I just got back from this year’s Speed Week Vintage Race at the Coronado Naval Base, near San Diego. This was going to be a fun year for us four-banger guys. They got rid of all of the big bore Trans Am cars this year (as much as we all love them). So, it was a huge gathering of 2.5 liter Trans Ams. There were a bunch...
Old Yeller II is a famous race car from the ‘50s. It’s a kind of raunchy-looking roadster that was hand-built by Max Balchowsky. There were only a few American sportscars back in those days, so races were pretty handily dominated by gorgeous Ferraris and Maseratis. Then, along comes this pale yellow, backyard-made...
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m a Datsun guy (don’t you judge). As I became successful as a comedian, I started picking up vintage Datsun race cars. During the hunt for a new car to add to my growing collection, I came across an ‘84 Nissan for sale, which Paul Newman had raced. Truth be told, it struck me as kind of...
For car guys, Monterey Car Week is hard to beat. It’s made up of a bunch of different events, like the Concours D’Elegance at Pebble Beach, the Rolex Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca, Concorso Italiano, several high-profile auctions and so much more. Every one of these events is an eye-popping smorgasbord of...
It’s hard to talk about the Aventador in comparison to any kind of normal driving or car ownership experience. A supercar or hypercar (or whatever they’re calling them these days) is so different in every way from even the nicest of production cars, that I don’t know how they can both be called cars. Sure, they both...
For this year’s Rolex Monterey Historics, I brought one of my favorite new vintage race cars, Paul Newman’s 300zx 2+2 turbo. I’ve only driven this car once, to get the feel of it at a rich white guy track day at Laguna Seca earlier in the year. Before this event, though, the car hadn’t been raced since Paul Newman...
A while back, I had run into Rob Dickinson up on Mulholland. He was up there with his hot rodded 911. You may know Rob as the singer of the band Catherine Wheel, but he’s also a car guy. He said he knew I wasn’t big on German cars, but he told me about his idea to build “ultimate 911s.” No, I’m not a Porsche guy so...
A few weeks back, I got a chance to run one of my Datsuns at the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association’s event at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. The track is a bit different than where I usually drive. The scenery around Fontana isn’t quite as easy on the eyes as Laguna Seca or Sonoma, but it’s local, which is nice....
Telling someone that you’re into racing, but you run vintage Datsuns is kind of like telling them you’re a pro athlete, but you do logrolling at lumberjack competitions. You get that high-pitched pandering tone back, “Interesting. How did you get into… THAT?” Well, here’s how I became a “Datsun Guy.” I grew up in...
These days, there are a bunch of street-legal cars that easily put yesterday’s race cars to shame. I love the fact that 500 horsepower is not a rare find anymore. The engineers that are wringing better performance out of production cars are doing the Lord’s work as far as I’m concerned. Big horsepower and high...
A few weeks back, I ran another vintage race, the Sonoma Historics. It’s a great event that brings out a ton of cool cars. There’s everything from early ‘60s formula cars to Can Am cars to those pre-WWII “Chitty Chitty Bang Bangers” that sound like lawn mowers. I was originally planning to bring my BRE 510 Datsun....
I have a recurring bit called “Rich Man, Poor Man” where I joke about things that only really rich and really poor guys have in common. Like spending all day in pajamas. Well, another one of those is super-long dreadlocks, like Magnus Walker, the guy who recently brought a customized Porsche 911T by my shop. Since he...
The Ferrari brand is a household name that stands for wealth and speed. Ferrari the company came from Enzo Ferrari, an Italian who started racing in 1919. He built race cars and then branched out into street-legal, high-performance sports cars in 1947. Ferraris are some of the most beautiful and sought after sports...
Someone asked me if I had to drive just one car for the rest of my life, what would it be? Of course, your gut instinct is to name something crazy like a Bugatti Veyron or a gold-plated Hummer. But that’s like thinking about only being with one woman for the rest of your life and picking a crazy stripper with lots of...
People are always asking me why I don’t drive the cars in my collection, especially one of my Lamborghini Miuras. Now, Jay Leno is the most famous car collector out there. And he’s also known for actually driving the cars in his collection. If you spend enough time in Burbank, you WILL see Jay puttering down the...
In some of my previous blog posts, I’ve mentioned the Jaguar that I use as my daily driver, so I figured it was time to give that car some much-deserved love. It’s a 2013 XFR in a really dark British racing green, with lots of metal flake in it. Thanks to the fine folks at Jaguar, I got my hands on the first one...
One of the cars in my collection that I haven’t given much attention to yet is the Bob Sharp-built pace car that was used the Camel GT series starting in the mid-1970s. Bob Sharp was building a Z car to run in the IMSA GTU class in 1975 and was also hired to make the pace car for the series. Made from two 260Z...
As a part of the Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix each year, they run a celebrity race, with the prize money going to charity. There’s a celebrity group of over a dozen drivers, and then there’s a smaller pro class for people that have racing experience. Last year, I ran in the celebrity group and won, so this year, I got...
I recently bought a Ford F-350 dually diesel to pull my 36-foot trailer to vintage races. I had already thrown a 51-gallon secondary fuel tank in the back to extend the range. (Hey, I’m paying my driver to drive, not to screw around at gas stations.) Then the guys at Line-X put in a nice bed liner that I was way, way...
I was just back at Laguna Seca for the Historic Motor Sports Association’s spring club event. We finally got a nice B-Sedan class group of about 20 cars running together. To give you a little background, the B-Sedan was a class that was sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America from 1966 to 1972. The biggest engine...
Icon’s Jonathan Ward is a bit of a genius. He takes vintage trucks and off-road vehicles and rebuilds them with modern upgrades. I know, you’re thinking, “Street rodders have been doing this for well over 30 years now. So, why does Jonathan deserve so much praise?” Well, putting crate drivetrains, custom suspensions and...
