Video: 1950 Santa Ana Sports Car Races

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The 1950 sports car races at the Santa Ana Blimp Base, was one of the first major west coast sports car races. The race featured many future stars of international racing. For the winner Roy Richter, this would be his first and last sports car race. Roy owned Bell Auto Parts and had a license to sell Allard J2's on the west coast, much to the frustration who had the license to sell all other Allards in the west. Anyway, Roy's wife was out of town, so he decided the best way to get the word out on his new business venture was to do some racing. Roy won the race and gave the J2 one of its first race wins. Unfortunately Roy had to give up racing once his wife returned home. Incidentally, this video features what is probably some of the first in car (color) footage. Enjoy!

A few walk arounds of old #65

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Seeing that video the other day of that poor guy attempting to drive Bob Lylte's J2X inspired me to dig through my Monterey archives. I put together the footage you see here of Bob getting ready to practice at Monterey in 2006...and of Bob's car just before it was auctioned at RM. Seeing this footage was bittersweet and brought back a lot of fond memories. In the next week I'll post a gallery that shows off the guts of J2X 3162...I doubt you've ever seen a J2X like it. Cheers!

Racing Videos...

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A special thanks goes out to Cliff Reuter of www.Etceterini.com for aquiring the video collection of the late Suzy Dietrich and digitizing it for us all to enjoy. In this video you'll see a bunch of Allards...bonus points to anyone that will do the research and tell us who is driving what Allard. In this video, we get to see:
-1952 SCCA Giants Despair
-1952 Grand Island
-1953 Chanute AFB

Enjoy!

Ouch!

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Killed Myself When I Was Young from The Jalopy Journal on Vimeo.

Pay close attention at the 1:24 mark, you'll see a few Allards where one unfortunate driver hits a tree on the drivers side. In the next shot you see a close up of the car and then it cuts to what appears to be the driver walking away. Does anyone know who the driver is? He appears to be wearing a scandinavian (backwards) flag on his coveralls...perhaps the shot was reversed?

Demolition Derby - Allard Style

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Special thanks to David Brown for letting us know about these videos from Mildenham in the UK. If you look carefully, you will find an Allard P1, aka "The Jackal" racing and wrecking it's way around the track.

Mike Knapman from the AOC was able to track down some info on the car, here's what he found...

"The car was donated to the racer on condition that it must not be sold before it was raced. The car had stood in a garden for a very long time so dash had rotted away and wings about to fall off.  Rear axle and engine scrapped. Rear axle now a Ford Transit and the engine is from a Granada.  Other drivers were not happy about the strength of the Allard's chassis.

 In first race one steering arm broke but was welded. The P1 made it to the final "Destruction Derby" less its bodywork but clad only with its roll-cage and heavy gauge race mandatory roof. It was one of last three cars left running and received an award for Best Entertainer. A fitting end for a P1 maybe, but not necessarily the final curtain."