just wondering what ever happened to the SCCA pick up truck class. remember, in like the mid-to-late 80's with the mazdas, fords, chevys, jeeps mini trucks? i always liked that racing. i've searched google, and only found the jeep of tommy archer and no info on it.. just wondering if it's still out there. ok, i know it's dead, but i think it would be a pretty cheap class if it were to start up again and just wanted to get some pictures..

yes, i am a redneck.

 

those things still exist ..... ITT down here at Road Atlanta.

 

i figured they couldn't go away!! hahahaaa. thanks for the tip..

 

I remember watching those at Sebring once. Memories.......

 

I vaguely remember seeing them at Mid-Ohio in '87 or '88, but I was only 4 years old at the time. One of my earliest racing memories.

 

memories are great and all, but that doesn't help me with pictures! hahahaaa.. i remember watching them on TV a long time ago too.. i alwasy liked pick up trucks!! hahaa

 

One of the Mitsu's ended up in the Portland area, driven by Charlie Hexom after he took it to Pike's Peak. The story was that he got it as a parting gift from the team and he ran it in Conference races there back in the mid-late '80s.

K

 

What do you want to know about them? As mentioned above, some of the dregs ended up in the Atlanta area with the ITT class but it never was more than a few trucks. Nissan guy Fletcher Williams was a ringleader and had one of the original trucks.

Local KY guy Don Marcum was the leading privateer during the Pro series in a Nissan hardbody. That truck knocked after the series died and I thought about buying it but they wanted some real money for it and it was essentially useless for competition because there was no class for it. Just about as useful and a two day old newspaper. Because there was so much crash and bashing (bump drafting was mandatory), the trucks were really run through the grinder bad so it was more like a two day old newspaper with tears and coffee stains.

Nissan and Jeep and Mazda (I think) were the leading teams but Mitsu and others had some as well. They spent a lot of money on them for development and so one but they were really only good running against each other and made a decent crash/bang warm-up event for bigger pro road race events. Although the teams were dead serious and spending a ot of money and effort, the real show was the action it created and not really technically great racing. They made a pretty good amount of power from the large displacement 4 cylinders but the suspensions were dead primative so they just locked them down about s hard as they could hoped to use throttle to overcome the inherent understeer. Drafting and bumpdrafting were the rule to go fast so you had to have a team mate to work with to do well. The privateers like MArcum had a harder time as they had no team mates so they had to earn the respect of the other guys to work together but that was fickle and could get you screwed very quickly too.

I am sure there are plenty of old archival photos around. SCCA Pro was the sanctioning body. I'd say the heyday was about '86 or '87 through about '89-90 and then it was gone quickly.

 

I've never seen these... its damn hard to come up with any pics neithers.

 

Hopefully my memories will give you some leads. I remember seeing them race live on the Pocono tri-oval as a support race for CART in 1988. There were 3 or 4 truck teams from Ford, Jeep, Nissan and Mitsubishi and some private Nissans, Toyotas and Chevys. The Ford team was run by Steve Saleen and sponsored by General Tire. Saleen also drove and I believe Peter Cunningham drove in the truck series as well as the Archer brothers. Actor Jason Bateman was driving for Mitsubishi and he unded up upside down in the tunnel turn wall after a mis-timed tap from behind. It was pretty cool seeing trains of 3 teamates bump drafting 3 wide down the front straight.

 

see, that's what i'm talking about! thanks for the info. i'll have to keep an eye out.

 

Most racers though, find them sort of annoying on the track because of their lack of speed.


i wont name names but ya....

 

yeah I remember these

a pic I dug up online ....

1988 SCCA Truck Series Chanmpionship, Tommy Archer, Jeep.

 

I have a "Jeep Tuning" book from Mopar (oh, high school...memories...) that has lots of stuff about how to build a road race Comanche in it. It's actually pretty informative for being outdated by almost 15 years.

 

My uncle Charley Hexom raced the Dave Wolin team Mitsubishi trucks. There's one still floating around but with turbo and megasquirt? Fred Lux is still local to the area and would have more information. Look up Lux Performance.

 

I think this was at Portland International Raceway