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- The following
was submitted by Bill Krueger who sold the Lola to David Pozzi.
The story was so interesting we thought it might bring back some
memories of those days when racing was done on a shoestring and
common sense often was left at the wayside. Usually someone,
like Bill, who fell in love with a car and went to great lengths
(and distances) to fullfill his dream.
- Hello,
- My name is Bill Krueger and a friend of mine forwarded your article (see Pozzi Lola) about the Lola T-70 that I sold to David Pozzi of Salinas, Ca.
- Story of what I know about “my” Lola T-70:
- I saw an ad in Autoweek for the car listed by a guy (don’t remember his name) in Coral Gables, Florida (not Arizona). He had two Lolas and was interested in selling the one that he had not restored. I never heard anything about Buck Fulp associated with the car (that doesn’t mean he wasn’t). It was my impression that the cars had been in South America but I don’t remember what made me think so (something Stevens of Stevens International Racing had said I think).
- We talked several times and he advised me to forget it as it was a long way to come and he thought that he had a more local buyer. I told him that I wanted it and that I would be there in a couple of days with the $4000 asking price.
- I started out at noon in a '65 Mustang with nearly bald tires on New Year’s eve 1971- I think. I slept from 2:00am until 5:00am in the back seat on the roadside just outside El Paso, Texas, It took me all the next day to get across Texas where I stayed in a motel in Orange, Texas near the Louisiana border. The next evening I called the guy at his office to say I was in town. I made that trip in 2 ½ days. He gave me phone directions to the shop where his cars were worked on by Jeff? Stevens of SIR (Steven’s International Racing). Next day I met the owner at the shop and gave him my check. He was somewhat dismayed that I was paying by check but it had not occurred to me to take $ 4000 CASH across the country.
- I guess he saw the effort that I had gone through and sold me the car. Now I needed a Trailer. They provided one and I took my Mustang to a rental place to have a trailer hitch put on the car (all pretty rookie like huh?).
- We tied the car down to the trailer (a pretty nifty tilt ramp set-up) and off I went. You need to recognize that the “freeway” system was not complete in those days and I got lost in the backwoods in Mississippi and Louisiana. I again stayed at the motel in Orange, Texas and parked the rig in their covered/lighted porch at the front door in view of the night desk guy and asked him to keep an eye on it. As I stopped for gas I would poor water on the tie-down ropes that went through the wheels and they would tighten up again for the next segment. At a service station a returning serviceman asked me to keep him in mind if I needed a driver.
- The next night I slept some in a rest stop with the trailer backed up against a 16 wheeler so that no one could unhook the trailer (I was pretty spooked – it was all the money I had, I had been laid off from my job at Lockheed Aircraft and hence I had the time but not much money).
- I was really tired by the time I reached Riverside, Ca. along highway 10 and stayed overnight at a motel there before making my final, short, leg into LA and on to Van Nuys. I had crossed the entire country in 3 ½ days, under Mobile Bay in a narrow tunnel in Mobile, Alabama, where one trailer wheel was up against the curb while the other was partially in the on-coming lane, through the backwoods of Mississippi, and through Baton Rouge, La. at the time a sniper was shooting people from the roof of a Howard Johnson without attracting any attention but I got a ticket for traveling in a non trailer lane in my home state around Pomona on Hi-way 60 just 40 miles from home.
- Lola prep for SCCA Driver's School
- I had borrowed a friend’s (Clay Ward of Road and Competition Engineering) '67 289 Mustang for my first SCCA Driver’s School weekend and won the “race” at the end of the day against a friend (Terry Leonard of movie stunt fame) in a Mustang of his own.
- I didn’t want to borrow again and wanted to ran my Lola at the second school but in final preparation my roommate and I could not get the gearbox splines to line up with the half shafts and I attended the first day of school without the car as Paul Law took the gearbox to Pete Wiseman for adjustment (it had Jaguar parts as I remember). We fixed the car Sunday at Riverside and I ran it in a couple of school sessions. While all this sounds peculiar, taking a Lola T-70 to rookie SCCA Driver’s School, it gets worse. God only knows how long the tires had been on the car but they were old and hard. When I got the car they told me the engine was junk and I built a 350 CI SB Chevy from scratch (there were no “crate motors” in 71/72). I bought every part from Behr Chevrolet in Woodland Hills? (San Fernando Valley) and put it together according to the “How to Hot Rod Your Small Block Chevy” book – having it blue printed and balanced as well. The engine that came in the car had Hilborn injection which we removed, and sold to a speed shop in Burbank, in favor of a simpler Holly 4 barrel set-up. I took the old engine apart and one of the heads was stamped with TRACO but everything was pretty rusty and I thought at the time that I wanted to start fresh.
