Nevada Insanity

Nevada Insanity

Wait..I actually think that's redundant.

By far the most dangerous “race” I ever ran was the Virginia City Hillclimb. This is a 5.2 mile route which climbs 1200 feet with 21 turns, run on the route between US 50 and the old silver mining “Comstock” historic town. The route uses NV 341, with the cars returning from the top of the course to the start via NV 342.

At first glance you would think that a public road might actually be safer than a purpose-built race course, with safety features such as no off-camber turns, guard rails, etc. But this is rural Nevada, and such is not the case. Not only does the route have the antithesis of those specific features, near the end it also traverses an overpass crossing 20 feet or so above the tracks of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. I once watched a guy in a real factory Daytona convertible wipe his car against both sides of this bridge as he forgot to compensate for the change in surface from asphalt to concrete.

I also once watched Alessandro Pedani, a Maitre'd at a well known SF restaurant, crawl out from under the bridge with his girlfriend, both in their underwear, when they should have been “on guard” as corner workers. Alessandro was quite a character. Italian to the core, he spoke with a pronounced accent and was fluent in the language. He used to parade around in a mock (or perhaps it was real) red and very official looking Ferrari driving suit. His ruse was so successful he once managed to talk his way into the inner sanctum of the Formula One team's headquarters when Long Beach ran an F1 street course, even meeting and chatting with the team drivers.

At many points on the course there is a cliff on one side and a fairly sheer drop of several hundred feet on the other, with gravel and dirt typical of the high desert and thus lacking any sort of grip if you should misjudge and get a wheel off the pavement.

The event started in the mid 1970s under the management of the Ferrari Owners Club, Bay Area Region. When the Board and members of that group migrated to become part of the Ferrari Club of America the event continued with their management. In the 70s the Shelby Club were regular invitees and participants, and these two performance oriented groups also ran other speed events jointly, including track days at Riverside Raceway...a story for another time.

While I was in the FOC I not only participated in the event, a time trial where you ran in class against the clock, but also volunteered as a starter, corner worker, and transport for workers, but also, on at least one occasion, helped put together the steps needed to make the event happen.

The latter is no easy task. Not only is the event run on a public state highway and uses part of another for return from the finish to the start line, but the course crosses the county line (between Douglas and Nye counties I believe). Thus there are two county governments, two sheriff's departments, and the Nevada Highway Patrol to coordinate with for permits, safety, road closure, public notification, securing communications through a local ham radio group, getting ambulance and towing support lined up, and a host of other requirements...not the least of which is soliciting cooperation of homeowners along the route to minimize the number of times the course has to be shut down to allow them egress and ingress to their property during the weekend.

I clearly remember one time riding up to Nevada in Doug Fonner's 308

308GTB

, though I no longer remember if his car was a coupe or a convertible. Doug was president of the region at the time, and I was the official club photographer (I think the position was called “Historian”)...best I recall an elected Board position. I volunteered to go with and help him, though in retrospect I think my role was largely just to keep him company and make sure he did not overlook anything on a fairly rigorous and well-documented check list that passed from Board to Board over the years as experience was gained in running the event. The logistics made quite an impression on me...

The course has one truly evil turn on it...it shows as #16 on the latest map from the event web site...

which is worth a visit:https://www.virginiacityhillclimb.com/. Be sure to watch the video, though it does not show more than the start line. I do have an “in car” VHS shot through the windshield of my car around here somewhere, and I really should get it converted to dvd one of these days. If I do I will add it to this blog. If I can find it that is.

I've got a lot of memories of the event. John Lewis ran it in his AC Bristol.

The Best 2 liter sports car ever?

This picture was shot in the local school parking lot used as a staging area. Adin had ridden up and back from the Bay Area with John, and it was so cold across Carson Pass and the Sierra summit that on the way back he was curled into a fetus position in the passenger footwell with John's car cover pulled over him. Don't laugh...the bare aluminum floor of an AC can get hot enough to melt rubber shoe soles!

Poor John was frozen. I offered to switch with him for awhile so he could warm up in the relative comfort of my 2+2 but he decided to “tough it out.”

I also remember “caravanning” to the event with a half dozen other cars. We went via CA88, and when we hit the Nevada line everyone stuck their foot to the floor. Nevada had no speed limits back then, but as my car hit better than 120 the rest of the group just walked away from me. I think I saw 140 just before we hit the outskirts of Minden and Gardnerville, the fastest I ever reached in the car.

