[DeTomaso] Silver State Report + NORWEGIAN & PANTERA TEAM KICKING BUTT- We don't need no stinkin trophys - dawg vs deer

John Bentley (jab) jab at cisco.com
Tue Sep 18 19:22:02 EDT 2007


Me too, glad to be home.  As usual, it was a blast.  I have to say
things didn't go well the whole weekend for us, but it was still fun!
 
On the road to Ely on Friday morning, we blew a trailer tire East of
Reno near Fallon, Nevada.  We changed the tire and stopped in Fallon and
got two new trailer tires and while inspecting tires, noticed the two
front tires on the truck had a funny wear pattern in them, so we
replaced those too.  By the end of the trip, for various reasons, we had
to replace 4 truck tires and 3 trailer tires!
 
We hung with about 40 other racers Friday night at a couple of Ely's
finer establishments.
 
We flew through tech on Saturday and generally had a good time hanging
out with TPR and exploring Ely again. 
 
Sunday morning we almost missed the event because our "shack" didn't
have a phone in the room, didn't even have an alarm clock, and neither
of us brought our own.  Couldn't get a wake-up call (no phone) so we
asked Dennis to call my cell at 5:00am. (don't ever make that your #1
plan)  Dennis went straight to Lane's and never called, but fortunately,
the tpr gods woke us up (it was probably some of those loud cars
rumbling by our paper-thin walls that did it! :)
 
The event was a little late starting because the planes were late taking
off and a couple gates were unmanned.  We finally got going and shot up
to 130 to check oil and water temps and get the feel for the just-built
Corvette.  She was humming along smooth as silk and we quickly settled
in about 128 MPH average speed (125 target).  We had some time in the
bank and all was going great, then we lost overdrive.  The r's shot up
to 5100 RPM and we noticed a little vibration and a little smoke
starting.  Just about that time we noticed a rest area sign flash by and
we decided (after coming to grips with the fact that we were not going
to finish) to try and make it to the rest area.  We backed down to about
100-105 and hoped for the best.  5 miles goes by pretty fast when you
are trying to sort out problems and keep track of others cars,etc.  We
made it to the rest area and bailed out (we were now smoking quite a
bit).  After looking at the trail of tranny fluid, we knew we'd be there
for a while.
 
The good news is this rest stop had 6 or 8 tables with nice shaded
covering, the cleanest bathrooms I ever saw in a rest area (and way
cleaner than our hotel room) and a drinking fountain!  What luck!  Then
one of the guys from the gate check-point on the other side of the road
walked down and shouted across the road to us and checked in to see if
we needed anything.  Great guy.  We told him after the main pack of cars
went through and before the unlimiteds, we would come over to for a
quick visit.  After the sweep truck went by, we ran across the road and
chatted for a few minutes.  The guy gave us a couple cold beers and we
headed back to our car to wait for the unlimited to run.  What a sight!
Watching those guys blast by at over 200 MPH was amazing.
 
After the event we were able to head back to the gate across the road to
wait for help.  We finally got a couple to stop and give Chuck a ride
back to Ely to get our truck and trailer.  While Chuck was doing that, I
sat with the gate volunteer and his wife in their awesome camper and had
a couple ice-cold beers, a ham sandwich, some chips, and watched the
NASCAR race and then the Raiders football game on their satellite tv! :)
Chuck got back about 3 hours later and we loaded the car and headed back
to Ely.  We got to Ely and sat down for dinner at 6:00.  We knew we
wouldn't be making it home Sunday night, time to call work and give 'em
the good news.
 
We made it as far as Battle Mountain and stayed at a nice Super 8 Motel.
All they had left was a suite! :)
 
The next morning we headed West again only to make it to about
Winnemucca and the truck started having more problems.  Here we go
again....  We made it to town and found an auto parts store.  We changed
the ignition coil and the fuel filter and away we went.  We finally made
it home around 7pm yesterday.  What an adventure.   I can't wait till
next year! :)
 
JB
 
 

________________________________

From: Mad Dog Antenucci [mailto:teampantera at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 6:02 PM
To: Peter Kovacs; John Bentley (jab); detomaso at realbig.com
Cc: Mad Dog Antenucci
Subject: Silver State Report + NORWEGIAN & PANTERA TEAM KICKING BUTT- We
don't need no stinkin trophys - dawg vs deer


Happy to say I am home. 
 
The Pantera ran great (averaged 149.16 MPH). And like May I got the
honor to be the1st car off the starting line.
 
Jason Eaton's '71 yellow Pantera powered by the Cleveland 408ci stroker
nailed his goal speed average of 140.40 MPH for the 90 mile run down the
318. So much for those skeptics who said he would grenade ;-]>
Navigating for Jason was his bro' Nick Morland...who is an awsome guy
who I've become good buds with. They brought Jasons monster RV plus the
wives and all the kids and they were totally into the event weekend.
 
In Jason & Nicks division calss there were 13 cars (mostly Corvette
Z06's or Vipers but one Lamborghini Gallado to make it interesting ( but
NONE were vintage cars!)......There were 23 cars in my divsion class and
again most of those were all Z06's, Vipers but I also had one nice '05
Ford GT.  We were both close to our goal speed averages but thats not
close enough these days to win, place or finish in the top 3.
 
