Weird, or unusual racing cars

Racing events, drivers, cars or anything else from the past.
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jimclark
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#151

Post by jimclark »

Bottom post of the previous page:

All very true but the restrictions have nothing to do with the pulling out of the cars as they were not, under any circumstances, to win.
The deal was made as opposed to banning them altogether. Nobody wanted grids of silent whooshmobiles.
STP and the 500 got the exposure they expected.

You can call it a conspiracy theory all you'd like. I sat with Art and know what he was telling me in his silence. ;)
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#152

Post by erwin greven »

We have to trust the hear say.
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#153

Post by jimclark »

No you don't. The choice, of course, is yours.

I understand those that can't know; that don't believe it. That's fine, they weren't there and didn't ask the question.

I do know. I was there, and did ask. Mssr. Pollard responded. :)
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#154

Post by Michael Ferner »

Yeah. I sat with Einstein once, and his silence told me the moon is really made out of green cheese.
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#155

Post by SBan83 »

Michael Ferner wrote: 3 years ago Yeah. I sat with Einstein once, and his silence told me the moon is really made out of green cheese.
Maybe Einstein ate some of that moldy green cheese himself. :sick: Could have led to some hallucination-induced conspiracy theories.
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#156

Post by Michael Ferner »

Now you mention it, I did notice that the moon was waning. Must've been Einstein biting off a good bit. It did have a similar shape to his mouth after that, and I believe I recall him munching. :wacko:
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#157

Post by DoubleFart »

jimclark wrote: 3 years agoYou can call it a conspiracy theory all you'd like. I sat with Art and know what he was telling me in his silence. ;)
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#158

Post by Michael Ferner »

The nicest thing you can say about conspiracy theories is that you can idle away time thinking about their "logic", which is sometimes rather amusing. I was thinking about that "deal" that USAC and Granatelli are supposed to have struck, maybe it went like this:

Faceless USAC official: "Oh, hi Andy, awfully nice to see you. Got a minute?"

Granatelli; "Wassup? How can I help you?"

Faceless USAC official: "Well, now... how can I say this... You know, Andy, we're in an awful bit of a bind here at the moment. You see, nobody wants to see your whooshmobile winning -- except for the millions of fans, of course, but we can't have that, can we? Haha haha -- So, we really, really don't want you to win this race - ... a-and it's not just us!! All the other 32 starters feel exactly the same way!"

Granatelli; "Yeah, I can figger that"

Faceless USAC official: "So, if you could please, please help us out here, that would be awfully nice! Could you please just NOT win? Would you do that for us, just this once? [aside] or maybe twice, hehe"

Granatelli; "Sure, no problem. I've been coming here for twenty years trying to win this goddamn thing, I'll just try again next year. No sweat."

Faceless USAC official: "Cool. I mean, you can still dominate the race all you want, just not, under any circumstances, win it."

Granatelli; "Will do. I'll just order my driver to stop at the pits, and we'll claim that it was some ten-cent bearing or whatever that failed. You know, I'm the boss of a multi-million dollar engineering company, there's no way anybody will believe we can engineer a car to last 500 miles without some sort of failure. What would be the point? If I wanted to show that our products do not fail in service, we could always lie in ads and commercials about them."

Faceless USAC official: "That's great. Thank you so much!"

Granatelli; "Don't mention it. Give my regards to your faceless USAC wife"

Faceless USAC official: "Thanks, will do. Have a nice day!"

Granatelli; "You too" [turns to leave, then stops in his tracks] "Er, hang on a minute there"

Faceless USAC official: "What is it?"

Granatelli; "Well, you know, I got a few hundred thousand bucks invested in this car... I don't really mind that much, I'm on the board of directors at Studebaker, and they are going under anyway, so the bean counters have enough on their plate already and won't hold me accountable. But it's still an awful lot of money - I mean, my wife always hassles me about them fancy necklaces, and here I am throwing money (even if it's not my own) out of the window!?"

Faceless USAC official: "Well, can't you just file it under advertizing expenses?"

Granatelli; "That's it! Right, that'll do. Thanks, appreciate your help..."

Faceless USAC official: "Glad to be of assistance. Anything else?"

Granatelli; "Hmm… if I don’t win, Tony won’t hand me that fat cheque either, will he?”

Faceless USAC official: "Fraid that’s so. But if you win, we will have to ban your turbine!”

Granatelli; "But I’m not going to enter it anywhere else anyway, until next year at Indy. So, what’s the point? If I can’t win with the turbine, why should I keep entering it?”

Faceless USAC official: "You’re being obtuse here – think of all the exposure you can get with the car!”

Granatelli; "But I’m already getting that. And if I win, it’ll be even more!”

Faceless USAC official: "Okay, here’s the deal: if you don’t win, we’ll make a big fuss, but we won’t ban the turbine. We’ll just change the rules, so you’ll have to build a new one, and spend the same money all over again…”

Granatelli; "Great idea! I’ll go ahead and build four new cars, so the cost will quadruple! That’s a new word I just learned, and I was so desperate to use it!”

Faceless USAC official: "… and you can then sue us, which will get you even more exposure!”

Granatelli; "I reckon that’ll be another 200,000 bucks in legal costs. So much better than pouring money into boring commercials.”

Faceless USAC official: "Yes… but you will need to help us out here. You know, we’re a non-profit organization, and we don’t have the $84,000 that we are going to squander in court…”

Granatelli; "You’re a what? Non-profit? How do you even spell that?”

