Automotive

Spotted: Competition Race Car & Trucks

Forget F1 boys and their contract squabbles. I'm talking real race car; the kind (like a Timex) that can take a kicking, or a licking, and keep on ticking.

I would have posted this a couple days ago, but I went to the Cajon Speedway 3/8 mile (approx 600m) track archives on YouTube, and wasted an entire morning watching "Demolition Derby" and "Bomber Stocks". Sadly that track closed about 10 years ago and has now become taxiways and hangers -- in fact the San Diego Air & Space Museum (see my report 6 months ago) is on the land where I once watched these short-track races.

So our only local race track is now Barona Raceway, a 1/4 mile (400m!) clay track on the Barona Indian Reservation ... where developers can't take the land and build swanky homes. Here's a video from a few weeks ago on their first Figure 8 event. And no, there is no bridge where the loops cross. They just cross.

Pure Stock Figure 8 at Barona

If you don't have 10 minutes to watch the fun, here's a snippet from 2:10 or so:

What brought me to this level of looney nostalgia? Of course, I spotted this active race car in a front yard. So today we'll have a mix of cars that ARE race cars, trucks that might tow them, and pretend race cars.

This could be a race car. At least it has no roof that I can see, so it's a sporty car. BTW - we are not taking pictures of the Deep South, this is in Southern California. Where the homes generally are a bit more "urban"

Something is going on with this truck - it has a huge fuel tank hanging down in the back. So I'll say it's being turned into an endurance racer

This is a Plymouth Gold Duster. And it does look a lot like a Dodge Dart, because it almost is one.

Probably a wanna-be rather than real racer.

I put this in for our racing fans in England.

Nice Minilight wheels are probably its best feature

Datsun Political Statement Car - on its back end are "Catch me if you can", "Politicians Prefer Unarmed Peasants" and "Blame the Finger Not the Trigger"

A modded Datsun 510 wagon, which actually looked quite nice, in a scruffy sort of way. You might not want him to show up to take your daughter on a date, but otherwise you'd talk to him at a car show

Homemade convertible with roll bar to keep the car from falling apart

These trucks are all in the process of being turned into something else.

To be honest, I have seen at least 10 truck cabs in front yards in the past month. What are they thinking?

This Typhoon SUV and the Cyclone pickup were part of a small series of 4500 4WD trucks built in 1992-93 with a turbocharged/intercooled Chevy V8 with about 280 hp/360 ft lbs. I had the hots for this vehicle when it was new, but I owned a Buick T-Type Turbo at that point and my wife wasn't having two "ticket bait" cars in the family at the same time. I also saw a black one of these last week, but didn't get a photo of it.

This little truck cost $30k but could run with Ferraris and Corvettes. At the time I was doing a lot of work with GM, and on a visit to GM's test center the main finance guy told me the warranty claims on these trucks were the highest of any GM product ever. I think it was about $6000 average per truck. Mostly because the engine had about 100 ft lbs of torque more than was claimed, and the transmission, transfer case, CV-joints, U-joints, etc were constantly blowing up. Especially when the owners put in a "Performance Chip" and unlocked another mountain of torque GM had suppressed for longevity reasons. Ah, hot rodders!

Here's a Chevy Monte Carlo in the process of becoming something else... I can't say what

but it must be fast, right?

This is an Impala SS. I showed you a faded one in black cherry a few posts ago - but black is the color they were meant to be

The wheels have been changed, but otherwise it looked clean and stock

It took me a few moments of memory churning to identify this as a Mercury Cyclone from around 1970. The fender badge says 351, but they were also available with 428 and 429 engines and up to 375 hp.

Despite the missing front grille - undoubtedly a very expensive and rare piece to find, it was a very pretty car.

Let's stop here for today.

Are we still having fun?

Cazalea

💰210 Marketplace Listings for Vacheron Constantin›

Spotted: Competition Race Car & Trucks

Spotted: Competition Race Car & Trucks

Yes we are :)

Yes Mike absolutely

I had a GMC Syclone when they came out

Wonder if that's a Faux-Four-Two or original...what they did to it blasphemy to some :O [nt]

Yes, a lot of automotive heathens in this area [nt]