[DeTomaso] Indicator lights on race cars?

[Mountjoy]

Mike got it right (again).  They are identity lights.  In the period there 
weren't communication radios between the race cars and the pits.  At night a 
crew could not tell which of their team cars was coming into the pits.  The 
identity lights allowed them to know.  My Sunbeam Lister Tiger's identity 
light is white and its sister car's identity light is amber.

Darrell


Original message

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:10:33 -0500
From: mikeldrew at aol.com
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Indicator lights on race cars?
To: detomasoregistry at gmail.com, detomaso at realbig.com
Message-ID: <8CD50C52DAEE077-1924-44F7 at webmail-d084.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Chuck wrote:
Several times I have noticed colored lights on the (outside) body of race 
cars,
ainly
960's and 1970's vintage cars.

Sometimes on the (pit) side, other times on the roof, like Pantera 1189, for
example.

Sometimes 2 lights, other times 3 (red, blue, green).

How are they used?  (Pit signal, oil pressure, etc. ?)

>>>Today, race tracks are lit up all over the place at night; Le Mans looks 
>>>almost
like daylight.  But back in the day, it was DARK at night.  There was no 
pit-to-cockpit
radio communication; instead signalers were posted on the far side of the 
track (Mulsanne
corner in the case of Le Mans) and would hang pit boards over the walls to 
communicate
to the drivers.  Similar boards were used in front of the pits.

At nighttime, it was next to impossible to distinguish one car from the 
next.  The solution
was initially to paint different colored stripes on the noses of the cars 
(Shelby
Cobras, and later the GT40s used this to good effect).  Later on, various 
types of
colored lights were used.  Looking down the Mulsanne straight at an endless 
row
of approaching headlights, one car would appear with a green light on the 
roof, and
the signalers would know it was their car.

The practice has all but died out now, due to a lack of necessity.

Mike
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