Faceless USAC official: "Ahem, yes, I work for nothing” [clears throat] “But I do get an allowance for the hotel bills and the mileage on my car! And the office girls are on salary”

Granatelli; [laughs uproariously] "Sucker! Kneel down, and I’ll write a cheque on your back”

Faceless USAC official: [abashed] "Thank you, sir!”

Granatelli; "Anything else?”

Faceless USAC official: "So, we have an understanding?”

Granatelli; "Yeah, yeah, we’re fine. I’m not going to win this year, and will spend even more money to not win in ’68. Anything on the plate for ’69?”

Faceless USAC official: "Ah, let’s see… How about I ask Mario if he fancies a kiss?”
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#159

Post by PTRACER »

jimclark wrote: 3 years ago You can call it a conspiracy theory all you'd like. I sat with Art and know what he was telling me in his silence. ;)
Ignore the naysayers. I am interested in knowing your story and how you came to be there, could you tell us? :bye:
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#160

Post by EB »

For the record, I'm not disputing the encounter with Mr Pollard, just the conspiracy.

If there's any actual evidence, we're all ears.
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#161

Post by SBan83 »

EB wrote: 3 years ago For the record, I'm not disputing the encounter with Mr Pollard, just the conspiracy.

If there's any actual evidence, we're all ears.
But there is actual evidence.

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#162

Post by jimclark »

PTRACER wrote: 3 years agoIgnore the naysayers. I am interested in knowing your story and how you came to be there, could you tell us? :bye:
I have somewhere else on The FL, iirc. 'Sho' 'nuff though.......

'Twas the Trenton 200 (the 150 was the Spring race), Sept.'68. Had been going to Trenton since our first Indy car race in Langhorne, '66. We went to Langhorne from a friend's house we were staying at for a few days in 'Jersey. Thereafter it was Trenton as it was closer to home (NYC).

I was 14 at the time and getting autographs as the teams rolled in by the registration booth outside of T-4. ('Told the story about thinking Aldo was Mario in the "Remembering the Fallen" thread with Aldo's passing in it.) I caught Art putting on his shoes hanging out the back seat passenger side door. 'Asked him for his John Hancock and if I could ask him about the turbines. I don't know why but he took a liking and told me to go sit on the other side. I didn't hesitate.
"What do you want to know?"
"Why they all broke."
He turned around from facing out the door and swung his feet in and gave me a puzzled look. "Waddaya mean?"
"I don't believe all broke so close to the end."
"Why not? Cars break close to the finish very often."
"I believed Parnelli did last year, but when it was both of you (he and Joe) for the same reason, only three laps apart I started to have my doubts. My father also questioned the turbines' failure and suggested something wasn't right."
He turned to me again with a serious look on his face; no more the smile. "Why the doubt about the turbines?"
"Because with so few moving parts they're pretty dang reliable, and again, the same reason so close together? Awfully coincidental to me..."
He just stared at me, 'didn't say a word.
I continued "I know USAC doesn't want 'em just like they didn't want Jim to win with that "furrin' " car, so something doesn't smell right."
I could tell he was taken aback as he sorta leaned back a little. "Is this your dad's idea? To ask me this?"
"Naaw, we've talked about it but he doesn't care about racing as much as I do."
"How old are you? You're pretty perceptive."

I was a pretty shy kid and prolly blushed some. At this time I was in my third year of slot car racing, spent a lot of time refurbishing the one I used last, building, and developing my next, (we raced almost every Friday night, one store or anther) and I didn't participate in most of the activities other kids did. Most of my thoughts were on racing,and in NYC that wasn't a real popular "social" activity....

I told him "I'm fourteen, already able to fly* and know quite a bit about machines, as my father was always working on something or other. I like to learn."

[*No, I didn't have a license, but I was in airplanes with my father since I can remember, and he often turned control over to me. I finally soloed shortly after my 17th birthday. Dad was an instructor and Air Traffic Controller. Footnote: He taught Bob Said (Yup, Boris' father) to fly late '50s or early '60s, who later became some U.S. stunt plane Champion or other.]

Anywho, Art said he had to go, and that I should "Keep thinking the way you do, you know your stuff."

Believe or not, 'matters not to me. I sat with him.....listened to him......watched him.
I had my doubts prior to the encounter. After, I didn't anymore.
Then, (and now) I knew.
Those were the days my friends, we thought they'd never end.....

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#163

Post by DoubleFart »

Word on the street is that Arrows were told to self destruct both cars on the pit straight at Catalunya in 1998, just one lap apart.
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#164

Post by PTRACER »

DoubleFart wrote: 3 years ago Word on the street is that Arrows were told to self destruct both cars on the pit straight at Catalunya in 1998, just one lap apart.
Didn't we see that again a few years ago? Both cars in one team suffered complete power failure within seconds of each other. I remember joking that someone on the pit wall had switched off the wrong car and had to quickly do the other one.
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#165

Post by Michael Ferner »

Detroit 1997 I think it was, both PacWest cars were leading, a team that had never won a race before was heading for a sensational 1-2, and then - boom! Both cars ran out of fuel on the LAST LAP! Surely they had made a deal with CART, Blundell's silence afterwards told me all I needed to know. I am also very perceptive.
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#166

Post by DoubleFart »

PTRACER wrote: 3 years ago
DoubleFart wrote: 3 years ago Word on the street is that Arrows were told to self destruct both cars on the pit straight at Catalunya in 1998, just one lap apart.
Didn't we see that again a few years ago? Both cars in one team suffered complete power failure within seconds of each other. I remember joking that someone on the pit wall had switched off the wrong car and had to quickly do the other one.
Renault at Bahrain in I think 2019.
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