Post by dustymojave on Aug 2, 2017 14:09:28 GMT -8
One car I wanted to build a model of for a long time is a Dodge Dart of SoCal racer Ron Grable. Preferably of his 1966 Dart that he raced in '66 and early '67. That car I tech Inspected at Regionals and Nationals many times. It was also raced in the Trans Am in '66 and the 4-Hour Enduro at Riverside in '67. He then replaced it with a '67 Dart that he raced in the '67 Trans Am season.
Ron was quite a character. An Engineer by trade, he also wrote an ongoing journal of his racing escapades in Competition Press and Autoweek. In that he wrote a hilarious story of when he had been badly injured in a crash. While recuperating in a hospital, he organized wheel chair races with other patients. There was a spiraling wheelchair ramp with straights and 180° turns from floor to floor of the hospital. He and the others of course, got in great trouble with the nursing staff and the hospital administration over that! Great stories though.
Ron's '66 Dart is of particular interest to me in that it participated in the race which to me is the most memorable of all the races I watched. The event was in the summer of 1967 at Willow Springs Raceway. It was an SCCA National. Racing for the lead the entire Big Bore Sedan race were Dick Guldstrand in his '67 Camaro and Ron Grable in his 1966 Dart. They swapped the lead many times during the race. During the last couple of laps a desert thunder shower started. On the last lap up the hill in Turn 3 Grable dove under Guldstrand as they entered the corner and took the lead again. He then pulled away a little, really driving over his head in the quickly getting slippery conditions. Grable came around the big flat sweeping turn 8 and into the nasty decreasing radius hook that was then Turn 9. Then his car spun around into the infield of the exit of 9. He kept the throttle on full bore and spun around 360° in the infield desert dirt and rocks, lost in the cloud of dirt in the air, and jumped back onto the track nearly T-boning Guldstrand. Somehow, they missed contact and thundered up the front straight for Guldstrand to win by a few feet. From the pits, we could see them gesturing to each other inside the cars as they went around the cool-off lap. Everybody around thought they were arguing. As they pulled into the pits, they both jumped out of their cars and ran towards each other. It was looking like they were going to brawl. But they hugged each other and slapped each other on the back congratulating each other on a great race. They were smiling and laughing. I heard one say "more fun than the law allows".
Dick Guldstrand passed away recently and I saw an article on the internet a couple of years ago about Ron getting to see his Lola T190 F5000 car restored. He was with a walker and pretty feeble at the time.
I know there are resin '66 Dart bodies, and I may get one some day, It would need a chassis from a Revell '69 Dart or an AMT '71 Duster to build it.
But I just got a '69 Dart kit for cheap and I intend to build Ron's '67 Dart out of it. I will need the windows for the '69 as the kit came to me without them. So if any of you know where I can get such windows, I would appreciate a heads up. I posted on the Model Car Mag forum about it earlier.
The Dart kits come with either a 383 or a 426 Hemi. While fine for drag racers, neither of those are right for a Trans Am 5 liter small block. I have a Mopar small block race engine from a circle track Kit Car kit to use, and it will be fine, including it's manual trans. Both his '66 and '67 race cars had 4-point roll bars in the day. That will be pretty EZ. For wheels, he used a set of rare for road racers, damned heavy Cragar SS chrome wheels for a while on the '67. As it's restored, it has American Torque Thrust D replicas. Looks great and would have been a better choice in 1967. I don't know why he chose the Cragars. The '66 ran with the Torque Thrusts. I've found one picture of the restored car with a set of Magnum wheels like AFX used for his Falcon. I MAY bite the bullet and build the '67 with Torque Thrusts. I have some of those and some Revell Goodyear tires like AFX chose for his Falcon. A fiberglass seat and 1/8" tube (3" scale) dump pipes should mostly round it out.
Ron was quite a character. An Engineer by trade, he also wrote an ongoing journal of his racing escapades in Competition Press and Autoweek. In that he wrote a hilarious story of when he had been badly injured in a crash. While recuperating in a hospital, he organized wheel chair races with other patients. There was a spiraling wheelchair ramp with straights and 180° turns from floor to floor of the hospital. He and the others of course, got in great trouble with the nursing staff and the hospital administration over that! Great stories though.
Ron's '66 Dart is of particular interest to me in that it participated in the race which to me is the most memorable of all the races I watched. The event was in the summer of 1967 at Willow Springs Raceway. It was an SCCA National. Racing for the lead the entire Big Bore Sedan race were Dick Guldstrand in his '67 Camaro and Ron Grable in his 1966 Dart. They swapped the lead many times during the race. During the last couple of laps a desert thunder shower started. On the last lap up the hill in Turn 3 Grable dove under Guldstrand as they entered the corner and took the lead again. He then pulled away a little, really driving over his head in the quickly getting slippery conditions. Grable came around the big flat sweeping turn 8 and into the nasty decreasing radius hook that was then Turn 9. Then his car spun around into the infield of the exit of 9. He kept the throttle on full bore and spun around 360° in the infield desert dirt and rocks, lost in the cloud of dirt in the air, and jumped back onto the track nearly T-boning Guldstrand. Somehow, they missed contact and thundered up the front straight for Guldstrand to win by a few feet. From the pits, we could see them gesturing to each other inside the cars as they went around the cool-off lap. Everybody around thought they were arguing. As they pulled into the pits, they both jumped out of their cars and ran towards each other. It was looking like they were going to brawl. But they hugged each other and slapped each other on the back congratulating each other on a great race. They were smiling and laughing. I heard one say "more fun than the law allows".
Dick Guldstrand passed away recently and I saw an article on the internet a couple of years ago about Ron getting to see his Lola T190 F5000 car restored. He was with a walker and pretty feeble at the time.
I know there are resin '66 Dart bodies, and I may get one some day, It would need a chassis from a Revell '69 Dart or an AMT '71 Duster to build it.
But I just got a '69 Dart kit for cheap and I intend to build Ron's '67 Dart out of it. I will need the windows for the '69 as the kit came to me without them. So if any of you know where I can get such windows, I would appreciate a heads up. I posted on the Model Car Mag forum about it earlier.
The Dart kits come with either a 383 or a 426 Hemi. While fine for drag racers, neither of those are right for a Trans Am 5 liter small block. I have a Mopar small block race engine from a circle track Kit Car kit to use, and it will be fine, including it's manual trans. Both his '66 and '67 race cars had 4-point roll bars in the day. That will be pretty EZ. For wheels, he used a set of rare for road racers, damned heavy Cragar SS chrome wheels for a while on the '67. As it's restored, it has American Torque Thrust D replicas. Looks great and would have been a better choice in 1967. I don't know why he chose the Cragars. The '66 ran with the Torque Thrusts. I've found one picture of the restored car with a set of Magnum wheels like AFX used for his Falcon. I MAY bite the bullet and build the '67 with Torque Thrusts. I have some of those and some Revell Goodyear tires like AFX chose for his Falcon. A fiberglass seat and 1/8" tube (3" scale) dump pipes should mostly round it out.
