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Columbus Ford Dealers 500


zeitgeist57

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WKKJ42QVYM&feature=PlayList&p=49750226CD09BF6A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=84

 

Really cool to see GT racers blowing through downtown. The commentary is interesting also. I didn't live in Columbus in the 80s, but I would've enjoyed watching these races...

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I went to this race all three years they had it. I'll try to dig up some of my pictures. I remember one year (believe it was the last year of the race) Bobby Rahal was driving the 'Mustang Probe' car. That was back when Ford was going to screw the Mustang up and make it a FWD car.
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I found my pictures and have been scanning them since yesterday. Most of the pictures are from the stands in front of Vet's Memorial. It's crazy seeing the prison in the background of some of the pictures. I'll have them done tomorrow and I'll post the links to them.

also I had my facts all wrong.... In 1988 Bobby Rahal never drove the Mustang Probe car, he won in the Budweiser car.

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My dad crewed for a team in the race that that ran a renault alliance sponcered by Rapallo's Restaurant that used to be in the continent. He/ his company had the contract for welding down the man holes (the gtps whould suck them rite up) and even whould break the welds after a while.

I also think that we have a Officail race poster signed by Buck rinehart somewhere

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Most of you are too young to remember but Ashton Tate was a huge vendor of IBM data bases way back and I was their primary distributor (Ingram) on the east coast. I had a bunch of co-op money to spend or loose so we sponsored RapidFire Pit Lane for the 500 one year. Flew in execs from all the major computer retailers in the country and had limos shuffle them back and forth from hotels and the airport to the track.

 

We had a gold hospitality tent (next to Rahal and Bud) for the weekend and started serving champaign breakfasts at 9am, catered lunches and a open bar all day and fancy dinners at night. Spent well over a hundred grand in sponsorship but the conputer business was flush at the time and didn't make a dent in the co-op I had to spend for the year.

 

Got to do some parade laps with the Ford dealers and met most of the drivers.

 

Unreal experience! Probably won't ever happen again.

 

Ron

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Was fortunate enough to work all three years as a pit marshall. Worker registration & part was at the old state penitentiary. The track was well liked by mast drivers - it was pretty wide compared to many temporary circuits. The only two really odd things were the 180 degree turn around in the middle of pit lane (just about at the entrance to Veteran's Memorial) and the railroad underpass going out Spring Street with one of the suppports causing a "narrowing" of the track under the tracks.

 

Dana "Buck" Reinhart was a huge supporter of the race - too bad city council wasn't then. I don't see it ever happening again here - just look at the city's "support" of converting Cooper Stadium to a motorsports complex!

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I never knew anything about these races. Was pretty awesome watching the video.

 

So what officially happened that caused these downtown races to stop? I would think this brought a lot of money into the city...money the city could sure use now (and a hell of a lot better than raising taxes....).

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My dad worked for Ford in the 80's (that's how I got my tickets) and he told me that most of the sponsors lost money on the race. From 85 to 88 Ford split their cost by having the Ford dealers help pay, but After the 88 race Ford pulled out and that left the Ford dealerships responsible for the entire Ford share of the cost which they just couldn't afford. Remember this was before Ricart got larger than life and was just a Ford dealer. (actually Ricart almost went bankrupt during this time period) The tickets for the event ran $15 for general admission and $100 for Grandstand seats. The price went up about $10 the last three years. General admission got you inside the gates to stand along a fence or you could walk around the track. The grandstand tickets got you somewhere to sit. There was also separate tickets to get you into the paddock area, driver's lounge and the hospitality tents.
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