july 3-4-5, 1980 dearborn, michigan · tions—three more in dearborn and two after that in ann...

ou always remember certain highpoints in your life, but maybe notexactly the way they were. Did youreally walk into the senior prom

with the dream girl cheerleader from theschool across town on your arm? Was thatyou who threw the winning touchdownpass during homecoming? Did you scoopeveryone else and get your first Shelby farbelow market before anyone else knew thecar was for sale? And how about SAAC-5at Dearborn? Wasn’t that the best conven-tion ever?

Sometimes our memory is selective,and we remember what makes us happy—not necessarily what actually took place.Over the years, one melds into the other,leaving us with a pleasant memory of theoccasion. This seems to be the case whenSAAC members discuss past conventions.The first Dearborn convention is the equiv-alent of the shining city on the hill.

Dearborn was the most successfulSAAC convention yet. We tried to count thenumber of cars but there were so many,and they kept moving around, that wenever got an exact number. It must havebeen very close to 1,000. More than 1,500people had pre-registered and probablyclose to that number showed up as “walk-ins.”

There were a lot of reasons why thisparticular convention was such a success.In 1980, ten years after Shelby stoppedbuilding cars, there was still a strong con-nection between Shelby and Ford. The be-

ginning of the new decade was not a par-ticularly bright spot for performance. TheMustang II had evolved, in 1979, into thethird generation Mustang: the “Fox body”platform. The 1980 Mustang had fewchanges from the previous year. The EPAwas now exerting a great deal of pressureand influence on new cars, and Detroit’sengineers had yet to find ways of produc-ing reasonable levels of performance while,at the same time, meeting stringent fed-eral emission requirements.

In 1980, when the SAAC conventionlanded in the Motor City, the Mustang’s

The SHELBY AMERICAN FALL/2010 58

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The Graybeard Chronicles

July 3-4-5, 1980 Dearborn, Michigan

– Rick Kopec

top performance package consisted of a255 cubic-inch V8 engine, rated at an ane-mic 119 horsepower. The GT model had yetto be revived and performance was indi-cated by a fake hood scoop plunked downin the center of the hood. It was non-func-tioning. By comparison, the Shelbys werestill the performance high water marks inthe Mustang family. And they were re-membered by those who were still workingunder the Blue Oval. However, this wouldnot always be the case. As the yearspassed, SAAC continued to hold conven-tions—three more in Dearborn and twoafter that in Ann Arbor, using Michigan In-ternational Speedway—but with each onemore and more of the Ford employees whowitnessed the Shelby American jugger-naut, from the Cobra’s sports car victoriesthrough the Ford GTs’ domination at Le-Mans, either retired or passed away. Thecompany’s corporate memory grew hazy.However, in 1980 performance had notbeen completely forgotten and when theShelbys and Cobras came to town for theSAAC convention it was a Big Deal.

Also a big deal was the headquartershotel, the Hyatt Regency. It had 775 roomsand as a business hotel, they would belucky to rent ten-percent of them on a July4th holiday weekend. SAAC literally filledthe place up, making the hotel manage-ment very happy, to the point where therewasn’t much the club asked for that it did-n’t get.

The Hyatt Regency was a four-starhotel and back at that point in the club’shistory, most members were twenty-some-things and thirty-somethings, and manyhad never stayed at an upscale facility likethat before. They were used to Motel 6sand Holiday Inns. It was fourteen storieshigh with an atrium in the center thatwent all the way to the top floor. In themiddle of the ground floor lobby, a half-dozen glass, bullet-shaped elevators withstrings of lights on them moved people upand down. On the very top floor was arestaurant and bar that revolved slowly, afull 360-degrees, providing a commandingview in every direction. One of the mostprominent sights was Ford’s huge Rougefactory. In another direction was Ford’sWorld Headquarters, also called “Henry’sGlass House.” The gigantic blue Ford logoout in front left no doubt you were in theheart of Ford country and this was not loston any convention-goer. SAAC-5 had thefeeling of a college homecoming thatalumni get when they come back to town.

