DeTomaso Mailing List: July 2001, Message #192

Hi guys,

Sorry it’s taken me awhile to get my act together regarding last weekend’s 
Pocono event, but unfortunately I finally had to return to wo...wo...wo....

C’mon Mike, you can say it....

I had to return to WORK.  Ach.  There.

For those of you who aren’t already aware, each year around July 4th, a group 
of fellas stage a most wonderful Italian car get-together in the Pocono 
mountains of Pennsylvania, a couple of hours drive away from Philly and New 
York City.  It began life as a Maserati event, then grew to encompass Ferrari 
and Lamborghini, then a few years later De Tomaso was brought on-board, which 
is a good thing since the De Tomaso contingent formed a slight majority for a 
few years.  Italian “etceterini” marques such as Iso and Bizzarrini were 
always welcome also.  Since then, “lower” Italian marques like Fiat and Alfa 
Romeo have been invited, and although their participation is still fairly 
small and they are somewhat marginalized, there is great potential for the 
future.

The formula for the event is fairly familiar--the first day is a concours, 
and the next two days are dedicated to driving the cars on a racetrack, in 
this case the Pocono super-speedway.  Those of you who are NASCAR fans will 
recall seeing Pocono as a curiously shaped tri-oval, basically a track shaped 
like a giant triangle.  This event uses two of the three long straights (and 
a tiny bit of the third one), and connects them with a tight, twisty infield 
section that is almost like a go-kart track when compared to the wide, fast 
straights and the corners that connect them.

After hopping in the jumpseat of a USAir 757, I arrived at 
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton airport and was picked up by the hotel courtesy van on 
Friday afternoon, and within moments of arriving, started seeing familiar 
faces and beautiful cars.  Andy DiFatta generously offered to share his room 
with me, and we wandered the parking lot where we bumped into Tom Tjaarda, 
the original designer of the Pantera, among other cars.  I re-introduced 
myself and was pleasantly surprised that Tom knew exactly who I was.  Despite 
his celebrity status, he is really a super, super, down-to-earth guy, and a 
wonderful fellow to walk through a parking lot with.  He also designed the 
Ferrari 250 GTE and there was a pristine example present, so I asked him for 
a design brief and he spent several minutes discussing his thoughts and his 
vision for the car, as well as providing insight into the various 
manufacturing processes that took place and the compromises required in 
design due to the limitations inherent in manufacturing techniques.

Soon the Texans started streaming in, after a 29-hour straight-through tow 
from Houston.  Also present was Gary Hall, who had shipped his red Pantera 
out from California especially for the event.

I was pleased to finally meet Mark Basile, the new advertising/PR director 
for POCA, and since I’ve been off the  De Tomaso e-mail forum during my trip 
to Europe, I got to hear first-hand of all the troubles he’d had with his 
recently delivered “fully restored” Pantera.

The following morning, the parking lots were full for the concours.  In prior 
years, the event was held at the Pocono Manor, a very rural and slightly 
run-down resort in the countryside.  Due to some problems with the hotel 
management, this year the event organizers moved the event to a hotel which 
was certainly far superior in terms of the rooms and the food, but equally 
lacking in proper ambiance for an event of this type--located right next to 
the interstate, it was little more than a nice roadside motel in comparison.

The multi-tiered outdoor parking lot was a far cry from a carefully manicured 
golf course, but still made for a nice concours site.  Ferraris were by far 
in the majority, and had their own large lot, with De Tomasos second (with a 
smaller lot) and Maseratis and Lamborghinis gathered together in a third lot. 
 The dozen-or-so Alfas and Fiats (including a few really nice Alfa Romeo 
Montreals) were relegated to the side of an access road, but as their 
participation increases in future years, you can be assured that they will 
get decent real estate also.

Tom Tjaarda was circulating through the parking lot, meeting fans and 
autographing models, books and even Panteras!  

By early afternoon, Mark Basile had become concerned because he couldn’t find 
the heater hose shutoff valves which would be required to pass the supposedly 
stringent tech inspection for the following day’s track event.  Being highly 
mechanically dis-inclined by his own admission, he reached out for help, and 
Gray Gregory and I agreed to buy and install a pair of valves for him.  As he 
has little Pantera driving experience himself, he asked us to drive his car 
and evaluate it.  HAH!  Another guy throws me the keys to his Pantera, 
blissfully unaware of the Drewsaster effect that seems to follow me around 
like my own personal rain cloud!  So we jumped in and headed for Home Depot.

