36 replies to this topic

[HistoricMustang]

Before huge sums of money started pouring into motorsports people developed some pretty creative ways of getting their race cars to the track. I remember one racer here in the Augusta area using an old funeral hearse.

This photo was posted by a friend on a local vintage forum here in the states.

Henry

[wibblywobbly]

Mark Donohue drove his Elva Courier to Lime Rock Park, if I remember correctly.

[Twin Window]

Sort of in sinc with this thread... After competing on a round of the British National Rally Championship, circa 1989, I had to drive my (gravel-spec) rally car approximately 140 miles back to base on public roads. The reason? One trailer, two rally cars and a short straw... No ear protection either, now I think about it.

Them were 't days...

Twinny

[MPea3]

Originally posted by Twin Window
Sort of in sinc with this thread... After competing on a round of the British National Rally Championship, circa 1989, I had to drive my (gravel-spec) rally car approximately 140 miles back to base on public roads. The reason? One trailer, two rally cars and a short straw... No ear protection either, now I think about it.

Them were 't days...

Twinny

I'm with you there. I routinely drove my Corolla, raised 1.5 inches and with 6 Oscars across the front, to and from local rallies. I wasn't alone either, Divisional rallying was so small back then and with such a rag-tag group, that probably over half of the cars were driven to the event. The occasional rollover could sometimes make life difficult, but in the event of a car not being drivable, one of the guys with a trailer would drive his car home and allow the newly crushed, blown, or car-be-qued vehicle to be towed home.

[MPea3]

Another thought, more to the original topic. With the size of the US, I can't imagine what it must have been like to tow a race car around the country prior to WW2, better paving, and interstate highways. Even living in a fairly central location such as Indy, the drive times to places such as Atlanta or Syracuse would have required 2 or 3 days each way in travel. Drives to the west coast are hard to even imagine.

[Jeff Weinbren]

In the early sixties when Team Lotus and Lola came to South Africa, they kept their cars in Johannesburg, Kyalami being about 14 miles away and I remember them towing the cars back to Johannesburg with a tow rope. Somewhere I have a picture which clearly shows the cars hooked up to the tow rope!!
jeff weinbren.

[HistoricMustang]

I have often wondered if Shelby kept his cars in California and hauled them to Sebring, Daytona, etc. or if he had a staging place somewhere in the East. Can anyone add some insight?

I can hear Caroll now............."here are the keys son, now just drive east about 3000 miles and I will me you at the airport in Daytona."

And then the 3000 miles back with very few "interstate" highways.

Henry

[Keir]

We towed my Formula Vee behind a 1977 Honda Civic CVCC 5-speed which then became a 4-speed!

I miss those days with all the kit piled here and there and everywhere, but we were racing and that's what's important, right??

[Catalina Park]

Yeah, but have you driven the Formula Vee on the road?

[2F-001]

Not quite in the same league, but I drove my Caterham from London to Spa and on to the 'Ring and back with a whole set of track wheels and tyres strapped on the back with bungee cords. Doesn't do much for rearward visibility.

[ggnagy]

Back in the early 70's when my uncle started racing, he and my dad would flat tow his mini with, of all things, my grandfathers Renault Dauphine. From Pittsburgh to Nelsons Ledges was about, er, 70 mi each way and 120mi or so to Mid Ohio.

[David McKinney]

My favourite, which I saw with my own eyes, was in NZ
Chap called Angus Hyslop raced a D-type Jaguar for some years, always driving it to and from the circuits - sometimes over hundreds of miles. He even admitted to using it to round up the sheep on his farm...
Then he moved into single-seaters, with a T45 Cooper-Climax, which he trailered to the circuits. And his tow-car? The D-type!

[WDH74]

He even admitted to using it to round up the sheep on his farm...

Didn't that Jaguar come up for sale recently, in unrestored shape? The bit about rounding up sheep with the car sounds awfully familiar.

