Tracer Cars Around?

[Bardahl77]

I remember watching Chuck and Tom at Portland in the 80's & 90's, I loved the way the Tracers looked and how fast they were. After Chuck & Tom passed, did the cars go to someone else or are they in a museum or something? I'd love to see them run at vintage events.

[E1pix]

Cool inquiry, no answers but have wondered this very thing.

Those guys were really fast — dare I say, especially Tom — and altogether the Runoffs equivalent of Hesketh Racing.

It’d be great to hear the cars exist, and as you said, better yet if active.

[Jerry Kehoe]

These cars were RT1 tubs with a Cicale single seat 2 ltr Can Am body. Bahner made tubs for Tom and Chuck as needed but they were pretty stout cars and rarely needed much work. After the Can Am series ended I think they ran them as 1300 CC CSR cars and I believe they put some Mazda rotaries in one or two. After Tom died from diabetes I think Chuck ended up with everything and then unfortunately was killed in an airplane crash. Never heard of the cars since. Their runoff exploits were legendary with the hot tub truck. Both really good guys! Tony Cicale designed and built the original car and was very sucessfull in the Can Am with it and ultimately Dick Guider ran one as well in the series but I'm not sure if that was a clone or Cicale's car. He ran it with a BMW motor. Cicale went on in Indy car very sucessfully as an engineer with some top teams.

[stonebridge20]

I had the pleasure of being paddocked and camped next to that freaking hot tub full of ass stew at the 95 Runoffs.
I'm still feel the effects of sleep deprivation from that week in hell !

[E1pix]

Can feel your agony from here...

I was a sign painter towing a wagon in those days (for the Runoffs from 1979 to 1985, anyway), typically working fifty hours from Saturday or Sunday through Thursday and still not fulfilling all requests. Some had work for me almost every year (for one, remember Bruce Miller and North Shore Racing?).

If I ever stepped in the tub, I have no memory of it — and quite sure am not alone in the fog.

[Thomas Wirtz]

Does anyone have photos of the Tracer cars they can post ?

I did find this tribute to Tracer Racing.

https://www.scca.com/pages/tracer-racing

[Peter Olivola]

Does anyone have photos of the Tracer cars they can post ?

I did find this tribute to Tracer Racing.

https://www.scca.com/pages/tracer-racing

Much too politically correct.

[Jerry Kehoe]

I remember dropping off a motor at Steve Jennings place and seeing a brand new Lola with a new 1100 cc BD and asked who bought that, Jennings said Tom Foster and at the time I remember Tom as having a older BT21, working on it himself, open trailer,etc like all of us the season before. I asked Jennings how in Hell did Tom have the money to buy that? He laughed and asked me if I ever heard of Foster Farms Chickens. Tom was President of the business and it might have been the largest Ag business in California certainly at that time, I said, ohhhhhhh that probably explains it.
Later on in the Tracer era Ford came out with a Tracer car probably without knowing about the Tracer cars Tom and Chuck built, they sued Ford and probably got quite a settlement from that!

[E1pix]

Much too politically correct.

Not really... they mentioned “activities.”

[J Leonard]

tracer

[Bardahl77]

tracer

Yup, that's Portland. I think I was working the inside of turn 9 (at least I think it was 9 back then before the Festival was put in).

Prettiest, best prepared SRs I've seen, and FAST

[E1pix]

tracer

Thanks for the photos. Awesome.

[J Leonard]

was 11 x 17

[E1pix]

Post deleted by user as it seemed to indicate my clear anti-genius...

[E1pix]

[J Leonard]

Thanks. The tool box ad is on the other side.

[10rmotor]

To answer your original question, last time I heard, all the cars were stored in a barn in modesto.

When Foster and Billington sued ford over the tracer name, and won, the proceeds funded the tracer racing series. From every tracer car sold by ford, they had to pay a royalty for using the name.

When CSR numbers were dwindling in the 90s, they asked the SF region for a special additional race where they paid all the entry fees for the local DSR racers to enter as a CSR. They took the green, and all the D cars exited the track, and then they threw another green and the real race started.

Their huge transporter full of shop equipment was always available for other racers to use if they needed. Their crew guys were always busy helping out others when they weren't busy with their own cars.

When they were racing DSR, the rules stated it had to be of two seater configuration. More than once they protested Paul Decker, who was faster than them, that his car wasn't a two seater. Paul if any of you know him, is not a big guy, and neither was his racing partner, Jerry Smith. When Paul would hear that he was being protested, him and Jerry would just sit in the car together and have a smoke and wait for the officials to show up. Protest denied!

Of course everyone knows about the famous hot tub setup at Road Atlanta. They paid the track to install the power pole with the only stipulation that they have access to it during the runoffs. When the venue switched to Mid-Ohio, they made the same request. The track declined the offer, so they added a huge generator to the back of their rig to power the hot tub. When the runoffs were at atlanta, they had the hot tub and equipment, and a beater ford country squire wagon stored at a local storage facility so they didn't have to haul it cross country.

On their rear wing they had the acronym "JFTOI". Just for the fun of it! You can see that on the rear wing of Chucks car in the picture above.