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Re: lap times & Curta Calculators

To: "Jack W. Drews" <vinttr4@geneseo.net>, <fot@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: lap times & Curta Calculators
From: "elliottd" <elliottd@look.ca>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 16:32:36 -0500
There were two models - the small one and the large one.  There was a
distict advantage to having a leage one.  I still have my old large one that
I used in rallies including the 1964 Shell 4000 mile rally from Vancouver
the Montreal when Kaz prepared the three powder blue works TR4's.

Don Elliott, 1958 TR3A, Montreal, Canada

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jack W. Drews" <vinttr4@geneseo.net>
To: <fot@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2003 11:04 AM
Subject: lap times


> The subject of old vs. new lap times is intriguing, even recognizing that
> conditions have changed a lot. So far it seems that other than a few
> individual recollections there does not seem to be any source for the old
> lap times. i was hoping that Tom Schultz, the author of "Road America", a
> year-by-year history, might have some records. No luck. I guess everybody
> in that era, myself included, just didn't think old info had any value.
> Come to think of it,  Vintage Sports Car Racing hadn't yet been
> invented...........in fact, the only timing and scoring sheets we got were
> a couple of hours late and weren't passed out freely because photo copy
> machines had not yet been invented.
>
> Ditto electronic timing, of course, which brings up another subject.
> Anybody out there remember the Curta calculator? It was a hand-held
> calculator that looked like a little pepper mill. It would add, subtract,
> multiply, divide, and do roots accurate to 11 figures. In the 60's anybody
> who wanted to win rallies used one. The latest issue of Scientific
American
> has a delightful article on it. I learned from the article that this
> calculator was invented by a Curt Herzstark while he was  incarcerated in
a
> Nazi concentration camp. Inventing it saved his life. He sketched it out
on
> small scraps of paper and after the war he interested the Crown Prince of
> Lichtenstein in manufacturing it there.
>
> Remember, you first heard it first right here on the FOT list.
>
> uncle jack

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