What happened to the Mulholland "King of the Hill" RSR?

[dd74]

Originally posted by SSB

I just remembered I have an article from the LA Times where Shav Glick covered our move from Mulholland to the Renault Cup. I'll look for it.

Years ago, I worked with Shav at the LA Times. Yes, he brought up Mulholland a couple times. Paul Dean, the old car test writer for the LA Times also knew Mulholland fondly. It definitely held acclaim to the local LA media scene.

I agree that only after Dave, Tyson and Jeremy at TRE introduced me to the idea of track days, did I back off on Mulholland. It's weird how that works that once you have a time or two on a race course, suddenly your street driving mellows - mine has.

Besides, as I may have said, Mulholland now is so overpopulated with tourists, cyclists and runners, it's difficult to maintain any sort of speed up there. Hell, I've almost hit a coyote or two while driving up there.

[TRE Cup]

"Hell, I've almost hit a coyote or two while driving up there"

indeed.... Paul B had a totally set up Fiat 850 coupe- it was totaled by a deer on Coldwater Canyon and Mulholland one night

Another time I was driving this guy's Capri V6 one night , lights off under a full moon. As we were flying thru the sweeper east to Carl's turn, the Sh#t was just about scared out of me when a huge pair of eyes appeared at the A pillar passenger side with a loud THUMP ! Oh my gawd! I must have hit some hapless night jogger?!?!?
Nope- the dazed and somewhat confused deer shook its head and bounded over the side back into the brush. The capri only needed a new antenna- phew!

Now THAT gives you some pause for thought doesn't it?

[SSB]

indeed.... Paul B had a totally set up Fiat 850 coupe- it was totaled by a deer on Coldwater Canyon and Mulholland one night

How many times was that car totaled? I thought Beverly Glen and Valley Vista was it demise.

[TRE Cup]

you are correct sir: - it was the white 850 coupe that got nailed by the deer on Coldwater. Paul wiped his blue coupe by himself after a CRE meeting at Miller Datsun when he hit some water at speed

yah- yah - aged memories not always like fine wine

[lfot]

Here's the Hot Rod article sent to me by SSB.
I converted it to jpeg for all here.

[lfot]

[SSB]

Oh ya. Now I remember Shav Glick. Didn't get all the facts right but we did get 3 articles in the Times from him. This one is about going to Road Atlanta with the SSA Mustang (named Fang - the only car I've ever driven that can understeer & oversteer at the same time - scared many a corner worker with that car )

[groundeffect]

Hey Dave,

What ever happend to Paul B? Last time I heard he had gone to college in Detroit for an auto engineering career.

I remember that Blue 850 coupe well. Paul had that thing tweeked to the nth degree with a PSB engine and all the suspension mods. He surprise many larger displacement cars. Paul also had so many watts of landing lights on that thing that the engine idle would drop a couple hundred rpm when he turned them on!

[dd74]

Originally posted by TRE Cup
lights off under a full moon.

"Lights off" LOL. I hard-wired my rally-spec Fiesta so that when I raced up there, only the headlights and brake lights came on - no running lights or tail lights - for obvious LAPD evasion tactics. Of course, the race exhaust gave away the car's presence, and it didn't help the car was a brighter yellow than my 911.

I ran Marcel Ampliluxes and big Cibies, all with 100-watt bulbs. People said from the Dead Man's to Grandstands, my car's illumination looked like searchlights. Some people thought I was the cops.

[ttweed]

Originally posted by lfot
Here's the Hot Rod article sent to me by SSB.
I converted it to jpeg for all here.

Thanks for doing the conversion, lfot! Victor sent me the article yesterday too, but I was at a PCA autox all day and didn't check my email until this morning. You had already done the job, so I'm a day late and a dollar short, as usual.

TT

[Jeremy Cottrell]

OK, deer story #1: Travelling east I was entering the Sweeper pretty quickly, however having done a westbound run I knew that there was water running through the 2nd apex. So this time I was ready, I set my VW Rabbit up to run straight through the water at full throttle and shoot down the hill safely toward the chicane leading to Carls. Well, to my surprise, there was a face looking at me as I entered the water! "Oh crap!", I believe was my reaction. With wet tires, I managed to make an evasive actiion and just caught the hild leg of Bambi's sibling. He ran off, and I was picking up what was left of my 4 light grille and Cibies.

Deer story #2: Running westbound past the European Straights, I was hard on the throttle through the slow left hand uphill corner in my Tangerine 72 911T. I had a young lady with me at the time and she seemed to be enjoying the thrill of the 3.0 liter powerplant breaking the rear tires loose and giving us a little wiggle up that hill. Until yet another of Bambi's relations popped out from the right side and onto the street. He must have been running up the side of the hill, and just launched himself up and onto the street quite suddenly. He looked like he had just been dropped from the sky! Another oh crap, and another evasive manuver and I had a busted H1 headlight, and a crumpled left front fender. The deer ran off, and I was left to bend my fender back into some recognizable shape to make it home. My romantic interlude dashed by nature. I guess it was just not meant to be.

[groundeffect]

Now a story that is not so funny:

Mulholland doesn't have a lot of runoff...in fact there is none. More than one newbie found himself climbing out of a ravine...if he was lucky. A particular case comes to mind...

