What is the Item Sticking up from this Hood??

[Bob B.]

Hi all,

Here is a pic of the '57 Corvette race car I am working on. There is an object of some sort that is sticking up from somewhere on the driver side of the fender or hood. Someone sent me the picture of what looks like a Z06 race car with something very similar. But I don't know what that is, either.

So, does anyone know what this would be? (I may have to re-post since many at the convention may not be looking at the TDB as regularly.)

Thanks,

Bob

[John F.]

Re: What is the Item Sticking up from this Hood??

It looks like a windscreen of some sort. Is that plexi-glass between the two braces?

[Frederick W.]

Re: What is the Item Sticking up from this Hood??

I wonder if it is suppose to change the air flow across the driver side windshield, so less debris builds up on the windshield

[Duke W.]

Re: What is the Item Sticking up from this Hood??

Agree, it's a "deflector" to help keep the windshield clean, but I don't know how effective is was.

I think it was Grady Davis or Delmo Johnson that at some point replaced the OE '63 hood "cookie sheets" with functional vents and there was a plexiglass "spoiler" in front of the vents that created a negative pressure area behind to help extract air, and this should also have also reduced front lift, but I always questioned whether it was legal under either SCCA or FIA rules of the era. The rules said you could remove bumpers and body "trim items", but body modifications such as cutting holes was not allowed in production classes.

The other issue is that such hood vents would have allowed hot engine compartment air into the cowl intake, which would heat up the cockpit, and if any kind of exhaust leak occurred in the engine compartment, carbon monoxide could have gotten into the cockpit, too.

Duke

[Joe C.]

Re: What is the Item Sticking up from this Hood??

Pitot tubes

[Joe R.]

Re: What is the Item Sticking up from this Hood??

Pitot tubes

Exactly Pitot Tubes!

Any old pilot would recognize those in a second!

JR

[Bob B.]

Re: What is the Item Sticking up from this Hood??

My '57 race car was built by Larry Leedy and Bob Spicer and driven by Bob Spicer and Fred Yeakel (the pic is Fred at Santa Barbara Labor Day '66 races). Larry and Bob were both aeronautical engineers at Rand and worked on the Saturn V project, so pitot tubes might be the ticket. There was no speedometer, so that makes sense. They had a couple of SW gauges where the speedo was. Fred didn't remember it, but I will ask Bob and see if he can confirm. Thanks, Bob

[Mike E.]

Re: What is the Item Sticking up from this Hood??

The driver sitting in the #11 car is Don Yenko. The car is a Gulf Oil car. Gulf had their own planes and airfleet mechanics. Some of those mechanics, Joe Laroche for one, also were part of the Gulf racing team. They used, for example, at the 12 hours of Sebring in 1962, Grimes aircraft wing tip lights on the apex of the hardtops, so at night they could see could see where their cars were on the flat Sebring airport course. The pitot tubes should come as no surprise.
Chuck Hartley, another of their mechanics, told me that certain things they did were just a little silly, but they would do them just to see who would copy them.