1967 Trans-Am season review

[Jon Mello]

Kent 300 Trans-Am coverage from CP&A. (Jon Mello Collection)

Donohue's two wins to finish off the season made things close at the end but it was not enough to win the championship.
It ended up going to Mustang even though Mercury was ahead going into the last race and had both Gurney and Jones
driving for them. The other thing to note was this was the first race for Penske's team on Goodyear tires. Roger was a Firestone
racing tire distributor and this would not have been done without pressure from Mark Donohue. Roger ended up selling his
Firestone franchise and becoming a Goodyear racing tire distributor beginning in time for the '68 racing season.

[Jon Mello]

Kent 300 Trans-Am coverage from Post*Grid. (Jon Mello Collection)

[BULLITT65]

good post: that article "talk about sand bagging-Ask Mark" Jerry Titus makes the remark at the end of the article regarding a super special light model and says "Like, how many Z-28's have you seen on the street, for example?" and in the years that followed Chevrolet capitalized on the racing prowess of the Z-28/Penske racing and marketed towards that crowd. But thank goodness for Mark Donahue and the Penske team or who knows if the moniker would even still be around today let alone the Camaro model itself.

[Jon Mello]

I think with the Mustang still going there is good reason for Chevrolet to keep the Camaro in the lineup. Yes, there was an 8 year gap with no Camaro but it helped to refocus the car. Penske and Donohue did add prestige to the Camaro nameplate, no doubt about it. They were my heroes when I became a Camaro owner and even before that.

[Jon Mello]

Kent 300 Trans-Am report from te December '67 issue of Sports Car Graphic. (Jon Mello Collection)

Excerpted from...

[Jon Mello]

Kent 300 Trans-Am photo feature from NorthWest MotorSports News. (Jon Mello Collection)

[Jon Mello]

Kent 300 Trans-Am entry form including schedule of events and race rules, courtesy of Frank Dihartce.

[Jon Mello]

Kent 300 Trans-Am program, courtesy of Frank Dihartce.

[F68]

These four pictures feature the #16 Camaro driven by Mark Donohue at the 1967 Green Valley Trans Am race.  He finished in fourth place, six laps down to the winner Dan Gurney.

Click on the corresponding link to see a larger and clearer version of each picture.

1st: http://thehenryford.artehouse.com/perl/magnify_popup.pl?imageID=94869&staticImage=C&ckon=image&alt=0
2nd: http://thehenryford.artehouse.com/perl/magnify_popup.pl?imageID=95084&staticImage=C&ckon=image&alt=0
3rd: http://thehenryford.artehouse.com/perl/magnify_popup.pl?imageID=95102&staticImage=C&ckon=image&alt=0
4th: http://thehenryford.artehouse.com/perl/magnify_popup.pl?imageID=95117&staticImage=C&ckon=image&alt=0

 some help here friends please,, there is a color picture almost just like the top pic somewhere of the Penske car in 67 in this turn at Green Valley somewhere here.  I call it the blue flash,,, but I cannot find it anywhere any help appreciated thanks

[Jon Mello]

Maybe this one below from the Dave Friedman Collection link?

[F68]

that's it!! thanks for some wall paper jon!!

[Jon Mello]

You're welcome!

[SMKZ28]

Jon, not sure if you have seen these photos of your #4 Camaro Z28 at the 1967 Sebring 4-Hour event but I found them and a bunch of other pictures of the event at the Revs Digital Library.  Do a search for "1967 Sebring 4 hour" and you will find several pictures of the race.  Do you know what was wrong with the #4 in the second picture?  It looks to be smoking pretty bad.  Did it have an oil leak or rear gear problem or something else that you know of?

Click on the following links to see clearer versions of each picture along with magnification tools to enlarge and zoom in on them:

1) https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/zr600yd2766
2) https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/zh502yp6055

[Jon Mello]

Thanks, Scott. I did look on the Revs Library site today and did see some new additions that I hadn't seen previously. I may have to spend some more time there looking around.

The only thing I heard previously about my car at Sebring was that it lost at least 10 minutes in the pits trying to fix a sticky throttle situation. They may have stopped more than once for repairs. I'm not aware of what may have caused a smoking situation but I know the car finished the race and I don't think the motor was refreshed until July '67 or so.

[Steve Holmes]

Boy I just love seeing these old race programs. Thanks for posting Jon. Note in the Kent program is advertising both the 1968 C3 Corvette and Ford Torino and Galaxie. All three new models would have been hot off the press at the time.