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John Dinkel finds all the original players


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John Dinkel finds all the original players and tells the take of how Datsun's Z car became a production racing legend.

Z Beginning

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The sound was like that of a thousand bees, drunk with power and skid row pollen. As it grew louder I searched the late-summer sky of the Southern California high desert for the source of the noise, squinting to protect my eyes from the glaring cloudless sky, until I finally detected what I'd been hunting for. Coming in low over the Willow Springs racetrack was a small blue-and-yellow single-engine airplane. It circled once and then took off to the east. That was John Morton's Kachina, and his buzz of the track signalled the arrival of John and Pete Brock for a reunion with one of the original 1970 BRE-Datsun 240Z racers.

As I jumped into my car to pick them up a few miles down the road at the Rosamond SkyPark, my mind wandered back to 1969. The Vietnam War; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Richard Nixon, gas-guzzling musclecars.

A young Chrysler engineer (me) is motoring across the country behind the wheel of a 1966 Barracuda Formula S, new wife and Triumph Spitfire in tow. I'm headed for Newport Beach, California to assume the position of engineering editor at Car Life, the sister magazine of Road & Track. R&T's now-famous January 1970 cover "scoop" with a black and white photo of the 240Z had already hit the newsstands by the time I arrived in late-December '69, so I didn't get to ogle that first Z in the flesh-a tremendous disappointment. Little did I know that one short year later I'd be hanging out at Pete Brock's BRE race shop in El Segundo almost daily, following preparation of the 240Z for SCCA C-Production racing and watching Pete's crew develop the Datsun 510 sedan for the Under-2.5-liter class in the Trans-Am series.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were the heyday of amateur production racing in America, but a scant few people knew it. Most of these series' battles were waged behind closed doors, the SCCA having deemed many of the races non-spectator events for insurance purposes. Yes, the epic, nationwide battles between factory-supported C-Production 914s, TR6s, and 240Zs became legendary, but only secondhand for most.

Undoubtedly, the most dynamic outfits on this battlefield were the factory-backed teams of Pete Brock on the West Coast and Bob Sharp in the East. Their D-Production successes with the Datsun 2000 roadster made Nissan a force to be reckoned with in SCCA club racing during 1968 and 1969. And from the very first pictures they saw of the new Datsun coupe, Brock and Sharp could sense the upcoming Z-car's competition potential. A light, low unibody GT with independent rear suspension and a 2.4-liter, 6-cylinder version of the 2000's overhead-cam Four, the 240Z had champion written all over it.

But until they had one in hand, neither could begin the steps necessary to convert the Z from what R&T called "the most exciting [and affordable ] Grand Touring car in a decade" into a winner on the racetrack. And there was nothing either Sharp or Brock could do to hurry the arrival of the first load of Z-cars headed for the states to get a jumpstart on the fast-arriving 1970 racing season.

BRE's development didn't start until late January 1970 with the arrival of a pure production model straight from the first shipment of 20 cars to land in Los Angeles.

But on the East Coast, Datsun's misfortune was Sharp's gain. The first Z car in the country had suffered body damage at an auto show. Bob was told to "come get the car before Datsun changes its mind." So Sharp's preparation of the Z for C-Production racing had started a few months earlier than BRE's.

Let the record show that despite the late start, BRE's number one driver, John Morton, managed to garner enough C-Production points to qualify for the SCCA's annual ARRC national championships in Road Atlanta. Morton won the 1970 C- Production runoffs, initiating a string of 10 consecutive C-Production/GT-2 victories for the 240, 260, 280, and 280ZX versions of the Z.

Following consecutive wins in 1970 and 1971, Morton and BRE switched their focus to the SCCA Trans-Am series. Picking up where BRE and Morton left off, Bob Sharp Racing took the championship in three of the next four years (Walt Maas winning in 1974) with Bob behind the wheel. Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Logan Blackburn and Frank Leary took the checkers in 1976, 1977 and 1978, respectively. In 1979 Bob Sharp Racing returned to the winner's circle, this time with actor/racer Paul Newman as driver, a final championship that concluded a decade of Datsun domination the likes of which we will probably never see again.

Sharp turned his attention from driving to team management as Datsun (now Nissan) entered the eighties. Moving up from GT-2, Sharp Racing dominated the GT-1 category from 1984 through 1988 with their incredible 300ZX Turbos driven by Jim Fitzgerald, Paul Newman and Bob's son, Scott. Incidentally, Scott's first national championship had come in 1986 in GT-2 behind the wheel of the same Z car (updated to 280Z specs) Bob had raced from 1970-1975. Before Scott raced it, the car had been stored in Bob's basement for six years.

In total, Datsun/Nissan Z cars have captured 29 SCCA national titles, numerous SSA and SSGT victories and 18 major professional championships including IMSA GTU, GTS, Firehawk Endurance titles and one SCCA Pro-Rally championship. An incredible record for one manufacturer and one car!

More here http://www.theautochannel.com/publications/magazines/sci/aug-sept-97/datsun.frame

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