Doug;
I still owe the guys on the Shadow Can- Am team a BIG thank- you for loaning
us a set of Crane roller rocker arms thirty (!) years ago . We blew up our
aluminum big- block Chevy (built by Gearge Bolthoff) in practice at Laguna
Seca or Riverside (?). The timing chain broke so we lost a few pushrods,
rocker arms, etc. and didn't have our spare engine with us, so without being
able to fix our one engine, we were SOL. Bolthoff was at the track and
volunteered to tear down the engine back at his shop (Engine Systems
Development?) so we pulled the engine out of the McLaren, put it into a
friend's van and drove it over to George's shop.
We all worked feverishly to tear it down and inspect things to access the
damage. By then-- very late Saturday night-- all the speed shops were closed
so Bolthoff scrounged in his parts bins and found some reasonably straight
pushrods and other used parts we needed to reassemble the engine. No roller
rocker arms were to be had ANYWHERE in the wee hours of Sunday morning, so
we buttoned everything up-- hoping to find some rocker arms somewhere-- and
hauled the engine back to the track.
We installed the engine back into the car (McLaren M8C) and went to the
other Can- Am teams looking for roller rocker arms; the UOP Shadow team
fellows were very helpful. They lent us their spare set and we installed
them, adjusted lash, timing, buttoned up the top end and fired up the
engine. Bob Peckham smoked the tires through the crowd of spectators in the
paddock area, scattering them like a covey of quail, to get to the starting
grid (the race officials were holding the start of the race a few minutes
for us-- unbelievable for a bunch of no- name unsponsored guys) and our
McLaren started the race thanks to George Bolthoff and the Shadow team. Nice
guys!! BTW, pushing a car out on the starting grid while 100,000 people are
waiting on YOU is a little stressful.
Somewhere, someone must have some photos of that car (#64, as I recall)-- I
don't have one single picture. One thing I learned is that working on a race
car crew is lots of hard work and probably the worst spot to see a race--
too many things to do, no time to watch!
Thanks for this stroll down memory lane, Doug. BTW, we finished around 13th
place; never DNF'd.
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
-----Original Message-----
From: DOUG ODOM [mailto:popms@thegrid.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 12:48 PM
To: Jim Dincau
Cc: rtmack; DrMayf; land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Visit to Arroyo Grande and Another Scoop Method
Mayf, This a different Joe Leonard. This Joe worked for the Shadow
Can-Am team back when they we running.
Doug Odom in big ditch
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