On these trips the group usually stopped for a lunch and “stretch” break at some point in the mountains. Despite limited luggage space, we all brought everything needed for a picnic, and there were numerous clever solutions to packing as much as we could in as little space as possible. But there was also an element of whimsy involved. Though, as I have indicated in earlier posts, this was the antithesis of a snobbish group, there was more than lip service paid to the fact that we were driving cars which were viewed by much of the world as little more than status symbols.

Accordingly there might be, in our picnic supplies, china plates, sterling silverware, and real wine glasses (to this day Sherri refuse to drink wine in plastic cups). But it quickly escalated into what was called the “Wretched Excess” award, with white linen cloths and napkins on the picnic tables and, finally, silver candelabras and lobster with drawn butter pulled by the Joneses out of their 246GTS. How they got that stuff into that car remains a mystery to me.

Where would you put two candelabras in this?

Then there was the time where the rock I placed against my front tire as a “parking brake” failed. I had started the car to warm it up and there was just enough vibration so the car climbed the rock and “parked” itself against a stone wall. Not much damage and actually a good thing as absent that stopping it the next item was a black 512BB.(pic) Everyone thought the car was just anxious to get to the hill.

One of John's runs was less than successful. Sherri and I were working one of the early corners...from the map I think it was #4, when John overcooked it and slammed the side of the AC against the rock wall.

To keep the schedule moving each successive car is started as soon as the one before it is perceived to be far enough up the hill that the new competitor cannot catch up to him. But of course in this case the incident meant shutting down the course until it could be cleared. The next car happened to be...a 427ci Cobra!

Dick Smith's Cobra
National Champion
Really Good Guy

 This bit of Carroll Shelby's insanity was driven by Dick Smith, a bail bondsman from Fresno who had been national SCCA champion in this very car for two years in a row in the mid 60s.

I could feel, no less hear him coming. Dick was one of the very best drivers I have ever seen handle one of these beasts. Most people go through turns with them in a series of short, jerky little “straights” until they line up at the exit and then just “stand on it,” relying on the car's tremendous power to make up for any time lost.

Dick, on the other hand, was so smooth you would think the car was just a sweet little pussycat to race rather than something that could bite it's own tail with any instant failure of driver talent.

So I grab the red flag, start to wave it...and the cloth leaves the pole and sails up the hill. Apparently the staples pulled out...and at that point I was standing there staring at a bare pole. Sherri had the presence of mind to hand me the yellow flag, and though that indicates “caution” and “no passing” Dick realized that the latter had no meaning in this type of event and instantly shut the car down, thus avoiding what might have been a disaster for both John and himself.

Joe Alphabet once spun off the infamous turn 16 in a 308. I once asked Joe about his unusual last name. I don't recall his ethnicity, but his family immigrated from what at the time was, best I recall, one of those “stan” Soviet republics. At Ellis Island the Immigration Officer took one look at the name, declared there were too many letters in it, and (who says these folks did not have a sense of humor?) declared that from now on the family would be called “Alphabet.” At the time I knew him Joe had a very successful business selling after-market motorcycle exhaust systems: http://nostalgiaonwheels.blogspot.com/2011/06/alphabet-header-pipes.html. Scroll down to the June 30^th entry and be sure to follow the link there for pictures and other “Joe lore.”

He had, as many do, misjudged the off-camber turn and spun off backwards, past the “scenic overlook” turnout, and ended up with his 308 sideways and halfway over the cliff. If not for the fact that significant rain had fallen within the last week and therefore the ground had more purchase than usual, we would have been scraping him out of the desert floor. Somehow Sherri and I wound up as part of the recovery effort...and Joe was still in the car when we got there in my 2+2. But he had made up his mind to exit...except he crawled out on the downhill side as that was the way the driver's side of the car wound up. I understand that he did not want to risk destabilizing things further by trying to crawl back to the uphill side...no mean trick in the cramped cabin of a 308, but it scared the hell out of me. I told him he was one lucky man.

Dr. Steve Tillum was the head of the Neurosurgery Department at Kaiser in Redwood City. We met Steve in an earlier post. I believe I told the story of him adding a full case of oil to his newly purchased but badly leaking 275GTB/C Competione. I had no familiarity with dry sump systems then and was staggered by the sheer thought of where 10 quarts of oil was going.

