Noses for Motorsports History
Sept 12, 2022 12:48:29 GMT -8
2whl, tatocorvette, and 1 more like this
Post by Oldtimer on Sept 12, 2022 12:48:29 GMT -8
Originally opened as Texas International Speedway (TIS), Texas World Speedway (TWS) was a motorsport venue located in College Station, Texas.
The track was located on approximately 600 acres on State Highway 6 in College Station, Texas (also the home of Texas A&M University).
There was a 2-mile oval, and several road course configurations.
The track configuration was closely related to that of Michigan International Speedway and was often considered the latter's sister track.
The track hosted two races in its 1969 inaugural season, the Texas International Grand Pre (the last race of the 1969 Can Am season) held on November 9, and the 1969 Texas 500 (the last race for the 1969 Nascar Winston Cup) on December 7.
As a freshman at Texas A&M in 1969, an avid racing enthusiast and member of the Texas A&M Sports Car Club (TAMSCC), the opening of the track held a special interest for me.
A local SCCA racer and TAMSCC member was hired by the Speedway, and he kept us informed of what was going on out there.
At some point in time, Union 76 contacted the Speedway, looking for volunteers to work at the Speedway during events where Union 76 would be providing fuel and lubricants to the participants.
Of course, I volunteered immediately and actually became the point of contact for Union 76, where part of my job before each event was to find a couple of others to help out manning the fuel pumps and passing out product.
On the Friday prior to the Can Am race, there was an "unofficial" practice, open to all the competitors.
The track was so new that a number of other volunteers and I were actually in the main grandstand, placing number decals on the aluminum bench seats.
From our vantage point in the grandstand, we had a great view of the practice session.
During that practice, two things of significance happened.
First, Tom Dutton, substituting for an "ill" John Surtees, practiced the Chaparral 2H, and wrote it off against some boilerplate lining the track where the outer section recrossed the oval back straight.
The 2H utilized a fully-stressed fiberglass shell, blending chassis and bodywork into one integral piece. It is said that the impact sent stress fractures throughout the entire chassis.
Second, if you look at the image of the track above, the entrance to Turn One of the road course is essentially a downhill left hander, coming from the top of the Nascar oval, across the apron and into the road course itself. I have shown this with a blue line.
At the beginning of practice, the outside of the "turn" was defined by traffic cones spaced only two or three feet apart.
In one of the first practice sessions, Denny Hulme, in his #5 Team McLaren M8B, cooked it a little too hot and plowed through the traffic cones, essentially splitting the nose of the car into two pieces (approximately one third destroyed, two thirds still attached to the racer).
For the race, this precipitated two changes.
First, the traffic cones were spread out wide enough for a car to pass easily.
And second, since Team McLaren only had one spare nose between their two cars, which went onto Denny's injured ride for the race, both cars had their noses wrapped in duct tape to ensure integrity should something similar occur during the race.
McLaren won the race, Hulme suffered an uncharacteristic engine failure, and with that result, McLaren took the season title.
For the Nascar race, I was actually in the garage area pumping gas for the unofficial Thursday practice session.
It was pretty uneventful, and the rest of the weekend proceeded as scheduled.
Buddy Baker, in Cotton Owens' Dodge Daytona Charger was on the pole and lead the majority of laps until something totally unforeseen happened.
www.cottonowens.com/races/1969_Texas500.php
And now you ask, well, thanks for the history lesson, what does this all have to do with the price of toast?
Well, one person took home both of the wrecked noses as souvenirs.
On the Saturday morning prior to the Can Am race, as I reported to my Union 76 fuel pumps, the McLaren garage area was right across from there.
The semi-intact two-thirds of Hulme's nose was leaning against the outside wall of the garage building.
During a break, I wandered over and was looking at it, and a team member walked over.
I asked if they had plans for the piece and was told that they were going to hold it as a back-up spare until after the race, just in case, and that then they were going to dispose of it.
I jumped at the chance and asked if I could have it, and the team member said yes. I swear to this day, I was talking to Teddy Mayer.
He told me that not only could I have it, but that he would have it autographed by Hulme and others on the team.
This is that same nose, leaning against the side of my parents' house.
Here is an 1/18 scale version of the McLaren M8B made by GMP.
Baker wrecked his Daytona late in the race under caution (as you can read in the link I provided above).
After the race, in order to get the car up onto their trailer (didn't have the fancy haulers they have now in Nascar), they just tore the nose off and set it aside.
Again, just out of coincidence, the Cotton Owens team was in a garage that was close to the Union 76 pumps.
The nose was just sitting there, unattended. I walked over and again, sought out a team member and asked if I could have it. Again, the response was that it was junk, and would be left at the track.
This is that same nose, leaning in the backyard of my parents' house.
This is an 1/18 scale version of the Cotton Owens Dodge Charger Daytona based on an Ertl mold, marketed via Winged Warriors.
Here are both of the noses together.
In 1970, my father, an industrial engineer with Texas Instruments, was laid off in a massive restructuring, and my parents had to sell their house and move on.
I asked my older brother, who still lived in my hometown, to get the noses and secure them at his house, which he allegedly did.
Then he moved.
On a visit back to my hometown, I asked him of their whereabouts, and he informed me that to him, they were just junk, and he just left them.
By then, it was too late, and even though I went back to his prior residence, they had been discarded.
Not sure what I would have done with them, as they would both be over 50 years old by now, but for a brief period of time, I am honored to have owned both these pieces of memorabilia.
The track was located on approximately 600 acres on State Highway 6 in College Station, Texas (also the home of Texas A&M University).
There was a 2-mile oval, and several road course configurations.
The track configuration was closely related to that of Michigan International Speedway and was often considered the latter's sister track.
The track hosted two races in its 1969 inaugural season, the Texas International Grand Pre (the last race of the 1969 Can Am season) held on November 9, and the 1969 Texas 500 (the last race for the 1969 Nascar Winston Cup) on December 7.
As a freshman at Texas A&M in 1969, an avid racing enthusiast and member of the Texas A&M Sports Car Club (TAMSCC), the opening of the track held a special interest for me.
A local SCCA racer and TAMSCC member was hired by the Speedway, and he kept us informed of what was going on out there.
At some point in time, Union 76 contacted the Speedway, looking for volunteers to work at the Speedway during events where Union 76 would be providing fuel and lubricants to the participants.
Of course, I volunteered immediately and actually became the point of contact for Union 76, where part of my job before each event was to find a couple of others to help out manning the fuel pumps and passing out product.
On the Friday prior to the Can Am race, there was an "unofficial" practice, open to all the competitors.
The track was so new that a number of other volunteers and I were actually in the main grandstand, placing number decals on the aluminum bench seats.
From our vantage point in the grandstand, we had a great view of the practice session.
During that practice, two things of significance happened.
First, Tom Dutton, substituting for an "ill" John Surtees, practiced the Chaparral 2H, and wrote it off against some boilerplate lining the track where the outer section recrossed the oval back straight.
The 2H utilized a fully-stressed fiberglass shell, blending chassis and bodywork into one integral piece. It is said that the impact sent stress fractures throughout the entire chassis.
Second, if you look at the image of the track above, the entrance to Turn One of the road course is essentially a downhill left hander, coming from the top of the Nascar oval, across the apron and into the road course itself. I have shown this with a blue line.
At the beginning of practice, the outside of the "turn" was defined by traffic cones spaced only two or three feet apart.
In one of the first practice sessions, Denny Hulme, in his #5 Team McLaren M8B, cooked it a little too hot and plowed through the traffic cones, essentially splitting the nose of the car into two pieces (approximately one third destroyed, two thirds still attached to the racer).
For the race, this precipitated two changes.
First, the traffic cones were spread out wide enough for a car to pass easily.
And second, since Team McLaren only had one spare nose between their two cars, which went onto Denny's injured ride for the race, both cars had their noses wrapped in duct tape to ensure integrity should something similar occur during the race.
McLaren won the race, Hulme suffered an uncharacteristic engine failure, and with that result, McLaren took the season title.
For the Nascar race, I was actually in the garage area pumping gas for the unofficial Thursday practice session.
It was pretty uneventful, and the rest of the weekend proceeded as scheduled.
Buddy Baker, in Cotton Owens' Dodge Daytona Charger was on the pole and lead the majority of laps until something totally unforeseen happened.
www.cottonowens.com/races/1969_Texas500.php
And now you ask, well, thanks for the history lesson, what does this all have to do with the price of toast?
Well, one person took home both of the wrecked noses as souvenirs.
On the Saturday morning prior to the Can Am race, as I reported to my Union 76 fuel pumps, the McLaren garage area was right across from there.
The semi-intact two-thirds of Hulme's nose was leaning against the outside wall of the garage building.
During a break, I wandered over and was looking at it, and a team member walked over.
I asked if they had plans for the piece and was told that they were going to hold it as a back-up spare until after the race, just in case, and that then they were going to dispose of it.
I jumped at the chance and asked if I could have it, and the team member said yes. I swear to this day, I was talking to Teddy Mayer.
He told me that not only could I have it, but that he would have it autographed by Hulme and others on the team.
This is that same nose, leaning against the side of my parents' house.
Here is an 1/18 scale version of the McLaren M8B made by GMP.
Baker wrecked his Daytona late in the race under caution (as you can read in the link I provided above).
After the race, in order to get the car up onto their trailer (didn't have the fancy haulers they have now in Nascar), they just tore the nose off and set it aside.
Again, just out of coincidence, the Cotton Owens team was in a garage that was close to the Union 76 pumps.
The nose was just sitting there, unattended. I walked over and again, sought out a team member and asked if I could have it. Again, the response was that it was junk, and would be left at the track.
This is that same nose, leaning in the backyard of my parents' house.
This is an 1/18 scale version of the Cotton Owens Dodge Charger Daytona based on an Ertl mold, marketed via Winged Warriors.
Here are both of the noses together.
In 1970, my father, an industrial engineer with Texas Instruments, was laid off in a massive restructuring, and my parents had to sell their house and move on.
I asked my older brother, who still lived in my hometown, to get the noses and secure them at his house, which he allegedly did.
Then he moved.
On a visit back to my hometown, I asked him of their whereabouts, and he informed me that to him, they were just junk, and he just left them.
By then, it was too late, and even though I went back to his prior residence, they had been discarded.
Not sure what I would have done with them, as they would both be over 50 years old by now, but for a brief period of time, I am honored to have owned both these pieces of memorabilia.
