My lifelong passion for motor racing started in North Branford, Connecticut when I was ten. It was the early sixties, when auto racing meant hot rods, drag racing, and the Indianapolis 500. Our neighbour’s teenage son, Freddie, was converting a 1934 Ford Pickup Truck into a hot rod, complete with chopped and channeled body and flat head V8 engine. I spent countless hours in the car while Freddie worked, reading his collection of Hot Rod Magazines, inadvertently expanding my rural Connecticut world.
Early in the sixties, Ford Motor Company became involved in motor racing at multiple levels. Ford partnered with Lotus and invaded the Indianapolis Speedway. The company’s activities were well covered in Hot Rod magazine, and I spent Memorial Day listening to the Indy 500 on the radio. As Ford’s activities expanded into sports prototype racing, my world expanded too, and I soon became aware of places like Sebring, Nurbürgring, and Le Mans.
For teenagers in the sixties, slot car racing was the equivalent of video gaming today. I would spend Friday evenings at the hobby shop renting time on the one local track. One evening, impatient for an opportunity to demonstrate my slot racing skills, I wandered to the newsstand next door and discovered a paperback copy of Cars At Speed, by Robert Daley.
This book became my portal to the world of motor racing on a grand scale. I devoured the text, reading of places like Spa Francorchamps, the Mille Miglia, Monza and Zandvoort. With my curiosity ignited, I read everything I could find to immerse myself in the world of “foreign motor racing”.
Fortunately, Ford’s involvement saw newspapers providing coverage of the major races. Saturday afternoons, I watched ABC’s Wide World of Sports, holding my breath and praying that at least a few minutes would be devoted to my newfound love of motor racing.
As luck would have it, my older sister’s boyfriend was interested in motor racing. He and a friend planned to drive to Sebring, Florida to watch the 1967 twelve-hour race, and in an amazing turn of events, my parents decided I should go along.
The two-day trip in a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle proved an adventure in itself, but I survived to see my first international sports car race. I had the good fortune to witness the Ford GT 40 Mk IV in its first race against the Chaparral 2F. To my disappointment, Ferrari didn’t enter the Daytona 24 Hour Continental winning cars, but on the flip side, I saw the 206S Dino, the Porsche 910, and the Alfa Romeo T33 making its race debut
Heading home after the race, dirty and tired and running low on cash, we detoured to West Palm Beach for a stop at my Aunt Ruthie’s house. My aunt supplied a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and put us up for the night. Now, some forty years later, one whiff of KFC still sends me back to those days of that incredible trip when I witnessed my first real race cars.In 1970, I did another road trip, this time to Indianapolis for the 500 mile race.
1970 Indianapolis 500 Program and Ticket
This was followed by a trip to Watkins Glen where I saw the Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s in the six-hour race on Saturday.
1970 Watkins Glen 6Hours and CAN-AM
1970 Watkins Glen 6 Hours
The next day was the Can-Am race which featured the Chaparral 2H and the McLaren M8Ds. In the photogrpah below Dan Gurney drove #48 (M8D-3 ) and Denny Hulme drove car #5 (M8D-1).
McLaren M8D, Watkins Glen, New York
1970 Watkins Glen Can-Am Staring Grid
In the spring of 1971, I enlisted in the Air Force, with the hope of serving my time in Europe. In 1972, I left for a three-year assignment to Wiesbaden, Germany, with no inkling of how lucky I was to actually draw this assignment. I was a twenty-year-old motor racing enthusiast, and life couldn’t have been more perfect.
I was two hours south of the Nurbürgring, two hours north of the Hockenheimring. My European motor racing education began with Formula 2 races at the Hockenheimring.
1972 Jim Clark Memorial Formula 2
Francois Cevert
March 722 Driven by Cevert
Graham Hill – 1962 & 1968 World Driving Champion
Winner 1966 Indianapolis 500
Hill’s Brabham BT36
March 722 of Jean-Pierre Jarier
Factory Entered March 722 for Ronnie Peterson
I finally attended my first formula one race at the Nurbürgring for the German Grand Prix. I watched the start of the race at the famed Karussell. Jacky Ickx exited the turn in the Ferrari 312B2, challenging my comprehension that a car was capable of such speed.
1972 German Grand Prix Program and Ticket
Jacky Ickx exiting the Karussell in Ferrari 312B2 s/n 005
Watching the Ferraris, Tyrrells, Lotus and Matras I was reminded of Robert Daley’s writing in the introduction to The Cruel Sport, “Grand Prix racing is the Himalayas; all else is the Catskills”.
Photographs are available through the Track Thoughts Gentlemen Start Your Engines gallery at ImageKind
I understand those who would prefer the those 70′s cars. They were exciting!!