Yeah, I know I used this photo before
But this has always been one of my favorites
A sleeper of a non-factory racer
and wolf in...another wolf's clothing
Note the identifying "shark gills" behind the rear wheel

Steve flipped the car, though I no longer know where on the course this occurred. So I'm not going to be able to blame it on turn 16...but I'll still harbor the suspicion.

At any rate, Steve's home was in upscale Atherton, pretty close to our own much more humble abode in San Carlos. We also happened to have the only (marginally) four place Ferrari headed anywhere near his place. He was understandably quiet and no doubt somewhat shook up (and not only financially) but gladly accepted our offer to drive him home.

I no longer recall if he was able to change his clothes, but I'm sure he was not able to shower, as he reeked of the gasoline which poured over him when the car upended. It was pretty nauseating, yet much too cold to risk opening the windows...and the rear ones in the 2+2 were wing type and not roll down anyway.

Trying to make light of it...I suggested that his new deodorant might bear reconsidering.

My own near disaster occurred the same year John hit the wall...claiming he smelled Sherri's home baked chocolate chip cookies, which he loved, and was distracted by them. Like me he also won his class, but unlike me was given the “Big Wheel” award...a ride on one of those child's toys

You also had to ride around the restaurant in it

granted to the person with the biggest screwup of the weekend. I was never in favor of making light of crashes, particularly on what is really a pretty dicey course. I hope the FCA has abandoned the practice.

In Saturday's practice turn 16 reared up and bit me. I either entered too hot or too early...perhaps both. The car 180'd and spun into the scenic overlook, coming to rest backwards. As I got out it was apparent that in another six feet it was I who would have been scenically “overlooked.” It was certainly instantly sobering. I think my time for my best run up the hill was in the area of 4:28. I know in places I topped 100mph.

At Sunday night's banquet Jules Moritz came up to Sherri and me and asked what the noise was in my run on Saturday. Sherri looked at me and said “weren't going to tell me about it, were you?'

“There's nothing to tell,” I replied. I have no idea what happened or why, but after that the turn became 2^nd gear (which is still good for well over 85 in the car, BTW) rather than 3^rd. I screwed up, and made sure it would not happen again.”

I don't think I ever ran the event again, but not because of fear. Once I got into vintage racing I no longer did track or performance runs with the Ferrari and, over the years as the club changed and there were fewer and fewer older cars seen, there were likewise fewer and fewer times it made sense to use it. From six or seven of us blasting down some empty two-lane and, inevitably stopping to help someone whose car had broken, it became 30 or more cars pushing the envelope in significant traffic, and reached a head when I asked the guy ahead of me in the lunch line at the annual picnic which car was his and was told it was far too valuable to drive.

That pretty much did it for me and I left the club and, years later, sold the car. More about that in another post sometime in the future. I would not hesitate to run Virginia City again if I had something appropriate with which to do so...but I would do it with a lot more driving knowledge, skill, and (hopefully) maturity as well as respect for its dangers than I had when I and the world were younger.

I Think I'm Alone Now

I Think I'm Alone Now

There Doesn't Seem to be Anyone Around

With apologies to Tommy James and the Shondells

At the end of “Everyone Needs A Mentor in Something” I was poised to leap into the relatively new world of vintage racing. By then I had a few years experience driving a car on a race track or two...both Laguna Seca and Sears Point...with the Ferrari Owners Club, and many of my friends from that organization had already bought old formula juniors or sports racers and were joining groups such as the Classic Sports Racing Group (CSRG, one of the oldest vintage racing groups in the US) and Steve Earle's Historic Motorsports Association (HMSA), as well as other groups springing up in the late 1970s. I had also been “introduced” to the Siata 300BC by Ernie Mendicki, an authority who had owned many rare classic cars and raced one of these diminutive beauties regularly.

Ernie had first gotten into racing in the early 1960s, and his first ride, and only one for many years, was a BMC Formula Junior. This front engined “trainer” was designed and built by Joe Huffaker Senior and used readily available production car parts such as the drivetrain from the Austin Healey Sprite.

This Might be Dick McGovern's BMC  MkI

The whole idea of FJ was a beginner's car to train prospective Formula One drivers. It was supposed to be a low cost platform and race series where the emphasis was on driver development rather than car technology...the idea was originally that of Count Gianni Lurani in Italy. As is typical, by the time the series was phased out it had morphed into high tech domination by a single manufacturer, in this case Lotus with their monocoque model 27.

