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Mini Demise

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aeronca65t

aeronca65t

Great Pumpkin
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OK, this is a neat old saloon-racing video from the '60s, with lots of Minis in it.

Unfortunately, it also includes the demise of a Mini. The crash looks like something out of NASCAR, except slower (the driver was OK).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWp-0TuY4Sk
 
Yes, the Mini was wrecked but what a "good" crash! Crashes are a part of racing. I hope the driver was ok. Those Cortinas (?) certainly looked good! Funny to see those "mammoth" Galaxies trying to make their way around the track. And the Jag just seemed to get left in everyone's dust. It must have been an MK1 with a 2.4??
 
As I recall the history, The Lotus Cortina's pretty much sent the Jaguars packing, and not MkI's with 2.4litre's but the MkII's with 3.8litre's. For a while it was also either a Lo-Cort or a Galaxie crossing the checkered first. It depended upon the track. The Galaxies were using Holman and Moody 427's (Nascar engines) and could not be beat on power. They would run away from everyone else on the straights, but they still used four wheel drum brakes. If they ran out of brakes, the Lo-Corts would win.
 
The timing of your post is ironic. I was supposed to crew for my father-in-law at VIR this weekend but other commitments kept me away. Mid-afternoon he called from the track and as soon as I heard it was him on the phone I tightened up expecting bad news. The YouTube video showing what happened to the Mini was what I was afraid of. Fortunately not though. He was only calling to tell us his lap times.
 
Yes, this was the event with the Wild Hare race. It was weird NOT being there. However, just two weeks before the event my father-in-law bought his own transponder instead of renting one from the track. We had a web link that allowed us to monitor his lap times through the practice and qualifying races as well as the race itself. It wasn't as good as being there, but it was really neat.
 
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