1963 - 65 humble beginnings |
Tony describes the Volvo: My biggest claim to chassis "mods" was a rear sway bar. I believe I was the first to put one on a sedan back then. Of course I had Koni shocks, lowered, heavy front sway bar. My engine porting job was patterned after the Triumph cylinder heads and provided a lot of power. My SU carbs were heavily modified including large bell-shaped velocity stacks to capture the fuel fumes around the inlets. This allowed the excess fumes to be pulled back into the engine at high revs. |
From 1963 to 66, Tony road raced his own PV-544 Volvo in East Coast SCCA Regional events |
Tony Adamowicz, Gary Wheeler, Tony a2z, Tony Adamowics, a2zRacer, Gary Wheeler, Tony Adamowicz |
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The early record: 1963 -- Began my road racing career in my Volvo 544 sedan at Marlboro, Md. Raceway and won the race overall. 1964 -- Finished second in Northeast SCCA Region in B-Sedan with the Volvo 544. 1965 -- Won the Northeast SCCA Regional B-sedan Championship in Volvo. |
Marlboro Speedway , Marlboro, Md. This little 1-1/2 mile road racing track was a host of many great drivers through the years, it was my learning track as well.... my humble SCCA beginnings. I met Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart and many more greats there in '65. |
The Volvo's ultimate lap time could best the Group 44 Lotus Cortina times at Marlboro, drum brakes and all! When I was hired to work for Group 44, Bob Tullius said I had to retire the car and not race it any longer. Later I drove it to Connecticut to work for Milestone Racing and eventually sold it to someone in Wilton, Conn. I wish I'd never done that. |
Headers were not yet FIA homologated for the car, so were not legal. Instead, I modified the stock exhaust manifold by welding in a splitter for the center two exhaust ports. The stock manifold didn't have one, so it blended the flows which acted like a rev limiter of sorts. That made a hot cam useless even though it was legal. The splitter fixed the problem so I could benefit from an experimental ISKY cam sent to me by the man himself. |
In a few years, I'd finish third at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the fastest Ferrari of them all. |
Tony drives away from a Pesky Mini! |
With it's rear anti-roll bar, the Volvo was quite "tossable" |