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Four Speeds and Drum Brakes: F1 in “Lost Wages”, Nevada

Growing up in southern California in the fifties everyone referred to Las Vegas as Lost Wages. Driving east to see family at Christmas time we drove through once and even stopped to look into one of the 4 or 5 casinos on “the Strip” to see all the flashing lights and people pulling the handles of the “one armed bandits”. The main road through town was only two lanes as the US Interstate system was still years away and side streets were still hard packed dirt.  

As the years rolled by and the city grew into the gambling center of today nobody ever thought about cars driving over 200 mph down that same street but they do today.  It’s called Formula 1. 

As the years rolled by and the city grew into the gambling center of today nobody ever thought about cars driving over 200 mph down that same street but they do today.  It’s called Formula 1. 

 Number one son, Rob, with more Hilton Honors credits than the Hilton family, invited the family to join him to watch practice and qualifying the week before Thanksgiving. The hotel was on the F1 course and the night sessions were a sight to behold. The course was just a series of crowded streets until 3 in the afternoon when the barricades went up and the course went hot. It had taken  over 2 months to set up a system that would turn the city streets into a race track in less than an hour and would take 2 months to take it all away when the racing was done. Because of  the potential heat and the European time difference (where the largest audience lives) the action was always at the end of the day with the actual race starting at 10 pm.

We were there to experience the event, not to actually watch the race because when a car goes past you at over 200 mph you really don’t see much. Especially 38 floors up. Rob had also snagged tickets to a showing of Wicked a day before its national release so we all had lots to do.  There were outdoor concerts, F1 displays and plenty of F1 gear to take home. Of the 300,000 who showed up, at least 3/4 of them were wearing the uniform of one of the 10 teams on the grid. 

Because of limited visibility, the plan was to leave town before the flag dropped, return to Phoenix and watch the race on the home screen that was as big as a garage door. The in-car cameras can’t be beat and there were dozens more on the course.  Most importantly we wouldn’t be trying to leave town the next day with everyone else on the two lane roads that lead back to Phoenix.  

 The travel to and from Vegas on Rt 93 reminded me of the way driving across country was before the Interstate highway system connected cities across America. When cars were slower and roads were just one lane in each direction passing was a real skill. A driver had to practice timing a lot to know when a space in the oncoming traffic would allow for a safe pass. Passing trucks was even tougher because they reduced  visibility even more than high spots or curves. The answer, if you knew the road, was to get on the gas hard (we’re talking VW buses here), run up on the vehicle ahead, take a look to see if the lane was clear, if it was, pull out and pass, if not , hit the brakes, hard.

 Cars today are so powerful that drivers don’t need to plan ahead. They just pull out, if it’s clear , hit the gas and they pass the car ahead. No skill and very little judgement required. The highway department that maintains Rt 93 even made it easier as they have signs posted announcing passing zones. Every ten miles or so there will be a “passing zone” which is a mile or so where the road becomes 3 lanes, one on the other side and two on your side. Not only makes passing slower trucks and campers easy but keeps drivers from trying sketchy passes because they know that a passing  zone is coming soon. Takes all the fun out of it. Nowadays we’re just trying to stay out of the way.

KTF-Tom Tate

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Four Speeds and Drum Brakes: Auctions in the Desert

The Holidays were over and Arizona was calling my name. There is nothing like a crowd under a tent with an open bar to set record numbers for car values. Barrett Jackson is the Big Dog in that space in terms of sheer numbers of cars and they have been dipping into the Porsche ranks the last few years. Gooding & Co skipped Scottsdale this year to expand their offerings at their Amelia Island event in March and it seemed that many of the Pcars didn’t want to wait. There were over 100 Porsches offered with more than 40 911’s. Most were late model water pumpers but there were a few notable air cooled cars.  The biggest number went to a 2005 Carrera GT with only 3300 miles on it. The car was originally black but the seller wanted a red one so he had the car disassembled, painted red and then reassembled. 

A color change didn’t seem to hurt the value as it brought $1.595 million. Right behind it was a low mileage ’97 911 Turbo S that brought over $600k and a ’18 GT2-RS that was close at $577k. The boys all voted for the 911R as the one that they wanted to drive home and a bidder with $445k in his pocket agreed. There was even a ’68 911 that got the Singer treatment (but not by Singer) that was a great package and pulled in $220k.

 

 

I wasn’t that surprised by the prices, everything is more these days, even my Social Security check. I was surprised to find such a list of super cars at Barrett Jackson, the home of Hot Rods and Corvettes.

Even more surprises were in store at the RM Auction. Top Porsche dog was a 959 that brought in $1.682 million with a ’93 Turbo S lightweight close behind at $962k and a ’94 Turbo S for $830k. Big numbers for old cars that can’t be driven to work every day. It does look like we’ll have more people chasing fewer car as the years roll by and that means higher prices every year. If you don’t have the Porsche of your dreams in the garage yet you really don’t  have a lot of time to get it. That’s what I told everyone at the PCA Annual Dinner in 1971 too.

The auctions were a lot of fun but I wanted to see a bit of the old west too so I borrowed Robs diesel BMW X5 and headed toward New Mexico on the old Rt 66. Driving to Gallup, NM I spotted a landmark that I remembered seeing from the back seat of a Studebaker on the way to Columbia MO from LA for Christmas at the Grandparents.

The Wigwam Motel is in Holdbrook, AZ and was constructed using concrete Native American Tee Pees for travelers rooms that could be seen for miles. It was still standing and while they didn’t leave the light on for me, they did park an examples of ‘50’s cars in front of each unit.

My parents always drove straight through without stopping on those 3 day runs and another landmark that we couldn’t stop to see was the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park. I always pictured it as a field of dead trees with different colored piles of sand piled up like a kid at the beach would do. Gas stations along the way did have clear glass bottles in their windows for sale (buy dirt?) with levels of different colored sand so we did have an idea what was over the hill.

 Of course it was a lot more than that and looked like a small Grand Canyon with trees that had been turned to stone. There are a number of scenic viewing spots and a Visitors Center where your tax dollars are a hard at work. A short history lesson showed the path of the trees started 215 million years ago (Maybe with Raquel Welsh? RIP) in what is now South America. I can understand while my Dad would never stop there, we would lose at least ½ day.

Most of the road is now Rt 40 but there are some sections that used to be the old two lane Rt 66 and are marked off with plaques to show what the road to the  west looked like 70 years ago. Certainly worth the trip, especially if you have a diesel in the family that gets 34 mpg and rolls steady at 100 mph

– Tom Tate

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