Hello from a newbie !
 

Just joined today. Looks like a great site.

I have a '87 911 Turbo, triple black, that I bought new.

Love the old pre-chip cars.

Welcome aboard great group of people on this site, how did you find us?

I am on the offshore racing sites all the time and someone posted a video clip of the Fearless boat with a link to this site.

VELKOM

make sure and contact jox for your new member kit! ;)

And would that "New Member" kit include a new set of Ruf wheels for my car?

Welcome! Let me introduce you to one of our most important rules 'round these parts:

PICS OR BAN

Let's see the car! :friends:

Welcome! And yes let's see some pics and let me know what's in the new member kit, I'm afraid to get mine. LOL :rofl:

Welcome to the TEAM!:friends:

I'll get some pics of the car up.....they are at home. BUT, I know you guys are boats and cars, so I'l put up a pic of my boat anyway.

Charlie McCarthy's banana boat co

:coolpics: awesome pic, was that taken from the air?

If you ever want to sell that turbo I will give it a loving home!:bow: That was my dream car when I was a young child, as soon as I have a garage to keep one properly in I am going to get one.

Yes, there are professional photographers that follow the circuit and take great shots like that from helicopters.

They would fly so low that sometimes you were in danger of hitting them.

If they were down shooting a boat that was ahead of you and you were trying to pass, you would have to wait for them to clear off.

There is some video clips on the website, of racing action.

Welcome and enjoy.

Thanks, but I'm afraid it will be with me until I can't drive anymore and then my sons will flip a coin to see who gets it.

I have had newer ones since '87, but that car is such a neat car, I just can't bring myself to get rid of it. I have 32,000 miles on it now since new. Always used Mobil 1 in it, as I used to race and knew first hand how good that was for the engines in the race cars.

If you ever need to disown them, please consider me the daughter you never had. :smilie:

No thanks....daughters always mean a dowery. Hell, my father in law passed away and he still owes me a cow from my wife's dowery.

Just use the car as the dowry, I'll bump the groom off and keep it for myself. Simple. No need to fuss with cows.

Welcome Top Banana.
Cool boat!

LOL Nerual, you are one persistent person! :lol:

Hahah come on man that car is serious business! I'm only going to be more jealous once he posts pics. :HappyDance:

Welcome to the forum, nice to have you here.

Okay...I'll come clean. Through no fault of my own, many years ago I was fortunate enough to meet Jochen Mass at a Formula 1 race in France. He and I became good friends, mainly because of our shared love of boats.

Through that connection and my own history of buying Porsches over the years, this car was set up by the factory people and is a very special car.

It has the European ride height and carries everything in a stock form, from wheels to options etc. In a word it is nothing too special, it is just stock, but everything was done very right.

Here is a couple of shots of me and Jochen at Watkins Glen when he was drivng for McLaren in the 70's. And at Sebring when he teamed with Bobby Rahal and won the 12 hour event in Bruce Levin's 962. That's me with the sunglasses in front of the car, lending moral support.

Later on, I was one of four people invited to Willow Springs by Andial to test the prototype Carrera Cup car in '92....just before they decided to dump the whole program of Carrera Cup in America. One of my co-drivers in IMSA and I, had decided that we would do the Cup series and sold off all of the old race equipment only to be told by the factory...no series. They let us buy car #2 when they converted them back to street cars. Brumos got car # 1.

Great pics and stories Top Banana, welcome to the team.

Damn, are you sure you can't adopt me? :smilie: Better start posting more of the cool pics I know you're holding back on, too. :friends:

hey welcome to the site!

dont forget to order your TS chain from Felix (Porsche Fanatic)

Welcome aboard. Nice to have another boater on the board! :coolpics:

Thanks man.....it's just that love of speed that carries over from land to water.

I have really had a lot of great opportunities in life and had a great time enjoying them all.

Here is one of the best of all time. I was in the last Cannonball Run...not the rally, but the race that they made the movie with Burt Reynolds in back in '79.

