Quote:
Originally Posted by sperry
I just watched the in-car too... goddammit that looks like a kick in the pants!
Gary, how'd you swing getting yourself lined up to drive these old cars? Also, do you approach driving them any differently because they're old? I would think that you'd have to be a bit conservative behind the wheel considering they're nearly irreplaceable and likely less safe than something contemporary... not to mention they look like a whole lot harder to drive than a modern car! 
How would you compare the Alfa experience to that McLaren you got your hands on a while back? Personally, I'd much rather drive the Alfa... the CanAm car looked way too risky.  |
I've known Bob Lee for awhile now. He was one of the original founders of StopTech brakes. Our initial meeting was for sponsoring our USTCC Subaru WRX with StopTech ST-40 brakes. He's a racing nut, so we got along very well.
A few years later, when StopTech was WAY behind on production, he called me to see if I could help them out. I consulted with them for about 9 months and built an MRP system from scratch using Microsoft Excel. Managed to clear the backlog and get the average wait down from several months to 5 business days.
He's a great guy and we've remained close friends. He helped get me into the Grand-Am Cup ride with the Istook/Aines Audis in GS and the Lexus IS300 in ST. Whenever he is looking for coaching or wants to make setup changes to the car, he'll give me a call. I'll get in, change the car to handle more appropriately and set a decent baseline laptime in it, with video. Then I'll coach Bob on how I drove the car, have him watch video and accelerate his learning curve. I get to drive amazing cars and Bob gets driver coaching and set-up assistance.
Hopefully with these stories and videos I'll be able to get more interest from the vintage community for coaching, set-up and even competition driving in these things. They are a blast to drive!
It's definitely a different mentality with these cars. They are irreplaceable and very expensive. You basically feel like you are driving a work of art. It's a trade off of preserving its beauty vs. driving it the way it was meant to be driven. I've never spun one of his cars or accidentally put wheels off, so he trusts me with these things.
Safety is definitely an issue as well. These cars are no where near as safe as a modern car. So I tend to take it a bit easy in the really high risk corners.
Gary
Sheehan Motor Racing
www.garysheehan.com