Back at a vintage road race and the ears still work
Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 7:21 pm
Haven't been to a vintage road race for some years and things have certainly changed. As we've gotten older, those racers dying off aren't being replaced, so the vintage orgs have relaxed the rules to attract more participants. Pretty much anything which looks a few years old can run. Tech is only concerned with safety and what formally was required to be period-correct, is "whatever."
The sights and sounds were a time-travel-trip from when I played with many of the sporty stuff when it was new. I listened and from the shift RPMs decided it was obvious which racers wanted to have his engine last for years and who had enough money to want to win by any means necessary.
There were late-'60s big block 'Vettes with the side headers which brought back a memory of first hearing that distinctive BBC 454" exhaust note coming down the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans in 1969.
Totally different sounds were Factory Five Cobra replicars with Coyote crate engines. Then, several Mustangs/Falcons/Cobras with SBFs which sounded very familiar; it was even possible to be pretty sure which were 302" and which were 347"s. Then there was one really fast FoMoCo with a totally different exhaust note and the only one there shifting above 9,000 RPMs. I noted the owner never opened the hood when anyone was around. At lunch break today, I was walking behind his transporter when I saw the shadow of the hood being raised. Through the crack of the back door of the transporter, I caught a glance of what I'm pretty sure was a current generation Ford FR9 NASCAR engine. Any idea what Yates gets for one of these?
The sights and sounds were a time-travel-trip from when I played with many of the sporty stuff when it was new. I listened and from the shift RPMs decided it was obvious which racers wanted to have his engine last for years and who had enough money to want to win by any means necessary.
There were late-'60s big block 'Vettes with the side headers which brought back a memory of first hearing that distinctive BBC 454" exhaust note coming down the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans in 1969.
Totally different sounds were Factory Five Cobra replicars with Coyote crate engines. Then, several Mustangs/Falcons/Cobras with SBFs which sounded very familiar; it was even possible to be pretty sure which were 302" and which were 347"s. Then there was one really fast FoMoCo with a totally different exhaust note and the only one there shifting above 9,000 RPMs. I noted the owner never opened the hood when anyone was around. At lunch break today, I was walking behind his transporter when I saw the shadow of the hood being raised. Through the crack of the back door of the transporter, I caught a glance of what I'm pretty sure was a current generation Ford FR9 NASCAR engine. Any idea what Yates gets for one of these?