The race begins, Group 2 and 3 cars mixed.
Let's get the big question out of the way now. Yes. The Karmann Ghia can run with and beat fully-prepped sports cars in wheel-to-wheel racing.
And this is how it happened. We have time sheets and witnesses.
Sharks and little fish. We trailer in a 1965 swing axle Ghia to Hutchinson Island. The Historic Sportscar Racing event for us covers Wednesday to Sunday.
We offload in the grass near the pit road, setting up our tent and brave 10-foot RetroRacing banner, surrounded by rare and expensive race cars of all
types and classes from before World War II to the 1980's.
There is an XKE and a limited-edition MGB with a Rover V8 on our right, and a beautiful BMW CSL on our right. The Brit with the Rover-engined (four double-choke
side draft Webers) is friendly. The two-man CSL crew brushes off our offer to help them push their car into their trailer.
In its day, the VW Karmann Ghia was known as VW Common Gear. We are in Group 2, with MG Midgets, Sprites, MGB's, Triumphs. All are well prepared veteran racers.
Our suspension tricks are limited to a 19mm sway bar and Konis up front, and adjustable spring plates, a Kafer brace, and KYB gas shocks in the rear. Our brakes
are stock Ghia disks and ATE calipers in front and post-1968 drums in the rear. The most exotic thing about any of this is our Porterfield R4S brake pads and drilled drums.
The engine is a strong 1600, with dual-spring AJ Sims heads and Kaddie Shack Kadrons. We have made a big mistake with the engine, however, and fitted it with a muffler
fed off 1600-diameter J-tubes. It's not a stock muffler, but one resembling the bigger 356-style body with twin exhausts. It is not an extractor. We believed at our first
high-class HSR event, we shouldn't go in with an extractor and eyeball-vibrating stinger, but quickly discovered noise was part of the "time machine of sight and sound"
as HSR advertises itself.
Every night is a party somewhere for the HSR crowd. This is Racers on the River.
Thursday 23Oct14. Evening Party #1: Ellis Square, Savannah
Surprisingly, the Ghia is well received and on looks alone, we are one of the 40-odd cars invited by HSR to be driven under police escort across the bridge to the
Pace Lap Party in Ellis Square. Our drivers Barret Camper and Dr. Steve Cayelli go, Barret fielding questions about the Ghia to the party goers. One young lady
asked him if the engine was in the "little red box" under the hood. Barret explained that was the fuel cell and the engine was actually in the back. You can't make this stuff up.
On returning the Ghia, Barret reports it was loading up badly, and a fuel check showed we used a couple of gallons of gas or more on the trip. Our exhaust was
as rich as some of the event's participants.
Friday 24Oct14. Evening Party #2: Racers on the River, Westin Riverfront Esplanade.
We miss early Friday morning practice learning to cope with the loose, wandering HSR bureaucracy. What is a battle at other organizations to get drivers
equipment inspected, licenses issued, and tech done, is a matter of trust at HSR. We wore out much foot leather chasing various socially-mingling officials
all freaking morning finding this out.
Barret takes the Ghia out for practice Friday afternoon. The Kadrons, set up for an extractor and stinger, are suffering from the muffler. We are loosing
1000 RPM off the top end because we got politically correct with the decibel count. He does not get a good lap time.
Later, a rejet and reduction in venturi size, just by-guess and by-golly, gives us exhaust that doesn't water your eyes.
In our off time, we see some oil dripping, apparently from the newly-changed axle boots, which turns out to be a loosening 4-bolt oil seal cover on the
right rear, which leads to discovery of loosening spring plate bolts at the axle. As a bonus find, one of the pistons in the slave cylinder was rusted in place.
All this is repaired in short order, involving a disassembly of the left-rear drum, which was all good.
We also remove and toss the Hall-effect ignition module in our 009. The tach needle had started to bounce. Our modules have been dying with regularity.
I install plain points and condenser. We are really old school now.
That night, at the Westin's Racers on the River party, Barret and Jamrod get flooded with high-octane party fuel, Jamrod bruised from thinking he could still
walk, and Barret deathly sick until the wee hours of the morning.
Saturday 25Oct14. Evening Party #3: Paddock Party with live entertainment at the track.
