Slalom4me

After browsing the McQueen Le Mans thread I was prompted to search
out video of John Greenwood's Spirit of Le Mans cars. Odd to say, but
other than some footage of a CG version of the car taken from the
GT Legends driving simulator, no video footage of Greenwood's cars
seems come up for me at YouTube. If you happen to know of some
links, I'd appreciate seeing these.

Searching further, I happened to discover a site featuring the #002
Greenwood chassis built for IMSA competition in '77. In a twist on
the question, 'Where are they now?' - it is entertaining to look back to
see 'Where were they then?'

The following people developed and built the car shown below, recognize
any of the names?

- John Greenwood
- Bob Riley
- Charlie Selix
- Bob Urban
- Gary Pratt
- Emory Donaldson



.

TCracingCA

Good stuff. Alot of those guys are still out there. Greenwood was still marketing more modern car body kits. I haven't heard if he is still around. The Riley guy built some of the IMSA Chevrolet powered Intrepid's. I was at a vintage race in San Diego and saw them put the #75 Sebring Vette on a dyno (680hp). It went out and lapped in the Group 6 with a Can am McLaren and other interesting cars. I was cool to get photos of it with a Imsa BMW. I was up at Monterey in 2003 for the 50 year corvette gathering and saw some good racing, but my personal memory of the Greenwood vette coming onto the straight at Ontario Motor in a Camel GT race with Brumos Porsche and Al Holbert in tow is imprinted in my brain.

Also a few of the names you mention don't ring an immediate bell in my brain (Selix and Donaldson?) I collect alot of stuff on this racing and just downloaded alot of late 70's and early Imsa Corvettes from a website that I found here lately.

Lastly, I am not sure if I have seen race footage of this era. It is funny but I go to alot of events and prior to digitial cameras, I really didn't see too many cameras at events. Thus pictures and film footage is kinda rare.

parkerracing

Burt and John are enjoying semi-retirement with their sons running the business now. The "Riley guy" is Bob Riley of Riley and Scott, now just Riley Engineering. Building Daytona prototypes now if I'm not mistaken. The "Pratt guy" is Gary Pratt of Pratt and Miller, doing a little thing this weekend with some Vettes in France. More personallities involved here http://www.greenwoodcorvettes.com/Profile.html

Solofast

As Capt. Renault said (after he shot the Maj. Strasser) to Bogart in the movie "Casablanca"....

Round up the usual suspects.......

Bob has had his fingers in a LOT of successful cars. In addition to the cars mentioned above, in the early 80's he was involved with the endurance racing Mustangs that won their class at Daytona.....

mwvettec5

Everything you'll ever want to know about Greenwood's race cars from early SCCA years to the IMSA super Vettes:

http://www.greenwoodcorvettes.com/Racecars.html

Slalom4me

Usual suspects, indeed.

A story about how Mr Pratt and the 'Miller' guy of Pratt & Miller came
to be in business together appears in a C&D feature on Pratt from '03.
The Intrepid car figures large in this part of Pratt's background (and in
Tommy Kendall's, too.)

Sport: The Sphinx of New Hudson
BY John Phillips, June 2003
Car And DriverFootage of Tommy Kendall's crash driving the #65 Intrepid RM-1 GTP
(chassis #002) at Watkins Glen in '91. (The caption with the video
incorrectly identifies the car as a Spice SE90P.) Katech built the 6.0L
engines for Mr Kendall's and teammate Wayne Taylor's cars.

From the Greenwood site, Charlie Selix was a key figure in "AVC
Engineering, [which] built cars. AVC comprised Charlie Selix (machine
work), Bob Urban and Gary Pratt (welding/fabrication)."

Also from Greenwood's site, "Bob Riley was a Ford employee at this time
and his shop (Protofab) was closely associated with Jack Roush."

Protofab later became Roush-Protofab when Jack Roush partnered with
Mssrs Riley, Selix and Pratt to go IMSA racing in '85.

Emory Donaldson was with Full-Time Racing when the #002 Greenwod
was developed for John Paul Sr in '77. Mr. Donaldson is credited with
fabrication of the suspension control arms for the tube frame car.

In addition to fabrication, google shows that Mr. Donaldson also drove.
He competed in Corvettes at IMSA GTO events at Daytona in the l-70's
(including a drive teamed with Indy Car driver Lyn St James). In '83,
Mr Donaldson co-drove Motorsports Marketing's #88 March 83G with
the likes of the Whittington brothers, Ken Murray and apparently,
Hurley Haywood at Lime Rock? The #88 car had started the season by
finishing #2nd overall at Daytona driven by Marty Hinze, Randy Lanier
and Terry Wolters, it struggled at events later in the season. Records
show Mr Donaldson co-driving a Corvette in '84 with Lloyd Frink (now
the Zillow guy?) and a 935 in '85 with Paul Goral.

