The final day’s fun and games on the road with the Nissan 370Z NISMO was held over to enable the DSC Editor to take in some meetings post COTA, this story covers the final several hundred miles into Austin.
The final day on the road for what has been an amazing week across just one corner of the United States started inauspiciously in Carlsbad New Mexico, with portents of weather themed doom and a pretty grubby sky.
It was time to push on for Austin, with just one stop programmed en route, but things didn’t work out quite that way.
Our first ‘hop’ was around 3 hours across country to Midland Texas, temperatures rising and long, long roads through New Mexico and then finally into Texas, offering a landscape increasingly crowded with ‘Nodding Donkey’ pumps and larger processing stations.
Different it may have been, but it scored very low indeed on the engaging scenery front . One thing did stand out though – on a quite heavily trafficked road, over a near three hour journey, we saw just three cars, every other vehicle was either a large 18 wheeler truck or a pick-up, hundreds and hundreds of them. Welcome to South Western USA!
Midland was our first destination because we had a date with the Petroleum Museum, a facility dedicated to the history of oil exploration and processing, a facility with an unrivalled collection of oil exploration equipment, artefacts and documentation.
Oh and it’s also home to the astonishing Chaparral Gallery, did I forget to mention that bit?
In a darkened, climate controlled Gallery there sits the best (and indeed the only) collection of Chaparral racing cars in the world. They make an extraordinary sight.
I was wandering around with a silly smile on my face when I was greeted by Keith Doucet, the man appointed by Jim Hall to tend to his ‘babies’. When we arrived he was doing the rounds, checking tyre pressures and making sure that all seven cars gleamed (they did!).
We said hello, explained our presence and were greeted with more interest and courtesy than you would normally expect from a family member!
Keith told us that “Mr Hall” was in town and that he was trying to find a date when he could come along and conduct the monthly ritual of firing up one of the cars and driving it around the forecourt of the museum, that means that all of the cars, including the 1980 Indy 500 winning Indycar mounted on a hoist at the entrance to the museum, are still driveable (with the exception of a 2E replica that is available for anyone to sit in for photographs.)
“It helps to dissuade some of the kids from trying to open up the real cars!”
Then there was an offer that will mean that Gary Horrocks doesn’t talk to me for some considerable time:
“Would you like to see the workshop where I maintain the cars?”
That’s a little like asking my 11 year old if she’ like to borrow my Ipad for a day!
Keith’s lair is compact but beautifully equipped with photos, magazine pull outs and poster galore in a man cave of your dreams.
“When we have a car in for an overhaul I call up some of the people that have a particular academic interest and enthusiasm for the cars and they get to come along and see them up on the ramps, from underneath.”
There was a brief look too in the modestly stocked parts store, including some original race tyres and, a more recent acquisition, a pair of spare Rockwell two stroke motors for the 2J ‘Sucker Car’
“My predecessor here is a bit of an Ebay fiend and he found these recently, you’d be amazed what comes up”
The 2J is on display with its mechanicals exposed at present, a simply astonishing piece of engineering, way, way ahead of its time, Keith telling us plenty of tales of the intricacies of maintaining this utterly priceless car.
There was tale after tale of each of the cars, the original 2 which Jim Hall tested for the first time at his own, nearby, Rattlesnake Raceway facility without bodywork, only to be astonished when the beautifully sculpted final car was slower “The airflow was being blocked by the bodywork.”
That led directly to the incorporation into the design of louvres to help the airflow, it worked, and a classic, and highly successful racecar was born. This car too has a large young fan base courtesy of its rather more recent Hot Wheels model, “Yes, the kids absolutely love seeing it, whether they’re 5, or 55!”
There’s the tale of the road registered licence plate on the rear of the 2D, together with the full size spare tyre that the car was required to carry. “It isn’t the original plate, that went missing long. long ago, nobody realised it would be important”
The revelation too that the hugely radical 2H was originally designed to be closed top car but the driver, John Surtees, found it difficult enough to see with the car in open top form!
This is a stunning collection, well worth driving several hours to see, but the welcome provided added enormously to the experience, Massively and wholeheartedly recommended.
As we left and turned the 370Z towards Austin we spotted a sign that instantly changed our plans, 10 minutes later and we puled up outside a very quiet facility on the outskirts of Midland, home to another entirely unique historical specimen. This is the Commemorative Air Museum, home to the world’s only flying B29 Superfortress ‘Fifi’!
It’s also home to a thought provoking pair of memorials to the Vietnam War, one featuring a selection of authentic period aircraft including an F-4 Phantom, F105 Thunderchief and an F84 Supersabre.
Inside the hangar there’s a selection of beautifully restored warbirds from around the world with a more recent pairing, an F111 and F14 Tomcat parked on the other side of the hangar apron.
‘Fifi’ though was in the process of being towed in the opposite direction!!
No matter, we popped along to view a remarkable gallery of WWII Nose Art, all of the examples collected by Minot Pratt, a man responsible for the salvage of some of the thousands of aircraft returning to the USA post WWII.
He had 34 pieces chopped and sawn-off prior to destruction, supposedly to be used in a fence. His son donated them to the museum and many of them have now been beautifully restored and are now displayed in a temperature and humidity controlled environment. They are quite astonishing individual pieces of art and every single one has a story which stirs emotion to go along with it, beautifully told by the accompanying exhibits.
As we were about to leave the young lady at the reception desk asked if we’d enjoyed our visit – We had, but said we were sorry to have just missed seeing the B29 properly:
“If you hold on for just ten minutes we’ll see what we can do!”
And they did! Keegan, one of the museum curators, took us across to the B29 hangar, she was being put to bed in anticipation of the hind end of Hurricane Odile due to pass close by that evening, and gave us a wonderful opportunity to see this glorious old warbird at close quarters.
Better still, on being told that it would likely be my only opportunity to see the aircraft, I was told that there is an active, if medium term future, plan for Fifi to visit the UK, potentially as the star attraction for Duxford’s ‘Flying Legends Warbirds show. Before then though there’s been another request, for an overflight of Moscow as part of a future wartime commemoration, that now will likely have to wait until the situation in Ukraine cools off!
Fifi herself is an amalgam of at least six other B29s, rescued from a Naval target range in 1971, after nine weeks of restoration to ferry flight status she was flown to Texas where a painstaking three year restoration back to full flight condition began.
A weapon of war she may have been but she is an amazing survivor, with some modern day magic helping extend the overhaul life of here engines from the 25 hours between rebuilds in wartime, to 1500 now!
Finally then it was time to hit the road, after a couple of truly exceptional pieces of Texan hospitality. We might have had a 5 hour drive ahead of us, but we cruised through it to Austin with smiles on our faces and stories to tell. Truly the stuff that a road trip should be made of!
With thanks to Nissan NISMO for the loan of the NISMO 370Z and to Camden Thrasher for his excellent photographs and long lasting bonhomie!
Look out for a gallery next week of Camden’s very lovely images.
Now then, where next?
GG
