Bill McKee wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Bill McKee" wrote in message
...
Which brings up a classic sports car fanatic trivia question: What
did GTO stand for, as in Pontiac GTO or Ferrari GTO? It was an
abbreviation in Italian, but most people don't know what it means
even after you translate it into English. d8-)

Grand Tourisimo wan't it?


you could be competitive in a BP Corvette that cost maybe $3k plus
the car to build. Couple years later you were looking at $50k plus
the car.

I've got a good friend, Noel Park, that is still racing his '55 and
'57 Corvettes.


Friend I raced with, Paul Reinhart still races his 57. And he is 79
or 80 now. Still one of the prettiest vettes on the course. He was
a Union 76 dealer in Oakland and took a Trident oil can down to the
local paint supply and said I want these colors. Got them. He had
one of the first 63 Vette factory race cars. Sponsored by Cochran
and Celli Chevrolet. He and Bill Sherwood got them. Came with
factory disk brakes a year before they were available to the public.
Did not work as well as the drums originally. Paul complained he
could not get over 5000 RPM when driving the car from St. Louis to
Oakland. 3 oz out of balance crankshaft. Duntov went ballistic from
what I heard.

http://www.hmsausa.com/index.html

Here is Noel's shop.

http://www.jdcorvette.com/Mechnical/index.cfm

The white '57 in the bottom pic that's in the air is one of the two cars he
runs.
The '55 is yellow and the Duntov car that ran at Daytona IIRC.
Something like that anyway. It's a picture perfect restoration.

I looked through the photo's of the 2009 event at Laguna Seca and didn't see
either,
I hope Noel is OK and still racing. He really loves the entire deal and is a
terrific guy.
He and his brother Woody are sort of characters, in a good way. I always
enjoy my visits with them.

--
John R. Carroll