Showing posts with label OSCA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OSCA. Show all posts

Sunday, February 13, 2022

I just got a comment on a post, by a Hall Of Famer... have you heard of Judy Stropus? She literally wrote the book on the specialty of timing for teams, The Stropus Guide To Auto Race Timing And Scoring in 1975


If you were going to take up an activity that would cover all aspects of motorsport, what would it be? Between boats, planes, bikes, dragsters, etc. etc. one thing in common is they all are timed


Timing and scoring events crosses all boundaries, from IndyCar, NHRA to NASCAR to road racing to land speed racing, all need timing and scoring. 

Her ability to sit for the entire 24 hours at Daytona and LeMans and score each car in the race for the entire time without stopping became her trademark.

When the Bud Moore Trans Am Cougars hired her, she worked with Peter Revson, Ed Leslie, and Lee Roy Yarborough

When her ability became widely known, and after the Cougar team discovered her, two years later Roger Penske asked her, “Why aren’t you working for me?”… and a 20-plus-year timing career flourished.

Judy worked for Dan Gurney, Peter Gregg, and 

was timing for Roger Penske when Mark Donohue won the Indy 500 in 1972, which was before women or blacks were allowed in the garage

Mark left the Indy 500 festivities to give Judy a ride to the airport for her next assignment, timing for Peter Brock and the BRE Datsuns.

Judy competed in the Brock Yates-organized Cannonball Run in 1972, and the actress Adrienne Barbeau played a part very loosely based on her in the movie.

The shorthand she learned in high school essentially raised her profile in racing paddocks – an invaluable tool that Stropus used in timing and scoring. She would regularly amaze teams and officials, scoring as many as 30 cars a race in the 1970s and ‘80s before electronic scoring systems existed.

 “Before really good computerized timing and scoring, (for) the small teams that didn’t use her services, you’d have to wait for the hourly report to come out,’’ said former IMSA GTP winning driver Tommy Kendall, who recalls the scene when his father raced in the Rolex 24 At Daytona in the 1980s.

“And the 14-hour reports, for example at Daytona, would come out close to the 15-hour mark so you had to try and figure out what happened to piece it together. You never really knew where you were unless you were one of her clients.”

Charting the entire field on each lap, Stropus was renowned for unquestioned accuracy while scoring long races where, on more than one occasion, the sanctioning bodies looked to her lap charts to correct their errors.

As demand for her timing/scoring talent grew and her burgeoning public relations career took off, she was hired by Chevrolet and BMW to lead their massive public relations efforts spanning multiple forms of racing over decades

After a long and legendary career in timing and scoring, Stropus focused on another skillset with public relations where her clientele includes BMW, Chevrolet, ABC, CBS, TNN, ESPN, Dunlop, Pirelli, Brumos Racing, Don Schumacher Racing, and countless others in a trade she continues to practice.  

“One of the achievements I’m proud of is helping set up (for BMW) the Jeff Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya ‘car swap,’ in which they drove each other’s cars on the Grand Prix circuit at Indianapolis Raceway in June of 2003. Jeff drove the Williams F1 BMW FW25 and Juan drove the NASCAR Chevrolet. They both said it was one of the highlights of their careers, and it got huge press.”

She was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2021


https://racer.com/2021/01/30/judy-stropus-reflects-on-hall-of-fame-career-as-a-timer-scorer/
https://carsyeah.com/ourportfolio/741-judy-stropus
http://mustangirs.com/blog/index.php/2018/08/12/judy-stropus

Wednesday, April 01, 2020

Denise McCluggage, Osca S1000, Sebring, 1962.


Denise Mccluggage co-drove the OSCA with Allen Eager.  Allen got in a wreck on course and abandoned the car and walked back to the pits. When he arrived without the car, Denise was pissed and decided to go get the car herself and push it back in just in case it could be repaired to continue the race.

It couldn't, but it's a very cool story.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/505973489414476/permalink/3206460632699068/

Monday, June 03, 2019

The 2019 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d'Este


1953 Abarth 205 Sport 1100



the 1967 Gyro X last seen here: https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-gyro-x-won-dean-batchelor-trophy-at.html


the O.S.C.A. MT4 with the body by Frua and Morelli, was one of the most successful cars in the Sport category, continuing to win for over a decade, achieving the last victory, a first class, at the 500km of the Mugello in 1966.

Founded by the brothers Ernesto and Bindo Maserati after having sold the homonymous company to the Orsi family, the "Officine Specializzate Costruzione Automobili", aka O.S.C.A., began to produce cars based on the evolution of the Maserati 4CL: the abbreviation MT4 in fact means "Maserati Type 4"


Designed by the Pontiac engineer Herb Adams in the first half of the 60s, the Vivant 77 was a project of considerable

Built from scratch in Adams' garage, the Vivant was an interesting prototype powered by a 370 cubic-inch Pontiac V8 engine and equipped with Corvette C2 suspension and Kelsey-Hayes Bonneville wheels.

The body was made of aluminum by the "Beatles of Troy, Michigan" a trio of Englishmen - Harry Kennedy, Jack Henser and John Glover - famous in the American hot rod scene for their great job. It had only one appearance at the Detroit Autorama in 1966

https://www.formtrends.com/in-pictures-villa-deste-concorso-deleganza-2019/
https://www.theoutlierman.com/blogs/blog/our-5-dream-cars-from-the-concorso-d-eleganza-villa-d-este-2019