GALPOT Weekly #29

Welcome to GALPOT Weekley #29, the 2012 season is now well underway and this is reflected in the increased numbers of events I and the GALPOT team have been attending of late. The week started with a trip to a soaking Prescott where the 2012 Avon Tyres MSA British Hillclimb Championship got underway, Scott Rayson driving the mighty Chevrolet Special sand racer above did not come close to making the top 12 run off but was the fastest of the four sand racers present. Colin Cooper took no shortcuts when he hand cut the tubing for his Kayne Special III seen above at Oulton Park, the car was designed for towing his Kayne Special II to events but it turned out to be a handy competitor on the hills and in speed events. On Wednesday I looked at the Ford Corsair 2000E, one thing I forgot to mention was that in 1967 Eric Jackson and Ken Chambers took part in an epic race racing their Ford Corsair from Cape Town to Southampton against the RMS Windsor Castle. There are many myths about the events surrounding this competition for the full accurate story I highly recommend reading the Damn Long Way posts and disregarding almost everything else that has been posted on the internet regarding this http://damnlongway.com/blog/records/racing-the-windsor-castle/. Following up this story it has transpired that the story of the Corsair setting records at Monza is a myth that appears to have started in the Ford publicity department. I have amended the original Corcair post in the light of these findings. Thanks to Kerry Williams Thursdays GALPOT blog paid a trip to last weekends Classic Motorsports Mitty presented by Mazda at Road Atlanta, which taught me about the BRE TR 250K which I had never seen or even heard of before. For Ferrari Fridays blog I visited the set of Ron Howard's movie 'Rush' a film about the rivalry between James Hunt (#11 McLaren) and Niki Lauda #1 Ferrari, the scene above is a reenactment of the 1976 Spanish Grand Prix from which John Watson in the #28 Penske has just retired with a blown engine. The Lotus Europa Special, featured on Saturdays GALPOT blog, was originally conceived as a limited edition with for a production run of just 200 but the demand for the model led to a total production number of 3130 big valve Lotus Type 74's. Today's post review's last Saturday's Bristol Italian Auto Moto Festival where one of the stars of the show was this Lancia Volumex powered FIAT X1/9. Over the Bank holiday weekend I have already visited the Auto Italian Car Day at Brooklands and will be visiting Castle Combe tomorrow and will be posting blogs on these events along with features on the Patent Monocoque Killeen K1 once owned by Colin Cooper in the days ahead. Thanks for joining me on GALPOT Weekly #29, I hope you will enjoy the links and that you will join me again at 'Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres' blog during the week ahead. Don't forget to come back now !

GALPOT Weekly #16

Welcome to GALPOT Weekley #16, this week my competition season kicked off with a navigation exercise.



Bob Bull kindly took me along, in his 'daughters' supercharged Mini Cooper S, as a navigator for the Bristol Pegasus Motor Clubs January Navigation Exercise. See how I got on by following this link.



My potted history of MG Cars continued on Tuesday with a look at Andrew Moreland's supercharged MG PA.




Wednesdays blog featured a special Ford Mexico that turned out to be a multi purpose vehicle having been used as a racer, run around and wedding car by it's original owner John Webb.



The 501st GALPOT blog featured a Kurtis 500S a sports car frame with an Indy winning heritage.



Photo Courtesy Sven Platt.

Ron Howard is making a film called "Rush" at the moment about the extraordinary 1976 Grand Prix season one of the vehicles that should feature in the film should be the Ferrari 312 T2 as driven by Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni that I looked at on Ferrari Friday. I wonder if Ron's legendary attention to detail will pick up that Niki's new car for the 1976 British GP, seen above, appeared in practice with his name missing from the side of the cockpit ? Details that maketh the film for us anoraks :-)



Photo Ed Arnaudin courtesy Steve Arnaudin.

Yesterday I looked at the first monocoque chassis car to appear at the Indianapolis 500 since the Cornelean driven by Louis Chevrolet in 1915. The Lotus 29 chassis 29/3 driven by Jim Clark led 28 laps in the 1963 Indy 500 before getting beaten by Parnelli Jones and then the following year the car was rechristened the Pure Firebird Special and given to Bobby Marsham to drive, see photo above. Find out what happened next on this Lotus 29 link.