What a disaster.  The car is absolutely beautiful, boasting a wonderful black 
paint job, but dynamically it was a total mess.  It had power steering ins
talled, which is the LAST thing a Pantera needs, and the steering was both 
slow and numb.  Additionally, it felt like the steering wheel was about to 
come off in my hand!  The throttle pedal felt like stepping on a brick--no 
feel and little movement.  The 527 horsepower all-aluminum Fontana motor felt 
like it was putting out about 200 horsepower.  The shifter felt like it was 
mounted in a bucket of quickly drying cement.  The Wilwood brakes were 
fantastic though.

After returning with the valves, we told Mark, “We’ve got a LOT of work to 
do!  Find us some tools!” and we dove in!  The first order of business was to 
try to see what was up with the throttle pedal--I’d literally never felt 
anything like it.  We figured it was binding somewhere, and I also questioned 
whether the linkage was opening all the way.  I sat in the car and had Gray 
and Mark check the carb to see if the butterflies opened, then I pressed on 
the pedal, and SNAP!!!!!  The damn thing broke in two!!!!

Drewsaster strikes again! :<(

As Gray had broken his own pedal awhile back and was thus fairly smart on the 
mechanics of the system, he dove under the dash to tear the thing out of the 
car while I attempted to find the cause for the friction.  The throttle cable 
was brand new and totally free of stiction, but the double throttle return 
springs had been installed in such a fashion as to multiply their relative 
force through massive leverage on the linkage--it was like trying to overcome 
suspension springs!  After some fiddling, I was able to reposition the 
springs and get a more reasonable action going.

In the meantime, Gray was busy doing the McGyver thing with the two-piece 
pedal.  After a trip back to Home Depot in the rental car, and a quick pass 
through a well-equipped Ferrari of Long Island semi-trailer/workshop (those 
guys were great, gave us the run of the place), he had fixed the pedal using 
angle iron, bolts and JB Weld.

While waiting, I tugged on the steering wheel and felt it was loose; after 
pulling the wheel off the adapter, I found that it had been slipped over the 
steering column but the nut hadn’t been tightened!!!!  Dick Koch from Atlanta 
did a little work with a 22mm socket and cured that problem.  I also dove 
into the shifter box and removed the redundant center spring mechanism, which 
helped things, but not much.

The drivers had to split for a mandatory driver’s meeting, but Dave Bell 
(from Houston) and I continued to work on the car, trying to find things that 
were messed up and then fix them.  We didn’t have to look too hard.  Dave 
spotted that the shifter linkage was so grossly out of adjustment that the 
shift rod was smashing into the chassis, and had actually caused a fairly 
pronounced dent in the sheetmetal; that also explained why the car was 
reluctant to go into 5th gear.  We spent 45 minutes fiddling with various 
u-joints, hammers, screwdrivers etc. and got it in fairly decent shape, 
although it’s still stiff because of a misaligned shift rod support.

We also found that heater hose shut-off valves had already been inst
alled--DOH!

After about four hours of non-stop work by a half-dozen people, Mark’s car 
was at least reasonably driveable, much more than could have been said 
before.  I personally find it scandalous that a car in this decrepit 
condition could be delivered from a reputable restoration shop--this car was 
far from ready for prime-time.  It was as if it had been thrown together and 
then pushed on a trailer and shipped from California, with the owner left to 
sort it out and actually make the damn thing work.  Amazing...

The work was a lot of fun, though!  Nothing like the feeling of camaraderie 
of a bunch of strangers diving in on a guy’s car to help him make the Big 
Show.  As Mark is a new owner (and more importantly, his wife is a New 
Owner’s Wife), we collectively wanted to make sure that his first formal 
Pantera experience was a positive one, despite the obstacles.

We finished up just in time to make the massive BBQ and subsequent awards 
ceremony.  The MC was a likable rube from Florida, a Lamborghini dealer who 
had no clue about sports cars apparently, as he repeatedly proved himself 
incapable of pronouncing the word “De Tomaso”, butchering it as “deTOMaso”  
Among the prizes given was a free set of Bridgestone tires to the person who 
drive his car the furthest to the event, won by a Ferrari 308 GT/4 driver 
who’d come from 19 hours away somewhere.

The next morning, everybody else made a mad dash for the racetrack while I 
slept in, as Andy wanted to go to church first.  We then ambled to the track 
and arrived at 11:00 a.m. to find things in full swing.  Notably missing from 
the action was Gary Hall’s Pantera, which had simply quit running on the way 
back to his hotel the night prior; apparently he let all the smoke out of his 
ignition system, and without the parts (or the inclination) to fix it on the 
side of the road, he was done for the weekend. :<(

There were lots of cars at the track that hadn’t appeared in the concours, 
and similarly, lots of the trailer queens had vanished.  I’d guess there were 
250 or more cars present between the two venues.  Unlike previous years that 
I’d attended, there was a very strong Ferrari representation at the track, 
boosted in no small part by the presence of Challenge racers.

