The SHELBY AMERICAN
242 Fall 2015
THE LONG ROAD BACK.
3 pages.
Ford is going back to LeMans, fifty years
after they picked up all the marbles in 1966. And not with a vintage car or some
kind of a retro machine but a brand new, state-of-the-art GT40 which will also
be available as a street car. After building 4,038 2005 and 2006 Ford GTs and
leaving it to individual racers to modify and race them, this time there will be
factory entries for the entire 2016 FIA endurance race season. Our Ford GT au-
thority lays it all out. He will also be reporting about the first race at Daytona.
SAAC-22.
10 pages
. We set the Wayback machine to 1997 and head back to
SAAC-22 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The main attraction was
“American’s Longest Road Course” and at four miles it lived up to the name. It
attracted some historical cars (like the 427 Cobra Daytona Supercoupe) and was
almost the scene of a catastrophe when a tornado barreled onto the scene, forcing
everyone to retreat to the tunnel under the track. Fortunately it veered away
from the track but it made a shambles of the bratwurst dinner in the big tent.
2015 NORCAL MINI-NATS.
6 pages.
The Northern California region of SAAC
held their annual wingding at Sonoma Raceway (formerly Infineon and before
that Sears Point in case you’re having trouble following the pea under the walnut
shell). It was scheduled for the weekend before the Monterey extravaganza. Har-
vey Sherman provides an excellent event report and he and Bill Fulk contributed
photos of some of the cars that were there.
LA SAAC’s TONY SOUSA CAR SHOW AT THE SANTA MONICA PIER.
2
pages.
Almost everyone who watches television knows what the Santa Monica
Pier is. It is used as a background for numerous TV series that are shot in Los
Angeles. It’s a fishing pier and an amusement park. And once a year it is the
scene of a car show. SAAC’s Los Angeles region has finessed themselves into the
position where they are the only car club allowed to use the pier as the site as a
car show.
COBRA NED.
8 pages.
We grab the Cobra Registrar, Ned Scudder, and sit him
down for an hour or two and discuss his history with Cobras, how he got his start
in the registrar biz, and what he sees as the future of Cobra enthusiasm from
his unique perspective.When Ned Scudder speaks about Cobras, it’s like the E.F.
Hutton commercial when everyone stops talking and leans in to hear what he is
saying. After more than forty years studying, cataloguing and observing these
cars and their owners, nobody has more credibility.
THE CHECKERED FLAG.
5 pages.
Another handful of bright lights in the
Shelby World were extinguished in 2015. We should be getting used to this, but
you never really do. Each person who passes represents a piece of Shelby history
that is irreplaceable. We are better off for their having been among us, but we
nonetheless feel the loss when they are gone. Godspeed.
Blank spaces in this magazine make us feel like slackers.
They produce an itch we just can’t reach. The good news is,
we can almost always find an interesting picture to fill the
hole. Here’s an example. Our Monterey Motorsports Reunion
article was already completed when we received this neat
picture of Chuck Cantwell and Peter Brock, enjoying the
Monterey ambiance. We just had to find a place for it. We’re
not experts here, but it appears that these guys are having
way too much fun. Is there any way to even things out? How
about if they have to wear shoes a couple of sizes too small.