SAAC Forum

Quote from: SFM5S000 on February 12, 2024, 09:50:01 PM
I just saw this on my news feed. A garage of a home east of Sacramento (Citrus Heights) went up in flames. In the pic I can see what looks like a red 67 Shelby convertible amount other cars according to CBS news. Sad

Cheers,
~Earl J

https://flip.it/DVwSfK

A "vert" would mean it's a '68.  Very sad to see it being consumed.

^^ All fun and games with nitro/hydrazine until your rods end up in the next county. 

A very good buddy of mine is high-up in NHRA. We were recently chatting about ETs and speed. He told me that NHRA doesn't want to see much more speed. The move from 1320 feet to 1000 was because of safety.  There isn't enough shut-down area in most of the tracks for any more trap speed. In fact, most tracks today are borderline not-enough.

Makes a big difference in thinking about ultimate performance when you also have to stop within a relatively short distance. How big a of a 'chute can Top Fuelers possibly pack?  That meager 1/4 mile or so of shut-down area gets eaten up in a blink of an eye with the speeds today's TF and FC racers are traveling. Try pulling the airbrake at anything near 300 mph, and I'll bet getting stopped is almost as exciting as launching and steering.

My personal opinion (nothing my NHRA friend even hinted at) is they're eventually going to have to limit trap speeds. Any further decrease in track length will just pizz people off. 

Thoughts?

In the bottom photo (with the Champion Bridge in the background) you can see Turn Nine before it was modified for easier/safer entry at high speeds.  Kind of sadly ironic,  considering that's where Miles would die in the J-car, later that same year.

Brett, thanks for posting.  As you know, Tom has a million cool personal car stories. We've been friends for 45 years and I still learn stuff about his racing days that I never had known.

BTW:  Photo in the first video at 20:10, of Tom (in racing suit) standing by his Cobra at Riverside, was shot my me.

Why doesn't SAAC buy it and restore it, and make it next year's sweepstakes give-away car?

Everyone loves a back-from-the-dead classic car resurrection story.

Or a "feline layer."   By spring, tesgt350 could have 40-60 cats living in there.

Quote from: Coralsnake on January 14, 2024, 10:05:20 AM

"Hello, parts department, I'd like to buy an eight barrel carburetor."

^^^ Salesman: "The new GT500 is so hairy, you'll have enough left over to fix that bald spot."

Nicely written article, but too bad about the typo in CS's name in the caption.  D'oh!

Quote from: FL SAAC on January 09, 2024, 11:42:50 AM
trust your wife.....

Funny how "Westward Ho" could take on a whole other meaning, these days.  Pretty woman with her Shelby, heading West to...work?

The recent cars sure look huge (in every dimension) compared to the originals.  Not that noticeable until you put them side-by-side.

I think it's a gag.  That grey Charger looks like a plain-wrap cop car to me.

These look better without the over-the-top stripes, IMO. 

I drove the prototypes, and then got the first magazine drive of the pre-production car, back in 1999.  It wasn't ready for prime-time yet, and the GM parts-bin interior left most everyone cold.  The taillights look like they came out of a trailer supply catalog...because they did.

(Trivia: The front side market lights on the Gen 1 Viper were also trailer parts. Gotta save money wherever possible, on low-production cars.) 

The normally-aspirated engines were pretty weak. Not much low-end torque, because it was tuned to high rpm to get a decent hp number. Shelby's guys quickly developed a supercharged version for our top speed shootout in '99 or 2000. That made a big difference, but the cockpit ergonomics were still quirky, and the pedals so crazily far offset to the left that at least half the time you hit the brake, thinking it's where the clutch ought to be.

But, the car did handle like a proper race car. Decent ride quality, too. A bit over 1.0g lateral grip in an era when 0.9g was a big deal.

With the supercharged engine and another year of development, it would have been a much better car. But, the MSRP ramped-up quickly, due to delays, bad business decisions and internal problems, and pushed the car out of the smart-buy-supercar bracket. 

As Kiwi would always say (in his best Beavis & Butthead voice) after someone broiled the tires in a burnout for his camera:
"Heh-heh-heh. Burnouts are cool!"

Funny, farty and fast. That's our boy Kiwi.

Miss ya, buddy.