Old racecar pictures

[funwithmonkeys]

Another event lost in history, I should write my own damn book.

Yes, you should. It would sell.

+1 I would buy it.....

[bertvorgon]

Two pots of coffee, some brownie and 3 hours of scanning, my heart has not exploded yet. What a trip through time. Another 3 hours should do it, then colour correct some. I'm trying to just stay in the 70's and maybe just touch on the early 80's.

To be continued.....

[funwithmonkeys]

Take it as far as you want Keith, we are enjoying the read.

[510rob]

no more coffee!

[WxMan]

No, more coffee!

[RMS]

mmm more coffee

[510rob]

No more, Coffee!

[bertvorgon]

Wow, three weeks gone by......after many pots of coffee, and a major trip back in time, I think I'm ready to post up some history. I found some stuff long lost in my archives, I have too much stuff scattered everywhere! I hope I have not jumped around too much, my brain goes back and forth through time, but ultimately it is all connected.

It will likely take me the better part of a morning to post everything up, as I do want to put captions on the pictures and that just takes time. Some pictures you will have seen, but now they are in the context of their time period. I have tried to be Datsun centric but at the same time put in pictures of race cars from that time period, hope you enjoy those.

It is supposed to rain here tomorrow, so that will be the day a brew up some more coffee......stay tuned.

[duke]

Definitely staying tuned...

[bertvorgon]

Morning World, what a rainy one here on the "Wet" Coast.

A Bit of History

In looking back over the years, we were so very, very lucky.

The first club I joined was the Columbian Autosport Club and when I joined, there was a whole new group of people just like me that brought a whole new round of enthusiasm.
What needs to be known is that SOLO was only formally recognized in 1969 by C.A.S.C.. A need was seen, and, due to the cost of actual road racing being so expensive, that a “grass-roots” level of motorsport for people would fill a void. People could “run what ya brung” in a safe and controlled environment. Rules and classes were quite simple then and not too convoluted. When I showed up with a turbocharger, that actually really threw everyone for a loop. There was a points system, so it was decided to see how fast I really was (I wasn’t that fast), with 4 points being finally assigned to a turbo. In the final years, a 1.4 multiplication factor was put to the engine displacement.

[bertvorgon]

More

[bertvorgon]

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[bertvorgon]

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[bertvorgon]

In 1972 Solo events had come of age so to speak, with Allan Rae of B.C. becoming the National Solo director. It was Allan’s mentoring of me that gave me some early skills in driving and we went on to do the Solo schools. Due to our great weather, B.C. became known as the Solo capital of Canada, with ever increasing numbers of drivers. By 1972 there had been 990 registered solo drivers, with 26 slaloms and 4 hill climbs being run. By 1975 B.C. drivers virtually swept all classes in the Canadian National Championship.

If I may blow my own horn, over the years, I won 2 Canadian National titles and 7 B.C. Region Class Championships, 4 back to back in 1984-1987, with my newly redone 73’ car. Some B.C. drivers went to the U.S. Solo SCCA championships and swept those classes also! The Knox Mountain Hill Climb still exists to this day and was something I tackled for 14 years after I finished my Slalom years. Knox was known as the most perfect paved track in North America, having some famous drivers come over the years. David Seville Peck brought his Can-Am car one year and Bobby Unser Sr. another year, to guest drive. I consider myself very lucky over those 14 years as a lot of Datsun 510’s went to the scrap heap.

There were a few other hill climbs run at the time also. There was one in Victoria that ran up to the old observatory. It had ended by the time I started in Motorsport.

In the early 80’s we started a hill climb in Blackcomb, long before all the development in Whistler. It was just a blast, as there was NOTHING going on in Whistler/Blackcomb in those summer days and the few restaurants and hotels welcomed us with open arms. We could rent a hotel room for 75.00 a night and jam as many people as we liked in there. The start line was just before the bridge that crosses Fitzsimmons Creek, on Blackcomb Way, then, you hooked a right, up Glacier Drive to the upper parking lot to finish. I think it was on our first year when a fellow with a very nice 510 over-cooked the right turn on cold tires and ended up in the rock lined ditch, writing the 510 off. We could party at night and not have to drive anywhere. One infamous night had us having “creeper” races DOWN the hill. There is still controversy as to WHO took the clothes dolly from the hotel..Rudi says it was me...I say it was him.....needless to say with its better wheels it reached terminal velocity quite quickly, finally hooking sideways at great speed, leaving the rider with a bit of road rash. When we took it back to the hotel, the sleepy valet said..”I did not see that!” Other than some scrapped chrome, it was ok.. We ended up having the hillclimb on Saturday, then, a slalom in the upper parking lot on Sunday, which continued on well after the hill climb was shut down due to the construction and expansion of Blackcomb. I had some of my best races against Dave Christie in his wicked fast 510 there.

