Kurt, It sounds like you and your friends had a wonderful weekend of racing. You and your pals giving the win to George is s true sign of "Gentlemen Racers"!!! My hat is of to you all!! Leslie A. Gray
On Jul 19, 2016, at 10:29 PM, Kurt Byrnes <kdb@kbyrnes.com> wrote:
I raced my MG last weekend at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. It was quite the eventful weekend.
I met Pantera owner Matt Harkis and his friend Paul who were both driving Matt's 1965 Wolseley Hornet. Paul drove in the under 1 litre class and Matt was driving in the under 1.5 litre class. Their car overheated significantly during Matt's practice session and when they brought it back to the paddock, it started spilling the nastiest milky slime I've ever seen come from a radiator overflow. The strange thing was the engine oil looked perfect. After a compression test and a bit of investigating, we concluded it must be the Setrab oil/water heat exchanger. They pulled the Setrab and thoroughly flushed the entire cooling system. Their car ran great the rest of the weekend.
During my first full lap of qualifying, my clutch pedal jammed to the floor and I never got a time so would have to start from the back of the pack. A floorboard screw had come loose and fallen into the pedal box. Due to a Nash Healey loosing most of its oil during the session, several driver's chose to come in early and didn't set very fast qualifying times as well.
Although Sunday morning practices are not typically timed for gridding, a friend and I went out to set fast times in hopes they would use our Sunday times. We were pushing hard. We got separated lapping some slower traffic and I lost sight of him. Unfortunately, he had total brake failure at one of the fastest parts of the course and hit a jersey barrier and rolled. I came passed him and his car about 5 seconds after he crashed, his car upside down against the barrier. Fortunately, he walked away from the crash but was taken to hospital for scans and tests. His car is repairable and he was back at the track a few hours later. Thank goodness for all the safety gear.
Sunday's final race came and there were now three of us who would be the front runners and George, who used to dominate the class but has been slowing down the last few years. Although I was supposed to be gridded at the back, they moved me up to third where my friend who crashed was to be. As a group, the three of us decided to secretly allow George to win and try to put on the best show we could. We traded positions numerous times and allowed George to work his way past us. Although I think he figured out what we were doing, he was grinning from ear to ear on the podium.
I didn't get over to the DeTomaso display at the Cortille but Matt, Paul and my son all did. They said there were about 8 Panteras which is many more than usual. If you made it, hope you had a good time.
I posted some footage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLLaFXaOPmo
Kurt
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