Bob Clucas

Here's a cool shot from the 2015 Monterey Reunion..... not vintage shots, but vintage cars... David Martin in the Frieselle Z, John Morton in Joel Andersons Z, me in the Natural Light Z and Dave Stone in the Bondurant Z. Morton dove under the Joest 935 in a "holly s&&t" moment at the top of the corkscrew.... Bob

I just saw this post - been away from this site for a while. I have the '75 FAR car and spoke briefly to your dad about the FAR days. I am going to take the car to Sonoma May 28th - 31st, is he still in the area, would he like to come out and see the car / tell some stories (it's now restored to the Anhueser Busch Natural Light livery, not the FAR livery....)? Talking to guys from "back in the day" makes vintage racing what fun it is!!!! Bob Clucas

Did anyone happen to see the Rolex Motorsports Reunion on Fox this weekend? A great interview and photo's of Joel Anderson and Rob Fuller with Joel's IMSA car. Also a great segment on Dave Stone's beautiful Bob Sharp 1970 240Z that was the editors pick of cars to take home. They had lots of coverage of Dave driving the car in the race! Finally some good coverage of Z's at arguably the premier vintage race event!!! I couldn't find when the show will be replayed, but worth recording and watching if you like classic cars and Z's.... Bob

Great photo's of the FAR cars - do you have any more? I'm specifically looking for photo's from 1975 of the second Maas car. I believe the photo of Maas "in the office" is the early car that won the '74 CP and IMSA GTU championships before being crashed in early 1975 at Laguna Seca??? Do you know when the photo was taken? thanks! Bob Clucas

Hi Rob, Where did you find the grid shot, i'd sure like to get a copy! Thanks! Bob

Cool shot Rob. I believe that was the IMSA FAR Performance car that Walt Maas drove to the 1974 IMSA GTU Championship! I hadn't seen that picture before! I was told that that car got totaled at Phoenix in 1975 or 76 or so.... Bob

Be careful, cold tires and a lot of boost can be real exciting!!!! I won't be going this year :disappoin, so have fun and be safe!! bob

yup, and looks like a McLaren in the foreground - Nice company for the Friselle Z!

As a side note to the above race info, Casey Mollett also was at the Laguna Seca IMSA GTU race in May 1978. Casey had engine problems with his car that weekend, so he rented a spare motor from Mueller. He had to start last because he couldn’t qualify, but he managed to move up to 4th at the end of the race. Since it was a rented motor and he didn't know what it was, he figured they would only spec the top 3 finishers and he would be ok.... unfortunately, they decided to spec the top 5 finishers, and the motor Mueller gave Casey was a 2.8L and he was given a DQ…. Bob - as told to me by Casey

Hi Rob, That's the warm-up lap for the 1978 IMSA GTU Race at Laguna Seca. The "half" car is Lee Mueller in the Victors / Quality Inn #71 240Z and on the pole is Dennis Aase in the #64 911. They crashed each other out on lap 13 and Frank Leary #48 ended up winning the race. Sam Posey #33 finished 2nd and Devendorf #83 finished 5th.... Bob

Here's a good photo of Walt Maas I found on the SCCA site. Description reads: The Bay Area Datsun Dealers' 240-Z will once again take to the Laguna Seca track during the October 15-17 Monterey-Castrol Grand Prix. This will be the final tune-up race of the season for the team before they head for Road Atlanta and the American Road Race of Champions in November. Driver and Team Manager Walt Maas has announced that the upcoming race on Sunday immediately preceding the Can-Am race, should provide the fans with some of the best racing of the afternoon but adds that "Datsun owners will not be disappointed with the finish!" Hank Pierotti, President of the Bay Area Datsun Dealers, recently confided that the dealers are extremely pleased with the performance of the car and the team in their first year of competition, especially so since it appears that they will be representing Northern California at the National Championships in November.

