Racing a Kastner-Brophy Triumph GT6 | One of my 7 ...

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Racing a Kastner-Brophy Triumph GT6 | Certainly one of my 7 hairiest moments | Articles | Grassroots Motorsports

Everybody who races has tales. Some are about victory so candy, however most are extra doubtless about complete disasters. Right here is the fifth of my seven hairiest moments on observe.

A few years in the past I received invited to drive Jim Dolan’s well-known Kastner-Brophy Triumph GT6 on the Pittsburgh Classic Grand Prix. I’d visited and seen the observe, however I’d by no means pushed it.

I used to be fairly conversant in racing a Triumph GT6, as I had autocrossed and hillclimbed the same Triumph Spitfire and had restored and raced the almost an identical Group 44 GT6. The issue with familiarity is that I knew how a lot I didn’t like driving a GT6. As a giant man, you put on a GT6 greater than you truly sit in it. I bought mine, primarily as a result of I didn’t slot in it properly and will by no means get out of it in an emergency.

Ergonomics is essential in driving race vehicles. As quickly as you aren’t comfy in a automobile and have your knees scrunched up subsequent to your face, you can’t drive successfully. Regardless of some effort on the crew’s half, I couldn’t get the seat again sufficient to drive the automobile safely.

Slightly than beg off, I went out anyway. Hey, within the vicious sport of automobile journal publishing, it’s a must to play damage typically.

Whereas I really like this occasion and hope to return this 12 months, the road course in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park isn’t well-known for being protected. There are bushes, curbs and spectators in every single place. The primary time I traversed the Panther Hole passover, it was at some 80 mph. And so as to add to the anxiousness, the bridge spans a gully that must be a minimum of 100 ft deep.

This was not a snug expertise in another person’s very beneficial and well-known race automobile that I had been shoehorned into. When requested if I needed to take the automobile out for one more session, I politely declined.