Roadster Ralph
Circa 2001, I remember seeing a silver roadster roaming around my town on a few occasions. Spotted it at a stoplight once. The driver was super tall and it had a seat cover. Then I actually saw it parked in a grocery store lot. Didn't think to leave a note, but I enjoyed admiring it...a '69 SRL, with Panasports on chunky Advan A032R slicks and a slightly lowered suspension...it really got me excited.
Fast forward a year and I'm cruising in my roadster. I took a shortcut home through an old neighborhood and noticed the same roadster, sitting in a garage! This time I didn't hesitate and walked up to the house to try and meet the owner. We both ended up chatting for a bit. His name was Ralph and he was a huge car enthusiast.
Not only did he own the Datsun roadster, he had an BMW E30 M3 and a Datsun 1200 race car in his sideyard. Ralph raced the 1200 at local community college auto-x event known as "The Duel at DeAnza".
We talked roadsters for awhile...his car was set up so that he could instruct drivers at Thunderhill Raceway! Hence the slick tires and (1 coil removed) suspension.
Ralph was very adept at auto-repair...he told me to return a week later as he would be changing the clutch on a friend's U20...of course I obliged to be part of the fun and the prospect of meeting another roadster owner! And this is how i met John....
John owned a '67 SPL with a full U20/5-speed and Solexes...I'm struggling to find pics I snapped of the whole car. John and i jumped into my roadster to grab some parts from a local vendor named Rod (of Rod's Datsun Parts)...I'll never forget Rod's garage...it felt like a convenience store of Datsun parts.
We got the clutch replaced and John was back on the road...I never heard from them afterwards
Some three years later, around 2004-5 I was at Z Car Garage and somehow John was there! He was thinking about doing an SR20 swap...so we both drove each others' roadsters, I remember we even did a roll-on race. John was in San Jose living out of The Fairmont hotel temporarily...didn't get his full story but I'm asking Rob of his whereabouts.
I missed both of these guys...Ralph called me out of the blue sometime in 2008. He wanted to sell all of his Datsun roadster stuff as he was moving. I said to post it on the mailing list. I think he ended up giving to Mike Young. That was the last I heard from Ralph. Hope he 's out there Enjoying the Ride!
This is a story of encountering one MG owner and by chance bumping into him again!
Here he is posing with my roadster, at an MG Dyno Day, with the "Not MG" sticker (thanks Mark Dent) that we joked about at our initial encounter, and his full MG apparel:
