We shall be honoring Don, Bob, and Bill at the Black Hawk Classic in June.
All Triumph Race planned.
Joe Alexander
4505 Donald Dr
Cedar Falls, IA 50613
The-vintage-racer.com
Gasketinnovations.com
Cell: 319.464.4711
> On May 4, 2022, at 7:13 AM, yellow04 via Fot <fot@autox.team.net> wrote:
>
> Responding to Brian McEldowney, the new owner of the Don Brick TR4,
> prompted me to do a google search. I just realized we lost Don six weeks ago
> on March 27, 2022.
>
> The last of the original Beady Eye gang. Sad.
>
> While the stories of the shenanigans Bill, Bob and Don got into are the stuff
> of legend, there is one story about Don I will never forget.
>
> More years ago that I care to admit, I am beginner racer who bought a
> derelict TR4 racecar and was trying desperately to figure out how to prepare
> it so it would finish weekends, and more importantly trying to figure out the
> art and science of race craft. I show up at Grattan for the first time, and I
> am not sure I can say I was struggling, but the Beady Eye boys thought I
> needed a primer on the track. VSCDA had a practice of doing lunch time parade
> laps at Grattan, so they cooked up the idea that I needed to get driven
> around the track by their resident hot shoe, Don Brick. Yes, Don was the
> fastest of the bunch.
>
> These parade laps were done in race cars, and the premise was the racers
> could put their family, friends, crew, etc. in the passenger seat to get a
> birds eye view of the track. No passing, just some leisurely laps.
> Apparently, Don didnâ??t get the memo... Don and I climb into his TR4, my
> memory is telling me we had no fire suits or helmets, and proceed to the
> false grid. We are waived onto the track, and Don nails it. We get decent
> speed for turn one, and Don is narrating. "This is where I usually have to
> brake, but since we are not at speed yet...", he brakes late, turns into 1
> with tires at full chat. We slide around turn one, and on the little straight
> heading for 2, we come up on the first car doing parade lap speed, Don just
> passes them! At this point, Don is at racing speed, and he continues to
> narrate his way around the course passing everybody. As we round the corner
> for the start/finish straight, the flagger is waiting for us, and no surprise
> to me Don gets black flagged. As we are going down the straight for turn 1, I
> tell Don I don't think we are supposed to be going full tilt, everybody else
> is going much slower. Don was not deterred, he needed to show me his braking
> point for turn 1 at speed! We proceeded to do that second lap way too fast,
> then Don dutifully pulled into pit lane and was directed to the black flag
> station where he was given the stern warning that lunchtime parade laps were
> not to be driven at speed. Don's reply with a smile, "Oh, OK, I didn't know."
>
> Anybody else remember running with Don and watching his red wire wheels? Don
> insisted on running that same set of red painted wire wheels. He claimed he
> finally got a set of wheels that didn't break spokes, so he just kept running
> them. It was disconcerting to see Don in the seat sawing on the steering
> wheel, and you could see the hubs on the car moving with his motions, but the
> rim and tires couldn't keep up the hubs, you could almost see the spokes
> stretching with every turn of the steering wheel!
>
> Farewell, my friend.
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>
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