Kites can really go

I was able to do one of my favorite things this week. Fly a kite. Considering my current employment condition I should have been flying more. Mary likes to photograph clouds so we both got to do our thing.I really like stunt kites which give you total control, you can even fly the kite down or do loops.
Here I am flying horizontal. Please play close attention to Mary's clouds.

Trying to gain altitude after flying close to the ground. The following video gives you a quick view of flying. The wind was light so it limited the speed and performance.

Autocross Season

I have gotten behind on posting autocross photo's. The first autocross was back in May. You can tell its the first by the amount of grass growing up through the concrete. The second autocross is one we put on for the local performance car part company. All kinds of American iron showed up for that one.

Porsche headed into the first left hander.Bob's LeGrand headed toward the finish.Craig's real Super 7.Paul's Porsche with plenty of tires.Trying to take your Datsun through the lights backwards is not the fastest way.Beautiful July day. Big iron lining up in the grid.A GTO. Maybe not the best handling car but it looked great.An old Chevy made to look old was pushed hard until a radiator hose gave up.This Camaro was immaculate and with the custom air ride suspension cornered flat and flew.Same cars carbon fiber splitter and wheel. Beautiful.This Camaro was really nice but had way too much engine for the suspension.Another fast air ride Camaro.The Orange Camaro beat this Porsche by 2 seconds. Yikes!

.....Got it Going Again

The Queen is out of the garage. I ran into Ryan Friday and he said "Let's get your Z running. I'm off Monday." He came over yesterday and we got it running. This is my 1972 Datsun 240Z that I bought new and drove it off of the showroom floor.Now I just need to replace all of the fuel lines, put in a new fuel pump, bleed the brakes and flush the radiator. Oh, and clean out the mouse crap.
Here is Angle's and Ryan's next to mine. Looking at his Webber set up we discovered that he needs a new water pump. Old cars always need TLC.

I have had it under a car cover for several years and I actually forgot how pretty it is.

WINNERS!

Here is a row of winning cars from the 90's back to the 60's.
This one gets special mention as it is Shiersen Racing's 1990 winner driven by Arie Luyendyk. My formula Atlantic was an ex-Shiersen car. He had owned March's for years. Changed to a Lola and Arie and won!

A March 83C driven by Tom Sneva won in 83.

You get two pictures of the March.

Jim Halls Chaparrals. The 1980 winner driven by Johnny Rutherford in the foreground.

1973 Eagle driven by Gordon Johncock.

1972 McLaren driven by Mark Donohue.

68 Eagle driven by Bobbie Unser.

Carb Day at Indy

Here are a few pictures and videos from Carb day at Indy. Carb day consists of one hour of practice to get your race setup. When you get to a video TURN UP THE VOLUME!Here are the cars getting ready. For your $10 you also get to go almost anywhere at the track to watch.

Typical.

After practice if you go to the right spot you can get all kinds of good pictures.

One of many I took as the cars headed back to Gasolene Alley.

This old guy shows up every year for the 500.

Start of the Indy lights race. It was a very good race from the top 5 guys.

Lotus at Indy

Having been a Lotus owner I have to have a special day just for the Lotus of Indy. I am going to start with the type 38 that won. To see a fantastic painting of the car go to Car-A-Day.
Nose

Goodwood stickers.
I just love the bundle of snakes.

This is the type 29 that Jimmy Clark got 2nd in 63.

Very simple but effective.

The office.

The type 56, the turbine powered car. This was Graham Hill's. He qualified 2nd and was running 4th when it broke a suspension member. Certainly a different design for Lotus and a car I still haven't made up my mind if I think it looks good or not.

Misc. cars at the Indy museum

One of the great things about the Museum at Indy is that they like race cars, any race cars. So they have some really cool cars from other forms of racing that you can see.The 1991 Benetton. Driven by two guys named Schumacher and Patrese. I think some guy named Brawn was involved with this car also.
Oh, look! A diffuser, what does that do for a car?

Going back to the roots though, here is a 1906 Renault. Lets put Alonso in this and I bet he would get everything he could out of it and then some.

Do you think Aerodynamics is the new trick? This is the 1906 Laurin & Klement which is in the lineage of the current Skoda company. Look at the nose, sloped for extra downforce. Notice the fin in the back. It was actually tied into the steering to help get the rear end around corners without skidding. A movable aero device to help with oversteer.

A 1907 Italia.

What collection doesn't need a Bugatti. Here is a 1929 model 35-B.

Front view.

1954 Mercedes W196. Does this look like a 55 year old design?

1961 Birdcage Maserati. I wish I could get a picture with the skin off.

A rare Scarab. An American race car that competed in several levels of racing.

Their 1965 Ferrari 250LM. One of the prettiest Ferrari's ever built. This car won the 1965 24 Hour of LeMans.