We were looking for a location for ourfifth convention that was somewhere be-side the east and west coast. We didn’t re-ally have enough members in the center of

the country to guarantee that a conventionin, say, St. Louis or Omaha would be a suc-cess. In those early days we were afraid totake a chance because one bad conven-tion—or at least one that was deemed notas good as the previous one—could be thestart of a downward spiral, leaving conven-tions as little more than small, regionalmeets. We needed to keep inflating the bal-loon, not letting the air out of it.

We had been having some contactwith Ford’s office of public affairs becausethe manager, Paul Preuss, was a perform-ance enthusiast who had been part ofFord’s GT40 effort. He remembered the ex-citement generated by those cars and hehad a real appreciation of the Shelby con-nection. Ford was also dipping its big toe

back into the performance waters andPreuss was one of the pointmen. In fact, hewas the one who had suggested a Dear-born location and using the Hyatt Regency.We looked at a map of the states withSAAC membership numbers and con-cluded that between Michigan, Ohio, Indi-ana, Illinois and Wisconsin there wereenough members to insure a successfulevent. Beyond those states were an evenlarger number and although not all ofthem could be counted on attending, weused the 600-mile rule of thumb. Therewas a good chance that someone would bewilling to drive their Shelby or Cobra thatdistance (about 12 hours) to attend a con-vention. Back in those days almost all ofthe cars were driven; very few people


owned a trailer unless they raced.A convention in a new location re-

quired an advanced recon of the site, so weheaded to off to Dearborn at the end ofJanuary. It was about a ten-hour drive andwhen we arrived at the Hyatt Regency wewere not expecting to see a 14-story blackglass structure lording over the flat land-scape. The first thing we did was cruisearound the parking areas and were confi-dent there was enough parking. We wouldlater be pleasantly surprised that therewasn’t and some people had to park theircars on the grass. What we especially likedwas that the outer edges of the hotel’sproperty were surrounded by a six-foothigh grass berm that made it impossiblefor anyone driving by on the nearby high-way to see into the parking lots.

We had dinner that night with JeffBurgy and his wife. He was on the club’sboard of directors. He was a local, as wellas a mid-level Ford engineer and his assis-tance was one of the reasons the conven-tion would be so successful. Jeff suggestedthat we might want to take advantage ofthe local drag strip, Milan Raceway. Thatturned out to be a great idea. The next daywe met with Paul Preuss and layed out our

plans for a national convention. We askedPaul if Ford had a track we could use forour high speed event. His first suggestionwas Ford’s proving grounds, which waswithin sight from the Hyatt—if you wentup high enough.

The Ford Proving Grounds. That hada nice ring to it. It was comprised of thereseparate circuits; a low speed track, a highspeed track and a smaller handling track.Best of all, it was only about a half-milefrom the Hyatt. And it appeared that Fordwould make it available without charge.We talked to the proving grounds supervi-sor, whose name Paul had given us, and de-scribed what we expected would takeplace. It raised several red flags with him.First off, the interior of the facility wouldhave only enough parking for the cars thatwould be running on the track. And basedon the number we estimated, space wouldbe tight. We might have to split everyoneup into a morning and an afternoon group.

There was another fly in the ointment:spectators would have to be bussed backand forth from the hotel on shuttle bussesdue to the lack of parking. We could hardlycharge people for transportation, so thecost of renting shuttles would have to be

born by the club. And as Ford would belegally liable for anything that happenedon their property, spectators would have tostay well back—to the point where therereally wouldn’t be much for them to seeunless they had binoculars. Another prob-lem was that there were likely to be proto-types parked all over the place, andFord—like every manufacturer—was veryprotective about their advanced idea cars.They wouldn’t be able to hide them duringthe time we were there, so no cameraswould be allowed inside the provinggrounds. We immediately envisioned our-selves as running around as the “camerapolice.” The more we heard about the FordProving Grounds the less we liked it.