Carl's right, David Martin now owns the car but I think Caneppa still maintains it. I'll send David an email and see what he'd like to do..... Bob

Hey, that's a cool thread, thanks for bringing it up and thanks for the kind words Carl!. Those shots were taken at Coronado Speed Festival last month.... While sitting there, Don Prudholme came by and started looking at the car. I asked him if he remembered driving it at Brainerd in 1978, and he looked puzzled for a second, and then i said i heard you blew the motor in practice and he said "oh yes, i remember that, but i didn't blow the motor, i just missed a shift and bent the valves!" Also, i was pitted across from John Morton, and he came over and was looking at the car and said he remembers driving it in 1974 in an SCCA enduro at Laguna Seca with Rob McFarland (the owner of FAR Performance).... Seems like they let just about "anybody" drive this car back in the day!!!!

David Martin recently purchased #47. We had a great Z turnout - 5 of us got accepted this year!!!! Dave Stone in his original #33 Bob Sharp car leading all of us, David Martin in the #47 Friselle car, Adam Carolla in the #38 Leitzinger 280ZX and Gary Cook in a #49 BRE Z and me with a broken tranny in the Walt Maas / Natural Light Z bringing up the rear....

Cool picture from this years Monterey Reunion at Laguna Seca.... http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradfordspeers/7813671916/in/photostream/ Bob

Look what Carl Beck found online - the Walt Maas "Giant Killer" in action. If anyone has any more photo's of this car, I'd really appreciate it! Bob

Back to vintage photo's, here are a few I found and haven't seen posted here.... The first photo is the pace lap at the Laguna Seca IMSA GTU race, May 1978. The Quality Inn car #71 is driven by Lee Mueller and he subsequently sold the car to Ramsey Racing who painted it the Natural Light colors. The other Z's in the photo are Sam Posey #33 (partially hidden), Frank Leary in #48 Fremont Datsun (who won the race) and Don Devendorf in the #83 Sun / Moon Electramotive Z. The second photo is from Portland, August 1978 with Dan Parkinson driving the Natural Light car (subbing for Clint Eastwood who replaced Brolin as the Celebrity driver) in the background and the 3rd photo is the same car in an earlier Victors Restaurant and Disco configuration driven by Frank Thomas at the Portland Trans Am race in 1977... Bob

Hi Black Gold Man, That video is exactly why I bought the car (and Tom saved a lot of $$$ because it was a tired old race car when I got it ), I've got the best view in the house of some really cool cars. Here are some more shots of the Z with some pretty neat other cars at the 2011 Sonoma Historics and 2011 Monterey... If you compare the car in the Brolin shot in an above post to some of the shots here, you see the hood needs the Natural Light decals - which I'm having added currently. Enjoy! Bob

Yes, I own the car and still have it. Based on the photo above that I just found, I took the hood to my graphics guy - John at Sticky Fingers Design - to put the Natural Light Beer decal on the hood. I got accepted to Monterey again this year with the car, so having a blast with it! Bob

I was searching online and ran across this photo of James Brolin and the Natural Light car at Lime Rock Park, May 1978. Hopefully the photographer has more pics of other Z-cars at the race. Bob

Hi Phillip, There are some photo's of the restoration work on Mickey's site, starting with photo #37.... http://cohenmotorsports.com/photos-projects.html I attached a shot of the car at Laguna Seca earlier this year.... I have more if you like.. Bob

Hi All, I finally figured out how to upload the in-car video from my 240Z to youtube for the Friday practice session... the racing starts at about 5 minutes and i eventually work my way through the traffic.... Enjoy! Bob

oops, Gary Cook from Sacramento in the BRE Z....

Hi All, Last weekend, the Navy hosted a vintage race, the HMSA Coronado Speed Festival at Coronado Island as part of the 100th Anniversary of the Navy Air Corps and Coronado Island Naval Base. Steve Cook (BRE 240Z) and me (Anheuser Busch Z) were entered in Group 6, production cars over 2.5L. Here's a video of the Friday practice session.... Enjoy! Bob ps, Gary and I have cool in-car video, so if i figure out how to upload... if you like Z's racing with the "big boys", on a small airport track, it's cool!

Hi David, Thanks for the compliment! I'll be at Coronado again this year, will you be there? I'm running in a different group (over 2.5L production cars), so I should be a little more competitive.... Bob