DeTomaso Mailing List: July 98, Message #242

Warning... Long. Delete if you don't want to read my BS and ranting about the Fourth of July weekend trip to Pocono and back....


Pocono '98 was a blast from my perspective....

John Taphorn and I left Houston on Wednesday afternoon with my car on John's trailer and John's Explorer pulling it. In case you don't remember, John's Pantera engine bit the dust on Sunday with a broken solid roller lifter and we ended up going together. John took along an broken example lifter and this turned into quite a conversation piece over the weekend!! Discussed on the trip, at parties, at the dinner table...  :-)))

We left Houston at about 4:30PM on Wednesday. A real notable event along I-40! (if I remember right...  Mike?) A Ford Expedition pulls up alongside us while I'm driving and the the driver starts gesticulating and saying something with the window down. We figure he's talking about the 'I brake for Corvettes' sticker on the spoiler of my car (thanks, MD!). I rolled down my window and he shouted, 'Are you Kirby Schrader?'
'Yes!', I replied.
'I'm Mike Trusty!'
Now there's a coincidence for you! Who wants to calculate the odds of that impromptu meeting in the middle of the Interstate highway!

:-))) 

We got to Philadelphia Thursday evening (after driving 27 hours!), stayed overnight with a friend of John's there and finished off the drive to Pocono Friday morning. The car show judging was underway already and the weather was great!

Some very impressive cars! Ferraris were represented well with almost everything except an F50 there! Lots of Diablos, a couple of Countachs, Alfas, Maseratis.

Gary Hall came with the 'Burgundy Express' (the race Pantera) and 'Purple Passion', a purple targa GT5S Pantera. Several GT5S's were there, some shining (literally) examples of beautiful stock Panteras (one even had the original sales window sticker still in it!). A Mangusta was on hand and apparently was the first many had ever seen at the event.
Did I say that the weather was great?
;-)

We met Andy Poling (who was handing out smiley faces to stick on our badges so we knew who were mailing list members or not), Wayne Stevens, George P. Dausch (love those boots, George!), Dave and Carol Aument, Forest and Georgene Majors, Mike and Paulette Trusty, Zachary Lembo, Ron Graves, Bob Reid, Gary and Beverly Hall, Bobby Byers, Brian Lerose, John Bratta, Joe Moore, Andy DiFatta, Ron Graves, Wally (forgot his last name) and a bunch of others I'm sure I'm forgetting here...

The Friday night steak fry outside Pocono Manor was well attended also.

Saturday morning, the track event started off a little late and getting the large number of Green and White Group guys organized took awhile.

Since I hadn't been at Pocono before, I was rated Green Group moving to White after a checkout by an instructor. I got teamed up with Doug Smith. Doug is an exceptionally nice guy and showed me several lines which he thought were faster through some of the corners. My second session with Doug, I heard a small clunk in the infield curves. A very quick gauge check didn't show anything obvious, but I then was black flagged coming onto the front straight. Checked my rear view mirror and white smoke was coming out of my engine compartment. Another  quick gauge check showed discharge on the alternator and engine temp skyrocketing! We coasted into the infield and once I got towed back to the garage, I found out that the suspected problem was a for sure... Lost my water pump/alternator belt.

Doug helped out tremendously with a new belt and some Prestone and within an hour, my car was up and running again. I was concerned I'd done in my engine, but it ran fine. As Doug said, 'Don't worry! It's a f***in' Ford!'
:-)))

Went back out again, but a roughness that had developed earlier in the day got worse and when John Taphorn and I went out again with John driving, the car would hardly pull 4th to 6,000 rpm!

John and I spent Saturday evening trying to find the problem... Checked valve clearances, plugs, looked for broken valve springs, etc., but didn't find anything obvious except for #3 plug being slightly browner than the rest. And the plug wire on that one came off when I tried to remove it. Aha! The culprit!
We had already missed the party back at the hotel, so we finished putting it all back together while track security waited for us and then went back to the hotel and waited for Sunday to see if we'd found the problem.

