Let the spanking begin! If you listen closely you can hear one of the Viper team say, “I see Vultures.” refering to the Vette lap record.

How rewarding can it possibly be to win anything knowing you won only because the best didn’t show up? When it comes to racing I just love rivalry and no I’m not talking about Edwards and that kid with the elf ears that drives for Nascar. I’m talking about the good ole days when you either drove a Ford, a Dodge or a Chevy. Smack talk originated on the tracks right here in the U.S.A. and if you didn’t take a stand… well you just weren’t with the program.

When the Viper got factory backing they dominated everything they ran against including the Corvettes which have always been backed by the factory. The Corvettes began to really pour on the smack talk after General Motors began pouring millions more support into winning. The bad news was the Corvettes didn’t begin wining until Dodge felt as if they had dominated long enough to completely make their point thus ending their factory backing program.

But that didn’t stop the Corvette from talking smack as they went on to brag in their promotions, “CORVETTE FINISHES ONE AND TWO!” when in reality at the bottom in small print it should have said, “But Team Viper stayed at home.”
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The history of sports car is so filled with home builts that one could not possibly have heard of all of them. The west coast of North America seems to have been a hotbed for home builders who wanted to market their creation. So goes the story of the La Dawri Conquest.

From the ebay listing:
The LaDawri Conquest was designed and built by Les A. Dawes of British Columbia, Canada and is recognized as Canada’s first fiberglass sports car.

More of the story and photos after the break
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I just can’t get enough of Lou Galanos’ photos from the golden days of endurance racing in Florida. This shot is of the John Greenwood Team Corvette taken at the 1973 24 hours of Daytona. Driven by Don Yenko and Bob Johnson, the car did not finish the event.

At least that’s what some guy convinced his buddy a few year’s back when he saw Al DeBonis’ ‘62 Corvette parked amongst a bunch of snakes at a race weekend. Watching this unfold, the Shelby guys waited until Al and his wife went for lunch and out came the vinyl lettering. The legend of the Shelby Corvette was born. When DeBonis sold that car and began work on a later model Vette, it just seemed natural that it should be christened “Shelby Corvette 002″.

More pictures after the break
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Ed Welburn stopped by the Motor Trend Radio booth today and told us a story about his career at GM. Ed is the Chief Design Officer for GM and one of the best design minds on the planet. 

It seems when little Ed was eleven he licked the stamp on a letter that he mailed to GM to learn everything he could about being an automotive designer. GM sent him back a packet of information that obviously struck a cord. Ed went on to design school and began a career right out of class with GM, and he has been there ever since. 
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The Indianapolis 500 has lost most of its storied luster, but some excitement is still generated by marketeers eager to align with the historic value of the event.

On Memorial Day weekend in 2008, General Motors is taking their ethanol promotional campaign to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. For the tenth time, a Chevrolet Corvette will be leading the open wheel field around the track for the Indy 500.
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If you go to Joe the mechanic to change your oil, read no further. But if your friends call you “the wrench” and you have a few bucks to burn, then open the box to your very own, build it yourself supercar.
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Those super sneaky guys at Fast Lane Daily have eyes all over, on the lookout for exciting automotive news and today they’ve scored a big one. Corvette enthusiasts all over have been drooling over spy shots and dribbles of information about the upcoming new ZR-1 Corvette. The FLD guys have managed to spot the beast in action and have happily shared that video with readers of The Garage.

Nelson, welcome to The Garage and I just wanted to say I am looking forward to your future articles with great interest. I have been involved with racing in one form or another since I was a little boy but my path took a very different road (no pun intended) than most. On the other hand is there such a thing as a “normal” means of a passion for the love of racing? I think not and I am sure each persons chain of events that led to their passion or involvement of racing is as much of an interesting story as any other.

In my case I grew up in a small town in southwestern Oregon back before the muscle car era when anything that had a set of mag wheels or a hole in the muffler was classified as a hot rod. My racing bug started with my buddies and me racing our bikes down hills in something similar to what today is called Mountain Biking. Later on it was go-carts and that eventually led to me lying about my age so I could drive an old beat up “Hobby Stock Class” car in the dirt stock car races. I can remember one of my father’s friends had an old Corvette stored in my dad’s garage. For hours at a time I would set behind the steering wheel making tire screeching sounds as I yanked the shifter around pretending to bark off the gears. I am sure that even with a dead battery I probably wore out the tires on that car without ever leaving the garage.
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