Pace Car Problems

[jp17]

At last nights ROMCO race one of the cautions was caused by the pace truck. For whatever reason, the driver negelcted to enter pit road between turns 3 and 4 as the field was coming around to take the green flag and found himself still on the race track and just short of the flag stand when the race went green. There was a moment of hesitation as he tried to decide between pulling down next to the inside wall or drag racing the field to the next pit entrance between turns one and two. Like any good racer he chose the drag race option and dang near pulled it off `cept for dropping the inside two down in the grass and kicking up a huge dust cloud that lingered just at the entrance to turn one. The look on the guys face who was riding in the back was priceless!

 

Anyone else have any good pace car stories?

 

JP

[racerjim2]

San Antonio Speedway has had a long line of pace car ha ha's back in the Early 90's we had mercedes pace car for several weeks untill one saturday night while tring to pull away from the pack for a restart the motor blew.Another time we had a blue sunbird convertable and girls from the hooters restraunt chain were the trophy girls. The flagman droped the green flag for the late model feature wihile the pace car with the (hooters girl)trophy girl in it was still on the race track , the entire field hesitated for a moment then accelerated when I went by the pace car the( hooters girl ) trophy girl's eyes were as big as.... well we'll say the plates they serve hot wings on and was grabbing for the sholder belt for all she was worth while the driver was headed for the grass in turn one. Seems like she stayed on foot the rest of the night and close to the rest room...maybee you just had to be there

[NickHolt]

Got this fax from Neil Upchurch, Founder of both the Texas Pro Sedan Series and the TIDA Late Model Series describing an incident involving a pace car at Meyer Speedway in Houston back in the 70's:

 

"In response to JP's earlier post about the near miss (or should that be "near hit") last night's ROMCO race at Houston Motor Speedway, the incident brings back my recollection of another pace car incident in Houston, at Meyer Speedway, in the early 1970s.

 

"The pace car was owned and sponsored by A.J. Foyt Chevrolet. It was the same shade of red as AJ's USAC Indy Champ Car. The red got transferred to the south Houston track operator's face one race night when the pace car got demolished.

 

"A Chevelle stock car got loose on the main straightaway, missed hitting the inside guard rail, crossed the pit exit area and crashed into the pace car which was parked in an unprotected area. The damage was extensive to both pace and race cars. The embarrassment of the incident caused Ed Hamblin's face to turn red. The costly loss probably caused AJ's face to turn red with anger! Fortunately, no one was injured.

 

"This unfortunate incident occurred before the advent of radio communications between race control, the flagman and the pace car driver. With today's technology, these type of incidents should be avoidable and eliminate the pace car from harm's way, provided, of course, that the race staff and their equipment are in fine tune."

[rebelracewriter]

I was at Sante Fe Speedway in Illinois for a big dirt late model show. The tracks champion, Tony Izzo, felt he was given a bad call by the sanctioning body for race, when he was sent to the tail. So Izzo, trying to find an official to talk, decided he didn't want the race to restart. He drove up along side the pace car and proceeded to run it into the infield. He DID find someone to talk to, but wasn't allowed to continue racing that night. LMAO

[NickHolt]

By the way, my "sources" tell me that it was Robert Mullins driving the pace truck last night at HMS!

 

Nick Holt

[racerboy2002]

i remember when the TIDA was at SA and the field ran almost ran over the race car. He almost smaked the front straight away tire.

[NickHolt]

racerboy2002,

 

I recall that too. That was the SAS pace car with the SAS pace car driver behind the wheel. The TIDA never had their own pace car or pace car driver.

 

Nick Holt

[racerjim2]

Problem solved we don't have a pace car or truck this year. Anyone got a new Dodge truck they want to donate.

[FryarFan]

Back in '89, Bob Harmon asked me to drive the pace car during the All Pro races at Odessa and SAS. Twin Cities went off without a hitch. During the Fri night race at SAS, the pace car was one of those T-top Camaros, and we caught a gust of wind coming off of Turn 2 and my old Five Flags cap went sailing off into the night. A few laps after they went green, Jr. Niedecken started having some of the ugliest sounds coming out from under the hood. It finally blew a few laps later. I just knew they were going to dig my hat that had been sucked up in the fan somewhere and be ready to hang the owner. I sweated for 50 laps. Luckily, the pickup crew had picked it up before they took green.

 

Better than that, though was on Sat. night, with Bobby Dotter leading, the yellow came out and Dan Spence told us to pick them up in the groove in turn 1. Only Billy Bigley never saw the yellow flag. About the time I hit the middle of turn one, a maroon and white flash went by the drivers side door. It was about 20 laps before I started breathing again. Billy came up after the race and apologized and told me he thought we were both gonna wind up in a wad in the turn 1 wall.

 

 

Billy