operation. I used wheels from a Dodge van (redrilled hubs to
accept them),bought a used camshaft, made tubular pushrods from Chevy
pushrods, put bronze bushings at all the joints, used a stock driver's
seat, bent up a roll bar one night at the fork lift factory where I
worked (Guiness Book of Records for heaviest roll bar in the world).
Midseason the second year I wanted more power so I put the carbs in a
lathe and bored them out straight and used body filler to hold the jet
tubes in place. It would hardly pull itself at 2500 rpm but top end was
awesome (for me). I developed the head on a home-made flow bench powered
by my wife's vacuum cleaner. Honest!
The whole family slept in the van because we couldn't afford motels. In
two years we ran twelve races and trophied in six of them. In all other
races, the car broke -- crankshaft, suspension pulling off of chassis,
brake drum, axle, etc. Sound familiar?
It was great fun and great racing, but not nearly as much fun as Vintage
Racing. The competitive pressures were pretty high, and if a competitor
broke, well, that was one less to worry about. By contrast, in the first
year of vintage racing, I made more friends and had more fun than in 30
years of SCCA racing.
THESE are the good old days!
--
TR6 -- 29 and still running
TR4 -- 39 and still racing
uncle jack -- yeeehaaa
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