Rain overnight, but dry, cool and overcast on Sunday.

Side comment... During the driver's meeting on Sunday morning, we found out again how different the Pantera owners are from the 'others'... Joe Moore told people to _please_ leave their air conditioners off while running on the track! The corner workers would black flag them for fluid leaks!

All the Pantera owners looked at each other and asked, 'Air conditioner on the track?!!! Who the hell is running their air conditioner?' A few Ferrari and Lamborghini owners looked sheepishly away...

My car ran pretty good for a couple of laps and then started detiorating again. Lots of folks had _lots_ of conflicting recommendations, but John Bratta (I think that's the way you spell his name) from California listened for a bit and said, 'Change your plug wires.' Huh? They're only 5 months old! 'Change your plug wires.'

OK, why not? If it doesn't help, I'll just put my own back on...

In the meantime, John is handing out more 'Team Pantera Racing' decals and Tshirts (thanks, MD!). Andy Poling had one decal on each side plus the window decal. John even convinced Gary Hall and Purple Passion ended up running around the track with the large decal on the windsheld!

Thanks to Joe Moore, who had a spare set of wires, I was back out on the track the next session and wow! The engine was running better that it ever had. With a half tank of 110 octane gas, I finally saw an indicated 155mph on the back straight. But, I think my speedometer is probably 5-10mph fast. Who cares! I felt like I was flying!
I lost count of the Ferraris, Lamborghinis and other Panteras I passed... Forget the F40's though... way too fast.
Diablos were OK to keep up with in the turns, but left me on the straights... although my son still insists I was 'catching the yellow one'. ;-)

John took lots of videos from the trackside and tower, my son Dylan took a lot of still pics and then Ron Graves came out the next session with John as passenger and John took some more footage on the track (getting motion sick as hell trying to hold the camera steady while Ron followed me around the track). Just have to get that camera mount...

The Red run group was pretty exciting with a couple of F40's and the Burgundy Express messing with each other most of the day! The sole non-Italian car at the event was extremely impressive - a Ford GT-40. According to the owner (don't remember his name), the car would hit 189mph on the back straight! I didn't see anyone able to keep up with him.

There were several spins (including one of my own on the hairpin when I got on it too hard coming around the corner while giving our new Space City Pantera member, Gray Gregory, a ride...). The two most impressive spins were a silver Diablo and one of the six F40's. Both of them lost it coming onto the front straight during different sessions. I'm sure the passenger in the Diablo was wide eyed as 5 other cars bore down on them as they slid sideways down the straight! But fortunately, neither car hit the wall...

We loaded up the car and left Pocono at 4:30. The trip back was a lot more eventful than the one up! We lost a trailer tire in Tennessee and had to get it replaced and near Baton Rouge, a very big thunderstorm blew up and started dumping rain on the highway faster than I've seen in years! Of course, some twit slams on his brakes way up front and starts a chain reaction. The first indication we got of it was every brake light as far as we could see lighting up! John started slowing down as fast as he could, but the real problem was with a red 18 wheeler right behind us also trying to stop!

Both of us were in and out of the grass central reservation ditch trying to miss other cars and attempt to get stopped and John said he was ready to hit the grass completely if the truck couldn't get stopped. I had visions of both vehicles jackknifing and my Pantera getting caught in the middle of it....

With only a few feet to spare, both of us got stopped OK. I leaned out the window and the truck driver waved. I held out my hand thumbs up? and he gave a thumbs up back. One of those 'change of underwear' situations.... ;-)

We rolled into John's house at 9PM last night and it was 11PM by the time we'd unloaded the car and gotten home ourselves. 28 hours of driving... Whew!

Safely back in Houston with a car running better than when I left! Hopefully, I'll have some more pics and clips up on my website soon. I am certainly planning to attend next year's Pocono.

Boring y'all and now shutting up in Houston,

Kirby