DeTomaso Mailing List: August 97, Message #122
     



From: "Craig Cline" <Craig_Cline@smtp.rc.trw.com>

Subject: Re: Tustin thunder update

Date: 4 Aug 1997 11:33:09 U



>From: Dennis Antenucci

>



...snip...



>

>So this week end brought alot of great memories back. At a practice race =



>today (Saturday), someone decided they weren't gonna play follow round 

>the VARA mulberry bush and decided to actually go out and race some of 

>these original Trans Am war horses.

>



First of all thank you for the glowing endorsement of Vintage Trans-Am 

racing.  I must admit to a little bias, but I do think it is the best 

spectator event in vintage racing.





...snip...



>

>Having less luck (so far) is Bob Estes driving a 67 Mercury Cougar in =

the 

>Trans Am Series. He missed the driver's meeting Friday and had to sit =

out 

>practice and on saturday (today) when he finally got on the track he 

>DNF'd. Hopefully, he'll be back tomorrow. Good Luck Bob!

>



A few corrections are in order: it is the Bob Estes Cougar being driven =

by

yours truly, POCA member Craig Cline.  Yes I did miss the Friday morning 

drivers meeting, and while I did miss the morning practice session along 

with ALL of the other big Trans-Am cars (scheduling snafu), I did not =

miss 

Friday's afternoons qualifying session.  I qualified 10th in a field of =

15 

cars.  All right so 3 of the following cars didn't make qualifying, but I

did make it.  During the Saturday afternoon race everything started fine, =



but after completing the 1st lap, the transmission in the Cougar decided

it didn't want to come out of 3rd gear.  I continued on for 2 more laps 

before packing it in, you really need 2nd through 4th gears to get around =



this track.  



At that point I decided to take it home for the weekend so that I could

get the car repaired for Monterey.  The trans is now in San Diego POCA

member Bob Harrington's capable hands, and he promised to get it =

completed

by Wednesday so the car can be ready to go to Monterey by Thursday (it 

is going up a week early in another Trans-Am racers transporter).



See you at Monterey, hopefully with the Cougar.  8<)



Craig Cline

Oceanside, Ca

1967 Trans-Am Cougar (originally sponsored by Bob Estes Lincoln-Mercury)



P.S.  The 3rd place AMC Javelin in Saturdays race was driven by Ken =

Epsman,

      not Paul James. Pauls was the other Javelin which finished about =

10th.





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