Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Breaking news - Australian Grand Prix update

[Douglas Anderson (dnt]

Lash asks “Did F5000 ever run there [Long Beach GP course] as an event?

 

Oh yes.  Only once.  The next day, Sunday.  The F5000 was just a litmus test for three things:  would the public come; could a safe/fast course be set up and disassembled in a few days;  and,  could really fast cars negotiate a street course.  The race was the next day after Workman’s little, uh, Saturday altercation with the pit barrier leading back onto the course – I think Brian Redman won.  The other winners were the Long Beach police and towing companies – people were parked all kinds of crazy everywhere.  Later years Monday thru Friday business building owners realized if they paid some staff members to man their underground building parking they could and did make a fortune.  After the race I recall seeing a nice BMW or some such car about 15 feet from a parking lot entrance – note NOT the exit, sitting with all four tires shredded.  Those little one-way spiky things really DO work.  Seems Walter Mitty cleverly disguised as Gil Villeneuve took the wrong short cut at speed.

Yep – thems was the days.

Doug

 

From: Lashdeep Singh <lashdeep [at] yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2020 10:03 PM
To: Douglas Anderson <dnt [at] dock.net>
Cc: The FerrariList <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Breaking news - Australian Grand Prix update

 

Doug saves the day with another superb story about times long gone!!

 

Did F5000 ever run there as an event?

 

Thank you sir!!!!!

On Mar 12, 2020, at 22:53, Douglas Anderson <dnt [at] dock.net> wrote:

WOW Les - - 40 years working at the Long Beach.  What fun.

 

I can recall in about 1975 Chris Pook and Gurney came up to the San Fran Bay area, to a hotel in Marin County, and were looking for sponsors - $5,000.  Hmmmm – that’s about half the price of a new Porsche – and anyhow – he said the whole thing could go bust.  Anyway – they were going to test the track with F5000 just to see if it would work.  Too rich for a red jacket, and special seating for something that may not last.  Well we all got that wrong – it’s the longest running street track to date.

 

So anyway I went down to the first test race in ’75 - the F5000 race mainly because the guy that sold me a 1951 Porsche was racing his F5000 and my folks lived down in L.A.  The guys name was (and yes – ‘was’ is correct but that’s another story involving a ski boat) Dick Workman who owned Workman Motors on Pine St. in the heart of the San Francisco business district.  Flawless body man and painter and a bit crazy.  [Picture this – a race held at Sears Point in Sonoma, about 50 miles north of S.F., Dick raced his big block Cobra there over the weekend.  Come Monday morning he gets up, jumps it this Cobra and drives out of his home in Mill Valley, across the Golden Gate Bridge - - - IN his Cobra . . . with race numbers on the sides and hood, open exhausts and roll bar through business traffic up Van Ness and to his shop in the heart of San Francisco.  How do I know?  He passed me on the GG Bridge doing an un Godly speed at 7:00 a.m..  Damn near blew me and my ’66 Sea Sand colored VW bug off the bridge.  Good ol’ Dick – I recall he had a real serious look on his face.  Thumped right past me at speed and was GONE.]  Anyway – Dick was the only accident at the Long Beach F5000 race practice – at the END of the pit row on Ocean Blvd.  Dick took the Coca Cola ad seriously that sang “Things go better with Coke.”  Totaled his car and nearly him as he was air lifted to the hospital.

 

Yeah, that was the race course that went down the long Shoreline Drive, made a tight 180 at The Queens Hairpin (that’s gone) and then a left and UP the hill to Ocean – then a short chute in front of the pits and a sharp right DOWN Linden (I think) to the bottom and a hard left.  The bangety bang sound the cars made at the bottom of Linden was the chassis bottoming out and axels breaking.  Formula one did no better.  It was either the next year or the following year that up to Ocean and down Linden was dropped off and just straight thru on one level was and is the new course.  Oh – one more – the next year, 1976 - Jody Shectker stuffed it at the Queens Hair pin going pretty darn fast off the longest straight.  The car is stopped but Jody is hunkered face down as low as he can go - - race officials run over to him and he’s ok.  So one the officials asks – why were you all hunkered down when it was all over?  Jody replys – “Well it was quiet and I knew it was either all over or I was in the air and I sure didn’t want to land on my head.”

 

This was way before TV.  I sure miss going there for F1.

 

Doug

 

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