Pagoda SL Group
W113 Pagoda SL Group => Photo Gallery => Topic started by: Garry on December 08, 2020, 08:09:12
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Joe,
This was not you was it!!!! ;D ;D ;D
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Great shot !
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Wow, an amazing photo. Talk about being at the right place, at the right time, with a camera...
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Looks like the whole diff just sort of left the building. Zapruder would be envious of that timing.
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Is that what happens when you hot rod your engine and forget about the drivetrain? :o :o
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Hi Gary, Nope, glad to say that was not me. However, I did the same thing many years ago in my MB 250/8 rally car. After a very rough special stage "creek crossing" (SCCA Pro Rally), the rear mounting bolt for the rear differential failed and the entire rear diff. fell onto the roadway, hanging from the axles. It was about 2 AM, deep in southern Ohio forest country. After hacking a rough hole in the rear fire wall, we hooked a cable winch to the roll cage and winched the rear diff. back in place and finished the event with the winch still holding the rig together.
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That’s amazing Joe, but not surprising that you would figure something like that out
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The man...the car...the legend...
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Thanks Michael! Powered by a M130 engine transplant, it did the job.
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For those of you not quite certain of what the SCCA Pro Rally was, or our friend Joe Alexander's participation in it, let me reprint what I wrote about this some years back on a bio of Joe...
In the late 1970's Joe built a highly modified 1968 250 S sedan to compete in the SCCA Pro Rally Series. Madmen who like to break cars and spirits created this nearly forgotten race series in 1973. These events were devilishly difficult on drivers and even worse on the cars, often with an attrition rate of 80%. The SCCA held these rallies all over the US on some of the most demanding secondary roads—if you could call them that—and forest trails in the country. They ran at all times of the year, in all weather, mostly at night and at full speed. Most of the field of competitors either crashed or suffered mechanical breakdowns. Factory sponsored teams from Audi, Datsun, Triumph, Toyota, and Fiat all ran this grueling series, with famous rally drivers John Buffam and Rod Millen competing. There were just two classes in the series, stock and full-blown modified; Joe ran in the latter. This class provided tough competition—his 250 was often the oldest vehicle in these events that he ran for nearly ten years as economics permitted. By the time he retired the poor sedan, he had rolled it; crashed it; and campaigned it from the Ozarks to the unforgiving Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He finished third overall (unheard of for a non-factory team) in one event, with some other good top finishes during that decade. Remember, just the word "finish" was a major accomplishment.
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The navigators in the rally car were the un-sung heroes. They calmly did their calculations with numbers, charts and maps while all sorts of dangerous havoc was happening all around them. These navigators were expected to be accurate, and timely and could only hope that their driver's ego, would not overshadow his common sense. A mistake in navigation or driving could be very dangerous for both.
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Good on you, Joe! Probably the most famous example of what Joe says about the importance of the navigator in a rally team is Dennis Jenkinson, who calmly navigated Stirling Moss to Mille Miglia victory in the 300SLR.
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Good on you, Joe! Probably the most famous example of what Joe says about the importance of the navigator in a rally team is Dennis Jenkinson, who calmly navigated Stirling Moss to Mille Miglia victory in the 300SLR.
And to Joe's point, many except the most fervent of race followers would say, "Dennis who?"
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Another un-song hero that comes to mind is Klaus Kaiser.
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Hi Mike H,
It's interesting that you mentioned Sterling Moss and Dennis Jenkinson in their famous Mille Miglia of 1955. I have a photograph of them during the famous race hanging in my office. The photo was taken by the famous Auto Photographer/Journalist "Jesse Alexander" (no relation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Alexander_
The Photo was taken and printed off the original negative by Jesse Alexander and signed by him. I won it after entering a photo of mine in a photo contest held by "The Star Magazine" Mar./Apr. 1998