So I'm down at the shop, working on getting some fellow's TR6 in a reasonable
state of tune. It has been a while since the thing last ran on a regular basis
so there's a lot of "frob the ignition a bit, frob the carbs a bit, frob the
ignition a bit, frob the carbs a bit, ..." A quick test drive up and down the
lot, and other than major problems with the brakes, suspension and electricals,
the car is in fairly decent shape. So I grab a can of cheap barley pop from
the 'fridge, rummage through my briefcase, and sit down with the September '98
issue of "Road and Track."
The magazine flops open to Sam Posey's piece on Le Mans. I suggest you check
this one out. I won't go into details, but will offer a quote from one of the
photo captions, this year's color shot to the left, the 30 year old black and
white verteran underneath, giving you a flavor of the way the article reports
on the event both present and past:
Starting down the Mulsanne. In 1967, a Ford GT40 had three miles of
flat-out running ahead, a sustained building of speed upon speed not
to be found anywhere else in racing. Today, this Toyota faces the
discordance of two chicanes.
Browsing through this article, even before I read Egan's column and check out
the piece on the China run, history sneaks up and pinches me on the bum, and
I am reminded of a somewhat similar article a few years back. Again, the
magazine Road & Track, the November 1995 issue. Okay, I'll admit it, I had to
wait until I got home and dug through the stack before I could identify which
one it was. The issue in question has a trio of Vipers on the cover, oddly
enough for an American magazine, red, white and blue ones. Ignore them, turn
to page 82 for Peter Egan's account of his running of the Mille Miglia, or
as he subtitles the piece "A thousand miles in the footsteps of giants." Not
exactly a major Triumph event, but bear with me. He ends with this:
Those old men and women along the road rememebr. They weren't waving
to us. They were waving to the ghosts of those who once drove our
cars absolutely as fast as they knew how to go.
One more reference, then I'll let you go. Some of us on this list may remember
the publication "Competition Press" and its trip into the current periodical
"Autoweek." For those, the name of Denise McCluggage will evoke something
other than a quick response of "Huh?" Do what needs to be done to get a
copy of "By Brooks too Broad for Leaping" into your grasp. One the one hand,
it is just a collection of columns she's written for Autoweek. On the other
hand, the one with the stringback driving glove, if you can go through this
volume without having at least one of the articles jump off the page and grab
you by the throat, perhaps the heart, then you are in the wrong place. The
list for slammed econoboxes with mega-watt thumpers is over there somewhere
to the left, the one to discuss polishing your socks and ironing your BVDs
is off to the right. Go away.
But if you are acquainted with one or more of these pieces, you may have an
inkling of why it is I provide the various Team.Net lists, and what The Fat
Chance Garage is all about.
mjb.
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