[DeTomaso] DeTomaso Digest, Vol 40, Issue 6- Removable Steering wheel

Jim Narum jnarum at sbcglobal.net
Tue Nov 6 12:38:32 EST 2007


Speaking of removable steering wheels...this past
Sunday I drove out to Texas World Speedway at College
Station, Texas, to watch Tom Upton race his Pantera in
a CVAR event.  The last race on Sunday is the enduro,
a one-hour race with a mandated pit stop during the
hour.  All cars must pit and there is a specified time
for the stop, several minutes, I don't know the exact
length, but it is allows plenty of time for
re-fueling, a refreshment, and even a change of
drivers. Tom had maintained a strong second position
for the first half of the race.

His relief driver, and I am sorry I did not get his
name, who races with Tom regularly and even turns
better times than the owner entered the car for the
second half of the enduro. Full tank, clean
windshield, safety gear (HANS included) popped the
wheel back on and screamed down pit row toward turn
one of the road course, past turn one of the road
course, into turn one of the oval (oops) and nearly to
turn two of the oval. After a quick u-turn on a very
steep embankment made his way back to and re-entered
the road course.  Assumption from the pits was that
the brakes may have been hot and caused the missed
turn. After the mandatory black-flag roll thru on pit
row for leaving the course, the Pantera continued and
ran very well to the finish. It wasn't until the end
of the race did we find that the off-track adventure
was because the steering wheel was not fully seated
and locked. He probably exited pit row at between 110
and 120 with no rudder!! Fortunately no major damage
occured to driver or car, except for a detectable
pucker in the floor pan just below the driver's seat.

Lock your wheel, then check it again.


--- RCBSONS1 at aol.com wrote:

> I have the removable wheel from Byers
> The first time I took it off was at Monterey
> on the morning of the show... I could not get 
> it back on... it turns out my wheels were turned
> and I was 180 off...it  took me a while to figure it
> out.
>  
> It has no play as that is fairly important on the
> track
> I did have some play in traffic one day going to
> work
> and noticed the allen bolts all the way around were
> loose
> we made sure they were tightened when I arrived at
> the shop.
> No problems yet but I rarely take this unit off.
>  
> Dawg,
> you don't have a fuel cell on that beast 
> No wonder you don't do 200 mph
>  
> Off to Sacto to buy a new TPD
> trailer so I am forced to race the Pantera again
> or maybe it can be a true Trailer Queen
>  
> Bob (show car slacker)
> 
> 
> 
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