240z's First Race in USA?

[240260280]

Cumberland Sports Cars Races

May 17, 1970

Bob Sharp Car 33. New Datsun 240z

Unofficial report he placed 2nd in C Production. (Any official results for these races would be appreciated).

That is Fitzgerald in the roadster (DNF).

Passing Porsche in front of official's area.

Scoreboard in photo of Finish Line shows:

(44) Bob Tullius
(33) Bob Sharp
(38) Jim Fitzgerald
(4) Brian Fuerstenau

 

Well past Porsche in first corner after Finish Line.

 

Scoreboard in photo now is missing (38). Fitzgerald has dropped out. (4) and (96) move up.

 

 

Bon Sharpe chasing down (44).

Spoiler, cage, straight pipes, no advertising decals,  and fender badges. It looks like the GT-6 of (4) Brian Fuerstenau in the background ~ 1/4 lap behind Bob.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2017 by 240260280

[cbuczesk]

That's at the Cumberland Airport in Cumberland, MD. I've done their auto-x there a few times. It doesn't sound like it was the Z's first race - "Sharp, who was already running Datsun's factory-backed race operations on the East Coast, finished this race second in the C Production class.'' Here's a link.

https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hsx/2013/09/Skirmish-on-the-National-Road/3729371.html

Here's a link to the Cumberland races. There are some really cool photos of vintage racing. Penske and Shelby raced there.

http://www.nationalroadrally.com/tradition.html

Chuck

 

[26th-Z]

These are very nice pictures!  Your internet surfing moves are the ballet of a free-rider.

However

As I said in the "Crusher" thread, there is a record of Sharp finishing second in the CP race at Summit Point, West Virginia on April 12,1970.  And I provided the link to the website (which is a fascinating website collection of historic racing photos).  Sharp's entries in that archive list SCCA National races.  I wonder if Cumberland was a Regional?  In these pictures, the car has no front spook - interesting.  I'm surprised that there is no SCCA decal.  Back then, there wasn't much advertising on cars.  Everyone in the SCCA had pretty plain cars.  The cars you are looking at from Sharp and Group 44 were cutting edge SCCA racers in car preparation and graphics.  What a great photo of the 240Z squat with the inside front wheel up in the air!  Lovely suspension mods, Bob.

Now compare Sharp's record in his 240Z to John Morton's http://www.racingsportscars.com/driver/archive/John-Morton-USA.html

Morton / BRE was racing a Datsun 2000 in C Production registered as a 240Z on April 26, 1970 at VIR.  It doesn't appear as though Morton / BRE campaigned their 240Z until September when Morton won in Ontario on the 20th and Phoenix on the 27th.

What I get from this is the well worn rag about how Bob Sharp got the "crushed" show car quite early and well before Peter Brock got his.  Yea, yea.

[FreshZ]

are there videos of these races?

Sent from my LG-D850 using Classic Zcar Club mobile

[240260280]

There are some beautiful Sharp vs. Tullius jousts from later in the year and '71 on Youtube and elsewhere on the net. I was unable to find video for that race.

Edited January 26, 2017 by 240260280

[240260280]

7 hours ago, 26th-Z said:

These are very nice pictures!  Your internet surfing moves are the ballet of a free-rider.

 It comes down mostly to filtering out what you do not want.  Back in the '90's one struggled to find more content by using different search engines as there was not enough out there.  Now the trick is to use different search engines, disable trend tracking, use boolean to block forced results  to get any useful information. "There is gold in them there hills sonny! Just gotta dig fer it"

Now if someone could verify the Summit Point 240z or 2000 ride.  GnoseZ is meeting with the "horse" today so we should soon find out   Standby.

 

[240260280]

for the archives:

Summit Point Oct 1970

Edited January 7, 2020 by 240260280