When I was a youngin, the Group 44 team (never looks right without the
numbers backwards, does it?) was one of my favorites. Little did I know that
they were formerly agents of [demonic refrences removed as a favor to our
triumph driving friends =) ] Of course, by the 70's they were driving cars
from thoughout the BL lineup and the one I recall the most was Bob's XKE.
What a beast of a car.
Sometime in the last year, Sportscar & Classic, I believe, had an
article about Bob Tulius and the history of the Group 44 team. His sneaking
out with his wifes TR to Marlboro (what a tie-in!) for drivers school, the
story behind the "1964" Trans-Am car, the teams prank rivalry with PLN, and
up to the professional years in Trans-Am, IMSA, and NASCAR. Nowadays,
according to the article, Tulius and Furstenau are retired in the southeast,
and restoring WWII fighter planes. [insert cheesy spitfire joke here]
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>Bob Tullius was a good friend of mine back then.
>
>I decided to build a GT 6 into a production racer and spent 3 days at
>the group 44 shops in VA learning everything there was to know about how
>to build the car. Bryan and Lankie Furshett (misspelled I know) were
>great.
>
>A few weeks I repaid their kindness by discovering a new half shaft that
>would bolt up with just a little machine work.
>
>They had used a sliding spline shaft (axle) and it would tend to bind on
>hard aceleration. I discovered that the shafts wout of a Datsun 510 (I
>think that is correct) would bolt up, and it used a ball bearing slider
>that would not bind. Lankie was amazed when he tried it.
>
>Cheers, Larry Dent
>
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