The Ferrari Challenge is a spec racing series sponsored by Ferrari; wealthy 
gentlemen drivers purchase race-prepared versions of the current Ferrari 
street car and campaign them in national series; the winner of each national 
series then gets to race for the world championship in Italy.  The series was 
started with the Ferrari 348 and was called the 348 Challenge; it has now 
passed through the 355 to the new 360 Modena.  

Ferrari of Long Island had two semi-trucks filled with customer 360 Challenge 
cars, and there were lots of retired 348 and 355 Challenge cars present also. 
 There was a very heavy Sopranos feel in portions of the pits, as old-school 
New Yawk and Joisey Tough Guys played with their cars; lots of conversations 
in the pits took place in Italian!  I didn’t see any bodies or severed horse 
heads but wouldn’t have been surprised if I had!

The variety in cars was fairly broad; there were a few Formula 1 racers, FIA 
GT racers and a pair of 333 SP’s, one of which had never raced, but had been 
purchased by an obviously wealthy enthusiast simply as a toy (800 grand for 
the car, with an extra motor for another 200 grand.)

Despite operating on a comparatively shoestring budget, the Pantera guys were 
holding their own against most of the Ferraris, full-race cars excepted of 
course.  Maseratis were never much of a factor on the track, but it was 
surprising and very nice to see Lamborghini drivers flogging the hell out of 
their Countaches and Diablos.  What a sound those cars make, especially the 
Countach running with no mufflers!  The Lamborghini factory test-driver and 
head engineer was present, driving a demonstrator Diablo, and he pulled off 
some breathtaking passes (all legal, or at least quasi-legal) and proved to 
all present why he is paid to drive cars and we are not!

Tom Tjaarda was cruising up and down, checking things out, and I asked him if 
he’d been out on the track yet.  When he told me he hadn’t, I hooked him up 
with Gray, who had an extra driving suit and helmet, and a seat in his 
Pantera race car, and away they went.  It wasn’t until afterwards that we 
learned that Tom had NEVER been in a Pantera on a race track before!  He had 
an absolute ball, and insisted I take his photo and e-mail it to him, as his 
wife would never believe him otherwise!

Clouds were looming on the horizon, and soon an announcement came over the PA 
system that there was a severe thunderstorm warning in effect.  The track was 
shut down and drivers were urged to seek shelter for their cars, as there 
were reports of golf-ball-sized hail!!!  One of the NASCAR garages was open, 
so immediately a group effort took place to cram as many cars as possible 
under the roof.  The resulting display looked like my dream garage!

And then it rained.  BOY did it rain!  I’ve never seen rain like this in my 
life!  Torrential doesn’t being to describe it.  The pits immediately flooded 
and passage became impossible.  After 30 minutes, it suddenly subsided, the 
track drained remarkably quickly, and then the sun came out, and soon the 
cars were back on-track.

The action was relatively short-lived, as the storms returned and the track 
was shut down again for the day.  A banquet was scheduled for that evening 
featuring several guest speakers, including the aforementioned Lamborghini 
engineer, and Tom Tjaarda.  Unfortunately, there was a bit of a rift in the 
De Tomaso community, as many of them didn’t approve of the switch to the new 
hotel and chose to stay in the old one.  This in and of itself wasn’t such a 
bad thing, but in an incredible display of poor taste, they scheduled their 
own banquet to compete with the event banquet, effectively snubbing Tom who 
was the honored guest.  

We stopped into the old hotel for an hour or so and enjoyed some snacks in 
their hospitality suite (and bought a bunch of t-shirts from their club 
store) before returning to the main hotel to enjoy the dinner and the 
speakers.  It saddened me to see the relative lack of support for Tom 
considering he’d flown all the way from Italy just to speak to us, but 
fortunately there were enough Pantera guys present to make the 
question-and-answer session interesting and worthwhile.

The next day dawned bright and clear, although a bit cold, and we returned to 
almost ideal track conditions.  Some people had gone home so the track was a 
bit less crowded, but no less entertaining for a spectator.  And being the 
Track Slut that I am, I managed to borrow a driving suit and helmet and then 
wangle my way into several different cars for high-speed joyrides.  Among 
them were Gray’s race Pantera (featuring ZERO oil pressure around at least 
half the track--uh, isn’t this a problem Gray???), Tony Di Giovanna’s nice 
‘72 Pantera, Joe Moore’s full-race Guara (the first one built, and one of 
only two in the USA), and thanks to Michael O’Conner’s help, I got a ride in 
a Ferrari 355 Challenge car.

