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Summary of 2001
Montana 500 Endurance Run
by Tom Carnegie
Sunday was inspection day. Somehow the
local newspaper had printed an article
saying that the run proper began on
Sunday, a misapprehension shared by some
of the T drivers. Better too early than
too late I guess. After we had inspected
all the cars, we had our evening meeting
and drew numbers. Rick Carnegie, last
year's winner was number one, and Rob
Flesner, a newcomer this year, was the
last car (a position he held the entire
way) with number 18. We had four more or
less touring cars. Peter Proschold from
Las Vegas with his brass touring car,
David Lingle with the roadster his dad
Melvin drove, Keith Painter from
Bountiful, Utah and Simon Nickol with his
touring car. David and Simon had a little
trouble, and didn't tour with us too
much, but Keith and especially Peter
drove a lot of miles. I wouldn't be
surprised to see Peter back next year
with a racer. Simon helped out with the
trouble unit throughout the run. Monday
morning in the rain, we headed out for
Whitefish to flag out. The first leg saw
the first T break down. It was Ted
Ballard with rear axle troubles. Ted was
driving a car that used to belong to
Orrin Culross of Culver City, California.
Orrin used to race in the mid '70's. The
next casualty was on leg three when Tom
Carnegie's crankshaft broke. Tom was in
second place at the time. The rest of the
first day was uneventful, until after the
last leg, Nan Robison's rear axle started
making funny noises. Since Tom's car was
dead in the water it was
(Continued on
page 6)
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