I had a new 928 Porsche that I was setting up and a friend of mine heard that I had an invitation. (It was invitation only from Brock Yates) So my friend offers up his new turbo diesel Mercedes for use, if he can go with me.

I accept his offer and turn the car over to Bill Mitchell of Special Vehicles Development in Connecticut. Bill turns the trunk of the car into a fuel cell and adds new XWX tires, halogen lights, radar detectors front and rear and even a car phone as well as the mighty CB.

Long story short.....range of the car between stops was over 600 miles. Finished 6th at a time of 36 hours from Connecticut to California. Memories of a lifetime.

Funniest part of the trip was in California. We ended up out there just in time for the Long Beach Formula 1 race. So they tell us they are going to introduce us (the Cannonball competitors )to the crowd and they want us to just take a few laps around the track and then come in. Think about that....we just broke every law in the country and they really expected us to come right in.....after about 10 minutes beyond what they thought reasonable, they finally blocked the track and forced us off to the great delight of the crowd.

fantastic stories! welcome to TS! I think you will fit in just fine around here:cool2:

Okay...where do I order one?

I was looking for some photos of my car, but the best I could find on short notice, is the back of it at Lime Rock race track.

My Turbo is the black car in the background, the white car is the Carrera Cup car serial # 2, that I was speaking about earlier. The guy in the photo is Tom McCabe, he was one of the four that was invited to Willow Springs to test also. Another driver was Alan Freed, a Camel Lights driver.

Guess I might as well name the fourth driver at this point......Andial didn't trust our feedback on the car 100%, so they had some guy show up late in the day to test also. He gets in the car and in two laps, is now under the best time that the three of us had posted all day ......Some Californian by the name of George Follmer....seems he had some relationship with Porsache going back to winning the Can Am championship for them with Penske's car after Donohue was injured. Life is so great at keeping you humble...you just have to wait and your next opportuniity is coming right over the hill.

Autoweek did a story on the Willow Springs test and the decision of Porsche to cancel the series in the USA.

Welcome aboard Top Banana. :friends:

Welcome Top Banana, love the pictures and the stories, thank you for sharing! The picture of your boat fully out of the water, who often do you guys blow the engines because of over reving? Crazy fast love watching the off shore racing on Speed Vision!

Hey thanks to everyone for the warm welcome.

The engines do blow sometimes, but the crew consists of three people...Driver - Navigator and Throttleman. It is the job of the throttleman to be sensitive enough to let off the power, just as the props clear and then get back on just as they re-enter the water so the boat doesn't come to a stop.

In the old days...60's and 70's.... the races were really offshore and lasted much longer, so the throttleman would have to do his job about 3,000 times in a 225 mile race. After a while it gets to be second nature, like shifting a car and using a clutch.

A bunch of us old guys are putting on a real ocean race again this June 20th from Miami to Bimini and back....proceeds to a South Florida charity...Take Stock in Children. We have had a lot of interest....we are also having a Concours 'd Sport on Saturday afternoon of that weekend for old offshore race boats and old sportscar race cars (Porsches). Come on down and introduce yourself.

Thank you for the explanation of how it all works just seems like you couldn't keep up with the throttle to me!

Keep us posted here I would love be in the area for that weekend!

Welcome to TS and thanks for sharing your great stories!

Loving the white 964 (obviously :)

For those who don't know, Don Aronow was the guy that started most of the major Hot Boat companies in Miami.

He began with Formula, then Donzi and Magnum and Cigarette. While he owned Cigarette, he bought back Magnum and resold it a year later. Sold Cigarette and started Squadron XII and USA racing. He was murdered right outside the Apache shop 20 years ago. His design for the 41 Apache is still the best rough water boat around.

Fox is in the making of a major motion picture of his life. We are holding the race inhis honor and donating the proceeds to the charity in his name. There is more on him on both the Historic Offshore Race Boat Association and Banana Boat co websites. The last photo is of Don and me outside the Magnum shop back in the 70's......I'm almost 6 feet so you can see what a big guy he was.