Local drivers seeking checkered flag
By RICK PENDERGRASS
Kansan Staff Writer
A different type of driver's education course was offered in Selina last month. The requirements included age of at least 21, much driving experience, a couple of free days and some extra money.
Not the usual driver's ed course, it was a race driver's school put on by Kansas Region of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) March 22 and 23.
Attending the school as students were four local drivers; two of them KU students, the other two former students.
Only Buck Entriken, Lawrence sophomore, had previous race experience—and that only from attending two such schools last year. But in 1968 he was driving a borrowed Formula Vee. Now for the first time he was taking his own 1959 MGA on the course.
He took the car home at the end of the
second day with a broken axle. Yet a smug grin on his face indicated his glee at being half a lap ahead of the second place car in his final race of the day—and only three laps into the race—when he went into the pits to stay.
Bill Langsdorf, Topeka senior, didn't break anything.
The last time Langsdorf had competed his MG Midget was last October in the SCCA Midwest Division autocross runoffs. In that event Langsdorf flipped the Midget.
Since then he has added a roll bar, done some suspension work,unbent the sheet metal and painted numbers on the car.
Of the 55 drivers from as far away as Minnesota and New Mexico attending the school only four received all "5" ratings at the end of the weekend—the highest possible score.
Both men drove Triumphs; Spencer a TR-4A and Bailey a TR-3. Although the 4A is a D-production car and the 3 is classed in E-production, the two often found themselves racing one another during the school.
Two of the four were KU graduate Bill Spencer, part-owner of a Lawrence sports
car dealership, and former student Duane Bailey, one of Spencer's emplovers.
The novice drivers were rated in six categories at the end of the school: attitude, courtesy, lap time, reaction, technique and judgment. It was in these categories that Spencer and Bailey received their "5" ratings.
The four became interested in racing in similar ways--running rallies and gymkhanas put on by other sports car clubs as well as SCCA, then going to races as a worker or pit crewman, finally deciding they wanted to be out there on the course themselves.
Langsdorf said, about his start in sports car activities, "When I was a
teeny-bopper, we used to rod around in the streets in my Corvair late at night when everyone was asleep.
"One day there was a gymkhana in a local lot. One of the guys said, 'Hey, Bill. That's just like what you do at night. Why don't you enter?'
"Well, I entered," Langsdorf said, "and I've been at it ever since."
Two years ago Langsdorf and Bailey had nearby rooms in Joseph R. Pearson Hall.
"Bill (Langsdorf) sort of indoctrinated me into racing," Bailey said. "First I entered some rallies, then the Jayhawk Sports Car Club. I started going to races as a timer, pit mechanic and corner man.
"I decided this was no fun—I wanted to race," Bailey said. "Then by knowing the right people and being in the right places, I got to the point where I am today."
The right people, for Bailey, were (Continued to page 15)
Weather check
As a late winter snow flurry hits Lawrence, Bill Spencer's Triumph TR-4A gets an engine check. Buck Entriken leans under the hood as Spencer looks over his shoulder in left photo. Kibitzing, in the right photo, are Ken Trippos, left, and Duane Bailey.
14 KANSAN Apr. 16 1969
KU SORORITIES
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Gamma Phi Beta
Chi Omega
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Delta Delta Delta
Pi Beta Phi
Delta Gamma
Sigma Kappa
SALUTE THE 1969 KANSAS RELAYS