On the HLS30 00008 car, perhaps I should've kept my mouth shut! :tapemouth

I was hoping it wouldn't drag into the distraction it has. Perhaps the pic 26th-Z posted is not the same car, and agreed -

Hi Phillip:

Trying to pin the history of these cars down is always fun. The car that Chris posted is a later body - more like a late 260Z/280Z. That was the car that Bob Bondurant drove. Speckman was in the same race, also sponsored by Bondurant.

kudos to Carl for posting the page, but we can all agree the '08 car WAS at Daytona. Come to think of of it, Carl, please don't hate me but I was the one who posted the link on Hybrid...

Anyway, thanks for the great pics everyone, good stuff!

No problem at all. At one time, we thought that BSR had received both HLS30 00006 and 00008..... That was how I had originally written the information on the Z Car Home Page. I got an e-mail from Mr. Speckman setting me straight on that oneLOL

He wanted me to know that Nissan shipped the car directly to him - and Bob Sharp had nothing to do with setting it up:finger: Mr. Speckman seemed to believe that #00008 was the first Z to "finish" 24 hours at Dayton. But as with many of the guys - it's been 35+ years ago - and most of the guys that raced really didn't keep track of weekly, monthly or yearly history.. Their focus was always on running the next race..

FWIW,

Carl B.

I managed to to find a pic of that 81 car on my PC. Cant remember where I found this but the file was named with a date of 1990 and I distinctly remember Tom telling me the car was raced until then which led me to believe it was the 08 car.

Also attached are some more pics of Logan @ Blackhawk in '74. I wanna say greyghost took these too but I don't see them in his gallery here.

I thought it would be fun to do an all ZX post, again courtesy of greyghost:

Interesting site - I'd like to see where their source data comes from - a lot of it seems to be contributed by specators...I wonder if they had access to Daytona's actual records...

Are you seriously questioning the data at racingsportscars.com? That's a very well known and respected site, and I think the data there is very much more likely to be right than something that you added to your site because somebody might have given it to you "....off the top of his head."

Phillip / Chris:

Reviewing our discussion:

Post #16

Perhaps the pic 26th-Z posted is not the same car, and...

To which I answered

Post #25

The car that Chris posted is a later body - more like a late 260Z/280Z. That was the car that Bob Bondurant drove. Speckman was in the same race, also sponsored by Bondurant.

I now realize that Phillip was taking about the picture Posted by Chris at Post #15. I was responding to the picture Posted by Chris at Post #21.

Sorry for the confusion on my part. So the question is: Did Bob Bell run the 00008 car as #81 at Daytona with G-nose and very large IMSA rear fender flairs.

At Post #18

Hi Chris:

..snipped...

Looking at the Site you reference - it looks like the sentence should say;

At the 1978 24 Hours of Daytona, Bob Speckman's Z was the first Z to cross the finish line, taking 26th overall and and 4th in IMSA's GT-U Class.

Sponsored by Bondurant Racing School, Bob shared driving duties with Chris Doyle and John Maffucci.

It looks like the first Z to finish a 24 hour race at Dayton was Bruce Mabrito and Jack Steel's 240Z in 1975. 26th O/A and 7th in GT-U.

At Post #21 - Chris caught that 26th finish.. and questioned it as Bondurant finished 24th in that race.

Looks like I was getting my own notes screwed up there as well. That sentence should have said:

At the 1978 24 Hours of Daytona, Bob Speckman's Z was the first Z to cross the finish line, taking 16th overall and and 4th in IMSA's GT-U Class. Bondurant finished 24th O/A and 7th in class.

Sorry for the confusion Chris. I looked at that "26th" three times and it still looked right!! Should have been 16th...

I will now go back to my e-mail archive and see if I can find the pictures of the car we think was the Bondurant car in 78, as well as review everything that Dr. Bork and Mr. Speckman wrote... might be a few clues in there as well.

FWIW,

Carl B.

Are you missing the point again?

On this page: http://www2.zhome.com:81/History/Bork.htm

It says:

"In 1975, Bob Speakman's Z was the first Datsun 240Z to finish the 24 Hours of Daytona, finishing 4th over-all."

........which is wrong.

And why do you keep calling him "Speckman"?

