Ferrari Mailing List: Re: There’s a lot of stupid money out there....

[Douglas Anderson (dnt]

By golly – I looks like it.  Pretty swoopy.  THIS is what a sports racer should look like . . . never mind it will lift at the end of the fastest straight and you’ll lose your steering.  But they sure did look cool.  And then the driver gets in and everything from his rib cage up is exposed.  Cozy.

 

Looking at this reminds me of the time at the Palm Springs vintage races and Phil Hill was to drive one of Briggs Cunningham’s specials.  Picture this – Phil is sitting in the car and Briggs is going over the tweaks and twitches of the car.  Phill asks him what this big green handle thing was for which was placed in the center under the dash board.  Biggs thinks a bit and answers – “I have no earthly idea what I was thinking when I did that.”

 

And so it goes for lost engineering of home built Historics.

 

From: Rick Moseley <ramosel [at] pacbell.net>
Sent: Monday, December 7, 2020 6:27 PM
To: Douglas Anderson <dnt [at] dock.net>
Cc: 'The FerrariList' <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] There’s a lot of stupid money out there....

 

Wasn't the Cooper the starting point for his car, the Zerex??  Was it just Zerex or the Zerex Special??

 

On Monday, December 7, 2020, 6:21:27 PM PST, Douglas Anderson <dnt [at] dock.net> wrote:

 

 

Rick asks “At what point did Roger stop driving for Chaparral and start his own CanAm cars?”

 

Hmmm, dunno.  I recall seeing picture a 1962 picture of Penske winning the LA Times GP at Riverside in a Cooper.  LA Times GP – precursor to CanAm, well sort of – the CanAm’s started in 1965 and any held at RIR were always tagged as LA Times GP.  Good advertising.  Couldn’t keep Otis Chandler down.**

 

The next time I recall seeing Roger at RIR was with this Cpt Nice, a Brown U grad.  Soft spoken, a bit on the stout side, driving a Lola 60 painted in a beautiful blue with yellow pinstriping, Sunoco colors, at the USRRC.  Mark Donohue.

 

Way before simi’s hit the road with race car garages, Roger had a nice Chevy truck with a slope bed hauler.  All the way from Pennsylvania to Riverside (Los Angeles area).  As crazy as Don Garlits.

 

More about Penske/Donohue in the book The Unfair Advantage.

 

Cheers

Doug

 

**Oh – Otis, oh yeah.  Publisher of the Los Angeles Times.  Big fellow but squeezed into his Porsche 917 ok.  Also had, at the time, THE only privately owned and in possession of legal Porsche 959 in the country – but, and it was a BIG BUT from the DOT – no drivie drivie on ANY public road and anything that the sun shines on.  And if you want to take it to a race track for photo op – here, fill out THIS request for transportation over and across or under public roads.  If a wheel so much as touches public roads – we’ll store it right next to Bill Gates 959 which we wont even let him sit in. <grin>  I judged his car at a local PCA event.  A little story along with that but not here.