My Mother's Car

[Eberhard]

Most of you may know that I am no teenager but a retired motor-sport enthusiast among other things. An avid motorcyclist, I worked my way to limited factory sponsored by Bultaco and later Montesa, I was trying to move-up the ranks in the AMA, but fell short of Amateur status partly due to a severe crash at Sears Point raceway just north of San Francisco. At that juncture, I gave-up my motorcycle racing aspirations and concentrated more on my career path with the same aggressiveness.

My brother was also a motorcycle racer and was much quicker. I was proud of him each time he took the podium though was jealous in a way. I could seldom, if ever out-ride him, he was truly gifted. But we were racing on a shoe-string then. Even with sponsorship, we could barely afford gas to get our van to the tracks. And the competition was fierce. We were running in AMA District 36 with folks like Kenny Roberts Sr. - a Junior then in our district – Yellow Plate Number 80y.

We were both raised by a single mother, no easy task. My father left the picture when I was four and I never saw or heard from him again. We may have been considered a middle-class family but money was always an issue.

Our mother came to most all of our races to root us on and was proud of our accomplishments. During that time she met a number of influential racing families and became interested in motor-sports herself.

She was a driven woman of great character and a master of interpersonal skills (schmoozing). She managed to help her friend’s son hook-up with Roger Penske and Mark Donohue just after AMC dropped the Javelin Trans-Am effort. Then she convinced the local owner and President of Duraflame Logs to put-up some money to purchase the entire AMC inventory from Penske for next to nothing (if not nothing – the deal is still confidential).

Employing a local and superb SCCA driver – at no cost – the car won every B-Sedan event entered on the west coast at venues you might recognize such as Seattle National Raceway, Portland International, Sears Point, Laguna Seca, Ontario Motor Speedway, Riverside and Willow Springs. We lost an engine once in morning practice (a DNS) and broke a sway-bar linkage at Seattle and settled for eighth, But at each race the car established a new track record for the class – it was truly remarkable.

And though we easily qualified for the SCCA Nationals at Road Atlanta, we could not afford to make the event which was a tremendous disapointment to my mother.

She managed to sell the Javelins and procure one of the first four “second generation” ‘69 L88 Corvettes that were available only to selected racers but not to the public from its owner, Such restricted sales allowed GM to secretly test new components under competition conditions. A small number of these cars (less than 12) were produced between December ’68 and January ’69 and four were initially sold to folks like James Garner of AIR Racing (Bob Bondurant doing the driving) and two others teams, one campaigned by Owens-Corning. Again, I assumed the role as team manager.

The local driver that took the Javelins to victory was equally successful with the A-Production Corvette and drove the car to a win and another class record at every event except one, when the TRACO engine dropped a valve in practice and we had no replacement engine – we were racing on a shoestring with some funds coming in from Duraflame Logs (which went away when they were bought-out by Clorox).

So the car sat on stands in my Mother's garage from 1974 to 1977. I tried to raise funds and even considered driving the car myself, but having driven it during the week while testing (without a competition license), I found the car frightening.

The replacement LS6 454 cubic inch engine bored 0.40 over to 464 produced >550 bhp at 6800 rpm with immense torque. I could not find the dyno sheets and remember, these were highly restricted "production" cars. With a 3200 pound minimum weight and a maximum rim width of 10 inches, I could not keep the back-end from stepping out even with Goodyear’s best slicks and our tallest gearing anywhere on the track. Handling was superb for a car back then, but managing the throttle was a job left to a more gifted driver than I.

So she sought out a professional, Elliott Forbes-Robinson who was the lead driver for the Newman-Haas Can-Am effort sponsored by Budwiser. Elliott had a binding contract with that effort preventing him from driving another car – they could not risk an injury I suppose. My mother prevailed on Paul Newman who competed in SCCA events after being drawn to racing when filming “Winning" in ’69. Elliott was Newman’s mentor and helped him to win a series of SCCA races and championships in the Z-Series Nissans.

So after befriending Paul Newman and Carl Haas (the Stateside Lola importer), she received not only a clearance for Elliot to drive the Corvette where we and Newman ran the Can-Am “support Events” but brought along some of his team’s funding – all extremely rare.

So we got to meet most of the stars and hanger-on’s of the racing set but our focus was on winning the last SCCA National Championship for the big-block A-Production Corvettes at Road Atlanta.

With Elliott at the wheel (while also the Can-Am series point leader) the Corvette earned enough divisional points in SCCA A-Production to qualify for the Champion Spark Plug Classic at Road Atlanta in October of 1978. This was the last A-Production race ever to be held and, with Forbes-Robinson driving the L88 against an all-Corvette field, the Pacific Racing Team of my mother won the championship.

With no class for the car to compete in, my mother sold it for about $135,000 in cash (that’s right folks, a box of $100 dollar bills – wonder where that money came from – hmmm….).

Now owned by an east coast collector, the estimated value at auction today would be >$500,000.

My mother passed away some four years ago – but she managed to live a charmed and exciting life. God bless her.

Eberhard

PS: Sorry for the long text - no Cliff notes would do justice here.

[Expired]

Cool story.
Made me realize that people skills will get you far in life.

-Nathan

[Year's_End]

That was a good read. Thanks for the background info, you and your family sound like true enthusiasts for sure.

[rit]

Great story! Corvettes are a blast. Thanks for sharing.

[DrewKo]

Wow, that's an amazing story to say the least. Your Mom's story is amazing and I am sure you inherited many of her wonderful attributes. Tx very much for posting.

[Z06M3]

Something truly nice to read on these boards. I respect what you and you family had to go through. Beautiful car and marvelous story. Thank you for sharing.

[Eberhard]

Originally Posted by xzlnt

Something truly nice to read on these boards. I respect what you and you family had to go through. Beautiful car and marvelous story. Thank you for sharing.

I could write stories until your computer failed - and they would be worthy of a read.

I sat to dinner with Paul Newman more times than I can count and it was generally known that he did not wish to speak of his acting roles or anything Hollywood while on the motor-circuit. Whereas, discussions about racing, even my motorcycling escapades, light him up. All the while dining with a young crew manager well below his post in life.

While on the road, his wife Joan, baked my Mothers birthday cake - by herself. I was astounded.

Everytime I see a film featuring Paul Newman, I remember a gentleman that treated me as a friend and a peer - I consider the time we spent together as something special. And yes, his eyes are a striking blue.

Eberhard

[Kit523]

great story