We roughed out a schedule and beganannouncing details in The Marque in theJanuary/February 1980 issue. It would bea Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Saturdayevent, July 2-3-4-5. On Wednesday weplanned tours (one in the morning and an-other one in the afternoon) of Ford’s stylingcenter and the Rouge River plant. Theevening program would consist of a con-cours Q&A session. On Thursday wescheduled more tours of the styling centerand Rouge plant (they were only able to ac-

Jeff Burgy sent us this map of Ford’s Research and Engineering Center in Dearborn after our visit in mid-January. He highlighted the three provingground tracks. He also indicated the location of the Hyatt Regency [top right] and the Ford World Headquarters building. It all looked great to us.But the devil is, as they say, in the details.


commodate about 50 people at a time). Wealso put them on the schedule for Friday,along with seminars about specific types ofcars (Cobras, early and late Shelbys,Tigers, Bosses and Panteras running con-currently.

The parts swap was scheduled for allfour days out in the parking lot. Vendorswere happy they no longer had to unloadtheir wares and cart them into the hotel,and then cart them back out to their trucksor trailers at night. In the five years sincethe club began, a fair number of entrepre-neurs had popped up and were trying tomake a living out of supplying parts—bothused and new or N.O.S. Most were gettingthem from Ford dealers parts departmentsat a discount, and tacking on a little, butnever as much as dealers would get at fulllist. We were also beginning to see repro-ductions of certain items which had be-come impossible to obtain.

In March we discussed the provinggrounds’ shortcomings with Paul Preuss.It had become obvious to us that therewere problems we just could not resolve.He came up with another idea. Ford ownedthe former Packard test track in Utica,Michigan. It was a 2 1/2-mile banked ovalabout fifty miles northeast of Dearborn. Ithad not been used in years but it soundedlike it would suit our needs. We asked JeffBurgy to drive out and have a look around.He reported that there were weeds grow-ing up through the cracks in the concrete,but there would be plenty of space foreveryone. Things were starting to look up.

We also contacted Milan Raceway andfound out that renting a drag strip wasn’tas difficult as you might imagine—as longas the date you wanted was available. Fri-day afternoon and the weekend were outbut Thursday afternoon was open. Ratherthan get involved with classes or bracketswe tried to keep things simple: basicallyrun-what-ya-brung. If you wanted to runagainst someone all you had to do was lineup against them in the staging lane.Everyone got a time slip for every run, andthey became the currency for braggingrights if a time was reasonable. Or at leastlower than someone else’s.

As we tried to round the conventionschedule out Paul Preuss gave us the nameof Mickey Matus, who was working inFord’s Motorsports Department. He wasour age (mid-30s) and a performance en-thusiast like us. The main difference wasthat he appeared to have access to any-thing at Ford including their newest pro-totypes, Ford’s archives, racing programsand access to engineers. We saw him as thekid in Ford’s huge candy store. However,our perception was not his reality.

We made a list of everything we couldthink of, figuring that we’d never get it allbut if we only scored a couple, they wouldbe home runs for us. The list we sent toMatus included tours of Ford’s styling cen-ter, the Rouge plant and McLaren Racing.We envisioned groups of, maybe, 50 at atime scheduled in the morning and after-noon from Wednesday through Friday. Wealso put the Henry Ford Museum/Green-field Village on the list, asking about spe-cial discounted admission and maybe aspecial display out of public view whichwould include the LeMans-winning MKIV, the original Mustang I show car and ahandful of other cars the museum had

which were in storage. We also asked for aspecial Ford Motorsport display that couldbe set up at the hotel on Wednesday andleft in place until Friday afternoon.Itwould include Ford’s show cars and con-cept cars as well as some current racingcars. We also asked about borrowing 16mmfilms from Ford’s archives, among them“Progress in Total Performance,” “Returnto LeMans,” “No Margin For Error– Competitive Edge,” and “Ford Flat Out.”Naturally we would also need a projector.