Lotus 27

After purchasing the car Ernie needed a place to test it before each race. A friend with his own FJ suggested Ernie take the car up to Skyline Drive, a ridge through the redwood trees above the San Francisco Peninsula, on Wednesday mornings. In those years there was little traffic on the road and even less likelihood of a police presence to challenge the non-street legal car, though fog and the ensuing damp pavement, as well as the cliffs and trees themselves presented a formidable challenge.

So Ernie was up there ripping along the twisting road when another open wheeled formula car went slamming past in the opposite direction. Both cars backed up (the class rules required a working reverse gear) to parallel each other.

It was Ernie's friend.

“I told you Wednesday, you jackass!” the guy screamed. “Thursday is mine!”

Seemed Ernie was better with a steering wheel than a calendar.

Anyway, in the early 1980s Ernie had done the same sales pitch about the Siata to another FOC friend wanting to get into vintage, found a 300BC at Chris Leydon's restoration shop in Pennsylvania, and had purchased the car, brought it to California, and sold it to Mike Cotsworth with the agreement that Ernie would help Mike complete the disassembly and restoration of the car. Here's an idea of what it looked like at that time, sitting in Ernie's shop in Cupertino.

The good news is that Ernie determined that the car was complete...there were no missing parts, an important factor with a car so rare that only 50 were built, 50 years earlier, in post-war Italy.

While Mike, long since moved to Colorado, I still consider a good friend, mechanically inclined he was not. Like all of us I guess at that point in our lives, in our 30s, he wanted to race, not build a car...and he also decided he wanted something more powerful. So the project got abandoned, and Ernie then sold the car to Dick Peterson.

Dick had Mike Tangney start working on the car. It got as far as doing the body work, including replacing the rear cowl from a mid 50s conversion from roadster to convertible, rebuilding the brakes and suspension, and putting on a coat of primer...and then things stalled again. By this point the car had gone through six owners, three of whom were attempting to restore it, without success. 

Enter the fool, yours truly. Ernie put me in touch with Dick, a price was worked out, and the car came to San Carlos and my undersized two car garage...a roller and nine boxes of metal reputing to be parts that went somewhere on the little beast. Tough negotiator that I am I managed to wankle a grudging concession from Dick...the “52 Siata” blue California vanity plate that sat on his 57 Chevy wagon tow car. Boy am I good !

I had never built a car before. I had never been inside an engine before. This thing had no shop manual, and there was nothing you could get for it out of a catalog. The internet did not exist, or at least not for the public.

“Don't worry about a thing,” said Ernie. “I'll help you every step of the way.”

That was just before his world collapsed with a nasty divorce that sapped his energy and time for months.

Six months later, tired of sitting around steaming about it, I decided to try and put it together myself. I had, after all, a sister car in Ernie's I could go over and at least look at all the “gazintas.'

What is a “gazinta?” you ask. Every time I'd bring a part over and try to figure out where it went on Ernie's car, he'd tell me everything was a “gazinta,” meaning the part would simply “gazinta” something else, so the only challenge was to find out what.

Yeah, right?

About two years later...though the seats were still bare metal and there were no floor mats it was painted (rather badly but still within acceptable bounds for a race car in those simpler days) and rebuilt. I did have a Crosely manual reprint so I at least had “Cliff's Notes” about the engine. And I will never forget the sheer thrill I experienced when it actually started, sitting on our driveway.

So what if it leaked every fluid it could from every place it could leak it. IT RAN! And I drove it that way for at least a year. My overfull log book, now finishing it's third edition, still uses the two pictures I took of it after it finished its first race...a CSRG affair at Sear Point. In one of them Adin, who was eight at the time, is diligently using a damp rag to wipe down the grill, and the “bouquet” of wild flower he picked to celebrate are visible on the dash.

Shortly thereafter I was not only accepted to my first Monterey Historic but actually finished the race, and not in the last place I fully expected. I was no longer angry at and disappointed in Ernie as I realized the experience of putting this little jewel together had taught me so much that I otherwise would have learned much more slowly, and also that I would never again be intimidated by the mechanical features and functions of not only cars, but anything mechanical.

I'd like to think Dad would be proud of me. At any rate that race was...

Sheer joy!

c1986 Sears Point
The Only Time I drove in Pouring Rain
Just Before entering the "river" at Turn 1
Bill Morton said the car disappeared and all he could see was a huge rooster tail
Cold, Scared, and Wet doesn't make it for me

S.M.O.G

S.M.O.G

I'm sure you noticed the punctuation, right?