Instructive to look at examples of how innovators like Greenwood can
influence (and be influenced by) others around them.

Perhaps it is because of the series.

There is film of F1, Can-Am, Trans-Am, F5000, Indy, NASCAR and other
events. It is hard to imagine that there isn't video out there somewhere
of Greenwood's Spirit of '76 Le Mans car, his BFG and earlier cars that
preceeded it or those of DeLorenzo's Owens Corning cars.

I just need to look harder.

.

mrm

Wow ... great site and tons of information ... especially like the photo galleries ... thanks guys!

- Mark

0Randy@DRM

Doug got to test drive one of these back in the day. He got to turn one at BIR and said ohh Shix. Slammed on the brakes turned in and got back on the gas. He said after about 3 laps he got the hang of 800 horsepower, huge tires, and a ton of aero. About 200 mph down in to turn one is hauling the mail, still to this day.


Randy

C3-R

Check out this site. Tons and tons old vette photos and chain of ownership and provenance of old race vettes. The greenwoods are obviously in the C3 section.

http://registryofcorvetteracecars.com/ee/

On a personal note, had the chance to buy the old Garcia bros race car about 5yrs ago. It was a greenwood customer car. Still kicking myself that i didnt pull the trigger.

Racer Buzz

Hey..................

I ain't retired. I'm still here driving and racing my 700HP C5R Corvette in south Florida at Sebring, Daytona (soon again at the new Moroso) & Homestead.

I drove Mancuso's '76 Greenwood Corvette in 1977 (the same #76 Greenwood car that went 217 MPH at LeMans the year before) at Blackhawk Farms, Road America & Watkins Glen and I finished 6th in a SCCA Trans-Am race against some wannabe racers like: 1. Ludwig Heimrath, 2. Peter Gregg, 3. Tuck Thomas, 4. Monte Shelton, 5. Greg Pickett & 6. "ME".

You can still buy a Revell / Monogram 1/32 model of my #76 Greenwood Corvette with the names MANCUSO - FYHRIE - GREENWOOD across the top of the windshield.

SEE more at: www.buzzfyhrieracing.com

From the Greenwood Website under Buzz Fyhrie:

I worked with Rick Mancuso in 1977 when he took over control of the #76 from the Greenwoods right after the Sebring Race. At the time I also worked for Motor Sport Research an engine builder & speed shop in Des Plaines, IL. (Later became Pro Motor Engineering which moved to Moorsville, NC and builds NASCAR engines).

We built the engines for the same car for the 1977 season including the 24 Hours of Daytona, Sebring, Elkhart June Sprints, Twin Trans-Am at Elkhart & Watkins Glen IMSA 6 Hr. I drove the car at the June Sprints for the first time, then at the Elkhart Lake Road America SCCA Twin Trans Am Races where I finished 6th OA in the first Race on Saturday and then DNF'd with a broken pinion gear in the second T/A race on Sunday. I also drove the car at the Watkins Glen IMSA 6 Hour with Paul Depirro.

In the Spring of 1977 I completely disassembled the car right down to the last nut & bolt after we took control and then rebuilt it prior to the 1977 Elkhart Lake Road America June Sprints. At the June Sprints I started third behind the 917-10 of Randolph Townsend and Jerry Hansen's Can-Am Lola(?). I passed them both right at the start but eventually lost the lead and then several laps later blew the MSR motor at 170 MPH on the front straight. A big event!


Thanks for reading my BS
BUZZ

bjm

You were running in ASR weren't you? That was the year my Father won AP. Not many people running that year but still a fair amount of competition.

Locke

Last I saw of Emory Donaldson, he was crewing for Lyn St. James' last run at Indy.
He spent some time at Roush's road racing, saw him at the 24 Hours of Daytona when Mark Martin ran their Mustang back in the 80's I guess.
I have not seen him since but would like to know were he is now.
I was the gopher on the first road racing team he worked with. He was into drag racing but started working with Lamar Mann's vette running out of Daytona, FL.
That car later went to Cal Showkett (please pardon the spelling). I have a lot of hours in that car, wonder where it is now? Cal is running a vinyard in Calif.

Locke McCormick
Jacksonville, FL

Slalom4me

Racer Buzz, that is a nice site that you have. I saw the reference
to the library of movies you have accumulated - is there any prospect
of your footage of the #76 car or its siblings appearing on YouTube or
becoming available commercially?

I think this link shows the Townsend 917/10K car that you mention. The
story associated with the image appears here at ConceptCarz.

Here is a great tribute thread about Jerry Hansen on the Atlas F1 board.

