This year’s Cruise-In was held back on August 6th from 3pm to 10 pm at the Milwaukie Bowl located on Harrison Ave. across the Expressway from co-sponsor Mike’s Drive-In. 69 fantastic awards were given out including 5 special Sponsor Pick Trophies. With over 136 Street Rods, Custom Classic Cars and Trucks in attendance including the local MOPAR Club with over 10 cars registered. Live Music was provided by Ron Ruedi in a fenced off special Beer Garden area. The Benefit for the Missing in America Project and the Veterans Lines for Life, raised over $2800 dollars for the two local Veterans programs sponsored by the Pharaohs Street Rodders. It was a great show complete with Dash Plaques, Special T-Shirts, $1.00 Root Beer Floats & Hot Dogs and Chips plus special Glow Bowling games all day inside. Dirty Dave the Record Slave played Golden Oldies on request till 6pm to the hundreds of people in attendance.

Thanks to all for helping raise funds for our local veterans programs and thanks to all the volunteers making this year’s Milwaukie Cruise-In show one of the best ever.

Have you ever noticed that when you retire everyone asks, “How’s retirement?” “What are you going to do now?” I just retired after 35+ years from a great job with NAPA Auto Parts and I started to think about my bucket list; how I now, could possibly get some of the things on my list checked off.

Last January I happened to see an ad for the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion featuring the 50-year anniversary of Can Am and Trans Am race cars. This has always been part of my bucket list before I even knew what a bucket list was. You know, sleek bodies, big tires, tall velocity stacks, giant wings… cars that go up to 185 MPH: McLaren, Lola, Shadow, Ferraris… I could go on and on. As a gearhead I have always loved auto racing, of course, and the Can Am cars have always been my favorite.

Let the adventure begin!

Leaving Albany with my good friend Steve Veltman, heading south on I-5. All adventures are not without problems. We found out that because I had made our motel reservations in January when our American Express card through Costco was still the card we always used, I hadn’t thought about the fact that when the motel tried to charge AmEx for the reservation now, that it wouldn’t got through. Of course not… I called the motel only a few hours after receiving the dreaded “transaction denied” notification that came in at 3 AM, but the motel had already given our room away and had no ideas to help out, only saying “Doubt there’s any rooms in the Monterey area, it’s a race weekend.”

As we drove down the road I made contact with my cousin, Pat, in Gilroy, CA. Thank you! She had a place for us to stay that night. Meanwhile, back at home my wife was searching for a place for the rest of the weekend. She found one closer to the track than the original place, only costing twice as much instead of the 3-4 times as much as thought it might be.

Arriving at the track, I was completely overwhelmed seeing cars that I had only seen in magazines and on TV. The historic race is a giant event with cars from all of the US, Europe and Australia. Can Am cars more local to me, the Tacoma area, Willamette Valley and the southern Oregon coast area had representation.

We Took a break from the races and went to the Canepa Motorsports Shop open house. There, they restore vintage race cars and have a museum. We saw cars such as the 6 wheel Tyrell Formula 1 car, Le Mans winning Porsche and Ferraris. What a great place to visit! Twice! I left one of my cameras there. They watched over it for me until I could get back on the way home. Back to the races…

Thank goodness for shuttles. The Mazda Raceway is not level as it is built in a valley. The races go up and down hills on the course. At the top of the highest hill is a turn fittingly called “the corkscrew.” It is an S curve that drops three stories in less than an eighth of a mile. Pretty impressive to watch the cars come around at the top and follow them down the corkscrew!

In the pits was where I saw one of my favorite Can Am cars, a 1971 Shadow Mark II. It has small diameter tires, extreme aerodynamics and a Chevy V-8 engine that has approximately 800HP! I met the current owner, Dennis Losher and we were able to talk for a long time about the car. He even let me sit in it! Getting into a Can Am car is feat in itself-put your hands here, don’t touch this, don’t touch that, stand on the seat, (yes the seat), straighten your legs, slide down into the seat. Squeeze and wiggle, then you’re in! I could imagine what it is like to race this car. You can’t see the front end because it drops off so quickly-better aerodynamics. The engine is right behind you and the velocity stacks are right above your head. Pretty amazing.

While I was in the Shadow pit area, I met Don Nichols, designer and engineer of the first tiny tire Shadow. Even at the age of 93 he is still sharp. He told me how they built the front suspension with small coil springs the size of engine valve springs.

I also got to meet up with a former co-worker and his McLaren M8E/D Can Am car. His car was on display only-oil and coolant don’t mix, possibly a cracked block.

If you think traffic in Portland is bad, try the Monterey Bay area with the historic Races, Pebble Beach Concourse D’Elegance Car Show and several auto auctions and car shows going on at the same time!

We also watched vintage Formula 1 Races. They were exciting, loud and fast Lotus, Brabham, Ferrari, March and Tyrell race cars.

The Trans Am cars were just brute power, fast and loud. Muscle cars you see on the street: Mustangs Camaros, Javelins and a Dodge Challenger were represented there. Quite something to feel and hear.