I've already introduced you to my car mentor...Ernie Mendicki. There are dozens of Ernie memories I have, but for the moment the one that resonates is how he got into cars in the first place.

Ernie grew up in California's Central Valley...in and around Modesto, but also for a time in more rural areas. His family didn't have much money, but his dad was savvy enough to know that, like almost every young male, Ernie was going to want to drive as soon as he could get a license.

So...well before that auspicious date arrived, Mendicki Senior told Junior that he had a deal for him. Dad would kick in half the $50 it would take to buy a roached out Model A Ford. Ernie would need somehow to come up with the other half of the funds to buy the car (I never heard exactly how that was managed). BUT...Dad would not agree to allow Ernie to actually apply for his license until he dismantled and then totally restored the car.

And that is how Ernie learned all the skills he parlayed over a lifetime into some very rare and very special machinery. He learned everything from upholstering to engine rebuilding to body work and painting. I think he said it took him two years...and off he drove.

So...the story impressed me so much that by the time Adin reached his tenth birthday we had bought a car for him and another for his older sibling Jason. Jason, never really a “car junkie,” was attracted to an odd little American car called a Crosley, manufactured up until the early 50s in Cincinnati. That came about because I had become an early member of the West Coast region of the Crosley club, which was started by David Brodsky. I didn't have a Crosley, but in the early 50s many low budget race cars used the technologically advanced Crosley engine, considerably enhanced of course, including mine.

Photo Album Shots of Jason's 52 Crosley
The Day it Came Home

The younger kid, naturally, had his sights set a bit higher. After all, he already had spent much of his young life around race tracks and vintage sports racers. What he wanted was a Sebring Sprite, as there was one owned by a friend that he saw regularly at Laguna Seca. pic)These were factory uprated cars that were actually campaigned by Donald Healey and featured hot motors, close ratio transmissions, wire wheels, and disc brakes, along with a fiberglass hardtop. The series continued into the “Spridget” era with streamlined fastbacks done by firms like Sprinzel.

Bob Sutherland's Sebring Sprite
Restored by Butch Gilbert
As Listed For Sale at Fantasy Junction

I told him he needed to lower his expectations a bit, as even in the early 1980s the real Sebring cars sold for over $20k. But after a few months of looking I managed to find a one owner 1961 “Bugeye” only a few miles from where I was working in Concord. The car was solid and drivable, and had never left California, being used to commute back and forth from where the seller's dad worked at Moffet Naval Air Base in Sunnyvale. It only had something like 45,000 miles on it and was totally complete down to the original window price card, manuals, and a handwritten log of every dollar spent on it...along with the correct 1961 black license plate. I forked over $1900 for it and drove it back to the office.

I kept the car running for many years, until finally Adin picked it up and started taking it apart to restore it. He did much of the work himself, and I gave him one of the better, “big bearing” 1100cc motors which actually came out of that Sebring Sprite he had wanted, which I had bought tfrom Bob Sutherland to use in my Formula Junior. Adin has developed all the sensitivity and concept of quality I ever would hope for, and the car today is, without exaggeration, close to a 100 point restoration...even though it is a bit “non stock” with close ratio square cut transmission gears, front disc brakes, and a special Huffaker high compression head on that also “incorrect for the model” bigger engine. In its original Old English White single stage Estes Custom and Frank Zucchi paint and red upholstery and carpeting (also “wrong” for those who want to have something to nitpick...they came with rubber mats which are no longer obtainable) it is just stunning.

Adin's 1961 Bugeye "Hot Rod"
Not sure what that black mark behind the door was

Which brings me (finally!) to the “American Pickers” TV show I just saw. The guys had been sent to an old AMC car dealership to look at a sports car they had never heard of...but I knew the instant I heard “AMC” what it was...a Nash Healey of course, since AMC grew out of a merger of Nash and Hudson and I knew the link to Donald Healey.

Many years ago there was one in pretty rough bare metal that used to be in some of my races. It was either an aluminum bodied one of clear coated as otherwise a steel car would have been a rusted mess within 24 hours of removing the paint. Roughly 500 Nash Healeys were built, with American running gear and chassis and Italian custom coachwork bodies. Over the years one or two have turned up in various races. So there was that memory trip that fired off watching the guys on the show crawl over four of them! And as part of establishing interest they mentioned how Donald Healey and the President of Nash made contact on a ship coming across the Atlantic which eventually led to the decision to build these Pinin Farina (two words in those days) bodied rarities.