Dr. Steve takes the Ghia out for morning practice. The practice sessions, like the sprint races, are only about fifteen minutes long. Our team is
accustomed to 90-minute driving sessions and 14-hour races. This is his first time out, going fast with a swing axle. He adjusts inside of two laps
and I know when he has it right as from where I stand, watching the cars storm around the last turn onto the start/finish straight. They go wide
toward the concrete ramparts, and it seems almost scrape their door handles on the barrier as they fly by. What's embarrassing is you cannot hear
our engine at all, in a pack of cars or going by alone. The muffler works. As a matter of fact, for the first time ever we are able to hear our straight-cut
cam gear whine. We thought we were hearing an alternator bearing failing!
As we inspect the Ghia after Steve's session, we discover the crank pulley bolt and washer are missing, and we're sure we had them that morning.
At least the pulley was still in place, as was the belt. This was just plain old human error. Jamrod had apparently not tightened the bolt enough on
assembly in Birmingham. To make up for it, he calls his daughter in Birmingham and arranges to have replacement parts delivered overnight. It's only
411 miles from Birmingham to Savannah, and in racing distance miles, that's no problem. We were grateful, as it was now Saturday afternoon, no
parts house or shop in Savannah we call has a pulley bolt and washer, and there are no other VW's or 356 Porsches at the event.
We miss Barret's scheduled afternoon race, and have nothing to do until the Paddock Party. Barret and Jamrod skip it, Jamrod claiming no one could pay him
to drink tonight. He had been nursing his hangover all day. They sensibly watch movies and eat room service.
Sunday 26Oct14; No Evening Party scheduled. Last day of event.
Kaddie Shack Kads performed perfectly. Only at HSR, they are formally known as Solexes.
The parts arrived before sunup, and as the dew was burning off the tents and car covers in the morning sun, were installed with Locktite. The brakes
were good, the ignition was working, and the engine running as best possible with the restrictive muffler in place.
Barret, more experienced, is going to run Steve's race. Dr. Steve, ever the team member, takes the change in stride.
This is it. Fuel and oil are checked, lug nuts retightened one last time, and Barret belts in. The Ghia joins the pack of classic racers, Groups 2
and 3 mixed, as they grid. I go to the concrete retaining wall to watch. As the cars drive across the far side of the track out of sight, their
engines growl and echo. The wait takes forever.
Suddenly the pace car is coming through the turn and veers off towards pit road, the pack full throttle and thundering, the sheer noise intimidating.
With no qualifying times, the Ghia was gridded last, and is in the final few cars to pass me, Barret looking for a hole in the traffic. Our race is but
eight laps on a two-mile track.
This is historic vintage racing, weekend racers out for a lark in their cool old cars, right? No. These people are as serious as any I have ever seen
behind a steering wheel. On each lap, Barret is moving up, sliding closer and closer each lap to the rampart barrier, cars so close the drivers could
reach out and slap each other's fenders. I lose count of the laps in the excitement. It is a time machine of sight and sound. Webers, Solexes, and
SU's strain. The British-German mechanical animosity is at peak. Swing axles vs straight.
With a white storm of smoke behind it, an Alfa takes the pit road, a rod exploded through the block. Oil is everywhere.
Then something happens, dust and parts fly way down track from me towards the flag stand, and right in the middle of the cars still screaming by, double
yellow flags come out at the corner stations. I don't know it yet, but an MG Midget has just rear-ended a similar-size car at very high speed.
One of the two cars knocked out in the crash.
The two wrecks are blocking the track, astride the start-finish line, on top of the transponder cable. Cut short, the race is over. The cars on the track are split by
circumstance into those that were ahead of the wreck, and those who were behind it. Barret and his little group have to drive back around the track
the wrong way to get to the pit road.
Barret was in second place in class (Group 2, VP5) by the clock just behind the class-leading 1959 1275cc Austin Healey Sprite when the MG wreck
happened. The 1959's Sprite's best race time was 1:42.096. Barret's best race time to that instant was 1:43.111. An 1956 100M Austin Healey 2.6 litre
was behind Barret at 1:44.521.
But, physically right in front of Barret was a 1964 Austin Healey Sprite with a best time of 1:45.561. Barret was in process of passing the Sprite to officially
be in second, working his way to 1st.
Yellow means you slow down, hold your position and get in line. Barret did, tucking in behind 1964 Sprite. That made him third. The driver was to later apologize and say she
should have been out of his way.
Double yellows still flying as Group 2 and 3 come in.
So, gracefully we took third, and our race ended on our sixth lap instead of eightth.
With eight, we would have won.
But out of a few sour grapes we make sweet wine.
Next time we have the right exhaust.
FJC
. 
