Road America,  1985

     I had one rear suspension failure at Pocono, coming off the banking and was able to limp into the pits without major damage to the car.  Every time we got into the car was a exhilarating experience, because we never knew what was going to break next.  Brian Redman indicated we should abandon the car.  The California Cooler had developed a reputation as the "California Coffin".

The cockpit and instrument panel

A look through the front windscreen of the Nissan

GTP ZX Turbo with the dash cover removed.

A menacing look

Don and I were both middle aged now.

The California Coffin didn't kill us,

but a year long string of DNFs

badly injured our careers.

     I think we were two very brave drivers in the early years of development of this GTP car.  They said the very same things about the early development of the famed Porsche 917K in the pre 70's.  Scary, but both chassis needed time to develop into the championship cars they became.  My only regret was not being there to benefit from all our early testing and development of the GTP.  Politics prevented both Don and I from enjoying the fruits of development as drivers of this machine.

Tony Adamowicz, Gary Wheeler, Tony a2z, Tony Adamowics, a2zRacer, Gary Wheeler, Tony Adamowicz

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1985 at Road America

1985 IMSA Columbus-500    The black GTP car had more aero downforce than any road racer up to this time.