- SCCA Driver's School Part II- the Lola's crash
- Back to the car. The car was red with plain while meatballs on it. I chose the number and put the zero on it. As stated, we changed the injection for something we knew something about (Holly 850 CFM and a Smoky Ram manifold). I had the money to buy two new rear tires and had to balance them myself because we couldn’t find anyone who could handle the wide wheels and we had found that they had a vibration when we took the car to Willow Springs.
- To check things out, at Willow Springs and found, beside the wheel imbalance, that the oil pick-up was not low enough in the Aviad road-race pan and the engine starved for oil in the long, sweeping, turn 2 exit where the oil pressure gauge would register zero for a bit.I shimmed the pump and this leads us to the preparation for me to have the car ready for my second Driver’s School week-end.
- My driver’s school instructor was Dick Gullstrand (who himself had driven T-70s) so he must have thought that I was a real piece of work, bringing a T-70 to school - but I had nothing else and no money to rent anything. I had to supply the pre-fabbed Roll Cage for the Mustang that I borrowed for my first Driver's School weekend as payment for that use of the car and I was now putting all of my money now into the Lola.
- I made it through the sessions Sunday afternoon (I think that I missed the morning sessions) by going really slowly through the turns (especially turn 8) because of the tremendous push the car had from the old, hard, front tires combined with the new gummy rears. Coming by on only my second lap of the day’s final event “race” I had found the car twitchy and when I went out wide to the left to make the right hand, 2nd. turn, the left rear tire dropped off of the pavement onto the dirt on the outside of the turn. Since the car is very low, this set the magnesium up-right on the pavement and it broke off. The left rear suspension broke sending the wheel upward tearing off the read body section. The car turned abruptly to the right and entered the nice V shaped graded dirt water ditch leading to the steep bank near the ice plant inside turn two. Entering the ditch tore off the nose section and the car came to a rest part way up the bank. I unbuckled, grabbed the fire extinguisher and jumped out. The water was leaking, the oil was leaking and the fuel was leaking out onto the ground.
- They stopped the “race”, a tow truck arrived and they gathered me and the pieces up and drove us back to the pits. We trailored the car and pieces home and that was it. My partner and I were involved in building a Shelby Mustang for SCCA BP racing (thus my need to complete driver’s school) and could not spend the time reworking my car.
- David Pozzi buys my Lola T70
- I advertised the car in Auto Week and Competition press for $600 and David called to say he was coming down my way (Hayvenhurst St. in Van Nuys, Ca) from Salinas (on family visit I think to his wife’s folks) and wanted to bring a trailer to pick up the car. I was selling the wreck without engine or Hewland LG400.
- As a postscript: I still have the engine on a stand that has traveled to three different homes we have had. It is now going into a Scarab replica I am building with my brother.
- I have often wondered what David did with the car and always assumed that it became a morphadite mongrel. I am very glad that he took the time and effort to restore it correctly.
- Back to the story: David arrived one wet morning with a big open trailer. We loaded the bent chassis/tub (sitting in the back yard) onto his trailer. The left rear suspension was broken off and the tub was tweaked/damaged. I had a spare Lola wheel that he asked if he could have and I said that I was afraid to let him have it as it had been tested and found to be cracked (I had the original wheels, which were painted red, bead blasted clean and checked for cracks). This one was cracked and I found a guy in Hollywood who had some so I bought another and never used the cracked one. I did end up letting David take the wheel. All of the wheels were porous and had to be sealed against leaking air from the inside with epoxy primer. Anyway, I couldn’t help but admire this guy who pulled a trailer from Salinas to fulfill his dream. I had always been in love with the Lola and watched Surtees, Bondarant, Andretti, Grant, Gurney and Jones drive them at Laguna Seca (nearer to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo were I went to collage from 65-69) and Riverside close to my home.
- From the current pictures of the car I am pleased to see that the roll bar that I made for the car is still in use. I made a kind of nifty rear view mirror stand out of an aluminum I beam that I hope was used as well.
- This is probably way more than anyone needed to hear but the memories were just there.
- Bill Krueger
- Below: Lola T70 at Riverside Bill Krueger driving
- Below: Lola at Riverside in traffic.
- Below: Lola at Riverside on curve.
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For more about this car and David Pozzi see pozziracing.com
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- The following
was submitted by Bill Krueger who sold the Lola to David Pozzi.
The story was so interesting we thought it might bring back some
memories of those days when racing was done on a shoestring and
common sense often was left at the wayside. Usually someone,
like Bill, who fell in love with a car and went to great lengths
(and distances) to fullfill his dream.
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