Except the picture they showed of Healey had him standing next to something even more rare than the Nash...A Healey Silverstone. In fact I have only seen one, and that was in vintage races 40 years ago and I can't think of the owner's name for the life of me, though something makes me want to say his first name was Nat. 

Bet You've Never Seen One of These
Donald Healey's first "Production" car
From Wikipedia

And that memory triggered something else I had not thought about for many years...S.M.O.G...which was the Sprite/Midget Owners Group...a loosely run club we learned about and joined when I bought the Sprite.

Sherri, Adin, and I used to go on outings with the group, though of course since it was no longer the innocent era where you could stuff three people into a sports car without attracting CHP attention, so we were generally not in the Sprite if all three of us went.But did I tell you about the time I double dated in my Sprite? ....I digress (yet again). 

In one of those club outings we met Donald Healey and his son Geoff at a SMOG gathering in the Redwoods. They were in California marketing his products, which I believe by that point probably meant the Jensen Healey.

Jensen Healey
One of the Last British Sports Cars

 Donald was quite impressed by the trees (who with a soul would not be?) and sometime after that, after he had passed away, the club got together with other organizations and bought sponsorship of a grove of Coast Redwoods near Santa Cruz dedicated to his memory.

 It is truly odd what will trigger memories like this. Odd but comforting somehow.

Everybody Needs a Mentor in Something

Everybody Needs a Mentor in Something

And in regards to cars I had a great one. If you are following along in this blog you already briefly met Ernie Mendicki the same day I did, at a Ferrari Owners Club picnic in Woodside (American Champion). Little did I know how deep and valuable that meeting and friendship would become.

Heck, I didn't even know Ernie was a railroad model builder in the same scale I was...it was Gary Winiger who put us together in that regard. But that came a bit later.

Ernie was a big man in every sense of the word...about six feet tall and, I would guess, somewhere around 250+. One of his hands would cover both of mine. And yet his body awareness was such that he could ease sideways through a narrow aisle with rows or glasses stacked on either side without one of them so much as shivering. I on the other hand am such a klutz that entire stacks would fall just to get out of my way before I even entered the building housing them.

And eyesight? He was annoyed that his was “failing him.” It was “down” to something like 20/15. Ernie could read the license plate on a car coming down the street to his house before I could even figure out what make it was.

Despite his bulk his small motor skills were amazing. I won't go into model railroad details much in this blog, but suffice it to say he could super glue open stair treads to a scratch built replica of stations along the old Yosemite Valley railroad so they were absolutely straight...in N scale, which is 1/160 actual size...the entire building is no more than a couple of inches long.

But he could also model in what he liked to call 1:1 scale...when Kent White somehow “lost” the original door panels to my race car Ernie simply carved an exact replacement out of the wood and fabric he told me to buy.

To say Ernie was “in to” cars was like saying the Kardashians are “in to” publicity. He started as a draftsman working for HP and Disney, but when I knew him was a business forms salesman and never earned more than about $25K in a single year from this “day job.” Yet when he died and his widow and I sat down to come up with the total number of sports and classic cars he had owned over his lifetime, the number reached over 100. Among these were the first three liter Ferrari racer...which won the Mille Miglia in 1952, a Tour de France Ferrari, An EMF (look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls), a REO, a Cord, a Bugatti Tipo 40 Grand Sport, a Ferrari Boano, an AC Ace Bristol, a Siata 300BC (you might hear more this model later), a 330GTC...and several other rare racers including the 250SWB that won its clas first time out at LeMans. He simply parlayed his work on one car after another into steps up from the more mundane to some incredible machinery, meeting and earning respect from major and minor player in the car world alike. Ernie knew everyone and everyone knew and respected him and his car knowledge. He could call and chat with Strother McMinn at the Art Center College of Design or Steve Earle about the Monterey Historics, and could definitely “walk the walk and talk the talk.”

Which was how I got talked into a very specific race car.

By the early 1980s many of my Ferrari Club buddies were migrating into vintage racing. They were not giving up their Ferraris. In fact many of the cars would migrate into these events as well, but old abandoned race cars were being snapped up and put back together as well. Once you rebuilt one of these, most of the FOC types were “hands on” and wanted place to play with them...and many were not street legal...so it made good sense to start clubs and rent race tracks. That really is how vintage in the US started...an all volunteer effort to just enjoy seeing, smelling, hearing, and most of all driving old race cars. Once I got into it I played many roles in those days...grid setup, corner worker, dirver observer ( a sort of steward's driver behavior role), starter, and tech inspector.