HistoricMustang- I've seen photos of the Shelby team cars at places like Road America with a large Shlby logo'd trailer in the background. Presumably they were hauled. But I doubt that the Daytonas were driven from California to Florida, and there probably was a shop that heldo onto the cars once they were there. Now I'm curious, too.

-William

[HistoricMustang]

Augusta, March 1964 United States Road Racing Championship. Trailers, but no tow vehicles. I guess they were out doing the town in the tow cars as most of these are at the local hotel. And, in those days, there was only "one" hotel in Augusta.

Augie Pabst, Maserati - Ford


Jim Hall, Chaparral - Chevy


Don Yenko, "Augusta" Corvette GS


Chuck Cassel, Porsche - Abarth


At least they were all equal off the track.

Henry

[D-Type]

I don't have a photo but the crudest 'trailer I have seen was a horizontal A-frame linking the tow hook to the wheels. Then from the two wheels, I-beams went up to meet at a plate they were both welded to. A chain block was fixed to the plate and the front of the race car slung from it and the car ran on its rear wheels.

On one occasion the transmission 'froze' during a race so the owner tied the steering wheel to the seat frame so the wheels were more or less straight ahead, hitched up the rear end and drove home.

Crude but effective. Not Kenya bush engineering but South London stock cars.

Edited by D-Type, 13 January 2011 - 10:37.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by WDH74
Didn't that Jaguar come up for sale recently, in unrestored shape?

Yep. Bonhams at Goodwood a couple of years ago. It made its return to the circuits (in restored form) at the Le Mans classic and will, I believe, be out again at the Revival meeting next week.

The bit about rounding up sheep with the car sounds awfully familiar.

Whoever you heard that from heard it from me ;)

[llmaurice]

For the Syracuse GP in 1959 we had the "privilege" of being towed from the Airport to the circuit behind small Fiats 600/1100s with our own drivers driving the tow cars. Stones like cricket balls being thrown up from the tow cars ,plus the odd friendly "natives" chucking stones at us as well !

[Muzza]

In the mid-1970s Nélson Piquet used to carry his Fomula Vee from track to track in Brazil - no short distances, mind you, and no good highways back then either - on the back of a Volkswagen Kombi pick-up (a rare thing by itself). The Kombi was in shambles, by the way.

Before long the engine of hauler the gave up the ghost on the way to a race in Interlagos. Piquet did not hesitate, and swap it with the one from his race car - right there, on the side of the road. Reputedly it became the fastest Kombi to be ever driven in Brazilian roads.

Having no money for a spare racing engine - or for servicing the Kombi engine - Piquet carried out a full season driving to tracks with the engine of the Formula Vee in the hauler, then putting it in the race car for the weekend, swapping it again after the race and then, zooom, back to the Kombi after the race...

[D-Type]

Great story Muzza.

Didn't piers Courage also use a Kombi pick-up?

[Ray Bell]

Rex Law's Cadillac engine came out of the Regal after the weekend's activities to be refitted to the rear end of an International bus...

There is a classic story of a Melbourne-Bathurst jaunt in which the tow car expired and the following Ferrari or Maserati was then used to push the tow car the rest of the way using the regular solid towing device as the pushing medium. I have no idea how true this is... but I could once again post this one...




With all due credit to John Cummins' memory and the story-gathering abilities of Graham Howard.

Of course, even with good gear, it's possible for it all to go wrong... Stuart Randall recalls a lonely several hours en-route to Sandown with a couple of Mildren cars in a state-of-the-art Rice trailer...

[HistoricMustang]

Henry "Junior" Spencer getting to the NASCAR Grand National track in 1964. Photo borrowed from a friend at another "vintage" forum here in the states.

Great stuff and my friend is looking for any info you might be able to provide on "Junior".

Henry

[john medley]

My Bathurst book actually has a chapter titled " Getting There", which is all about just some of the challenges of just getting to a race meeting ( and it ends with the words : Getting There is only half the battle. Then you have to Get Home)

And the late Paul Collins was mentally composing a book of towing horror stories ( he in his own inimitable way was The Star of far too many of them) but he died too soon. I'm told I have a responsibility to complete his work. After all it did take John Cummins about 10 hours in 1975 to tell me all the detail of his disastrous 1951 trip to Western Australia ( he was trying to cheer me up)summarized in Ray's post above as we towed unsuccessfully home to Sydney from Adelaide -- unsuccessful because EVERYTHING went wrong. Even when we stopped on the way to the circuit on raceday to get some ice (for the beer), we encountered a diabolical machine in which you put coins so the ice could come crashing au naturel out of either one of two chutes -- but we couldnt work out which chute. And each time a coin was waved near it this large box-like machine would rumble, snarl, vibrate etc before disgorging..... We drank the beer hot, leaving the footpath near the machine ankle deep in melting ice.

Another of my favourites was Peter Hitchin : EVERY trip he made was a disaster, towing dreadful trailers behind dreadful tow vehicles. His best, I thought, was when he planned to trailer a 30 foot fibreglass yacht 800 miles, but the yacht launched itself off the trailer, bouncing down the road before the amazed onlookers before coming to rest sideways across ( and blocking) a very narrow bridge on Australia's busiest highway

[Manfred Cubenoggin]

HistoricMustang:

I can confirm a similar story to your hearse as transport here in Ontario back in the early 60's. Peter Christiansen ran a small formula car at Mosport with some success and, IIRC, carried the car onboard the hearse proper. I copped a hitchhike ride in Bowmanville with him on my way out to the track once. Quite the ride.

Peter retired for some time before returning to drive a stock Honda in the late 70's. Subsequently, he founded and still operates the 'Young Drivers of Canada' driver training programme.

[antonvrs]

Re: getting there- and back.
I was a course worker at the USGP at Riverside, CA in 1960. After the race, on Sunday evening I was driving back to town on the highway, actually on the right shoulder 'cause I didn't like sitting in bumper to bumper traffic when I passed a Lotus 18 F1 car bieng driven back to their garage in town. I motioned for him to follow behind and ended up with 2 Loti and a Cooper following me for several miles down the long hill into Riverside.
My good deed for the day.
Anton

[David Birchall]

In the late seventies I would tow my sports racer the twelve hundred miles to the Monterey Historics behind an Austin A55 pickup truck that I borrowed. The Siskuyu summit between Oregon and California was a bit of a challenge at 4000 odd feet! The trailer I used was usually borrowed ( I could afford the race car but not the tow car or trailer:-priorities!) was a lash up that consisted of a 1940 Ford front axle with the king pins welded, some angle iron and 1x6 planks. The usual resident on the trailer? Cobra CSX 2151, the Hairy Canary

[leeturne]

Used to go karting in South Africa with two karts on a trailer and two on a roof rack.

[Ray Bell]

John: Please remind me to introduce Bruce Richardson to this thread...

[TFBundy]

I'm told there was a guy who raced a Matchless at Crystal Palace who used to transport the bike to the paddock ---- in a wheelbarrow!!

Years later friends ran Yamaha TZ250s from a lock-up about 100yds from the circuit entrance - we could have repeated it!

But there must be loads of stories about just driving racing cars to the circuit - even I've done it in a 5GT Turbo on slicks when the trailer punctured ... and been stopped by the police ... and been let off!!

[David Birchall]

Originally posted by TFBundy
But there must be loads of stories about just driving racing cars to the circuit - even I've done it in a 5GT Turbo on slicks when the trailer punctured ... and been stopped by the police ... and been let off!!

There was a certain Anglo/Canadian driver of a sports racer at the Montery Historics in the late seventies who, after imbibing the post event champagne to a greater degree than would be thought wise decided to drive the sports racing car back to the hotel in Monterey-through the post race traffic, traffic cops and all! Upon regaining consciousness at about 4 a.m. he then had to search the underground parking lots of all the hotels in Montery to find the car!!

