Welcome to ELB Racing. This site will chronicle our adventures of campaigning a vintage race car, as well as auto-crossing and open tracking historic street cars. ELB is short for 'Extremely Low Budget'. As this implies, we are doing this out of enthusiasm, with no sponsorship or typical race team like funding. This is just regular folks, saving their pennies, and heading to the track for thrills, excitement, fun and camaraderie.
This began, as most money pit hobbies do, with a dream.
Team Cougar, 1967, run by Bud Moore and captained by Dan Gurney. The Cougar team, with their funding pulled by big blue mid-season, came runner-up in the 1967 Trans-Am Championship, loosing by just one single point. This fairy tale season, and a few hobbyists enthusiasm for the classic Mercury Cougar, is where ELB Racing stems from.
With lots of excitement in mind and very little cash, it was time to figure out a way to get on a race course. When you can't afford a race car, and already have a hobby car, it sort of becomes a no-brainer. To that end, the folks at ELB began autocrossing and open tracking classic Mercury Cougars.
After a few years of excitement open tracking these Cougars (and after many broken & replaced stock type parts), it became obvious that it was time to take the next step and move towards a bit more serious & dedicated race car. When you have a small budget, love vintage Fords / Mercs, what do you do? Well, you buy a PINTO of course!
This 1972 Ford Pinto has been a race car since the 1970s. The SCCA log book catalogs dozens upon dozens of events in Texas, Colorado and West Virginia. The more recent (since 1998) vintage race log book catalogs dozens of vintage race events up and down the east coast. Equipped with a period correct 2.0 liter engine and 4 speed transmission, the car is prepared as a vintage B-Sedan racer from back in the day, and is welcome with various vintage race clubs, including the RS Re-union series for IMSA cars raced 'in-period'.
Our first event with the Pinto takes place next Week at a Friday At The Track @ Summit Point Raceway, WV. Following that initial shakedown day, the car will return to Summit Point in the spring of 2010 as part of the SCCA competition school. After that, the team plans to take the car to a spring vintage racing school, in order to obtain a provisional vintage race license and begin the campaign.
We will do our best to chronicle these upcoming events on this site, as well as touch on events that we participate in with the classic Mercury Cougar street cars as well.
