For several years I had been looking for a good candidate to build a Corvair track car. Last fall, one was referred to me, so I sold my 69 Corvair Monza convertible to finance it and make room in my shop for the new member of the family.
I took delivery of a 65 Monza coupe that was someone's previous attempt at building a track car. It came from Arizona and was the first Corvair, out of the many I have had, with no rust! What a treat! As is my habit, I took it completely apart to assess what I had and form a plan of attack. By the 7th of April the car was completely stripped and in the paint shop.

Actually, before this day the official announcement  was made for the 40th Yenko Reunion to be held in Twinsburg, Ohio with a track day at the famed Nelson Ledges race track. Since I was building a Yenko Stinger clone and a tribute car I now had a target and a deadline.

Saturday the 17th of June the newly painted project car was back in my shop. I had 34 days on my "short time" calendar to get it to a point it would be able to run the track at Nelson Ledges and make the Corvair Convention autocross. To do this I took both my vacation weeks so I would have one week solid to work on it. Also several of my fellow car buddies came by on two different occasions and spent long hours helping me. I would not have made the deadline without them.

The max effort paid off as it came off the jack stands at ten PM Friday night and I stated  " if it runs it goes"! It ran and we went. Saturday morning we loaded the trailer and truck and struck out for Twinsburg.

40th Yenko Reunion at Nelson Ledges

July 22-24, 2006

It rained all the way but the show and track day weather was beautiful! I felt honored to be a part of this historic event and what better place to debut my Yenko Stinger clone. The car is done as a tribute  to the memory of Mark Donohue, one of my all time favorite race car drivers. The Roger Penske owned 1967 Sunoco Camaro  began the domination of the late sixties Trans Am races.

There were a lot of fine historic Yenkos at the show Sunday and the food at the dinner was great but the fun began on Monday at the track after the caravan of Yenko cars left town with a full police escort.

Keeping in mind that my car was totally new and untested, I was a bit worried at first. It passed the tech inspection the day before and all I knew for sure was the engine ran, the brakes had pedal, the steering wheel pointed the wheels in the direction turned and I had no reverse! Anything else was
going to be a surprise.
Once it was off the trailer I was anxious to get some practice/discovery  laps in .  Also before I ran I had to remove the two secondary carbs and use the block off plates as they were acting up and I had no time to tune them. It ran fine on the primaries when I broke in the cam  for 20 minutes which was ALL the time I had on the engine.
I came to run and that's exactly what I did. I don't know how many laps I did but I flogged it and my two timed runs were exactly the same so I was consistent at least. Out of the 30 cars that ran timed laps I placed 15th. Not bad for an untested car with a mild engine running on two street carbs with initial timing at 16 degrees and a set of old points fired with straight 12 volts from a dry cell racing battery with one initial charge on it. Add to this mix an old fart driver (me) with only two previous track events, running on race tires for the first time, using a real racing seat with a five point harness and the ONLY instrumentation was a tach that was not accurate! Oil pressure you say? Hell, it had plenty when I broke in the cam! Oh, I did put five gallons of 110 octane race gas in the fuel cell. Someone asked if I was going to bump up the timing to take advantage of it but I said no, I just like the smell of it!

THE 2006 CORVAIR CONVENTION AUTOCROSS

Tuesday morning dawned sunny and bright and we were loaded up and on our way to Buffalo NY, for the National Convention and Autocross. At on time in my younger life all I thought about was autocrossing as it was the only form of racing I could afford. I ran anytime I got the chance. With that in mind the last convention I autocrossed at was the second one in Washington D.C. at the Montgomery Mall in 1973. That was over 33 years ago as of now (2006)! The absolute last time I ran an autocross was when I lived in Charlotte NC and that was 1974 at the famed Charlotte Motor Speedway. The local SCCA would stage one several times a year. You could not do that today. When the day of the event came I hauled out to Lancaster Speedway about 15 miles north of Buffalo. The layout used both a small inner oval and the larger main oval which made a nice flowing course. The car performed very well and I was having such a good time I didn’t even care what my times were. At least I did not hit any cones or lose my way on track for all three runs. I didn’t know how I did until the Convention issue Communique’ came out.