racelance

I recently purchased a vehicle and was curious to know if anyone out there has any pictures of the car while it was racing. Here's the last livery the vehicle ran as during Le Mans in 1997 and how it currently resides:





Thanks in advance!

Lance

eogel

Lance,

Great car! Did you buy it to race or resell? Would be interesting if you can share how you found the car. These have always been a car of interest to me. The only info I have is in a book I have. Can send info later.

TIA
Ed

vettehardt

Nice looking car Lance. Here are the only two callayLM pictures I have. Don't know for sure, but I don't think either are your car.

racelance

Ed-

Thanks... Yes, I've followed these particular cars since the inception of the LM Callaway's. Needless to say I've been looking for quite some time to purchase one. I recall speaking to Reeves Callaway about these cars years ago and he gave me some wonderful stories about 'em. Ever since then I wanted one! So I kept up with them however I knew the only car in the US that was races was "Frieda". This car was owned by the Callaway family but sold at auction to a collector. I was informed this car would never be up for sale in the future. This left me with 2 options - yet I didn't know where either car was other than in the UK.

When I was racing down in Sebring during the historics this past year they put me in Group 5 with a bundle of GT1 cars. I was literally a speed bump in my '90 World Challenge Corvette; down the straight I bet we had a 50 mph difference in speed! I shot Reeves an email the one evening I left the track to see if any LM's were available. He said he'll check, I never heard back. So months go by (about 8 or so) and I was home for a weekend (rare!) and had some free time on my hands. I decided to search for Callaway LM Race Car and sure enough a UK website popped up with the car for sale. I jumped out of my chair and yelled to my wife "You won't believe it!!! I found the car I've been looking for!!". She already thinks I'm crazy... I guess I am a bit, but hey we all love cars on here.

After trying to reach the owner for a couple weeks I gave up figuring the car already sold. Then a friend of mine out in Belgium told me the car was for sale and said he knows the owner. He put us together and we got the deal done. The owner was Almo Coppelli (original driver!). He's a wonderful person and we've been having fun dealing with one another for the past few months trying to get everything arranged to get the car back to the states from London. Finally the car arrived a couple of days ago and I was able to pick it up Friday.

The craftsmanship on this car is superb; I can't get over how incredible the quality is! You really need to see it to believe it. I'm very happy to have it in my stable and very much look forward to running the car in some historic races in the future. My plans are to get the body work measured & prepped so I can have easy access to making new ones in the event I need to create new body work if any mishaps occur on the track. Unfortunately there aren't any molds so if something did happen it would be difficult to recreate.

As you can see I'm excited about my new acquisition!

Life IS good,

Lance

racelance

Actually I believe the top picture is my car, it's when it won the World Challenge Series in '96. Thanks!

I figured it wouldn't hurt to drop a line on here to see if anyone grabbed any shots during the races back then.

Cheers,

Lance

PS From what I understand the wide-body came into play right after the car won the S2 World Challenge Series in '96. That's the way the car resides now - wide body that ran at Le Mans in '97 livery.

SDF

Lance,
Beautiful Car! Congratulations on the culmination of a long search! If you dont mind, could you post up some detailed pics when you get the chance?

Thanks,
Scott

grantar2

You would think Reeves has photo's in inventory. Perhaps he can tell you the name of the team photographer. There are usually some freelancer's attached to a team in any given year.

racelance

Scott-

No sweat...

Cheers,

Lance

racelance

I've got my feelers out everywhere. I have a lot of pictures now, but it never hurts to put your feelers out to the public on the forums. You just never know who was at the races snapping pictures. For instance I found some in my old files the other day. I'm standing in the paddock area next to the car with my Mom by my side - small world!?!

Lance