[Richard Hudgins]

Morris,

You are certainly correct about about Road Atlanta. They have cut the soul right out of the track with the new configuration.

The dip (or Bottom as it was called then) was was an expensive place for us however.

We had one Lola T210 and one brand new T212 that we were testing prior to the 1972 CA race. (These were 2 liter CanAm cars running BMW F2 engines.)

We lost four engines in two days right at the bottom of the hill. What a mess. Took out everything, bellhousing, gearbox, etc. Each time.

The cranks and main bolts broke in each motor. We did not have a clue what was going on.

After a couple of not too happy calls to Schnitzer (The engine builders) they sent over a engineer to look at the bits.

It seems that the G loading at the bottom of the hill was enough to pull the main studs out of the blocks. (As we were turning these devils 12.5k, they were on the limit in the best of conditions.)

The cure was to limit the revs in this section to 11k. We just changed 5th gear to limit revs and we did not break any more engines.

But, This change cost 1.5 seconds a lap.

Boy, there are a million stories of Old Road Atlanta. Too bad they are not all written down for everyone to share.

You would would of loved the early IMSA shows there. It really was run what you brung days.

By the way, I was just told that Mid-America Raceway is gone. Bummer. I really liked that track.

Well things change, don't they?