It is possible there are those here who may not be aware of the significance
of your remarks about running against Mr Townsend's twin-turbo Porsche.
My vote is that the 917/10K and its successor, the 917/30k, were the
cars that marked the culmination of the original unlimited Can-Am
series. SCCA rule changes for '74 to limit fuel capacity from 80(+) gal
to 37 gal contributed to Porsche's ending its participation in Can-Am
because this hobbled competitiveness of the cars nicknamed the "Turbo-Panzer".

In '75, Mr. Donohue set a closed-course world record at Talladega in a
917/30K by averaging 221.160 MPH. For comparison sake, at the same
track, Mark Martin appears to hold the record for highest average speed
for a NASCAR Sprint Cup winner at 188 MPH in '97.

Clearly your experiences with #76 shows that these Greenwood cars
(and their drivers) were very formidable.

.

73-84 IMSA Widebody

The first car pictured is the Greenwood 77 GT/JLP "supervette" now owned by Steve Goldin in Fla., who has 3 of the Greenwood C3 racers, including the "Spirit of LeMans". The "Spirit of Sebring" #75, Lance Smith's x-car is being vintage raced by David Andrews in San Diego.
We talk pretty regularly with most of the Greenwood owners as we are always looking for parts.

We are listed on the Greenwood site, the registry of racing corvettes, and this months/June VetteVues magazine.

I'm probably a little prejudice but I don't think you can beat these old beasts for fun. Back in the day they didn't have a lot of rules, just alot of power and alot of tech still used today. Our biggest problem is the car is too damn fast. Our guess is that Buzz is very brave and probably just a little crazy

ctk30

This pic made me say holy **** out loud

ctk30

What part of your car is from greenwood?

Have you had it on the track?

73-84 IMSA Widebody

Greenwood/ACI body front clip 74-75 rear clip 77-78, Greenwood double adjustable A-arm coilover rear suspension, Greenwood/Stahl headers, Greenwood engine set back(12" back, lowered 4", to the right 4.5"), Greenwood tunnel, Sterling for Greenwood magnesium wheels 12" wide front & 18" wide rear, the rears were pulled off the #75 "Spirit of Sebring" car while John and Burt were housed in Sylvania Ohio in the same building as ACI(American Custom Ind.). Alot of tech. was shared/bought, such as lowering the body on the frame, suspension set ups etc. The Greenwood rear suspension was beefed up in 77 after a failure at IMSA MidOhio in 76 caused a bad crash.

The builders/racers of our car Group 7 Racing were contemporaries of the Greenwoods and being housed in Medina Ohio less than an hour from Greenwoods shops. group 7 had raced McClarens and Lolas in CanAm and built this car to move to IMSA with the imminent demise of the CanAm series.

We have run at Nelson Ledges, MidOhio, Watkins Glen and Beaver Run. Unfortunatly I am not the driver that most in this forum are but I'm still having fun.

A couple thousand photos of this car at http://community.webshots.com/user/david788

sundiego

Hi guys! I've got the Spirit of Sebring '75. I ran it last year at Monterey Historics, Coronado and Lime Rock Historics. On the dyno at Coronado it was 480 at the wheels, not the bigger number quoted above.

Early in 2007 I had a nut and bolt restoration done by Mike Eisenberg at MAECO in Northridge, CA. We only freshened the iron block in it. I'm having an aluminum block period motor being built that should put out the original 700 crank hp.

I ran it in the vintage IMSA support race for the Grand Am series at Laguna in May on the Sat. On the Sun I let the legendary John Morton run it. The engine died of old age, so the new one will be in for Monterey Historics. I'll drive, unless John Greenwood would like to(please!). I'll run Coronado in the fall. The acid dipped frame is giving us some wandering under braking, so we are working on that. Come visit in the pits at any event!

The Garcia car is in the substantial collection of John Goodman in Seattle. He ran it at Wine country Historics last year.

The first picture at the top of the blue tube frame car is , I believe the ex-John Paul JR. car. That one has been bought by Bruce Canapa, restored to the nth degree and available for purchase at his shop for your left nut and first born. Worth every cent, however, in my biased opinion.

Steve Goldin still has the Sebring '76 car and the LeMans '76 car. He was nice enough to say hello at Monterey. He showed the Sebring car at Amelia Island.

Lance (Greenwood) Smith has moved to San Diego(smart guy) and has a couple more Greenwoods for sale, including the swiss cheese car.

David

73-84 IMSA Widebody

Hi David, I stand corrected on the sale of Steve's JLP car. Good luck this year

sundiego

And about those rear wheels - I'm calling the cops.

Your car is an amazing commitment, both for you and your family. You've always accurately represented it.