So the question is: Did Bob Bell run the 00008 car as #81 at Daytona with G-nose and very large IMSA rear fender flairs.

At the 1978 24 Hours of Daytona, Bob Speckman's Z was the first Z to cross the finish line, taking 16th overall and and 4th in IMSA's GT-U Class. Bondurant finished 24th O/A and 7th in class.

It appears Bob Bell did. Here is the Speakman entry in 1978. Carl, you also commented about the bodywork. The car I photographed was a tube frame chassis with the original unibody cut up way beyond recognition. There is nothing that can be discerned from looking at the body as it was fiberglass. I also think it should be clarified that "Bondurant" did not sponsor the cars. They were entered under the name. Big difference between entrant and sponsor.

Moved to new thread

Edited March 2, 200916 yr by Mike B

At Post #15 Chris posted a picture of a Z at Daytona with #81.

At Post #16 Phillip commented that he was fairly sure that was HLS30 00008.

At Post #17 Chris replies:

I didn't want to say anything, but I do remember talking to the guy because the car was a very low serial # and that would have interested me at the time because I owned 26th. "At the time" would have been 1984 and car #81 shows up on the entry list for the 24-hours of Daytona as a 240Z driven by John Saucier, Ronnie Franklin, and Chuck Gravel.

At Post #29 -after some confusion among different pictures I replied in part:

Sorry for the confusion on my part. So the question is: Did Bob Bell run the 00008 car as #81 at Daytona with G-nose and very large IMSA rear fender flairs.

At Post #31 Chris replied:

It appears Bob Bell did.

Well - actually appearances can be misleading. Looking farther... it seems that Bob Bell was a sponsor. He didn't run the car - Dave Duda did. At the time wasn't 1984 ... it was 90, 92. At least per the reference site you listed:

http://www.racingsportscars.com/driver/David-Duda-USA.html

Interesting that Mike Speakman, Bob Speakman and Jim Novotne are listed as "Most frequent co-drivers".

We also have to assume that at that time Dave Duda only had one Z, and that he did in fact modify HLS30 00008 so extensively moving it from SCCA C-Production to IMSA.

Looking back at my e-mail exchange with Mr. Speakman - he said he sold the car to Dave Duda, and as I recall, Dr. Bork bought the car from Mr. Duda. {I'll have to go review all the messages from Dr. Bork to affirm}

The car I photographed was a tube frame chassis with the original unibody cut up way beyond recognition. There is nothing that can be discerned from looking at the body as it was fiberglass.

I believe your response here - is a carry-over from my confusion as to which "picture" I was originally looking at. My comment about the body was originally about the Bondurant entry being a 260Z body... again sorry for the confusion.

Interesting about the uni-body being cut up beyond recognition however. Dr. Bork did not say that the original body had been so completely cut up.. Dr. Bork restored the car to it's as raced in the early 70's condition. It sounds like only the firewall was left .

At any rate - I'll update the Z Car Home Page when we get back from Jim's... Are you going to make it to the show in Lakeland first?... I'm going to run over and meet some of the guys there in the morning.

FWIW,

Carl B.

Edited February 28, 200916 yr by Carl Beck

Here are a collection of photos that I got some time back you might have seen before the Blue and white car pictured in some of the earlier photos.

These photos from 1972 show several of the really famous Z cars, can anyone guess which two are BRE race cars?

Here is Dan Parkinson in his #5 240Z

A couple of 510's as well:

A roadster or two:

And Dan Parkinson's 280Z as of a couple of years ago:

Edited February 28, 200916 yr by ron carter

Are you missing the point again?

On this page: http://www2.zhome.com:81/History/Bork.htm

It says:

"In 1975, Bob Speakman's Z was the first Datsun 240Z to finish the 24 Hours of Daytona, finishing 4th over-all."

........which is wrong.

And why do you keep calling him "Speckman"?

Page "Updated 28 Feb. 2009", and reads:

"In 1978, Bob Speakman's Z was the first Datsun 240Z to finish the 24 Hours of Daytona, finishing 16th over-all and 4th in the GT-U Class."

So it's still wrong.....

Here is a pic I took at Laguna Seca. The Bob Sharp IMSA GT/U Z is above the Porsche and the Frisselle Z is leaving the frame on the left.