To give you an idea the winner in Jasons 140 MPH Grand Sport division
class ran a 139.999 MPH Average! And the winner in the 150 MPH group ran
an average of 149.985 MPH. Our consolition prize if you can call it that
was winning the "Most Exotic Car Award" at the car show on Saturday!
;-]> 
 
The "Hard Luck Award" goes to my buds "JB Bentley" and Chuck Brown who
drove from Santa Clara. Chuck is a veteran of many ORR's and he had
previously won 1st Class in JB's Pantera driving solo with no navigator
which is no easy feat. 
 
This time out he Chuck wanted to run his '89 C4 Vette in its maiden ORR
voyage....Must have been upsetting to the Pantera Gods because 25 miles
from the finish line their Corvette tranny grenaded ;-]> They got the
usual ring side seat next to the course after the Vette broke and the
communal with nature until the road re-opened. Then they headed back to
Ely for dinner and back to Santa Clara late Sunday night. 
 
Down at the finish line Jason and Nick noticed two of their trailer
tires were starting to delaminate (DOH!).  We decided to try and convoy
into Vegas to the awards banquet and half way there one of the tires
came apart.  My spare trailer tire wasn't a lug fit so we pulled the
wheel and what was left of the tire and Jason pulled the Pantera and
trailer on 3 wheels the last 25 miles into Vegas and the hotel/casino
with no problems.
 
At the Awards dinner there were 51 NORWEGIAN VIKINGS showed up to
support their team which Paal-Arvid Blytt and Gunnar Skjerve drove a '86
Pontiac Firebird in the Unlimited Division. 
 
They came in 2nd place (there were only 2 cars!) but they averaged a
respectable 181.64 MPH and won the TOP SPEED award with a 226 MPH in
their ROOKIE run!!!!!!   All those guys were awsome and I wish we had
had more time to spend with them....as we were leaving the hotel this
morning their RV and generator were dead so I jump started them on their
way back across the country. It truely as an honor to meet them and I'm
looking forward to them coming back....No doubt our brothers from Sweden
will not take this challenge lying down! ;-]
 
In the ne Mile Shoot Out Jeff Schwartz driving I think (?) a 2002 Ultima
GTR with 40 pounds of boost ran 212 MPH.....Yea, thats not a typo....He
ran 40 pounds of boost on his turbo....its like pulling the pin on a
grenaded and waiting for it to go off in your hand. And when his did at
the end of the course it blew hot oil over his windshield which then
made seeing anything other then the oil on the windshield impossible he
spun out but otherwise did not get hurt.
 
Bottom line:
135 Cars - 3 DNF's
1 Crazy Norwegian Race Team  + 1 Crazy Pantera Race Team = FUN!!! 
 
P.S.  After the  ignition, carburator and starter and electrical shot
'challenges that I had I figured wot more could go wrong?  Well as JB
said we got up, close and personal with the 2 deer and then towing the
Pantea hoe I got side swipped by an 18-wheeler that damaged the trailer
but left thePantea harmfree....must be the positive
Pantera-force-field....anyway, gonna need some trailer fender and turn
signal repairs.
 
I also want to thank Donny & Bobby Byers (Precision Pro-Formance), Russ
Fulps (Russ Fulps Race Engines) and Ken Green for being Ken Green who
stepped up to support the team with the spare ignition. After a week of
fixing last minute glitches  and just when we thought Dick realized
about 10PM we also had an electrical short that also caused the starter
problem. Dick doesn't work well with no ambiant light or sleep so we
knocked off early and loaded the Pantera with the winch and the next
morning I towed the Pantera to Donny and Bobby's shop where Donny able
to find and fix the short and replace the starter.  So my sincere thank
you to all these guys + Jason, Nick, and their families for going and
for JB for DAWGING me everyday to go....it was the BEST ORR ever. And it
was the 20th Silver State Anniversary...
 
PPS - May was the 20th Anniversary for the Nevada Open. There was a nice
tribute 20 minute video that was shown at the Awards Banquet that had
Junior's early Pantera in the film as well as I believe Dave Griego' or
possibly Dan Miller's stock Pantera's in the film....Nicely done....The
fact is WE have had a Pantera at EVERY single Silver State event EVERY
YEAR for the last 20 years.  We should all be proud of that.   
 
Mad Dawg Antenucci
Team Pantera Racing
"Its good to have friends"

Peter Kovacs <peter-kovacs at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

	...better that it happened on the way to the event than during
the event!
	 
	Peter Kovacs
	Property Equity & Mortgage Mgmt
	209 345-6708 
	209 523-4919 fx


	----- Original Message ----
	From: John Bentley (jab) <jab at cisco.com>
	To: detomaso at realbig.com
	Cc: Mad Dog Antenucci <teampantera at yahoo.com>
	Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 10:42:33 PM
	Subject: [DeTomaso] dawg vs deer
	
	
	come on now, has the guy jumped over enough hurdles yet?  Dawg
was
	pulling into Ely today and he saw a deer jump out of the ditch
next to
	the road south of town....  He slams on the brakes of his truck
(towing
	his Pantera) and narrowly misses the deer (the first deer).
Just as he
	starts to relax, the second deer jumps after the first and he
doesn't
	make it. :)  Bounces off the truck, trailer, and a little swipe
of the
	Pantera (the car is ok).  Dawg stops at the truck stop up the
road and
	changes his pants. :)  I can't wait to get to Ely.........I'm
sure it
	will be another great event....just like always.
	
	JB - less than 2 days now......
	
	
	
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Mad Dawg Antenucci 
Team Pantera Racing 
The 1st & still the only vintage race team in open road racing 
www.teampanteraracing.com



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