It is always great to race and participate at the Goodwood Racing events. An invitation to Goodwood England is the most coveted invitation for Historic Motorsports racing events in the world. It is always good to see friends and race fans that we have become acquainted with over the years as this was our 5th invitation to Goodwood by Lord Charles March. There is the magical "step back in time" as there is a mandatory period dress for race fans and the entire race grounds are also in perfect historic presentation. We had a great trip to England and our son Erik again spent time with Lord & Lady March's children. Elaine and I did an interview for Barry's Meguiar's - "Car Crazy" the American Cable TV show. A major feature on OYII was featured in one of the best magazines in the world - Octane magazine – UK. Elaine was great in her gold Chamsung sequien dress and the theme was Venice - “Carnivale” for the Grand Ball. I bought a wood oar in the Marina at Chichester -UK and had it cut- had a long-middle extension added to look like an extra long oar... and it was trimmed with burgundy and gold ribbons in barber- shop style with beautiful tassels at the top… and the oar passed for a authentic Venice Gondola oar. The entire huge hanger was secretly transformed into "Venice at Carnivale" with entertainers everywhere and even a Gondola in a small canal.
The race grid of some of the finest race cars and drivers is assembled and it is limited to 30 race cars. The start is the traditional "standing Start" with the dropping of the British Flag instead of the green flag and a rolling start. The racing is the toughest fender to fender racing in the world with the most skilled drivers making it comfortable in close quarters on the track.
The car was better but still highly unpredictable as I mentioned to crew that with every different set up it is like a Chinese fortune cookie fortune. So we had unpredictable rear pop out with oversteer in qualifying... the crew made some changes in an attempt to improve to no avail. The car was really difficult to handle as there was modulating rear oversteer exiting turns. So, near the end of the race… the rear of the car snapped around at a very high speed bend in the race just past Fordwater (where Sir Stirling Moss had a major shunt ending his racing in F1)... and we had a “big off” into the tire walls…tail first and snapped to the left front severely then almost spun to the track. It was a big crunch to tail- nose and fender at left side... ugh. We had the car repaired when we returned from England and we were saved from a major incident as Max had designed the chassis that would collapse and crush rather that being an immovable unit (drilled upper A arms). Our goal is to get the car on the track again to finally work out the erratic behavior... but we are getting closer... such a pain for the last 4 years… ( it is like pulling teeth!!!) to develop a race car... The car was designed with safety in mind and not a flexible race car ... thank you Max for your advanced design principles in 1959. .. you saved the day for us again.
Special thanks to Erik & RaceFotos.nl for the use of his fabulous photographs.
1959 Balchowsky Buick Special