We had high hopes and even describedsome of these activities in pre-conventioninformation we printed. Matus eventuallygot back to us, probably postponing the


news because it wasn’t good. We wereturned down for everything. We weren’tsure if we had simply asked for too much,if they had overestimated their ability toprovide assistance, or if they were afraidto provide too much because they mightthen be inundated by the dozens anddozens of other Ford clubs—and there wasa club for just about every model Ford evermade from Edsels to Falcons, Rancheros toWoodies, Model As to early Thunderbirds.SAAC was one of the largest enthusiast or-ganization but that wouldn’t mean any-thing to a 50-member Retractible Hardtopclub who would feel snubbed if Ford didn’thelp them out the way they helped SAAC.In making us happy Ford was likely tocause hard feelings with the other clubs. Awin for us wasn’t exactly a win for them.

We also approached Paul Preuss witha list of potential guest speakers. This wasreally more than a request for these peopleto join us. We knew that Ford would pickup their hotel expenses and maybe eventravel costs if they had to come from anydistance. Ford had deep pockets. On ourlong list were Homer Perry (one of the topliaisons between Ford and the GT40teams); Jacques Passano (Ford’s director ofracing); Klaus Arning (the engineer whodesigned the Ford GT’s suspension); FranHernandez (the Trans-Am boss); RonFornier (Kar Kraft); Joe Farkas (the FordGT program). Our list also included Car-roll Shelby, Al Dowd, Dan Gurney, BobJohnson, Ed Lowther and Dan Gerber be-cause we hoped an invitation from Fordwould include picking up some of theirtravel and hotel expenses. We didn’t havea budget for that.

By May we had a much cleared pic-ture of what the Dearborn conventionwould look like. We were able to get MilanRaceway for drag racing on Thursday af-ternoon. And we also scored the Utica testtrack for Saturday. Other convention activ-ities included the always-popular semi-nars, a popular vote and concours carshow, an outdoor swap meet that ranthrough the entire four days, and eveningprograms on Friday and Saturday filledthe schedule’s open spaces.

Paul Preuss suggested Walter Hayesas our keynote speaker. He was Ford’s VicePresident of Public Affairs and he had pre-viously been chief of Ford of Great Britainwhere he was head of the Lotus Cortinaprogram, Ford-Cosworth Formula 1 engineprogram, and Escort rallye teams. Oh, andand he had played an integeral part in theGT40 program. Also speaking were sus-pension engineers Klaus Arning and BobNegstadt and Cobra team driver Bob John-son (the first of many conventions he

would attend). Ford also got us the then-current Ford driver, Lynn St. James.

By the time we rolled into the HyattRegency on Wednesday we were aspumped as we’ve ever been just prior to aconvention. We were there a full day earlyand there were already dozens of carssprinkled around the parking lot. Wechecked into the hotel and could not waitto get into one of those glass elevators. Ourroom was pretty high up. The hotel hadgiven us a room for registration which wason the second floor, along a balcony over-looking the registration desk.

A word, here, about registration. Backin those early days of the club we operated

on the several assumptions which wouldbe proven erroneous by the next time wegot back to Dearborn (SAAC-8 in 1983). Weassumed that almost everyone who at-tended the convention was a SAAC mem-ber. After all, who would come to anotherclub’s convention? We also assumed thateveryone who attended the conventionpaid the registration fee—either in ad-vance or when they arrived. So we didn’tsee any problem with the registrationroom they gave us to use. It was difficult tofind even though we had signs with ar-rows, which the hotel’s cleaning staff re-moved almost as soon as they were tapedup. When someone got to the hotel they


first checked into their room and secondchecked out the parking lot. A lot neversaw our registration area.

Among the things we brought was abullhorn. We thought it would be usefulduring the open track, as the track atUtica did not have a public address sys-tem. Back in those early days we also hadnot learned to “read” Carroll Shelby. We in-vited him to the convention and he said“I’ll try to make it.” We took that as a con-firmation and in several communicationswith club members we said that Shelbywould likely be there. On Thursday morn-ing we got a call from Shelby. It was thefirst time we had received one of those andyou have no idea how special it made usfeel. Until, that is, he got to the point of thecall. He regretted that he would not be ableto make the convention. We put on a goodface and made a comment about, “maybenext year.”

