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

Tue Sep 18 21:09:31 EDT 2007

JB,

  Sorry bro. I quess I had too much on my mind Sunday morning at 5am but thats no excuse for forgetting to wake you guys up.   

  I can't do much about the Vette, the motel or your tow rig or your tire problems but I know you will think of something. 

  md 
  "John Bentley (jab)" <jab at cisco.com> wrote:
      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:
    DIV {   MARGIN: 0px  }        
  ...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

Mad Dawg Antenucci 
Team Pantera Racing 
  The 1st & still the only vintage race team in open road racing 
www.teampanteraracing.com