Jalopnik
A '68 Datsun 510 race car is a pretty good handling machine, but when you race in the sleet, rain, and snow of a Pacific Northwest springtime (as VintageRacer does) sometimes your car ends up taking an unscheduled detour off the track. Make the jump for VintageRacer's story.
Well, hopefully you'll have a better day at the 24hrs than we did (though we did finish up by running fastest lap in our group Sunday afternoon).
Saturday was a mix of rain, sleet, snow, wrong tire choice, and too much throttle in the wrong place....
A liberal application of dead blow hammer and duct tape later.....from a distance - you can't even tell... (but I've got a couple of weeks of sheetmetal and paint ahead. Fortunately no suspension damage) Gotta have it looking real good for the Under 2 litre Trans Am revival for next month.
Comments
cool story. y'all need more grassroots racing stories like this.
Um, yes, based on that last picture, I'd go with "wrong tire choice" for $500, Alex.
@FreeMan:
Track started out as damp, and the Toyo R888 is a good intermediate tire, and the driver made the call on that one.... Hey, if I'd known the snow was going to start falling halfway through practice, I'd have overridden that decision (save me a bunch of work!)
sweet "bluebird" logo
Datsun's dent is doctored by daring driver that digs duct tape.
Shoulda just gone with a 2002. The rust would just cause the fender to fall right off the car in a James Bond style defensive maneuver.
Um, it's caller "racer tape" when it goes on a car.
My keen vision is detecting some pre-existing bondo on that fender.. Looks like this isn't the first 'adventure' the little guy has been on!
Sweet car, though. Keep enjoying it!
@Dr. Spaceman: That would be 200 mph tape, which refers to airspeeds it will hold to.
@dculberson: No that is very, very thick, pink base coat. A very sweet car though, around here we stopped seeing them in junk yards 10 years ago.
@dculberson:
Yeah... previous smacked it when he had it back in autocrossing days about 10-12 years ago. We've run it hard for 6 years (going into our 7th season), and this is the first time we've damaged the body. We'll have it back together middle of next week.
@Vintage Racer:
that would be previous owner.....
NASCAR-style.
@Vintage Racer: I'm guessing the smell of fresh duct tape adhesive brings a pleasant smile to your face, that's an awesome job. Do you race in ICSCC at all?
Sweet car.
What modifications have you made?
@Turboner:
We run vintage with SOVREN in the Seattle area, the occasional SCCA vintage grid, and with VRCBC in British Columbia.
@Spasticteapot: Suffice it to say, a bunch....
[jalopnik.com]
[jalopnik.com]
Ah, 3M Speed Tape. The University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project knows it well.
The corner where the car is shown on the track is the only place I've ever had trouble at Pacific raceways. I don't know if that's where he went off but that place is like polished pebbles in the dry, in the snow...
And, duct tape is all that's needed to turn a K-car into a paddleboat, according to a certain Canadian documentary series...
I taped my cheap-ass plastic bumper cover back on the Camry. If I'd been a real pro, I would have sought out the matching color duct tape instead of the silver...but silver seemed more butch.
Sweet... I had a set of those BWAs on my last 2002, with a fat set of Yoko A509s. I think they look great on the 510, too...
Painting the lower half of your car duct tape color shows remarkable foresight :P
@bennetpullen:
Actually, the driver went off on the back side in the turn 5 complex. Happens to be the only place on the back side that the bank is fairly close to the track.... oh well...
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