A friend, Rich Deal from Athens, bought a retired Indy car from Chip Ganasi Racing. We rented the track at Roebling Road in Savannah to run it and a few other cars. I took the Euro.
What an amazing car the Indy car! I was hauling down the straight away (about .6 mile long), when I was at the grand stand area, mid way, I saw him come around the corner. Next thing I know he passed me, and I was doing 140! It was unreal, zoom and he's gone, I was total blown away watching him go by then back to reality...holy sh*t here's the turn. I thought I was doing well with my turns and apexes, turning in a lap time of 1 minute, 14 seconds. Rich was in the middel of the track, getting used to the car and did 45 seconds w/o pushing it! It drove like on rails. Starting it was like something from the space shuttle, a major check list and he had a separate setup to heat up the block, the heat up the oil, and finally start it. What an amazing day! We plan on doing this again in the spring.
BTW, later that day I took Rich for a ride in the Euro, and he was impressed, said it pulled really strong! This being said after spending the afternoon in the Indy car.
Happy New Year, Ed M

 

Nice......the gold foil on the intake is worth more than most 928's

 

$5000/roll, We joked that if they lost their sponsor, they could always pawn it to get home.

 

What a cool experience.
Most events will not allow open wheel cars to run with "tin tops" for obvious reasons. A small, private event like that would be awesome!
Does your friend have any former experience with pro-level open wheel cars?

 

Way cool, way cool!

 

Great story!

 

Wow Ed, very cool. Do you think you might get the chance to drive it once the shine wears off? That would be a chance of a lifetime. Either way it's really cool that you get to be a part of that. Have fun

 

I don't think the shine can ever wear off this. I was smiling as soon as I saw the pics! What does it take to up keep a car like this?

 

 

Very cool. Thanks for sharing!

 

I think I'll just watch. I don't think I could fit anyway. I'd be too scared to break anything and not focus on driving.

 

I'll never understand how AJ Foyt fit into a modern Indy car.

 

He he he....

 

Too Cool. I read a story on a rent-a-F1racer for a day program and apparently the talk amongst the crowd was not being suprised how well these cars track in the corners, but how difficult they are to manage going down the straights. I guess they are quite a hand full.

 

Very cool story Ed!

I had a friend that bought an older Indy car several years back. It was a March 87C chassis with a Ford Cosworth V8 turbo motor, ex Buddy Lazier car. I immediately nominated myself as crew chief! Motor was fresh, but car had sat for a year so we had some fun with fuel leaks, etc. Fun times finding the right fuel, tires, and other things. Best time was firing it up and him running it briefly around the neighborhood... People came pouring out of their houses wondering what the heck THAT noise was! Police eventually showed up as the car was sitting back in front of the house and we were looking at the motor. He said they had got the strangest report down at the station about someone driving a race car through the neighborhood... and if we knew anything about it. We said we didn't know anything about that, and were just getting ready to roll the Indy car back into the trailer. The kind officer said he didn't think we knew anything about it either... and to have a nice day... as he watched us load the car up.

BTW, it is pretty shocking at how inexpensive some of these cars can be purchased for...