It’s still unfathomable to us that Jim Pace is no longer out there driving race cars. Jim’s passing was a shock to the world, especially to us here at BangShift. The good news is that situations like this will continue to pop up. Footage that no one has seen before coming to light and making us smile as the man who could drive anything, drives hard. Before Jim became ill and died, he had an amazing and ultimately harrowing ride in a Shadow Can-Am car at Road America. You will NOT be riding with Jim for the moment he suffered the blow over crash on the straight at Road America, but you will ride with him experiencing nothing but the deafening noise and blinding acceleration of a 1970s Can-Am car.
These cars were vicious and this video shows why. There’s a time or two where Jim dips into the throttle a little hard coming out of a corner and it’s not like the thing spins the tires, it blows them off like he is on a frozen lake and these things had real rubber on them. The power to weight ratio of these cars was verging on 1:1 and they made straightaway speed like nothing anyone had ever seen in road racing. One’s blood can run cold when you think about the sensations of battling this car around a track like Road America. Sensations that we’d be panicked of but that guys like Jim Pace embrace and envelop with all of themselves when they’re behind the wheel.
This video rules.
