10 replies to this topic

[brickyard]

Hi everybody,
Last friday I went to an auto expo in Estoril, near Lisbon, because I was told there will be a Champ car there. And so there was.

It was a Penske PC6 built in Poole, England in 1978 bearing the chassis #5. It was equiped with a Cosworth DFX and Goodyear tires.

I could not find the actual owner, but I was told that he's a Portuguese collector. The expo organisers, didn't know the racing record of the car, so I went home and try to identify the car.

But the task is a little more dificult that I supose... So, I need you help:

The car is red, the driver's name on the side is "Dennis Firestone", the car number is #41, and the sponsor is "BRUT - André Campagne California". It has three stickers glued inside the cockpit, two USAC ones and another "CART 120".

I saw in my records, that Dennis Firestone drove a Penske PC6 in 1980 for Jack Rhoades Racing, winning the Rookie of The Year award, but the car was the #18 all that year, and the sponsors were "Scientific Drilling". There was never a Rhoades PC6 with #41, wich in that year belonged to Brian Alsup. In 1981, Dennis tried to qualify that PC6 at Indy, but failled to.

All I wich to know is if this car is the one Rhoades Racing owned in 1980-81, and why thas it has the #41 on it. Does anybody know how to solve this mistery? Dennis din't race whit the #41, did he?

thanks.

[brickyard]

It has three stickers glued inside the cockpit, two USAC ones and another "CART 120".

The USAC "stickers" (or I should say logbooks???), are USAC 0370, and USAC 0276.

Any ideas of what this numbers are??

[Gerr]

Brickyard,The USAC sticker number will tally with the "USAC Technical Committee Data"sheet. The sticker is put on after tech at the Speedway. The number 0276 is a 1980 tech sticker,"02" is the year,the suffix "76" is the car number. The "0370" sticker is from 1981,car number 70.
In 1980,car 76,was a PC6 entered by Salt Walther for Vern Schuppan.Schuppan went to a better team,Walther qualified car 76,but was bumped.
In 1981,car 70,was entered for Dennis Firestone.It was to slow and he moved into a Wildcat VIII.
Why it now has number 41...............????

[fines]

Originally posted by brickyard
It has three stickers glued inside the cockpit, two USAC ones and another "CART 120".

Could it be the CART sticker meant "Year 1" (1979), "Car #20" (Patrick Racing for Gordon Johncock)? I know, Johncock raced another PC6 in 1980, when this car was already in Walther's hands, but Patrick had (at least) two PC6s in '79. Then again, Walther also had a PC6 in '79...

[fines]

Oh, btw, Doug Heveron raced a #41 for Jack Rhoades, sponsored by André Champagne, at the Atlanta 200 (Apr 17) in 1983, finishing 12th, then wrecked the car in practice at Indy. According to Phil Harms, however, that car was a Wildcat 8B... :more confused:

[Allen Brown]

While trying to find something on the 1980 Patrick PR1, I found this thread and thought that maybe we could now find out more about this Penske PC6 [5].

I thought at first that the USAC stickers had established that this PC6 was Dennis Firestone's #70 Jack Rhoades car in early 1981 and had previously been the Walther-entered car for Vern Schuppan in 1980. I could understand it having #41 on the side today as that was Jack Rhoades number in 1983 and the old Penske may have been kept as a show car. There was also an implication from its "CART 120" sticker that it had been Gordie Johncock's Patrick Racing PC6 in 1979.

However, this all falls apart when you start digging. Firestone's 1981 #70 Jack Rhoades Penske PC6 is very likely to have been the same car he raced for Rhoades at Indy in 1980 as the #18. In the 1980 Hungness, this car is said to be a 1978 PC6 as raced by Bagley in 1979. Turning to the 1979 Hungness, we find Bagley driving for Bobby Hillin's Longhorn Racing in a #11 PC6 said to have been used only in practice in 1978 by Mike Hiss. Turning then to the 1978 Hungness, I learn that Penske Racing had four PC6s present, the #1 for Sneva, the #7 for Andretti (qualified by Hiss) and the #71 for Mears, and another spare car also numbered #7 or #7T (see p86) which was used by Hiss on May 17 (see p37).

