Our buddy Russ Bond from Painkillerz was intending to drive the 2015 Chevy Corvette today. Mother Nature had other ideas.
Who let the dogs out?
This is one of those images that would be hard to believe if we didn’t know the shooter involved. Florida photographer Louis Galanos grabbed this shot of “Fast Phil” lapping at Sebring in 1973 with his faithful pooches, Moss & Fangio. Galanos tells the tale:
“On one of his laps he stopped the car on the back airport straight and let out Moss because the mutt wanted to get out and run. Fangio, with his short legs, was not interested. The photo shows Fangio with his head out the window and Moss keeping pace with the Corvette. Those were the early days of IMSA. While the dogs are long gone Phil still has the vintage split-window Corvette and still races. No wonder they call him “Fast Phil.”
April Fools gag or just another example of how things have changed since the golden years of racing! Read the whole story over at Sports Car Digest.
Paul Newman’s race winning Vette sells for $275,000
Over the years we’ve seen more than a few actors who have taken their fortune and gone racing. Some of them were even pretty good at it. Guys like James Garner, Steve McQueen and new school guys like Patrick Dempsey have all been regarded as talented racers. Possibly the most successful of the bunch was none other than Paul Newman, who raced for decades, right up into his Eighties. Racing under the name PLN, Newman scored wins in both IMSA and Trans-Am racing.
Using his home track, Lime Rock Park, as a base, Newman raced this Riley & Scott Corvette Trans Am car from 2003 onwards, scoring his final win a year to the day before his death. Think about that, in 2007 at age 82, Newman won a GT1 race behind the wheel of a 700 horsepower TA car! This was that car.
It was in this car that Paul Newman took his final laps of Lime Rock, at 83 years of age, just one month before passing away from cancer.
The car was offered up for auction at Amelia Island recently by Canadian auction house, RM Auctions. When the bidding came to a close, the final sale was made for $275,000.
Head past the jump to read the full press release and catch a glimpse of the freshly restored #83.
Amy Ruman becomes first woman to win a Trans Am race
Having come oh so close to winning her first Trans Am series race several times, Amy Ruman finally took top spot on the podium this weekend at Road Atlanta. Ruman got the jump on Mike Lewis on the 5th restart, when the race went yellow once again due to contact between Glen Jung and John Baucom. All Ruman had to do then was cruise for 3 laps under yellow to became the first woman to win in 45 years of TA racing.
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Just because you can doesn’t mean you should
Do I really need to comment on this?
Vette
Click on the image to open the full size and then right click to save as your desktop background. Simple as that!
Going Fast: Gateway Racing number 07 Corvette is up for sale
That’s right, Blaise Csida’s magnificent Corvette Trans Am car could be yours. Quite possibly one of the most attractive cars on the Trans Am circuit and certainly one of the best prepared, the Gateway Racing Vette is leaving the stable to make room for the next new build. For the experienced driver looking to move up to GT1 or go pro in the Trans Am series, this is the perfect vehicle. Meticulously built and maintained, this car is reliable and fast and comes with a comprehensive spares package.
Full details:
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Tony Ave wins rain soaked Trans Am crash fest at Mosport
While the Trans Am cars sat on the mock grid, the World Challenge teams were circling Mosport International Raceway under a full course yellow. The reason? A damp track that deposited 5 cars into the tires between corners 9 and 10. Typical of Mosport’s weather patterns, the rain stopped and started a couple of times. As the TA cars made their way out on the track, the skies opened.
One quick lap behind the pace car and the field went green. For about 30 seconds.
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Chevy Celebrates with Corvette Centennial Edition
Chevrolet will be celebrating its 100th birthday in 2012, and to commemorate this milestone, Chevy is offering the Corvette Centennial Edition. The package is strictly cosmetic, so sorry guys, no extra performance is available by clicking the option box here. So what do you get? First, a Carbon Flash Metallic paint color, satin black graphics, Centennial decals, black painted wheels, and red brake calipers. Inside, all Centennial Editions receive an Ebony leather wrapped instrument panel, doors and seats, with red stitching throughout.
The Centennial Edition will be available on every model Corvette, coupe and convertible. Magnetic Selective Ride Control is standard equipment. No pricing is available, but expect more details on that when the Centennial Edition becomes available this summer.
Another Mosport based challenger to join 2011 Trans Am series
We’ve been lucky to share a bit of the Trans Am series with our readers here in The Garage through our long time friend Blaise Csida, who runs Gateway Racing at Mosport when he’s not racing in the series. I received a note earlier this week from Jon Brett of Time Warp Racing, telling me that he would be entering the Mosport round of the 2011 Trans Am series.
TWR press release
Plans are being made by Time Warp Racing to field a Derhaag bodied C5 Corvette in the upcoming Mosport Trans-Am event on the May long weekend.
The car is currently at Gateway Racing where it is being prepared by Trans-Am competitor Blaise Csida and staff.
Jonathan Brett who owns and drives the car does not expect to be competitive, but says “yeah we are probably a field filler but we are dipping a toe into the water, and who knows where it could go from there” he said.
The original chassis was created in 1977, by Mo Carter and ran succesfully as an IMSA GTX car. It also saw action in Trans-Am in the hands of Jerry Simmons during the 80′s and 90′s. It has held short track records at the Glen and won the South Atlantic Road Racing Championship. Over the years many upgrades have been done, but it is still old school compared to the modern designs.
Jonathan has raced with VARAC, CASC and SVRA for a decade and is ready to try something new and hopes to support the growth in Trans-Am.
I’ve seen the car and was a little bit surprised to hear that the chassis is as old as it is, so I decided to do a bit of digging. This car has some serious Canadian racing history!
Robert Barg, another Canadian who raced T/A back in the glory days says:
According to IMSA info on the net this was actually an early De Kon Monza (Horst Kwech & Lee Dykstra) that was crashed and sold to Mo Carter.
I had always assumed that Brad Francis built this car for Mo, but maybe it was just restored by Brad and that wild camaro bodywork was put on the car? As I remember the engine that was used and raced by Mo was a big block Chev with 2 inline 4 bl. carbs. Roy Bean, who helped look after the ex Mo Carter 67 camaro that I raced for Al Richards, also ended up working with Brad on that Carter car. Last time I saw it racing was at the 1980 Sebring 12 hr – co-driver with Mo was Craig Carter (no relation). It was later sold and raced in the T/A series with different Corvette bodywork I understand and has found it’s way to the Toronto area some time ago. I understand Roy has been working for Leo Romano and built a truck racer for him that runs at Mosport. It would be nice to see it back on the track as raced by Mo, but you can update a chassis from those years and they are still fast. The current closed wheel track record holder at Mission is a late seventies era T/A Corvette that has been updated and driven by Dave Kunicki.
It is going to be very cool to see local car, with 3 decades worth of racing history under a modern skin, in action with the big boys in a couple of months. We’ll keep our readers up to date with news and images as the race weekend comes closer!
Current photos courtesy of Malcom Haylock. Vintage photo of Mo Carter Camaro from Gene Felton Restorations.
Editor’s note: Oops, the vintage photo appears to be the 1970 Camaro That Mo Carter raced earlier. The correct car is pictured below, in a shot by Jerry Winker.