A newbie started showing up at the pits with his new "acid dipped" Camero. A nice car, lowered with a nasty V8...but it takes more than appearances to survive Mulholland. Egos, speed, and a cliff were a deadly combination in the '70s.

Sure enough, this Camero pilot thought he would give us a show...he left the pits in a cloud of tire smoke as he raced down the sweeper. We watched for his headlights exiting Charlies's turn....but there were none. Someone screamed "he went over". Charlie's turn, the tight right-hander, had claimed another victim.

We all jumped into our cars and raced down to see what happened. As we arrived, the driver had climbed up out of the ravine, luckily he was not injured. He was sure the car was "OK" because he "drove" it straight down the hill and it didn't roll. Mulholland veterans knew better. Once the tow truck had their way, the car would be totaled.

We watched and waited. Sure enough, the tow truck driver didn't even bother to close the drivers door when they pulled it up. The driver's door was sprung all the way forward to the headlight, and every corner of the car was crushed. It was sad but the reality is that the tow drivers are only interested in the weight if the victim...be advised.

[VZ935]

Originally posted by groundeffect
A newbie started showing up at the pits with his new "acid dipped" Camero. A nice car, lowered with a nasty V8...but it takes more than appearances to survive Mulholland. Egos, speed, and a cliff were a deadly combination in the '70s.

Sure enough, this Camero

Sacrilege... the is no "E" in Camaro .......

[Garen]

OT, but if I remember correctly, the Autopower roll cage catalog printed Camaro with an "E" as well. Bugged the crap out of me...

This thread is awesome, by the way. I can't wait to get back to L.A.

-Garen

[TRE Cup]

Paul B is alive and well, married, and with an engineering job here in L.A.
He came on the New Years Day rally as passenger to that Can Am look blue V8 914 driver.
He had a Lingelfelter motored vette for a while, but with several points on his license, it had to go.

If you remember he had done some development work on the Vector turbo system, as well as other wild turbo conversions. Remember the Lancia Monte Carlo (nee Scorpion for usa use)? that car was sooo apart by the time he figured out what to do with it, it got repossesed in boxes !

[Pat_in_L.A.]

Interesting reading.

Hi Dave, Henry, and a few others that I may know. Victor sent me the link to this thread last night. This will take some time for me to read through all the posts. I was in the Boss 302 that was hit by the 914 in Henry's story.

There were many other "unique" characters and events that transpired. The surface hasn't even been scratched yet.

Officer Harrington. Steve Mc Queen dropping by in his Porsche one night. A car almost landing in Frank Sinatra's swimming pool. The night a police car went in pursuit of Charlie only to be passed by him several times going in the opposite direction. Many unseemly rides (Victor's mom's Pontiac station wagon, a big black Lincoln Continental, Dave's dad's Citroen, miscellaneous beater trucks) that were surprisingly fast.

Carry on, Gentlemen!

[Pat_in_L.A.]

Originally posted by TRE Cup
- the dazed and somewhat confused deer shook its head and bounded over the side back into the brush. The capri only needed a new antenna- phew!

I hit one of it's relatives in the Boss 302 one time. Neither of us got Venizen jerky out of the incidents.

[TRE Cup]

There are plenty of ugly stories on events up there . Maybe not as many as the good ones, but when people get hurt...

One very busy night , after the Hot Rod article was published, the place was packed with cars. Grandstands was full, Bowmont was lined up both sides about 15 cars deep. It was quite the zoo with all the people and cars. So of course someone called the cops. They came up from both ends of the "course" and used their P.A. systems to tell us to go home.

Well... the groups started to leave going east and west and some fool on a white Yamaha RS 350 with open pipes thought he would just leave the cops when they tried to pull him over. Bad move- with a huge line of cars to pass , counter course traffic, driving on the wrong side of the road, the bike just was not getting by the cars. So here we are in this line of cars going east towards Laurel Canyon and this bike goes by us doing maybe 35 mph. And here comes L.A.'s finest with siren and lights. He caught the bike easily on the wider residential section of Laurelwood and all of a sudden we have traffic backed up. Yep- the bike lost it and the rider was down. The cops were not amused either as one had his knee in the guy's back and slammed his jaw repeatedly into the pavement !
A little frontier justice perhaps, and certainly not right. Too bad video cameras or cell cams were not around back then, eh?

[Jeremy Cottrell]

I got the following story second hand, however, maybe Dave or someone else can fill in the blanks.

One of the regulars with a Capri had a relative in from the middle east. The relative had found out about Mulholland and also managed to find the keyes to the Capri. The guy was watching the racing from Grandstands, or Bowmont and with great exuberance calls out, "I go to fly the road!!" Well he sure did! I think he "flew" off Carl's!

[TRE Cup]

I don't remember that incident, but i think it was MM2 that sent his capri off between grandstands and coldwater. The car went so far down the canyon that it had to be dragged out from the street below !


Another yellow capri met its demise on Sepulveda tryin to outrun a CHP. The guy lost it on the curve just before the 405 and planted it sideways into the bridge column. The car was crushed all the way to the driver's seat. The driver ended up in the hospital with some broken bones