Road Atlanta

[ReFur]

I had an absolute blast today. I went to Road Atlanta for races. A friend of mine invited me to watch his friend drive his Lola race cars. He has three.

 

I actually got to set in them!!

 

I posted two pictures that are in the members folder in the gallery. These cars are almost as wonderful as fur!!

 

Linda

Edited May 3, 2008 by Guest

[JGalanos]

Very cool! Certainly beat my Friday. My biggest thrill was finding a pair of attractive, comfortable shoes for half price this evening.

[dumbass45601]

Yeah it's Lola T70 that is a true classic sportscar. It was taken to overall victory by Rodger Penske in the 24 hours of Daytona. HSR races are pretty amazing because you will see about a span of 50 years of sportscar racing in one weekend. I have not been to one, yet.

[ReFur]

Deedok,

 

I corrected the name to Road Atlanta. I was so excited to tell you guys about this event. It was just incredible. I don't know if I can get you in to see the owner but the head mechanic I can.

 

The owner/driver has three Lola's, a Gulf Mirage, 2 Nissan (?) don't know details on them, Monza stock car, and the car he raced Friday was a Nissan GTP.

 

There was one owner there with 3 Audi's he was racing in the GTP series. They were just incredible cars! They raced effortlessly.

 

Since I was a little girl I have loved cars. I guess my reaction to cars was the way fur was to many of you. I would stand in awe before I was 10 years old. I think that was about the age my dad told me, "Young lady, you had better marry a rich man!"

 

...too bad I didn't listen to my Dad!

 

Linda

[dumbass45601]

That is a very impressive collection worth millions of dollars! I remember watching the Nissan GTP cars win the Columbus 500k when I was about six years old. Guys from my generation drool over any footage we get from the internet of those classic GTP cars.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPALgv0ty_0, is a commercial of the first Nissan GTP car that was a dog but with development and an Aussie named Geoff Brabham they turned into dominant champions.

 

Man too bad I wasn't about twenty years older, to find a woman like you would be a dream. One that likes racing and knows the beauty of it and a nice fur coat as well.

[Guest]

I was an avid sports car racing fan from just after the war [circa 1948] until the Lola and the Ford GT40 in 1966.

 

I realized that the zenith of the internal combustion engine sports racing car had been reached. Quantum leaps in lap records show them to be in fractions of a second and not at all like the glory days of the 1950's.

 

Racing was more exciting and the cars more beautiful like the 1960 racer from Lotus that changed it all:

 

http://www.race-cars.com/carsales/lotus/1148463875/1148463875lc.htm

 

Use to go to the Virginia Raceway in Danville and watch beauties like the Type C Jag and the 1953 Maserati A6GCS.

 

http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/68463,3177,0,0/1951_Jaguar_Type_C_Photo.aspx

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Maserati_A6GCS_1.jpg

 

Miss those:cry:

 

OFF

[ReFur]

OFF, those are absolute beauties!! The series I watched is the Historic and Vintage cars, so I think you would have really enjoyed it, too.

 

Deedok, the owner of the cars has more money than most, to say the least. He has a full time crew that do nothing but take care of his toys. He actually is a great guy, and was the one who insisted I set in the car. He raced it yesterday and took the pole position in qualifying. Still don't know the status of the race.

 

BTW, Deedok, that was so sweet of you!

 

Sometime you should tell us about what you do. I think that would be fascinating to hear about. I do have a few friends that you might enjoy taking with in the business.

 

This is one of my friends.:

 

http://www.raetech.com/944_Racing/944.php

[dumbass45601]

Crap LInda I completely forgot about this thread. Ok my story, well I always loved racing ever since I was little. I guess it was all of the different coloured liveries going really fast on the screen. The funny thing is though I do not live in a racing family it's either baseball or American football for us. I mean don't get me wrong I love those sports as well, but my passions are motorsports and association football (keeping this straight for the guys not in the US). So as I grew older I watched more and learned more about the drivers and teams. In high school I started writing as a journalist for the local newspaper. There are no tracks or "real racing" (non dirt track stuff) around here so it was mostly high school sports for me.

 

I began reading this magazine called On Track that I found in the local magazine store and wrote them a letter saying I would like to help out sometime with a story at a race at Mid-Ohio Sportscar Course. So I got a letter back to meet them at the track for the national amateurs championships that fall. So here I was 18 years old with all of these guys who were in their 30's, 40's and probably 50s and 60s. I was in heaven just watching racing and talking about it with these guys. I could hold my own in the conversations and they were impressed. I got my first articles published in a magazine that was sold around the world with writers like Adam Cooper and Robin Miller. A couple months later though the publisher of the magazine decided to go to an all online format and it survived about a month and was gone along with all of my connections. I then started writing for a website with a guy from Australia covering F1 racing. We tried to build it up from scratch and did it for six years but it was just not profitable and I couldn't write for it anymore.

 

I had and unfortunate five years at Bowling Green State University with health problems and clinical depression and was unable to graduate. So for about three years or so I have been spinning my wheels in place, I tried the Columbus thing as you probably read and that fell through. You can't sell cars in this economy and I'm way too nice of a guy for that job.

 

So here I am this summer trying to find another job to my three day a week one and looking to go back to school and graduate with a journalism degree finally. I tried applying to newspapers but they don't care unless you have the piece of paper. So hopefully I can get it in a year, get a job at a paper, save up money and head to England and cover the sport there.

 

Someday I hope to get enough money and start my own racing team as a retirement project. I want to give young American drivers the opportunity to race in Europe without the "can only race on ovals" stereotype hovering over them. Give them the chance to learn the European tracks and hopefully become a World Champion just like Phil Hill and Mario Andretti.

 

If anybody would like to just search google and type in Derek McCord and you can see some of my stuff that I have written for the BG News and F1Central.net or Updatef1.com.

[ReFur]

Thanks for sharing your story.

 

You are right, getting your degree will open doors for you. It is worth the commitment.

 

...will do the google when I have time. Right now I am really busy.

 

I certainly can see why you have a passion for the business. Of the few times I have been able to hang around the track, I have always left even more impressed with the sport.

 

Linda