Born again! 1982 Riggins Camaro


In 1994, I raced as part of the Kent Painter Racing team in that year’s Daytona 24 Hours and it was a great experience. Although we were driving an old Tommy Riggins-built tube frame GTO/S Camaro, we finished 21st OA and thought we’d done okay. This was despite the fact that we spent the last twelve hours with the dear old Chevy on only seven cylinders!

My friend Mauro Borella, who lives in Milan, Italy, raced the sister car and they finished 18th OA, even better! In 1995, Mauro raced the same car again at Daytona and, again, the car finished despite running for several hours without any front bodywork at all as the car had suffered an accident in the night. After this race the car had a new engine installed, did some testing in January 1996 and was then put into storage within a stone’s throw of Sebring.

For the last two years (!), Mauro had been thinking of buying the old girl back and restoring her, so that he and I could share the car and some historic Endurance racing over here in America. Certainly, the old girl has, apparently, done between ten to thirteen Daytona 24 Hours, and finished most of them and so a three-hour race should be like a sprint to this old lady.

After returning home from the HSR Sebring races on Sunday, I had a good night’s sleep and, as arranged with Larry Ligas and David Hinton, was at the Predator team headquarters in Largo by 8 a.m. on Monday morning, where borrowed their two-axle, two-car trailer and set off yet again to Sebring. Five times in five days, this is like going to work there!

Two hours later, I was pulling into the storage depot, to find Mauro and Kent had already moved stuff (motor bikes), from behind the Camaro and Mauro had put air into the old flat tires. It wasn’t too long before we were able to push the old Camaro from her slumbers of the last fourteen years out into the sunlight. Despite being covered in cobwebs, she looked remarkably good (see photos) and, with the assistance of a friendly forklift driver from over the way, we soon had her and the spares (which included a complete rear axle and numerous body panels) loaded up.

As I was tying her down, a very kindly man approached and helped us, informing me that he had a 1997 NASCAR Ford Thunderbird in his storage area and would I like to see it? NASCAR cars are not really my thing but hey, it’s a racecar and I took a look. What a beauty! Very well maintained and looking ready to go. I took a couple of photos and then we were on our way back home after a final farewell to Kent. Thanks Kent, this project will be, er……. interesting!

We arrived back at Predator’s premises around 4.15 p.m. and the car and spares were soon unloaded (when we discovered that the brakes still worked!) and put away ready for “the boys” to start the restoration. David Hinton’s first thoughts were: “doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would...” which seems to bode well. We shall see.