Friday - Weather was clear and sunny. The temporary race circuit was on Jacqueline Cochran Airport in Indio near Palm Springs. The original well known Palm Springs Sports Car Races were held on the Airport at Palm Springs in the 1950s. The track for the weekend was a 2.2 mile track, on the airport runways, and really challenging with two sets of difficult chicanes on both straights... and less than 90 degree corners at the ends. There was a lot of dust and gravel on the surface and made for slippery sliding around on tarmac. One could just "squint their eyes and it was truly going back in time... the announcer said..." There is a car off and went into the bushes and desert... the tow truck is there trying to locate the race car". Our Group 4 was for historic cars of the Palm Springs genre. A blue Devin with a very fast potent Chevy engine and with disc brakes and a newly restored yet old Proctor Special of the late 1950s with a Chevy with a powerful motor ...so competition was tough on the 'topside' with cars with "big" horsepower. The first session had the Lotus 7s & Lotus 11s moving fast through the chicanes and braking very deep. There were two practice sessions and dust with fine gravel everywhere.
Saturday - Morning 1st qualifying session- Changed tires and the distributor/ timing off again. Afternoon Final Qualifying session- We had posted second fastest lap time.
Sunday - Morning session - OYII had fastest lap time... car stalled coming in (distributor kept moving after a few laps and will not stay in place with big power drop and soon stalls). Afternoon race- Organizer put Devin on pole at last minute but he did have fast car at the beginning of weekend... By end of first lap I took inside and passed Devin... and I was able with strong new race motor and new tires really hooking up... to just power away from Proctor and Devin... backed off and let them pass... we changed lead several times and my power was going off but Proctor Special disappeared with engine probelms and could not keep up with the Devin and OYII... last lap I was on tail of Devin to the finish line and could not push past...power off (timing going off) and on "cool off lap" and coming off track... car stalled out near the front grandstands... tried to start and had flames coming up and out of all 6 Stromburg carbs’... the Firemen quickly put out small flames (had to tell them to use gloves and no fire bottles)... the distributor turned again and caused the timing to go so far off- would not run. The announcer was going "absolutely bonkers" during the race thinking it was a fender to fender race (he kept saying that is will be an absolutely "magical moment" if the Old Yeller II can win again at the Palm Springs Revival like the old days) and for the first 6 laps... the Old Yeller II "was on song" as they say in England... and pulling very strong as the tires were really hooking up... and new race motor really pulling.
So... second place by a bumper is not bad considering it was to be only a "test weekend" with new spare motor put in at very last minute (blew up a race motor the week before at Willow Springs Races)... and new suspension changes (finally after a full year's worth of work) to improve the car...great fun and the chicanes were really eye opening for sure- 4-3 on backside & 4-3 (the 4 being really difficult being wide and last chicane barrier being a decreasing angle to chicane) along front straight at speed! The Old Yeller II posted the fastest recorded lap in the race on the 9th lap at 1:28.243 at 89.752 mph.
Special thanks to Randall Richardson for the use of his fabulous photographs.
1959 Balchowsky Buick Special 
