[Fot] Driving to the track in the race car

[Bill Babcock]

First one bounced--too big. Hey Mark, isn't 4K a bit too restrictive?

On Oct 14, 2007, at 7:12 PM, Bill Babcock wrote:

> I recognize the stretch of road. It's right before the main  
> entrance. Hard to believe that god-forsaken area is strip malls and  
> tract houses now. Last year  I was up in Gorman where we used to  
> ride our dirt bikes for miles and miles all day long, and I  
> couldn't recognize anything. Solid houses as far as you can see.
>
> I drove my dirt bike (a 1976 Yamaha 360MX) from Belmont Shores to  
> the track several times to race in the Riverside Grand Prix. I had  
> a tail light, a fake headlight and the license plate from my street  
> bike. If I got stopped I doubt I would have been able to convince a  
> cop it was a 1972 BMW R50/5  I didn't have a car at the time. In  
> 1977 I seized the top end in practice, fixed it in the paddock  
> (freed the rings, sanded the scuff marks off the piston and got the  
> aluminum out of the bore with battery acid) put it all back  
> together and finished third. Seized again on the way home. Fixed it  
> again next to the road. Made it home.
>
> Thank God those days are over, though I wouldn't mind having that  
> energy level and absurd determination again. The next year I had a  
> real truck--I made it from a VW Squareback wagon. Cut the back end  
> off right behind the seats and made a flatbed out of it--we called  
> it "the yellow peril" which my chinese friend Barney greatly  
> appreciated. It was only marginally more reliable than the 360MX.  
> Had to take the whole bed off to change the oil. Didn't do that  
> very often.
>
> I'm building an Ambro, and I intend to street license it, expressly  
> so I can drive it to the track and race.
>
> On Oct 14, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Kurt Oblinger wrote:
>
>> Driving race cars to the track was quite common in the old days,  
>> even F1
>> cars.
>> http://img434.imageshack.us/img434/9475/60trintingnant9dd.jpg
>>
>> Some of you So. Cal.  folks will recognize that piece of road as the
>> stretch of 60 freeway just before the Day St. offramp that took  
>> you to
>> Riverside Raceway. It's 1960 and that is Maurice Trintignant in his
>> Cooper F1 on the way to the 1960 USGP. The teams used garages in the
>> town of Riverside because there was nothing yet built at the track.
>> Similar scenes could be seen around Le Mans and Monaco as those  
>> tracks
>> had no real garage facilities in the old days.