Chaparral Display / Midland...cool

I was playing in a golf tournament the first couple of days of the week in Midland. After the first round I had some time so I went to the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum on I20. The Jim Hall Gallery has the Chaparral cars on display with some extra cool interactive displays. If you want to name one guy in motorsports who was WAY AHEAD OF HIS TIME it was Jim Hall. His innovations were unreal. I had always been a fan since I was pretty young when he was road racing. That Chaparral / Road Runner name and logo grabbed any kid and especially since he was from Texas. I have always been a big fan of the Penske / Donahue team, and Penske learned a ton driving for Hall. I am not a big diecast fan, but I may have to have a Chaparral S2. I had never really known that his Chaparral Indy car had the ground effects that let JR & Unser dominate. Wish I had more time as there was plenty to look at.
Mac
http://www.petroleummuseum.org/Chapa...arralhome.html

No question Jim Hall was way ahead of his time. If the competitors had worked with him instead of against him, who knows where racing would be today. ALL of his cars were unbeatable, until they were legislated out ...too bad for us!

I've passed that museum many, many times and have never stopped in (usually speeding through to and from El Paso!) Thanks for the link! The curiosity has been driving me nuts for years!

It is too bad that some American mfg. didn't team up with Hall to really put a hurt on the Euros in F1 back in the 60s or 70s. His ideas would have been a huge edge. As much as they are a techno crowd in F1 maybe they would have appreciated the ideas more then here in the states. I know he raced some F1 back in the late 50s or early 60s, but I don't think he was involved in any enginerring in F1. It is sort of funny that most of the sports racers were right wheel drive.