Word out in the parking lot wasspreading quickly that Shelby was ex-pected. In a burst of unthinking excite-ment and with a devilish twinkle in hiseye, Howard Pardee grabbed the bullhornand stuck it out the registration room’sdoor and announced: “Carroll Shelby –please report to the registration desk. Car-roll Shelby – please report to the registra-tion desk.”

About two hundred convention atten-dees suddenly materialized and beganmilling around the hotel’s lobby and regis-tration area. Every time the revolving doormoved all heads turned, expecting to seeCarroll Shelby walk in. Finally we toldPardee he better do something to dispersethose people. He cracked the door, stuckthe bullhorn out and made another an-nouncement: “Carroll Shelby – please re-port to the parking lot. Carroll Shelby –please report to the parking lot.” Withinseconds the lobby was like a ghost town.

Thursday was car show day, with apopular vote show as well as a judged con-cours. Back then the concours show wasonly a mere shadow of what it is today. In1980 we were still feeling our way aroundand trying to gather enough informationwhich would permit the formulation of anunderstandable and equitable set of rules.That would not happen for a couple ofmore years. The popular vote car show wasmuch the same as it’s always been. Theclasses continually change, based on theshow committee’s expectation of the carswhich would be entered. This was not al-ways a perfect science but unless we wentto a strict show pre-registration it was thebest it would get. And that wasn’t bad.

The seminars were wrapped up earlybecause most people were heading out to

Milan Raceway to either participate insome old fashioned heads-up drag racingor watching it. This proved to be a verypopular diversion. There were probably ahundred cars filling the staging lanes, andthen blasting off two at a time. The quar-ter-mile gladiators kept at it until the sunwent down.It was hard to tell who had themore enjoyable time: the drivers or thespectators.

When the tire smoke finally cleared,the best story at the drag strip was whenCobra driver Richie Maccaganno’s clutchexploded during a banzai run, throwing afist-sized chunk of flywheel through the

cowl. ripping a jagged hole just forward ofthe windshield. Other, smaller pieces ofshrapnel, peppered the transmission tun-nel and the inner fender panels. One piecejust missed severing the brake and fuellines, which would have provided a chillingsight: a Cobra without brakes running offthe end of the strip on fire. Thankfully, thatnever happened.

On Friday morning the schedulecalled for seminars in the morning, and aspecial meeting for SAAC Reps in the af-ternoon. The swap meet going on in theparking lot acted like a magnet. Vendorsdisplayed their wares on the asphalt and


people wandered up and down the longrows, stepping over blocks, heads, intakemanifolds, aluminum oil pans and valvecovers. Back then this stuff was taken forgranted; today it would result in double-takes and dry mouths.

Everyone was on their own for dinner.The Hyatt had several excellent restau-rants and several others were sprinkledaround the mall that abutted the Hyatt’sproperty. The mall was accessible by anoverhead tram that stopped at the hotel.

The Friday evening program was at-tended by about 900 people. The speakerswere Dick Smith, the original owner of a427 S/C (which he still owned) and 1967SCCA A/Production national championwho was now campaigning his car in vin-tage races and “Gentleman” Tom Payne, aformer Cobra team driver and one of theindependents who led the ranks of Cobrasin national SCCA events and USRRCraces. Payne partnered up with Cobra andGT350 racer Dan Gerber to open Gerber-Payne Ford in Fremont, Michigan. At onetime, Payne ran for U.S. Congress. Thekeynote speaker was William Jeanes, anadvertising copy writer and well-knownautomotive journalist whose work regu-larly appeared in the pages of Car andDriver magazine. His articles about FordGT40s were among the best ever writtenabout those cars and his article on the1965 GT350, “Everyman’s Real Racer,”was the first major article to put these carsin a historical context, a bare ten yearsafter they had been introduced. Aside fromSAAC members, Jeanie was one of the onlyones to realize that the Shelby GT350swere historically significant cars. His dry-ball sense of humor and wry use of descrip-tive adjectives made listening to himinformative as well as enjoyable. Jeaniewas one of the principals of the legendaryBolus and Snopes racing team that cam-paigned a former GT350 Hertz car inSCCA endurance racing. The racing teamwas little more than an excuse to partyand Jeanie’ skillful public relations effortshad the intentional affect of ginning up theteam’s notoriety to the point where it’s ac-tual racing record was virtually unknown.

