We’re not the kind of people who hate Mondays here at BaT, but it’s not an uncommon refrain in the working world. If going into the week is an uphill slog for you, please take encouragement from Pikes Peak champ Leonard Vasholtz, who faced a long climb with a “grip it and rip it” mentality in his “Bronczilla” Super Stock truck. Enjoy!
We’re not the kind of people who hate Mondays here at BaT, but it’s not an uncommon refrain in the working world. If going into the week is an uphill slog for you, please take encouragement from Pikes Peak champ Leonard Vasholtz, who faced a long climb with a “grip it and rip it” mentality in his “Bronczilla” Super Stock truck. Enjoy!
The NASCAR Classics YouTube channel has lately become one of our favorite corners on the internet. Besides dozens of hours of full-race replays, there are short-form Classic Clips featuring everything else in between. They recently released some special footage from the vault, and it’s the subject of today’s highlight: a sub-seven-minute video featuring two larger-than-life personalities from opposite ends of the motorsports spectrum—“The King” Richard Petty and Sir Jackie Stewart.
Our newest treasure trove of onboard clips comes from Robbert Alblas, who for the last three years has been filling up his YouTube channel with rich cinematic footage taken from behind the wheel of various historic racers. This week we’re highlighting a video featuring a faithfully recreated Ferrari 250 GTO ripping through an old layout of the Zandvoort circuit with Dutch racing legend Nicky Pastorelli at the helm. This particular car was built over several years by Ferrari specialists Roelofs Engineering using a mix of original factory components and custom parts. And while not one of the original cars produced in the early ’60s, it’s a 250 GTO in every other way.
This week, we’re remembering Mike Hailwood’s legendary comeback on a 1978 NCR Ducati 900, one of a small batch of racers produced by NCR (and similar to this one recently listed on BaT). Part One of the comeback tour was his 13th victory at the Isle of Man TT after 11 years away from the course, and today we’re focusing on Part Two: his followup victory at the Mallory Park post-TT International Motorcycle Race just a week later.
By the early 1960s, the horsepower wars were in full swing among American automakers. As we discussed earlier this week, Ford’s FE big-block V8 was evolving, Pontiac’s Super Duty 421 was tearing up the strip, and Chrysler’s “Max Wedge” 413 was on the horizon. The 409, famously enshrined in song, was Chevrolet’s ace from 1961 to 1965, when it was phased out by the mighty 3-9-6 porcupine-headed Mark IV V8.
The Isle of Man, home of the world’s wildest motorcycle race, welcomed road racing cars to the Snaefell Mountain Course for the Merlin Manx Classic starting in 1989. This clip hails from the 1992 running, and highlights a DB4GT Zagato driven by the late gentleman racer Nick Cussons. This particular Zagato—famously known as 2 VEV—lived a short-yet-dramatic early racing career; initially raced by the legendary Jim Clark, it was also one of three cars rebuilt to lighter DP209 specification following the first of its three lifetime crashes. Fortunately, it was fixed up each time and continued to deliver the drama:
We’re not the kind of people who hate Mondays here at BaT, but it’s not an uncommon refrain in the working world. If going into the week is an uphill slog for you, please take encouragement from Pikes Peak champ Leonard Vasholtz, who faced a long climb with a “grip it and rip it” mentality in his “Bronczilla” Super Stock truck. Enjoy!