This was a most exhilarating ride!  The driver was a former Challenge 
campaigner, now just an open-tracker, but he obviously knew his stuff.  We 
found ourselves behind a pair of newer, and potentially faster 360 Challenge 
cars, but we never lost contact with them, and circulated as a train for 20 
minutes or so.

Here’s a lap of Pocono:  Enter the front straight in either 2nd or 3rd gear 
(depending on the car), and stand on the gas and just run through the gears.  
You’re well into 5th gear as you approach the first corner, which is steeply 
banked.  A stab on the brakes to scrub off 20 mph or so and then downshift 
and turn in, with different drivers taking slightly different lines, although 
most followed the “school” line which was about 1/3 of the way up from the 
inside.  Coming onto the back straight, it was foot to the floor, and then 
upshift into top gear and continue to accelerate.  (I saw 6500 rpm in 6th 
gear in the 355 Ferrari, which is, what, 160-170 mph or so?)  At the end of 
the back straight is another banked corner; hard on the brakes again, down a 
gear and into the corner, but at the exit, HARD on the brakes and right down 
through the gears to 2nd, at which point you make a 120-degree left turn and 
enter the infield section, which consists of several left-right-left-right 
transitions with a very short straight.  Some guys touch 3rd gear on the 
straight, but some just wind it out in 2nd.  Then it’s back into some more 
twisty bits before returning to the front straight to do it all over again.

The truly fast cars were approaching 200 mph on the back straight, which is 
certainly moving out when you consider that the drivers are a bunch of 
dentists and lawyers!!!  One thing that deeply disturbed me--although the 
tech requirements formally stated that V-rated tires were required (for 
obvious reasons), the tech inspectors checked over each car carefully but 
turned a blind eye to sub-standard tires; I saw three or four cars cruising 
around on S-rated tires, only good to 112 mph!  These guys were hammering 
around at high speeds, putting not only themselves but others in jeopardy.  I 
brought it up to the track stewards and urged them to do something about it, 
but they chose to turn a blind eye.  I would hope that they would take safety 
a little more seriously in upcoming events.

In fact, Charlie Seabrook had not one, but TWO flat tires on his 180 mph Ford 
GT-40 during the weekend, thankfully they were slow leaks and not 
catastrophic (Hoosier race tires.)  But it can happen, and to ignore the 
potential for problems seems irresponsible to me.  In fact I found it quite 
surprising, as overall the administration of the track event was equal to or 
better than any other event of its type that I’ve ever seen.

During the weekend there was only one minor damage incident, when an 
over-enthusiastic Ferrari 355 driver got onto the gas too hard coming out of 
the infield section, then panicked and lifted, causing the car to perform a 
slow spin onto the front straight.  He almost, ALMOST gained control before 
it drifted up into the wall (going backwards) and pranged up the left front 
fender and suspension.  He was unhurt (except for his ego and wallet of 
course) and the car will be easily fixed.  Still, it was a shame and 
everybody felt badly for him.

The fastest cars had the most problems--the Formula 1 cars made a few laps 
before blowing up, as did some of the other race cars.  The slower street 
cars continued to run all day long, which should perhaps tell you something.  
Rob Doone was beating on his Pantera all weekend long, driving around with 
his dad in the passenger seat and big silly grins on their faces, and in the 
last session, his motor simply exploded!  Given that he had been looking for 
an excuse to build a new motor I didn’t feel quite as badly as I might 
otherwise, but obviously it’s nicer to do things on your own terms as opposed 
to reacting to events!

Late in the day, Kirby Schrader blew a fan belt which tweaked his alternator 
mounting bracket on the way out of the car; he replaced the belt even though 
the pulleys no longer lined up, got two laps in and then the alternator belt 
snapped again, this time destroying the fan and throwing shrapnel into the 
firewall, damaging it enough to make one glad that the thing is there!!!

Overall though, it was a fantastic weekend.  No major problems, nobody got 
hurt, everybody had fun, and everybody went away already looking forward to 
the next one!

If you have any interest in Italian cars at all, and can find your way to the 
east coast during the July 4th weekend, be good to yourself and pay a visit 
to Pocono--you won’t be sorry!

A little photo-essay appears at:

http://members.aol.com/mikeldrew/pocono.jpg

Cheers!

Mike