Another Hillclimb that was short lived was on the Burrard Thermal plant road, in Ioco, a road that Andy and I used to race on in the early 70’s, at night. I never did run the IOCO HILLCLIMB as it always had a scheduling conflict with other things I was doing. I think I also figured I had rolled the dice once at Knox, and Ioco was another unforgiving hill.

[bertvorgon]

It was during this time in the 70’s that we had full access to the old WW2 airport just south of Vancouver, where our course’s could encompass the entire east/west and north/south runways, giving us Solo run times of over TWO minutes and speeds of 80+ MPH.. One runway was over 5,000 feet and the other was over 4,000 feet if I remember correctly. Without exaggeration, you could hardly see a small car if you were a worker at one end and the car was at the far end. We had to use walkie-talkies for communication.
One useless bit of trivia, think about this, with a total lineal length of over 15,000 feet if we used the whole lengths of both runways, we are talking almost 2.5 miles of usable course. To walk a course took significant TIME, so we had to really impress upon people to come EARLY!!!! Being the early riser I have been, I would be there at 5:30 -6:00 AM, just to get tires changed and then have time to walk the course. Most courses would have to be set up on the Saturday afternoon. We tried to keep the courses fairly straight forward and a few times we used the “California” model of chalking the whole course between the cones, so a driver had a much more defined path to follow. This was good, as these long fast course’s made a driver really look ahead, as the speeds were up there.

We could put on our own driving schools, both classroom and practical, especially for Boundary Bay, where we could use those facilities for as long as we liked. We used to say that a school was equal to a season for driving in practical experience.

We used to put on an event called GOLDRUSH, very cool. We made a mirror course for the whole length of the north/south runway. In the middle was a “Christmas tree” just like drag racing. One car would face one way, the other the opposite direction. In the morning cars would make practice runs, to get your “handicap”. Then, that time difference was plugged into the timer. The idea being the slower car would leave first, then, with the appropriate time difference, the faster car would leave. The idea was that near the end, both cars would be down to the wire as to who crossed first. If you went faster than your posted time, you were OUT, we called that a “bracket buster”. It was crazy exciting as the only time you would see the other guys was as you turned at the far ends and then as you raced to the finish. I can remember climbing on my brakes to make sure I would not bust out sometimes, yet still cross just ahead of the other guy. This race was for money, with eliminations down to the last two guys. It was very disconcerting to be sitting next to a Formula car...... even though you got to leave first. I made a few bucks at this event and it was just plain fun!

We also ran the B.C. Course for the Canadian National Solo Championship. It was a course that each Province would setup, EXACTLY the same, usually set up by a surveyor, so it was truly the same dimensions across Canada. The East always complained that we had an edge in traction due to the surface of the runways being concrete. It could not have been further from the truth, as that old concrete was dying, always dusty, with loose aggregate everywhere. We were just better drivers..HA...and had way more seat time in reality.

Our entries at the time would be anywhere from 70 to 100 cars.

One winter, during our club AGM, we did a hash over what else could we do that would be interesting from a solo point of view. A thought was raised that a problem with Solo courses was that they were always different, unlike a road course. The idea being that on a road course, if you are testing a car, the course is not a variable. So, we came up with the idea of a course that would be the SAME, once a month. This would allow for you to be able to see that changes made to the car would be reflected in lap times, as you had a true comparison from your last runs on the course. The SOLO DRIVERS ASSOCIATION was formed, SDA for short. Each entrant would become a member for 5.00. The entry fee would cover trophy’s and dash plaques. It was decided that on the third Sunday of every month, this course would be set up...and it was BIG! The series was called..aptly..The Third Sunday Autoslalom Series and ran from March through to October, rain or shine. In 1977and 1978 this series was beyond successful and saw the most attendance of Datsun 510’s EVER.