The Ferrari was too heavy, too big, and too expensive to fix, and was a GT street car. At least those were my excuses for migrating right along with everyone else. So once I let it out that I wanted to play, Steve Tillum, who had decided that it might be fun to buy and sell some cars, made me aware of an Elva Mk I he had for sale. Kind of a strange role for the Chief of Neurosurgery at Kaiser in Redwood City, but...

The car was not quite up to the level of restoration as my friend Dennis Adair's as shown in this shot from elva.com.

Let's just say the car “had needs.” Actually it needed a full restoration, something at that time I was smart enough to realize was way beyond my modest capabilities.

So next I somehow learned that Jim Cesare had an Alfa for sale...one like this.

Rare, beautiful, and fast

 This 1.9 liter coupe is bodied by Zagato and is as achingly lovely and exotic as every Alfa is...and more so.

Enter Ernie. He knew what I did not know about cars...which was pretty much everything. He told me the Alfa was going to be expensive to maintain, was overly complex for a racer, and was also quite fast (“isn't that good”? I asked...”not if it kills you”, he replied).

Ernie suggested something a little...different. Emphasis on “little.” I had never heard the name Siata (who had in those days? Yeah, John deBoer and his dad, but come on, that's a pretty narrow population).

Ernie asked me if I liked the Ferrari Barchetta. Sort of like asking if I liked Sophia Loren. Who can spell “car” who wold not like this gorgeous creature ?

Hey! I meant the car!

. The name means “little boat” and what a lovely craft it is. But even back then it was several zeros too costly...and also as complex, with its tiny V12 displacing all of 2.5 liters, as the Alfa.

I thought he was nuts...until he told me about the “Baby Barchetta” he had sitting in his shop. Among his other accomplishments, Ernie had managed to build his own home in an unincorporated corner of Cupertino, with a 1500 square foot garage/workshop behind it. And in that shop, among the other exotics such as I mentioned earlier, sat this tiny red creature..looking every bit the part of the real thing, in about ¾ scale.

ST 428 on the pad in front of Ernie's shop

 Though I have numerous photos of Ernie's car I pulled this one off Cliff Reuter's web site...a gold mine of information about many rare Italian makes. You can find the Siata stuff at http://www.cliffreuter.com/etceterinisiata.htm.

It really was love at first site. Ernie then had me drive the car down his street. Of course I stalled it twice first...the clutch was an on-off switch and the engine snarled like I had stepped on a cat. It snapped my neck back and not only looked like, but sounded and, most important, felt like a real race car.

I knew and needed to know nothing else.

“Where can I get one?” I begged.

And then things got interesting.

Through the Corkscrew...Again

Through the Corkscrew...Again

You might be able to tell by now that I have spent literally decades driving Laguna Seca. When we lived in San Carlos, twenty minutes south of the San Francisco airport, the drive to Sears Point was marginally shorter, yet I always have considered Laguna “home.” There is just something magic about the place.

Of course the iconic Corkscrew...the steepest drop in the shortest distance on any racetrack in the world, would be enough on its own to make the place special, but there is much, much more. The beauty of the hills, the sheer peacefulness after the track shuts down or on non-race days, the hawks circling slowly over the slopes...even the cold wind driven fog rolling through at night which can be so heavy it looks like rain going sideways.

Or maybe it is just that I have so much history there...so many races, so many Ferrari club track days...so many nights camped in tents or sleeping in the bed of a pickup...so many days with friends who became closer than family in that they shared what is, after all, a dangerous pursuit that is hard to logically justify...my younger son grew up there and developed his own deep love of the place as well as respect for ancient and beautiful works of art executed in sculptured metal...meant to enjoy in movement, smell, and sound as well as sight.

I was there before the paddock was paved and we all fought to get there early enough to pit under the one tree. I was there before they put in bathrooms with running water and we all stood around in awe looking at them. I was there when our track events had the “whump” of live artillery shells to punctuate our own exotic exhaust notes. I was there chatting with Paul Newman when Newman/Haas Racing was headquartered there. I was there when Adin had become a young man and we shared a three day Skip Barber racing school together. I was there when Phil Hill and Bill Morton both pretty much breathed their last at the track. I could wish no less for my own passing from this earth.