Derek Buckler like Colin Chapman started out building a successful competition special and then built a small company making copies of it on the back of his success. Derek allegedly gave his first model the Buckler Mk V name so that customers would not think this was his first design.

Coming up next week I'll be looking at a commercial Terraplane that I had no idea even existed until a couple of weeks ago, on Tuesday I'll be looking at an MG that was prepared in Wandsworth for hire to racing drivers at Brooklands and on Thursday I'll be taking a behind the scenes look at Fords 2013 Fusion NASCAR Sprint Cup challenger which already seems to have gone along way to achieving it's aim of re engaging the public.

Thanks for joining me on this GALPOT Weekly #16 edition of 'Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres' I hope you'll have fun following the links above and that you will join me again at 'GALPOT' during the week ahead. Don't forget to come back now !

Shoestring Winner - Epperly Belond Exhaust Special

Today's photograph by Ed Arnaudin of the two time winning Belond Exhaust Special, seen here with Sam Hanks at the wheel, was taken in 1982.



The success of the Belond Exhaust Special is a testament to three men who persevered, (Gordon) Howard Gilbert a 1949 Indy 500 winning mechanic with the Blue Crown Spark Plug Special team, Howard's neighbour George Salih a foreman at Meyer & Drake which produced the prevalent 16 valve twin cam 4 cylinder Offenhauser 'Offy' engine and Sam Hanks a driver who after 12 races at the Brickyard had yet to win his first Indy 500.

Salih and Gilbert came up with the brilliant idea of replicating the best features of the 1952 Pole Winning Cummins Diesel Special but without the bulk of the 3,100 lbs diesel powered vehicle.

In 1952 Frank Curtis built two cars with the engines inclined the Cummins Diesel with its engine inclined 5 degrees off horizontal and The Fuel Injector Special belonging to Howard Keck with the engine inclined 36 degrees.

Gilbert and Salih decided to build their car with a compromise between the two '52 Kurtis Kraft chassis with the engine inclined at 18 degrees off horizontal which decreased the frontal area and lowered the centre of gravity of their car without inducing the lubrication problems that would accrue by inclining the engine at 5 degrees from horizontal, the Cummins diesel was not capable of the high crankshaft revolutions of the gas powered Offenhauser and so was easier to keep lubricated at 5 degrees from horizontal.

In order to build their engine Salih obtained cosmetically flawed Offenhauser parts on credit, and both took out mortgages on their homes to build the chassis, an operation that took place during nights and weekends between day jobs.

Having completed their chassis Quin Epperly built the bodywork in exchange for part ownership, the car is officially known as an Epperly. Exhaust manufacturer Belond got the naming rights for $2500 in sponsorship.

A contingency fund was secured for the #9 Belond Exhaust Special by equipping it with British Blue Lodge Spark Plugs as against the Champion items used by everyone else taking part in the 1957 Indy 500.

Salih got 1953 AAA Champ and 12 time Indy 500 veteran, Sam Hanks, with whom he had worked in 1956, to drive what at the time was the lowest and smallest vehicle of it's type to a debut victory, at a record speed of 135 mph, whereupon Hanks immediately announced his retirement from racing.

The Belond Special became the first car to head to victory lane twice with different drivers in 1958 when 3 time champ Jimmy Bryan repeated Hanks achievement. In 1959 Bryan retired the Belond Special with a broken engine after just one lap.

Gilbert and Salih continued building cars until 1967, Jimmy Bryan died soon after the linked photo was taken as a result of injuries sustained in an accident at Langhorne in 1960.

Howard Gilbert built further vehicles until 1970 scoring a shock win with George Follmer at the wheel of a stock block Chevy powered Cheetah at Phoenix, in the Jimmy Bryan 150.

From 1970 to 1990 Howard built engines for AJ Foyt which took 25 champ car wins including the 1977 Indy 500, fourth victories at Indy for Gilbert and Foyt, along with USAC championships in 1975 and 1979.

With thanks to Steve Arnaudin for scanning his Dad's photos to B² and Kevin Triplett for additional information.

Hope you have enjoyed the Belond Exhaust Special edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres', and that you will join me again tomorrow. Don't forget to come back now !