This is in response to the comment I made regarding being gone for awhile participating in the Big Bend Open Road Race.
bird55 (4/19/2011)
This sounds like a neat deal, Ted. And the first time I'd heard of it. After looking over the website I'm interested. Are you thinking of campaigning a vintage yblock powered vicky or something?
It would be a cool thing to have have a vintage type class spring out of this. I can see it now- "Y block shoot out with curves". Ala pan American - Texas style! I better start ordering road race parts for the bird.
I had the opportunity to navigate for a friend who was entered into the BBORR race. His car is a 66 Cobra (replica) with a Roush 427 SBF. Because this was the first time he has done a race of this nature, he kept the target speed conservative and entered the 100 mph class. For this class, minimum speed anywhere on the track other than curves is 70 mph and maximum speed is 124 mph. The object of this class is to average exactly 100 mph for the total course length of 118 miles. We were about seven seconds off the mark when all the totals were tallied. In making up time out of the corners, we would hit the 124 mph mark.
An unexpected plus was that I was able to use his car and get qualified for my own license. Now that I’ve had a taste of this, I have several cars which could fit into this race starting at the 85mph class. But I’m seriously considering the ’55 Customline in the 90 or 95mph class. The ’50 Ford in the 85mph class might be pushing the flathead at this point. My ’66 Fairlane with the 427TP would definitely be a ride though in one of the faster classes. Linda wants to be a part of this if I decide to do this next year so the ’55 would likely be the optimal choice though. The Fairlane tends to make riders nervous.
For anyone that would like the opportunity to do some high speed driving (legally), this is a great event. And I’ll add that this event could definitely use more vintage automobiles as the late model Corvettes were there in abundance. Something about racing with the air conditioning ON just doesn’t seem right.
Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)