After the speakers, we shifted into thedoor prize drawings. For many local re-gions, the door prizes were one of the highpoints of the entire event. Those who puton the meet were like politicians betweenelections, constantly working the phonesfor donations. They hit on everyone theycould think of, beginning with local Mus-tang and Shelby parts and services busi-nesses and then working their way up thefood chain to larger and larger businesses.Occasionally they would get to the right

person at the right time and were re-warded by a set of Goodyear tires or fivecases of racing motor oil. We had stayedaway from this for two reasons. One wasthat we wanted to leave something uniqueto the regions who, in putting on theirevents, often looked to the national forideas and ended up mimicking us. If itworked for us, they figured it would workfor them. And it usually did, although on alesser scale.

The second reason we backed awayfrom door prizes was because our eveningprograms were much larger than those atregional events. The thought of watching750 or 1,000 people in the audience, listen-

ing to someone at the podium calling outthe six-digit numbers printed on thoserolls of two-part tickets, and then paradingup to the stage to get a pair of Mustangtaillight bezels or a weatherstipping kit fora Fairlane made us practically break outin hives. We’d spoken to the owners ofparts businesses who all told us theydreaded getting the solicitation phone callbecause they felt they couldn’t say “No.” Todo so would, they feared, brand them asnon-supporters of the club and leave themopen to whispered, backhanded commentsof “cheapskate” or “skinflint.” But whenthey did agree to provide something forone region, they found themselves moved


to the top of the future donor list for almostevery region (they all talked among them-selves) and their good deed backfired onthem.

Even though we had decided to stayaway from door prizes, we received—unso-licited—a set of Goodyear Wingfoots. Onething led to another and, before we knewit, we were doing the very thing we said wewouldn’t do. And just as the vendors hadtold us, they were afraid to say “No” to, es-pecially to the national club. The resultwas that we got things that, as one dealerhad described them, “had a birthday on hisshelves.” These were parts that they could-n’t sell, so they were happy to donate themand take a tax write-off. And we got stuffprizes that nobody really wanted. Not ex-actly a win-win situation.

By the end of the evening babies werecrying, people were walking out and wesensed that we were losing control of theprogram. To speed things along be beganganging the awards. Someone had donateda dozen t-shirts, thinking they would go toa dozen “winners” and his company’s namewould be repeated a dozen times, thus pro-viding plenty of publicity. We pulled oneticket and gave the winner 12 t-shirts. Thiswent over like a lead balloon with the ven-dor. Before too many people left we gaveaway the tires and a few other “major”awards.

By about 11 o’clock the evening pro-gram wrapped up but when conventionparticipants got outside for one last walkthrough the parking lot, many were rein-vigorated. It was July 4th so, of course,someone produced some fireworks. The un-mistakable sound of a high-winding Hi-Poengine could be heard out on the other sideof the grassy knoll that separated thehotel’s lot from the highway. It attractedconvention attendees like moths to aflame. It wasn’t long before almost a thou-sand people were standing, shoulder toshoulder, on the grassy berm as car aftercar headed out of the Hyatt’s parking lotand found its way onto the highway. Aseach car blasted through the gears pastthe crowd, it erupted in cheers.

Coolers of beer were carried from carsin the parking lot, and it wasn’t too longbefore a few bottle rockets made their ap-pearance. They were fired at Corvettes andCameras unlucky enough to be passing bythe Hyatt. The fun was shortlived. A dozenDearborn police cars materialized, red andblue lights twirling. The SAAC directorswere tracked down (in their hotel rooms)by the chief of police. He was clearly notwearing his public relations hat. He de-scribed what was going on outside as thebeginnings of a riot and gave us an alter-

native: either we got the crowd dispersedimmediately or he would call out the SwatTeam, accompanied by police dogs. Wewasted no time deciding.

