Showing posts with label Scarab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scarab. Show all posts

Thursday, December 08, 2022

Raoul Balcaen built a top fueler when he was 17... and then had a life in motorsports in the right era for working with, and working for, the legends.... he crew chiefed for Jim Hall, was Carroll Shelby's company pilot...


As a teenager, he successfully competed with his home-built Top Fuel dragster during the formative years of the sport. With Lance Reventlow, he worked on the famous Scarab sports cars and was standing in the dyno room when the team’s all-American Formula 1 engine was fired up for the first time.

His role in the fabulous Scarab sports cars and life with their creator, Lance Reventlow, and the Formula 1 project — the first American Grand Prix car — plus a special job for Reventlow converting a Scarab sports racer into a street car.
Working as crew chief to the brilliant Jim Hall, preparing and running his Lotus Eleven and Lister-Chevrolet. 
Others mentioned in the book? Bruce Kessler, Dick Troutman, Phil Remington, Ken Miles, Leo Goossen, Ed Donovan and Pete Brock.

I've never heard of this guy, but damn, right place right time to rub elbows with the legends when they were racing! 

 

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

the car made by one fortune inheriting racer, driven by another. This Scarab named to advertise a beer is still one cool race car.



The Scarab was conceived by Lance Reventlow, heir to the Woolworth and E.F. Hutton fortunes. Reventlow assembled a team to design and build a car that could humble the popular Ferrari and Maserati racers of the day.

 Chuck Pelly designed the gorgeous body, and Von Dutch laid down the beautiful metallic blue paint and white scallops.

In 1959, the Peter Hand Brewing Co. bought two Scarabs and hired Augie Pabst to drive one. He won the United States Auto Club’s National Road Racing Championship in 1959, and he was national champion in the Sports Car Club of America’s B-Modified class.

Meister Bräuser was a competitor of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and the success of a Pabst at the wheel of a Meister Bräuser-sponsored car did not sit well with the board of the Peter Hand Brewery (who produced Meister Bräuser beer).

Augie Pabst, the great grandson of the founder of the Pabst Brewing Company on his fathers side, and the Schlitz beer company on his mothers side, had a relatively brief racing career, spanning but ten years. But in those years he won numerous races, took two major Championships, and became one of the most popular and charismatic drivers of the day.

Pabst drove for some of the best-known car owners, such as Luigi Chinetti and Briggs Cunningham, and partnered with some of its best drivers, including Walt Hansgen and Roger Penske.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

From Eknude tumblr, some great vintage racing photos


above:1960 DAYTONA SCCA NATIONAL. SCARAB MKII’S DRIVEN BY AUGIE PABST AND HARRY HEUER. AUGIE PABST WENT ON TO WIN


1967 CAN AM. LOLA T70 MKIII DRIVEN BY MARK DONOHUE. HE WENT ON TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP IN THIS CAR, WINNING 6 OUT OF THE 8 RACES


1952 CARRERA PANAMERICANA. MERCEDES 300SL W194

found on http://eknude.tumblr.com

Thursday, April 26, 2012

the Riverside International Automotive Museum, not easy to find, but worth the time to tour

 the museum owns, and restores as well as repairs race cars.  This is the famous Gurney Eagle




 I'll go back and get better photos of the race cars one day, but the lesson you can get from looking at them is how fast design changed after the 70's. Not much is different pre 1960's from decade to decade, but as soon as wings and downforce came into play, a lot changed quick





 Above is a Vector. There were a couple of movies that had them featured... they were made in So Cal, but it wasn't a good business plan, they made them of expensive materials in some ways, liek carbon fiber, but the windows can't open, the interior is really cheap GM stuff like switches etc... and half way through building them, they could no longer get the engines they'd been using and switched to Lamborghini engines
 Tamerlane Thoughts blogspot toured here a year or two ago, and did a much better post about this collection of Maserati, the largest in So Cal I have no doubt

 Ol Yeller 3 ahead of the Cobras and european cars

 Great photos sometimes have great stories... like the above... that is a fridge or bbq grill... in place of the window netting you might be used to seeing. McCluskey arrived at the racetrack to learn that he'd be required to have some form of restraining material in the window... so he went and found what you see above, and put in it in time for the race. I love racing stories.







 Here is what driving to it looks like, that dead end above, well don't go that far. Take the left turn
 Past this building labeled 833
 Past this one labeled 815... it and the previous 833 will be on your right, as well as the museum below, and it blends into the surrounding builds really well. Why the camoflage? Don't know.
http://www.riversideinternational.org/