This takes me back to the mid '60s - that's mid 1960's for you young whippersnappers - when Mom, Dad and I all drove in parking lot gymkhanas. The cars you would see! Lotus Super 7s, Sunbeam Alpine Tigers, Corvettes, real Cobras, real Shelby GT350s and, once, a GT40 that I got to sit in.
There were Jaguar XK 140s and E types, Triumphs and MGs of all sorts, 2-cycle powered Saabs, Austin-Healy 3000s and any number of other cars that I can't recall at the moment, having fun on a Sunday morning at the local shopping mall burning up some rubber.
Top time of the day, however, almost always went to one of two Mini Cooper S that regularly showed up. If not one of those two, there was a Meyers Manx with a six cylinder Porsche 911 engine that could hang with them on the twisty little courses and a few Corvairs that, on a good day, were right there, too. The two Mini guys were race car drivers while the rest of us were wannabe racers and they didn't need high horsepower to get around the course at max speed. One of the Mini's brake system had been modified so that, with dual hand brakes, one side or the other could be stopped like a tracked caterpiller bulldozer, making the the car's ridiculous turning radius even tighter! Like we wheelers use left foot braking for low speed control, these guys used it too, only they would just leave the throttle floored practically all of the time and control their speeds in the corners with the individual hand brakes. It was amazing to watch - it was like the Mini guys were on rails and not a whole lot like in the youTube video. That driver was sure having fun, though.
Sorry, no pictures, so it must not have happened, but it sure makes me smile to remember those times.
Thanks for posting the video up, Marco.
super neat Mini.
spendy but low miles, H55, squeaky clean, and the best color:
