The Datsun Roadster Book TM

1. Here are some pictures of some of the cars we've raced. Wish I still had the Austin-Healey. The Datsun Roadster BookTM The Race Cars Click your mouse to advance the slide show.

2. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars The 1957 Austin Healey 100-6

3. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars The autocross trophies - four 1st place and three Fastest Time of the Day, Street. It was the only car at the autocross that could get into 3rd gear (it had a 4:88 Detroit locker!!). Don’t feel bad - the guy I beat three times had a limited slip in his Porsche 914 2.0 which was just as illegal. Lost one FTD to a 914/6. Oh, to be young and skinny again! We drove this car straight thru from Reading, PA to Sebring in 1973 to attend the 12-hour race. 22 hours in a Healey - just stopping for gas! Ran like a champ and never missed a beat. Freaked out a gas station attendant in South Carolina – “Hey man, look at this; this car's got TWO carburetors!”

4. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars The 1973 Schaefferstown Hillclimb. My first as roadster owner. I bought the car after finishing 2nd to the former owner in my hillclimb debut “test drive” at the Pagoda Hillclimb the previous week. Glenn Snavely is directing cars to the Start line while poncho-clad Jag driver and BMC dealership owner Bob Ladd looks on from the stone wall. G.C. Smith of Williamsport, PA is lined up behind us in his 1600. For the first few races G.C would drive his car to the hillclimb, take off the bumpers and race. It was a rainy, overcast day but we took a first place.

5. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars The 1973 Weatherly Hillclimb. Pulling up the balaclava to cover the beard. The big number is X'd out because it was “owned” by the former owner. My “rookie” permit number was 758 which we applied with Scotch electrical tape! No expense was spared!! G.C. Smith is lined up behind me again this week. Weatherly was a great hillclimb because the top had a climbing right hand turn that suddenly dropped away and even the Datsun could lift all 4 wheels off the ground for about 10 feet. You could have parked a small car there and the Corvettes would have cleared them easily! Because the jump was on a curve you had to set yourself up straight and aim for the road ahead so you didn't need to make a sudden turn when landing. Even though it was only about 60 MPH it was a RUSH!!! We finished second to the MG Midget just in front of me

6. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars The Start line at the 1973 Weatherly Hillclimb. I have just tripped the “hockey stick” (timer) and I'm “on the hill” G.C. waits his turn - until I'm about three turns ahead. The Weatherly course turned to the right and then had three incredibly tight hairpins that had to be taken in 1st gear. We finished the hillclimb season with a first and two seconds. I was pumped up and ready for the winter rebuild that lay ahead........................

7. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Start with 5 gallons of nasty paint stripper and apply liberally. How many colors are under there? The year is 1973 and this car is only a 1968! That orange RustOleum was tough to get off. After a lot of smearing the stripper on and scraping it off.........

8. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Nothing quite like moving a car that is bare metal on a rainy, overcast day. Hurry before it rusts! At least the body was incredibly solid and straight. The 1966 Plymouth Valiant 225 Slant Six tow car awaits the command to start engine(s). The trailer came with the car for the grand total of $1200. That one-car rented garage space cost $8 a month - including power! The guy in the clear raincoat on the left is Dick Larrick – we’ll see him later on a sunnier day.

9. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars A coat of lacquer primer, a quick wet sand with 600, a little Bondo here and there and then a good coat of Peugeot 504 white. This is the original low-tech (before low-tech was even a descriptive term!) spray booth - an old, wooden one-car garage with a kerosene heater (right behind Brian) that we had to turn off every time we sprayed. Let me tell you, working in lacquer thinner fumes for about 10 hours will give you quite a buzz - and a nasty headache the next day.

10. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Back at the garage after paint, stripes, and lettering. It goes without saying that we copied the paint scheme! The former owner signed-off the number “101” to us so the electrical tape is gone. That's a brand NEW standard ratio 5-speed on the floor. The Datsun service rep got it for me for $232 - factory cost in 1973! We still have it in our 2000. About the paint job my garage mates used to kid us saying, “At least it LOOKS fast!”

11. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars The winter engine rebuild in the unheated “clean” room. I couldn't afford an engine stand or work bench. We installed new bearings and gaskets - left everything else alone. It had a stock cam, stock head, and stock pistons but it was well balanced. What made it fast was 2000 carburetors (illegal but no one knew anything about roadsters - more on that later) and about 45-degrees of total ignition advance!! Yes, it did overheat but because hillclimbs were generally less than 2-minutes long it didn't matter if the coolant was 250-degrees when you crested the top. You knew you were going to coast back down to the Start line and it could cool back down before the next run.

12. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars A clean and uncluttered engine compartment. We did keep the 2000 carburetors (temporarily) and added a header as part of the rebuild. The stock fuel pump is blanked off in favor of a Stewart-Warner electric pump on the front wall of the trunk. Everything is pretty stock including the brakes. Since you were constantly going uphill braking was not of major importance and stock linings and pads “bit” quicker when cold than race pads and shoes.

13. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars The first event of 1974 – at speed at the Pine Grove Hillclimb. Not many turns - mainly a horsepower hill. We had removed the 2000 carburetors and the car was legal but a slug!!!! After this first run we found out we had forgotten to tighten all the lug nuts – they were only finger tight! On the next run I tried to make up for being slow by speed-shifting to shave time and broke the new 5-speed. My first DNF. Once again, notice how close you could stand to the road. I was probably going 70 at this point. A little farther up the road a guy put a Volvo sedan so deep in the woods they had to cut down trees before the tow truck could pull it out! He was unhurt but the car was totaled so bad the gearbox split.

14. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Sure looks fast! But this run broke the 5-speed. An early trip home and the case of Michelob (for the victory celebration) was drained during the engine and gearbox pull. We got it out in 45-minutes and 24 bottles - that's about 5-minutes per bottle for the three of us who were drowning our sorrows. We left the garage with empty bottles sticking out of the carburetors, exhaust pipe and any other port a long-neck would fit in (somewhere I have a picture of that). We decided to regroup for the Duryea Hillclimb which was two weeks away. When we opened up the gearbox we found the servo synchronizer band on 2nd gear had split the coupling sleeve and the shift fork was “blue” from the friction of jamming the gear! All this in a gearbox that had less than 5 miles on it!!! Trust me when I tell you in The Datsun Roadster Book not to speed shift a rebuilt (new) or cold gearbox. The servo coupling sleeve is a pretty stout part and I split clean through. “Nuthin’ to be proud of, Russ”.

15. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars After Pine Grove we pulled out the Datsun Competition (now NISMO) catalog and ordered the 1600 race cam (by Racer Brown), aluminum push rods, competition valve springs and aluminum retainers, and a full set of oversize valves. We entered the 1974 Duryea Hillclimb with renewed optimism - and the cam made the car sound really cool! The car was pretty strong and I believe we finished 3rd - still running an unported head, stock pistons, and a standard ratio 5-speed. The one advantage we had was the 5:13 Detroit locker. We could get the car in 5th gear and up to 6000 RPM at Duryea which calculated out to 106 MPH on the straightaway. Which led to a 30 MPH 270-degree hairpin turn! Yahoo!!!!!!!!! Stand on the brakes as hard as you could, down shift to 2nd, and then sling it left and back on the gas. The difference between hillclimbs and road-racing is the hillclimb is on a road that is only two lanes wide and usually one side of the road was a big slope or drop down the hill or mountain you were climbing. Turn 5 at Duryea was the entrance to a long, sweeping stretch along the side of the mountain. You went through the turn in 3rd gear flat out, speed about 60 and increasing. The outside of the turn was a 40-year old, old-fashioned, wood-post-and-cable guardrail that protected a steep slope down about 200 vertical feet to the parking lot of an apartment complex. When I look at that turn now and remember how fast I was going I get the shakes. The Vettes were a lot faster than me - they were nuts!! They still hillclimb on Duryea to this day but the guardrail is new.

16. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Early in summer 1974 I decided to return to college so we selected the remaining events that summer to have fun and not spend all my college money. In July we went to an SCCA Solo event at Watkins Glen. We had multiple cars on the track at one time with just one rule - no passing. If you caught the car in front you raised your hand and got another run. And they let us use the long Grand Prix course too! I should have had a 4:88 or 4:62 - the 5:13 was far too short. The car was red lined in 5th for about half the lap. I think we finished 3rd again. The guy sitting on the wall in the Firestone uniform is Mario Andretti - he was at The Glen practicing with the 3-liter Alfa Romeo for the following week's 6-hour race. In between our groups he would take the Alfa out on the track and you could hear it at every turn around the course – boy did it sound great!

17. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Wide open up through the Esses at Watkins Glen in 1974.

18. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars On the way home from the Glen in the trusty Valiant. We borrowed the trailer from a friend because the one that came with the car was ready to break in half. The roadster is backed onto the trailer because the trailer was balanced for a Volkswagen which had the engine at the opposite end from the roadster.

19. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Parked in the pits for the 1974 Pagoda Hillclimb. We added the BRE “spook” and painted the headlight plates red.

20. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars “On the hill” at the 1974 Pagoda Hillclimb. If this looks familiar it's because the Pagoda event used the same course as the Duryea event - it just stopped about a mile shorter. This was the first event for the new BRE spook, front valence, and “red” headlight covers. It WAS a good-looking car! That’s Bob Ladd's old Austin-Healey 100-4 awaiting its run. A typical hillclimb weekend was Saturday and Sunday with the “fast” cars running Sunday. If there were no wrecks you could almost always count on three timed runs. Remember Dick Larrick? That’s him in the white suit and derby. Dick and his white outfit were fixtures at the Start line for many years. He was the guy who checked safety belts, made sure the doors were shut, and lined you up for your run. Initially Dick would give you the “go” sign but he was replaced by a used traffic signal that went from red to yellow to green releasing you on your run. Oh, the simpler times.

21. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars After the 1974 Pagoda event I returned to college and the roadster went into a relative's barn. In 1975 we got it out and freshened it a bit for the 1975 Pagoda event. We decided that Pam would drive in the Pagoda event so to get her some seat time we hauled the car to the open Tuesday practice session at Lime Rock, CT. Pay your money and run all afternoon - with other cars on the track – what a blast!

22. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Pam on her way out onto the track. There's a bit of “spook” damage from an off-course ride I took at the Big Bend. Also note the brake dust on the front wheels. We never used as much brake as we did that day.

23. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Pam at the starting line of the 1975 Pagoda Hilclimb. There’s Dick Larrick again in his white suit manning the start line. Lined up behind are an MG Midget, an MGA, another Midget on the left and a Fiat Abarth Coupe. The hillclimb days saw a lot of cars that today would be considered priceless antiques. Back then they were inexpensive sports cars that got raced (and sometimes wrecked) racing for a trophy, a dash plaque, and maybe a case of motor oil (back when there were 24 CANS in a case).

24. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Approaching turn 1. You might notice that people stood right next to the road protected only by that wooden guard rail and the snow fence. We also used a lot of used tires as barriers along the route. As members of the Duryea Sports Car Club, after we raced the car we had to help clean up the course – which on Sunday night required picking up and loading 2 flat bed truck loads of tires.

25. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Turn 1 at the Pagoda Hillclimb. Yes, it is a 180-degree hairpin. The hillclimb was a series of drag races from one hairpin turn to another. On Pagoda there were 6 that were 180-degree and one that was about 135. Oh yeah, regarding racing priceless antiques – there was a local guy who regularly brought out his Porsche RSK! All he did was hillclimb the car and it was blindingly fast. Thinking back that he would put a $700,000+ car at risk for a trophy gives me the shakes. Of course, at the time none of us knew it would someday be worth that much money!

26. The Datsun Roadster BookTM Our Race Cars Pam heading for turn 2 about 300 yards further on. In the Pagoda event I finished second and Pam finished fourth - beating two of the “guys”. Let the record show they were beaten by a girl! The 1975 Pagoda Hillclimb was the last time we ran the car in competition. It had only lasted 2 years but it was a lot of fun. We sold the car to Bill and Elliott Harvey in Florida. Bill is still into roadsters and has been a successful racer.

27. The Datsun Roadster BookTM We hope you’ve enjoyed our trip down memory lane. Those pictures take us back to a much simpler time. We hadn’t a care in the world – or much money, but they were still the “good old days”. Check the rest of the site for some more cars from our past. Our Race Cars