Ernie Smith Alfetta

Here are some pictures of the Alfetta GT that Ernie Smith raced, initially in IMSA, and then in SCCA GT-3. First, some background on the car. In the mid-70's, one of the ships bringing a load of Alfa's to the United States caught fire while on the water. Many of the cars received damage that was mostly cosmetic, but were deemed unfit for retail sale. Most of the vehicles were Alfettas, both coupe and sedan. Thinking creatively, Alfa decided to pull the DOT plates off the cars and sell them solely for the purpose of racing them. To support their sale, Alfa USA created the Alfetta Cup. But that is another story... Ernie Smith had sold his 105/115 GTV that he had raced in IMSA and decided to prepare and race an Alfetta GT for IMSA. So he purchased one of the fire cars. All of the damaged inventory (they were referred to as "the fire cars") had been wholesaled to dealers, and the dealers were the ones selling them to individuals. The dealer that I worked for then in Nashville, Tennessee, (Madison Smith) had purchased a dozen or so of the cars (a mix of coupes and sedans), but had sold all of the coupes by the time Ernie was ready to move on the project. So he ended up locating one somewhere like Oklahoma. His first race, the 24 Hours of Daytona, was a disappointment. In the old days, people could actually drive their race car to Daytona, race it, and then drive home. In fact, some guys did just that in a GTA in '68 or maybe '69. So Ernie decided to prepare the car mildly (Shankle suspension, Weber conversion with mild cams, BFG street radials, etc,) and count on reliability for a decent finish. Then, he would keep developing the car as the season progressed. Unfortunately, it was the same year that the Porsche 935 showed up at Daytona for the first time. Closing speeds of the 935 on the Alfetta were almost 100 MPH! So for the first time, IMSA officials felt it necessary to enforce the 125% rule (your qualifiying time must be no more than 125% of the pole qualifier). Consequently, they were not allowed to run. Ernie and his co-driver, John Foshee, were upset, but I think secretely relieved. I remember Ernie saying that the 935's would come out of nowhere - one moment his rearview mirror was empty, and two seconds later it was filled with 935! This first picture is at Daytona, but a year or so later at the Finale, the last race held by IMSA each year in November. Development on the car had moved along. Notice the 13" Jongbloed wheels (8" or 9" in front and 10" in the rear) with factory flaired fenders. This was still in the era of smaller wheels (ala GTAm) to get the car lower. To get the fiberglass body pieces, Ernie used the services of someone who was making frequent trips to Italy and would pick up the parts you needed. The guy's success rate was nothing to brag about. On the first try on the fenders, he brought back a set for the Alfetta sedan instead (Ernie sold them to a guy who grafted them onto his Mazda RX2 GT-3 race car!), and the broker was never able to locate the ducts that fit below the front of the rear fender flairs. Ernie got so he actually liked the way the car looked without the ducts, but I always thought it looked like it was missing something there - which it was! Your basic 2 liter engine - with 48 DCOE's, Norman cams, Carillo rods, Venolia's. Initially, Ernie ran a dry sump, but later went to a wet sump with a stock pan modified with a box with trap doors. It worked fine. The dry sump system was donated to an Alfa-powered sports racer-type car (Lola S2000 chassis) that Del Taylor built for IMSA. The dry sump system was Ernie's price of admission to co-drive the car at Sebring. As everyone now knows, you just can't get enough horsepower out of a Nord 2 liter. That is the reason Ernie gave up on the Alfetta in IMSA and switched to SCCA. The more restrictive preparation rules and the weight formula of SCCA made the car less uncompetitive there than in IMSA. Ernie adapted Lockheed brakes designed for Formula Atlantic to fit inside the 13" wheels. There weren't a lot of choices for brakes back then like there are today. Ernie ended up with TWO close ratio transaxles for the car. The first one was a unit with the factory close ratio gear set that Vic Provenzano had set up and used in his Alfetta sedan race car (I believe it was a "fire car" too) that he raced in the IMSA RS series for sedans (never mind that alternate gear ratios were not legal in that series...!) Vic sold the car to Paul McDonald (I think that was his first name), who raced it without much success. Ernie bought it from Paul just to get the transaxle. The other transaxle was a unit that Del Taylor had Saenz custom make for him to use in his IMSA RS Alfetta sedan (again, forget that stock gears were required for the transmission!). Unfortunately, his race car was stored in a building in Montgomery, AL, years ago when the roof of the building collapsed, ending his run with it.

Ernie Smith entered this Alfa Romeo Alfetta from 1979 to 1982.