So it woud appear that we can trace the Firestone car all the way back to 1978. It's not at all implausible that Penske's 1978 T-car was chassis 005. If they had four cars at the Speedway, it's perfectly possible an early test car was held in reserve back at base.

Also in the 1979 Hungness is Walther's PC6, listed as "1978 Penske PC-6001" on p101 strongly suggesting it was chassis 001 but Hungness lists no 1978 history. Maybe this was the car held in reserve by Penske in 1978? However, it is described on p34 as a brand new PC6 "which had never been run before this month" (p34) - which is odd as Walther raced at Atlanta in April. I'm inclined to disbelieve the "brand new" bit as Walther family patter.

Also present in 1979 were Mears in the same PC6 he drove in 1978, Alsup in a works spare PC6 that was excluded after qualification (or was this a PC7?), McElreath in the ex-Andretti 1978 PC6 and Johncock and Dallenbach in 1979-built Patrick Racing PC6s. So three of the 1978 Penske Racing cars had been sold: one to McElreath, one to Hillin and one to Walther. At least one was retained and two new ones were built for Patrick.

So none of this squares with the USAC stickers. If you look at it from the point of view of the USAC stickers and assume Hungness was wrong (and that Walther had two different PC6s in 1979 and 1980 and that Rhoades had different PC6s in 1980 and 1981 and that the PC6001 business does not imply a chassis number), you have Johncock in PC6/005 in 1979 then passing to Walther then to Rhoades. It is just possible that Johncock had 005 if Penske only had four cars in the whole of 1978. Given that four ex-Penske 1978 cars appear to race at Indy in 1979, that's stretching things but not impossible.

On balance, I find it marginally easier to believe histories derived from Hungness than from the USAC stickers. Frankly, I'm perplexed.

Anyone got any ideas?

Allen

[Carlos Guerra]

Originally posted by brickyard
I could not find the actual owner, but I was told that he's a Portuguese collector.

The car is owned by Mr. Helmut Peitz, of Barcarena, near Oeiras.
He has had the car since about 1992.
His collection is mainly of vintage Rolls-Royce and Bentleys, with such oddities as a Schwimmwagen and a Kettenkraftrad, as reminders of his german origins.

Kind regards

Carlos Guerra
Cascais
Portugal

[DeanStew]

Car found; Michigan, USA. Engine is shot and is being cleaned up and sent to "a museum." The engine and transmission is what used to hold the the body together, so mounts are currently being made to hold the car in one piece without the main powertrain in it. Then it will either go on display in another museum, or will be sold.

Chassis 5 was the 1978 Indy 500 backup for Mike Hiss, who was the driver tabbed to qualify the Penske #7 entry for Mario Andretti because of his F1 commitments. For reasons unknown to me, Tom Sneva went from his allocated chassis 2 (which wasn't crashed in a race, at least - may have been crashed in a test or practice session) to take over the 5 from the Pocono 500 onwards, collecting a lot of poles and podium finishes on route to his winless second IndyCar title.

The chassis was then sold to Longhorn Racing and used by Tom Bagley in the inaugural CART season in 1979, at least through the Indy 500 (they kept on using a PC-6, but it is not known if they remained with this particular model), and then it went to Rhoades Racing for the 1980 Indy 500 onwards for rookie Dennis Firestone, who used it until it was bumped from the 1981 Indy 500 with 75 minutes to go (Firestone managed to qualify later in a Wildcat leased by Patrick Racing). The trace went cold afterwards until its 2002 appearance in Portugal.

So this car was indeed driven by Dennis Firestone... but as the #70. Neither Firestone or a Penske PC-6 ever raced with the #41; Bill Alsup did, but on a PC-7 and with a different sponsor.

Some old IndyCar chassis used to be repurposed for SCCA events, the American IndyCar Series or even hill climb events. That's probably where this model went after 1981, but that's just a guess.

[DeanStew]

found the issues with the engine. 1: the internals are missing and 2: The block is missing

[Porsche718]

I think an "air cooling vent" to aid internal temperature is a mod used in many a racing engine!

 

I know from experience that whenever one of my engines have had that feature, engine temps go down immediately!!!

 

BTW - So does forward motion!

Edited by Porsche718, 26 February 2025 - 03:28.

[GreenMachine]

Should buff out easily enough ...