Stalled Porsche Between Turns 5 and 6

If we had any doubts about Annie being a race car, we certainly confirmed this Friday night at the Grand Prix of Houston. We participated in the Porscheplatz activities sponsored by PCA and IMSA and we had great time parked amongst more than 50 other Porsches. We were the only 356 and by far the oldest car between the Porsches, Corvettes, and Ferraris parked within the corral parking.

The highlight of the day was a parade lap around the Grand Prix track. We started in the middle of the Porsche pack with the Corvettes ahead of us and the Ferraris behind us. At no point in the lap did we ever top more than 50 mph.

As we exited turn 5, we had serious loss of power and then no acceleration. We sat on the side of the track at an idle as we watched the rest of the Porsches run by. After a couple minutes, I found that the accelerator linkage had broken loose behind the firewall. As the tow vehicle pulled up, we were able to speed away on our own power (with a cheer from the crowd) only to stall again in turn 7. Now we had to be towed out of the track as the Ferraris passed us by.

Once outside the track, I found that the cotter pin that holds the accelerator rocker on the back of the fan shroud had disappeared. In the spirit of ingenuity, I cut the wire to the trunk latch to use as a make shift keeper. This was good enough to barely get us home.

Once home, we found even more damage. The arm from the carburetor cross linkage broke off of the left carb which was why we only had two cylinders for the the last 2 miles of the 30 mile trip. I found that the tin between the body and engine had shifted causing the accelerator linkage to bind up. This put undue stresses and forces in uncommon directions on all of the linkage assemblies.