[David Birchall]

I think this comes from an English car club magazine-Thought y'all might like it:


Was pulled over last night by a copper who'd followed me for a couple of miles and breathalysed. Bearing in mind I could barely stand it was no surprise to find I was massively over the limit. This was particularly disgraceful as I had the missus and kiddy with me in the car.

I was arrested and read my rights. It was all a very salutary experience, especially when the copper got shirty because I found the whole business side-splittingly funny.

His mate, whilst the arrest took place went and had a good look round the car, came back and started whispering to the other copper. They are whispering frantically at each other and neither of them look very pleased.

Copper turns to me and starts accusing me of wasting police time, he calls me a ****. I point out he's just sworn at a member of the public, in front of an 18 month old child and that I'll report him for conduct unbecoming.

Plods get back in their car and drive off, with the copper who'd had a look around my car laughing his head off.


And the moral of the story is....

Always check whether a car is left or right hand drive before breathalysing the guy in the right hand seat"

[lanciaman]

Originally posted by Muzza
In the mid-1970s Nélson Piquet used to carry his Fomula Vee from track to track in Brazil - no short distances, mind you, and no good highways back then either - on the back of a Volkswagen Kombi pick-up (a rare thing by itself). The Kombi was in shambles, by the way.

Pete Lovely hauled his F1 Lotus around on a VW truck. Took some doing to get it offloaded.

[antonvrs]

Re:

"Always check whether a car is left or right hand drive before breathalysing the guy in the right hand seat"

Something very similar happened to a friend of mine here in Los Angeles in the mid-50s.
He was riding home from LAX in the rain in a friend's XK120, which was right hand drive, with the roadster's top erected. They were stopped for speeding and the cop, who was about 6'6" tall, refused to listen to Wes, who was the passenger, and wrote him a speeding ticket.
When he went to court he brought his buddy Pete and the XK120. The judge had the bailiff go outside and look at the car, dismissed the ticket, and tore the cop a new ***hole in open court.
Anton

[lanciaman]

Originally posted by antonvrs
Re:

"Always check whether a car is left or right hand drive before breathalysing the guy in the right hand seat"

Something very similar happened to a friend of mine here in Los Angeles in the mid-50s.
He was riding home from LAX in the rain in a friend's XK120, which was right hand drive, with the roadster's top erected. They were stopped for speeding and the cop, who was about 6'6" tall, refused to listen to Wes, who was the passenger, and wrote him a speeding ticket.
When he went to court he brought his buddy Pete and the XK120. The judge had the bailiff go outside and look at the car, dismissed the ticket, and tore the cop a new ***hole in open court.
Anton

My friend Yogi Behr has a 1960s RHD Ford Fairlane and it is amusing to drive it on US interstates with the passenger reading a newspaper....

[JB Miltonian]

Here are Pete Lovely's Lotus 49 and Williams FW07 on his transporters. Picture taken by myself (no copyright) circa 1986.

[fines]

What a fleet! Wonder where he'd lost the rear wing of the Willy, maybe some lucky punter picked it up on the motorway...

[David Birchall]

When Pete turned up at a track with that lot plus his lovely wife and 2 gorgeous daughters he was guarateed to be the centre of attention
The picture was taken at Portland Internation Raceway wasn't it? About that time he had a F2 Lotus as well.

[JB Miltonian]

The picture was taken at Pete's VW dealership in Fife, Washington, where I worked from 1981-88.

The Williams was more difficult to load and unload. The rear wing had to be removed, and extra long ramps had to be used to help clear the ground effects skirts.

Yes, Pete also had (still has) the ex-team Lotus F2 car.

Yes, the lovely wife and daughters presented a great photo op. Sorry, don't have any here.