When stories about SAAC-5 are told,the “bottle rockets being shot at Corvettes”episode usually figures prominently. And itis almost always embellished to the pointwhere the saga is unrecognizable to thosewho were there. While there is a touch offact at the core, this has become one of theSAAC urban legends that contributes tothe pedestal that SAAC-5 has been placedon in the pantheon of conventions.

Saturday was open track day and theweather was not favorable. There was in-

termittent rain, heavy at times, and a lotof people were writing off the track. Itlooked like the day will be spent in theswap meet. But in Utica, about 50 milesaway, the rain had stopped and the trackwas beginning to dry off. Word began to fil-ter back to the Hyatt Regency that thetrack was dry and cars were already run-ning. A migration began.

The Utica test track was a 2 1/2-mileconcrete oval, about four lanes wide, and31° banking at both ends. It had been builtin the 1930s by the Packard Motor Com-pany for testing and although presentlyowned by Ford, it hadn’t seen any serioususe in years. There were guard rails


around the outside but nothing on the in-side. The track just stopped and tall grasstook over. Everyone not running on thetrack parked in a field outside the trackand everyone who was running was di-rected to park on the inside.

The first thing we needed to do was todecide how we would configure the track.Should we run clockwise or counter-clock-wise? Before we made a decision, we de-cided to ask an expert. Bob Bondurant wasone of our guests. He was in town at thebehest of the Ford Motor Company andwas serving as one of their performanceadvisors. He advised us to run the trackclockwise, because that would allow thedrivers to see farther ahead when theywent into the banked turn. It made senseto us. Somebody have him the keys to theirAurora Cobra and he made a few test lapsat speed. He came into the center of thetrack and gave everyone the thumbs-up.

Run groups of about 15 cars had beenorganized with passengers permitted.Groups were flagged off for five-lap ses-sions. Passing was allowed on the twostraights but not on the turns. In hindsightwith the experience of running aboutthirty open tracks since Utica, this placewas a horrendous accident waiting to hap-pen. Fortunately, aside from a blown en-gine here and there, there were noincidents of any kind. But there certainlycould have been. Spectators at the outsideedge of the track found that they could seevery little, except when the cars werewhizzing past them. So they started run-ning across the track between cars. Carsthat were doing over 100 mph. Trying tostop them was like herding baby chicks. Assoon as we stopped some, others would popup 50 feet away and dash across. The Fordemployee who was overall in charge, intro-duced to us as the track’s supervisor, tookone look at what was going on andpromptly disappeared.

By the end of the day people began fil-tering back to the Hyatt. A sit-down dinnerwas followed by a series of guest speakerswho proved to be both informative and en-tertaining. Bob Negstadt was a chassis andsuspension engineer and he was the onetapped to design the suspension for the coilspring Cobra. He had also worked on theFord GT40 suspension. His supervisor,Klaus Arnon, also spoke. He designed theMustang independent rear suspensionthat never saw production. His work onthe Ford Gus was one of the first uses of acomputer for suspension design. Bob John-son recalled being offered a Cobra DaytonaCoupe and three truckloads of spares byShelby for $3,500. He turned Shelby down,flat. It was a stunning confession.

The keynote speaker was WalterHayes. He spoke with a great deal of au-thority and touched on Ford’s desire to getback into performance, but probably not inthe way they had in the 1960s. This wasgood news and better news. It was goodnews that Ford was still interested in per-formance and after the drought of the later1970s it would only be a matter of time be-fore they unlocked the secret that wouldallow the combination of horsepowerwhich could meet Federally-mandatedemissions levels. The better news was thatit wasn’t likely the new definition of per-formance would overshadow the Cobrasand Shelby Mustangs of the 1960s. They

would still be high water marks.We left this convention with a good

feeling. Ford was likely to be a strong fu-ture ally—as long as we didn’t try tosqueeze them too hard and scare themaway. We had to demonstrate that therewas something in it for them. And as longas we could cultivate people within thecompany like Paul Preuss we would be ina good position. If they were about to startmarketing performance, SAAC would be anatural to assist them. At this point wehad no idea where SAAC-6 would be, butit would probably be in California.


july 3-4-5, 1980 dearborn, michigan · tions—three more in dearborn and two after that in ann...

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