Corvair people are often unique, dare I say “eccentric“, types who tend to view the world through a different lens. This may be especially true of us long time Bay Area people, from the “weirdos” out in San Francisco, to the fine folks in “Bezerkley” and our friends down in “Hayweird”.
Going back into the wayback machine, today we land in 1982. Your April edition of the Communique magazine just arrived in the mail. First class, naturally. Going through the pages you stop on a very entertaining article written by a very unique person, “The Romantic and the Stinger”, by Anatoly “Toly” Arutunoff. Enjoy!
Hello! I’m writing this on a borrowed typewriter and I just found out this electric machine is broken!
Well, on with the Stinger story: Back in mid-’66, a friend and I who had both previously raced in Europe decided to have a brief go racing a stock “racing equipment” Corvette overseas.
We thought it’d be a good idea to tow the thing with a Stinger!
First off, there was a long amusing incident with the highway patrol when the trailer was unlicensed and then broke, as this resulted in us getting off the N.Y. Thruway with one more axle than we got on with.
You should have been there!
Then the two of us, all sweaty and greasy from the trailer, attempting to check into the Plaza in New York City was another scene worthy of the Ritz Brothers.
When I get back home I will try to track down the records of the Stinger-for some reason I think it was #96 or 97, but that could be sheer fantasy-at any rate it was the stage 1 with the shortest axle ratio available–for towing, don’t you know!
Frankly, with the independent rear it was trying to sashay all over the road in the brief spell we towed with it. As to the car’s final disposition, I sold it to a friend of mine who rolled it off an earth dam down a 50 foot embankment, after taking out a dozen of those silver-painted wood posts bearing reflectors that lined the road across the dam. Before that it needed an overhaul; you see, we’d kited it around Europe for several thousand miles still running on the original oil, and I saw roadside oil change service station in Holland. They sucked the oil out with a wand, but unbeknownst to me, they then filled the crankcase with “flush” of some sort and sucked that out. Or so we all thought — with the baffling in the oil pan, I’m sure the next few thousand miles were run with about a third kerosene or suchlike in the pan!
In Europe, all we did was cut quite a swath, In fact, the late Formula 1 driver, Piers Courage, traded me his special factory-modified Lotus Elan for the car (I think I paid something like $3,200 for the Stinger, but again I’m not sure). Then Piers found out he’d have to come across with a few grand to Her Magesty’s Customs for duty on the car and we swapped back.
We went to Zandvoort to watch a GT race (Piers was driving on Charles Lucas’ Lotus F111 team at the time) and officials offered me about $125 to enter the race, so of course I did. I was gridded way at the back and it was raining slightly, but I told my friend with the movie camera to be sure to get the dynamic start I was gonna make, But what the rain and the open air ducts on the back cover, when I dropped the clutch, about a gallon of water hit the engine and it took me half a lap to get running on all cylinders. Then a friend of mine had an accident and I pulled into the pits and retired and went to see if he was alright. He was, and I got my money anyway.
The thing was geared so short that I was at the beginning of the yellow line as I came onto the straight, and even with the stock tires on the thing (I’m sure Yenko put something else on besides standard Corvair issue) I did a decent job in the wet turns.. Remember, this was in the day when super-side racing tires still had treads and were about 8″ across on the competition in my class, a few Shelby Mustangs.
The only other interesting thing involving the car, besides the wonderful time we had belting through the laces on the back roads in Switzerland, the mountains of France and north Italy, was the time we were stopped in the middle of the night by a surprise customs check some ways south of the Italian/Swiss border. The Carainieri spring out of the woods with their little lollipop batons and red flashlights and waved us down. Then the senior of the group went around to the back of the car and gestured for me to raise the trunk lid, of course!
Pokerfaced, I whipped up the lid and as the little light came on, began pointing out the doppia carburetori, refreddo da aria, etc, etc, etc while he tried his best not to be embarrassed in front of his men. There were a few seconds when no one spoke, then he gestured for me to shut the thing up and be on my way. About the time I hit second gear, I broke out into near hysterical laughter. Another great scene! The car was simply an incredible hit wherever we went–I guess its paint job at the time was pretty wild, in a conservative sort of way. The only thing to surpass it was the time I took a plus 8 Morgan to the Ferrari factory and all around Modena, There was always a crowd around that thing!
By the way, back in ’61, I raced my all black Monza (Corvair, of course), (4-speed and JC Whitney duals, also a tach), in an SCCA race as a GT car–the class that took in anything not classified elsewhere. We put a mailorder roller in the car (the bar weighed maybe all of 15 pounds) with a few carriage bolts through the floor with 1″ washers, no diagonal or longitudinal bracing whatsoever, and went racing. We had towed my Lotus 7 tp Stuttgart, Arkansas, with the car, and the diff had broken on the Lotus.
We then decided to race the Monza, of course!
My friend, a novice driver, did about five laps (I did have Firestone racing tires on the car, which on the street howled nicely from 45 mph on up and were absolutely treacherous in the damp, but they were noticeably wider than stock and looked neat) and then came in to the pits to report no brakes. Brushing aside the unskilled chap and muttering to myself about his lack of mechanical aptitude, I leapt into the car and blasted out of the pits. At one turn, I found out he was absolutely correct! I went sailing across a richfield, decided we needed to be certain of a mode of transportation home, and brought the car in and parked it. It was still fun.
I traded that car in on a 1962 Sutdebaker Hawk, with which I won a trophy at the ’64 Sebring 21-hour sedan race with 50,000 miles, the muffler, and the air conditioner on the car, but that’s another story.
Bring back road racing the way it used to be: the Austin, Texas, street races in conjunction with the summer Aqua Festival is a good place to start.
The entire Communique archive is available to CORSA members to download and enjoy. To join CORSA, click HERE.
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