Getting older is interesting. Leaving behind some important things was humbling (did I mention my glasses?). I left them in a restaurant and got them back also. But I did quickly get into my new habit of checking as I stood up to go anywhere: wallet, glasses, phone, keys-wallet, glasses, phone, keys… so with help from family, old and new friends and my wife who is not afraid of computers, I was able to check one thing off my bucket list. It was a memorable weekend and my own bed never looked and felt so good!

The GoodGuys host three-day weekend, first class car shows all over America every year starting in March and continuing through November. We, here in the NorthWest are lucky enough to get two of these events right here in our own back yard, one in the Seattle area, Puyallup Washington and one in Spokane. Pleasanton California, their home turf or kinda where it all began, gets four shows a year. Definitely worth the drive from almost anywhere out west and beyond.

I’ve been going to these long before Roddin’ & Racin’ NorthWest ever started but I have to say that this year’s 29th WESCO Pacific Northwest Nationals at the Washington State Fair Event Center in Puyallup Washington was really a great one.

There seemed to be tons of cars in attendance that I had never seen before. It’s really gratifying to an old car enthusiast like me to see that our hobby is going strong, in large part thanks to organizations like the GoodGuys Rod & Custom Association. Memberships and info are available on line. www.good-guys.com. The 2017 schedule isn’t out yet but check back on their site or better yet become a member and you’ll be notified when the new year schedule is out and come check out the fun next year.

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I remember the photo on the cover. It was the August 1969 issue of Road & Track magazine. Pictured is a slender, bearded man with a receding hairline. He is wearing a dark two piece suit and a skinny black tie. He is gazing downward and smiling. At his feet is a prototype of the flattest, lowest profile race car you have ever seen. It is the original Shadow Mk. I and man photographed beside it is its owner, Don Nichols.

Mind you, the concept was not his own. A 31 year-old designer named Trevor Harris conceived of the idea and Nichols decided to finance it. Nichols was a virtual unknown in the southern California racing scene at this time. He was a former Military Intelligence officer who had made his fortune in Japan. He had been a major motorsports figure over there, importing tires and parts, even promoting racing.

To achieve the ultra-low stance, the Shadow needed small (but wide) racing tires which Nichols convinced Firestone to make for him. The project generated a ton of publicity but the concept didn’t really work. The Shadow was entered in a handful of races in 1970 but failed to finish any of them. What was essentially a go-cart with a fuel injected Chevrolet V-8 engine, rocketed down straightaways and resisted turning. The Mk. I was parked before the season ended.

For 1971, Nichols hired two Englishmen who had proven track records. Designer Peter Bryant would pen and construct an all new Shadow and Formula One ace Jackie Oliver would drive it. The Mk. II had bigger wheels than the original but smaller than their competition. Other than that, the rest of the racer was pretty conventional. Nichols also procured Universal Oil Products (UOP) as a sponsor. It was an association that would forever link them with the Shadow racing team. The Bryant/Oliver effort was competitive from the get-go but failed to finish many races.

By their third year racing, the Shadow Team had abandoned the small tire concept. The Mk. III was the Mk. II chassis reworked and fitted with normal size tires. Bryant and Oliver continued to run up front but couldn’t win and still suffered reliability issues.
Aspiring to race Formula One and feeling an obligation to his sponsor, changes were mandated for 1973. Nichols retained Oliver but released Bryant and moved his entire operation to England. There he employed the services of Tony Southgate to design a new sports racer as well as a Formula One car. The team had been experimenting with a twin turbo charged engine for the two-seater and Southgate designed the DN2 with that in mind. Unfortunately that engine was never fully developed so the new Shadow was forced to soldier on with a weight disadvantage. The results were predictable; Oliver remained competitive but zero victories were achieved. Meanwhile Shadow’s Formula One debut (DN1) in which Oliver also contested along with original Shadow pilot George Follmer, fared better. Both drivers captured third place finishes in an inaugural season filled with ups and downs.

Southgate refined his two seater design around the normally aspirated Chevrolet for ’74 and produced Nichols’ first winner. Oliver and Follmer dominated the final season of unrestricted sports racer competition, frequently bringing their DN4’s home first and second.

The team’s fortunes in Formula One were mixed. There were successes like when Jean-Pierre Jarier captured the pole position for the first two races in 1975. Brit Tom Pryce won a non-championship race for the team in ’75 but then was killed driving a Shadow in the South African Gran Prix two years later. Aussie Alan Jones claimed Shadow’s only Formula One victory in Austria in 1977 then left the team to drive for Williams. Both Oliver (who had stepped out of the driver’s seat and was now in a management role) and Southgate left Shadow at the end of that year as well, to form a team of their own. Ultimately Shadow lost UOP as their sponsor and by 1980 they were struggling just to make the starting grid. Late in the ’80 season, Chinese businessman Teddy Yip simply absorbed the Shadow team with his own and Don Nichols was out of racing.

Thirty six years later, the only place you’re able to watch a Shadow race car at speed is at a historic racing event like the Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Here, there are a surprising number of Shadows, between the sports racers and Formula One cars, they total nine.

But a bigger surprise still, is when we find Don Nichols himself hunkered down in a lounge chair in the Mk II’s pit. At ninety three, he is content to sit in the sunshine and simply soak in the atmosphere. On his face is a knowing smile, not unlike the smile that appeared on the cover of that magazine so many years ago. Out on the racecourse, a pair of DN4’s are pulling away from the field…