I was at the Beaverun event for this year's Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. Always a fun time, lots of nice cars to see and races to watch. I was shooting some video of the first laps of each of the classes, and just happened to see a historic gt40 lose it in a corner, come across the track, and hit another car. I don't have a decent movie editor right now but I did grab some stills from the video for everyone to see:




Last time I saw this gt40 race, it was blowing the doors off everyone else. It was a shame to see it retire after the first lap

That would make me cry just to watch it happen.

I don't begrudge him running it in the vintage races, I'd do it to, it's still just sad to see.

John Stricker

Someones spending alot of coin to get that fixed and someone else is getting alot of coin to fix that.

Oh!!!! That makes me sick just thinking about it. The GT40 was/is such a sweet ride. I'm not even a ford guy and I love it. You gotta give credit where credit is due. Someone ought to run over that 914.

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Ron
Freedom isn't Free, it's paid for with the blood and dreams of those that have gone before us.
My imagination is the only limiting factor to my Fiero. Well, there is that money issue.

Ron,

Sorry, but I disagree. The 914 was in it's proper racing line and the GT40 appears to have shot across it's line so the Porsche was not at fault. Lay the blame where it should be, on the driver of the GT40.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by blackrams: Oh!!!! That makes me sick just thinking about it. The GT40 was/is such a sweet ride. I'm not even a ford guy and I love it. You gotta give credit where credit is due. Someone ought to run over that 914.

I agree. But I still want to hurl at the thought of that beautiful car getting damaged.

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Whade' "The Duck Formerly Known As Wade" Duck
'87 GT Auto
'88 Ferrario

Actually, it may cost more to fix the 914. It appears that most of the damage to the Ford is fiberglass bodywork and the tubes and brackets that make up the rear corners of the car. Possibly the right rear suspension is tweeked, but the basic chassis is probably not hurt at all. It wouldn't surprise me if the car owner had the spare parts already available. The 914, however, has had the front tub bent rather badly and will probably involve cutting and welding sheet metal to get it back in shape.
Either way, I hate to see either of the cars dinged, but it does happen sometimes in vintage racing.

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Rod Schneider, Woodstock, Ga.
"You can't have too many toys!"
1988 Fiero GT
1966 Porsche 911
Van's RV-6 airplane-under construction

quote Originally posted by jstricker: Ron, Sorry, but I disagree. The 914 was in it's proper racing line and the GT40 appears to have shot across it's line so the Porsche was not at fault. Lay the blame where it should be, on the driver of the GT40. John Stricker

John, you are totally correct, I didn't mean to say it was his fault, just that someone deserves to get his butt kicked for damaging such a beautiful car. I know things happen, doesn't make me happy about it. I sincerely meant it to be taken as a joke. Sometimes I need to think before I type. Sorry bout that. :O


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Ron
Freedom isn't Free, it's paid for with the blood and dreams of those that have gone before us.
My imagination is the only limiting factor to my Fiero. Well, there is that money issue.

[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 07-10-2006).]

I'm just a little sensitive about this because in SCCA club racing if two cars swap paint, more than likely we get to "write it up" and the steward of the meet deals with it, and generally pretty harshly. We're pretty careful about what we right in an instance like this one although we're not allowed to hypothesize or assess blame on anyone.

After drawing a diagram of what we saw happen (not what we THINK happened, only what we saw) we have to do a written description. For this incident it would go something like this.

Yellow 6 GT 40 car on entry to corner ?? went 4 wheels off upstream, driver's left, skidded beyond the apex of the corner and then re-entered the track, crossing the racing line where yellow 6 Porsche contacted his right rear quarter in a moderately hard impact damaging left front of the Porsche and rear of the GT40. Both cars continued. Station was standing yellow, waving yellow, back to green.

Note there is no mention of who was to fault and I assume that I saw the whole thing. If, for instance, I didn't see the GT40 go 4 wheels off and only caught the impact, that's all I'd write.

In most forms of club racing, metal to metal contact is a big deal and is dealt with pretty quickly.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by blackrams: John, you are totally correct, I didn't mean to say it was his fault, just that someone deserves to get his butt kicked for damaging such a beautiful car. I know things happen, doesn't make me happy about it. I sincerely meant it to be taken as a joke. Sometimes I need to think before I type. Sorry bout that. :O

At Mid Ohio Vintage race a year or two ago, a 4 million dollar super rare Jag flipped on the back straight on saturday. They got it back together enough to race again sunday. Some of these guys just like to race. And you hear a lot of people watching vintage cars say that theyre not racing just driving around following each other.