Monterey historics, 914 related, Met some cool drivers Options

[Sammy]

I worked at the historics for Toyota all weekend as the paddock team captain, partially responsible for making sure the "show" went off as planned. Basically I got payed a grand to hand out with car guys and shool the bull.
The F1 deal was mind blowing, especially when you consider that Ricardo Zonta told me on friday that the Toyota F1 program was capable of laying down an easy 1:02 lap if it were important to do so, but it wasn't. They only gave him part of the engine and car's performance, just enough to do the job. They ended up breaking the track record (at laguna seca) over and over again. I think his fastest was around 1:063 or something like that.
On Thursday he ran a mid 1:08 at 8/10ths and waved to me for a photo-op while diving into ther corkscrew at well over over 100 mph. He's a machine.

Anywho, met some very cool drivers. Hanging out with them during the day, dinner at night, Fangio's hotel room was 2 doors down from mine (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Ivan Stewart was in my care for a while, as well as Juan Fangio II , Ricardo Zonta, Rod Millen (pikes peak record holder). Scooter Patrick and my favorite, Dave Jordan.
Most of you won't remember Dave, he was a very well known SCCA racer in the 60's. He made his name racing a Porsche and kicked butt, then ran a sunbeam alpine for a while spanking cars with 4 times the HP. I saw a picture of him at Riverside in one of those cars, we was passing Corvettes in that little car all the time.
Dave's name is on the door of this 67 Toyota Shelby 2000 GT. He drove it and did all the R&D/development testing on the shelby GT cars.


Turns out, Mr. Jordan lives in Running Springs and in in the process of building a race car, a 914. Chopped top with aluminum roof skin, metal flares, probably a very high strung six cylinder engine. How cool is that?
My bet is that the car will be fast but even faster in the hands of a driver like him.

Anywho, Dave invited me up to his house to check out his 914 project. I can't wait.
Maybe some day we can have a little Porsche run up the hill and stop and see Dave and ask him to tell up some stories of the old days. He's very humble and kind of shy but I had a blast talking to him, one conversation went on for at least an hour. He was supposed to be in signing aurographs for the crowd by dave and I were out telling stories of the old days instead. That is, until one of the big wigs at toyota noticed and called me on the radio, then dave had to go start signing.

From a nice website ( http://www.vpracing.com/The_Drivers/Davey_...vey_jordan.html ) : Here's a list of the cars he raced in his career:
Porsche 1600 speedster
Sunbeam Alpine
Volvo P-1800
Porsche RSK
Porsche RS-60
Dolphin Porsche
Elva Porsche
Porsche 904 (4 different cars)
Ferrari 275 LM
Porsche Carrera "6"
B.M.W. 1800 TISA Sedan
Brabham Formula III (in Japan)
Honda S600 and 800 (in Japan)
Lola T-70 MK 1 with Ford 289
Porsche 911 S
Mustang Trans Am Sedan
L-88 Corvette
A.M.C. SC/Rambler 390 (off road)
Toyota 2000 GT
Lola T-70 Coupe with 305 cid Chevy
Porsche 908
Eagle F-5000
Chevron B-19
Mclaren M-14 (converted to Chevy power for F-5000)
The cars I have done testing in are as follows,

Shelby Lola T-70 with 427 Ford (Shelby American)
AutoCoast Ti-22 Can-Am car (Peter Bryant)
Porsche 917 Can-Am non Turbo (Vasek Polak)
Surtees TS-5 F-5000 (American International Racing)