Unusual shortened races

The 26th race of the 1957 NASCAR Grand National season at the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds at Spartanburg, SC was stopped after 187 laps. There was a curfew on racing in South Carolina on a Sunday. The race was held on Saturday night, and when Buck Baker and Speedy Thompson crashed at approximately 11.30 pm, there was not enough time to fix the fence and run the remaining 13 laps before midnight, and the start of the curfew.

Recently both V8 races at Sydney in 2014 were shortened due to massive storms. The Sunday race was struck by a storm so large it blocked the TV signal.

 

 

I doubt there was any `TV signal to block but the 2014 Silverstone Six Hours was shortened to 5 hours 34 mins because of heavy rain.

Ray Bell commented about a chamionship race that Bob Jane won in the $10m dollar Jag that was halved in length.

That was the 1963 Australian Gran Tourismo Championship...

That race had been run over 50+ miles the first two years, then 75 miles the third year. The fourth year it was at Calder and the class was dying, it was to be wiped out for the next year altogether.

So Calder is about a mile to the lap. The race was scheduled to go 20 laps, but with a paltry field and no competition for the Jag, the organisers shortened it on the day to just ten laps.

Ray Bell commented about a chamionship race that Bob Jane won in the $10m dollar Jag that was halved in length.

 

Got a bit confused and thought the Jag had been halved in length...
 

Got a bit confused and thought the Jag had been halved in length...
 

You're no the only one. 

1973 Watkins Glen Trans-Am race

 

This was the first year of the new rules - Big block Camaros, Corvettes, etc.  Near the end of the race I was driving our

still 302 T/A spec 69 camaro when our last fuel stop was due.  At the same time it started to rain hard, and some fog

started to roll in.  We put on rains and some fuel and headed back out.  Right away I started passing some faster cars

as they had been caught out on drys.

 

After a few more turns the red flag came out - race stopped because of heavy fog - the marshalls could not see from 

station to station.

 

Robert Barg

Edited by oldtransamdriver, 03 February 2017 - 02:54.

Got a bit confused and thought the Jag had been halved in length...

 

 

 

Why do you think nobody's calling it a Jaguar?

Okay, here's one...

Back in the Amaroo Park AARC Club Meeting days there was an open-wheeler race in which Graham Engel and Terry Finnigan were the main protagonists in their Cheetahs.

Two crashes occurred, one at each end of the circuit, ambulances and doctors were despatched and the race continued with waved yellows and much slowing down of these leading cars.

However, the third-placed car wasn't slowing down, and closed on the leaders at each crash, despite losing a lot of ground where the track was still open. Such was the impact of his efforts to get onto terms with the much-faster cars by dint of this carry-on the doctor complained and the red flag came out.

As a grand finale to his activity for the day, he raced past the Engel and Finnigan cars as they slowed to stop for the flag and later was heard to say that he 'won the race to the red flag'.

The race report in one magazine carried this story, but had to print a retraction when threatened with a trio of $100,000 defamation suits - one for the magazine, one for the editor and one for the writer.

And at yet another AARC Amaroo Park Club meeting a sports car race was stopped after three laps because there was so much oil came from one competitors' car that it was impossible for the race to continue in safety.

In the vane of Rays comment. Murray Bridge Classic speedway event about 10 years ago. Us Supermodifieds went out in drizzling rain. Rolled around and I am thinking visibilty is an issue, flag went green and after about 3/4 of a lap my visor was filled in from my own front tyre and I pulled off, with the entire field following. And that was supposed to be a 15 lap event.

The heavy stockcars went on after us but they did their event,, with I suspect most driving blind.

The track was ok to Drive on,, just could not see. And I was at the front!

Not actually a race but the Saturday practice for the 1971 Whit Monday F2 race at Crystal Palace was abandoned as a water pipe burst between Ramp and South Tower flooding parts of the track! GLC engineers sprang into action to fix the problem before Monday!