It was during the Ferrari Owners Club track days following the earliest Monterey Historic races that I first worked up the nerve to drive the track. By the time I decided that I could somehow afford a “modest” vehicle with the Prancing Horse gracing the hood the Historics were a year or two old and the FOC had a large tent up by the scoring trylon with food and drinks...a comfortable place to get out of the sun and noise when the intensity of both became too much.

For a true novice like myself the club paired me with an experienced driver...I'd like to believe it was David Love, as I am sure he later was one of my instructors when I got into vintage racing, but I actually think it was a pro instructor who was also a club member. I remember he had a 330GT 2+2 and even remember the sort of metallic blue color but have forgotten his name. I do recall him riding with me and coaching me for several laps..telling me how to manage a car that was big, heavy, and, due to the engine being pushed forward to allow for two back seats, had significant understeer...in fact, it was largely due to his information that, for the first time, I began to truly understand the term.

Within a year or so I was at least adept enough to get around the track in a lively manner without risking damage to myself or the car. 40 years later I will say, as I told my partner at the Barber class I mentioned above, that in that time I probably have taken every turn on the track perfectly at least one, but have never ever done all of them that way on a single lap.

Wahoo!*

But 40 years on it still gives me chills to think of how lucky I have been to have the opportunities to try.

*Note the young lady's hand grabbing the outside of the door. A definite no-no. This was Lois Ott and her first time on a race track. She got so hooked that she became a regular competitor in FOC track days and very active in event management and driving her and her husband's 308GT4

American Champion

American Champion

My greatest joy from all the years I've spent with cars and motorcycles has been the people I've met. In some cases they have become lifelong friends. Many of them are “racing family.” I only see them at track events...no more than a few times a year, and yet this common bond is as deep as if we got together socially on a regular basis.

Race weekends are a literal “gypsy gathering.” Tow rigs from cars and open trailers to really high end motorhomes and big rig transporters roll in and set up and suddenly, where there was empty asphal,t a mini-city arises and connections are re-established with folks we haven't seen since the last time. And once the races end the city simply disappears moment by moment, only to reconvene at some other time and place.

Car people are, for the most part, open, friendly, warm, and down to earth. I have been lucky enough to “rub elbows” with racers whose net worth is beyond my comprehension, and yet who have treated me as an equal simply because of my love of historic cars and participation in enjoying them.

And some of these are some pretty well known names in the world of motorsports.

While I am not about to egotistically claim Phil Hill as a friend, neither was he just someone I saw at a race and copped an autograph from. On at least three or four occasions I spent some real “face time” with Phil, and found him to be every bit as charming as the press would have you believe.

Hill after winning the F1 championship at Monza
The first American to do so...1961

I first met Hill at a Ferrari Owner's Club picnic at Marshall Matthews place off La Honda Road in Woodside. In a previous post I introduced Marshall but didn't say much about him. He managed the body shop for Carlsen Porsche on the San Francisco Peninsula, but was an avid car and bike enthusiast who, like the rest of us, believed that cars and cycles were meant to be used, not just to collect dust in a museum or private garage.

Marshall was pretty eclectic in his choices...I remember at least two horse and buggy era Packards, a Bultaco motorcycle, and of course a couple of Ferraris...perhaps a 250 Lusso, and I am certain about a 250 California. There was also a 356 Porsche Speedster, and a replica Bugatti “Tank” racer , Ettore's early (and ugly) attempt at streamlining.

Marshall later owned and drove one of the replicas
His last race car before he passed away far too young

The Woodside house was on an acre or so and had a fair sized parking pad which, in that simpler era, would accommodate most of the members of the club. The pad and drive quickly filled up with some pretty exotic stuff...250TR, Tour de France, 250 Boano, 330GTC, Lusso, 250 GTO, 250LM, 421 MI, 330P3,...and lots more. Cars that today you might only see on the road for something like the California Mille, and at the track for the Monterey Reunion. But back then they were driven for club outings as well as track events.

It was at this picnic that I also met Ernie Mendicki, who was to be a force for good in my life and growth with cars until his untimely death at the turn of the century. We became friends while flipping burgers. There will be much more to say about this “Gentle Giant” in many future posts.

Despite the obvious upscale nature implied by a club requiring members to own a Ferrari, the SF region of the club was the opposite of what you might expect...really great people who could care less about how much money you did or didn't have...or whether you knew or cared how much they had. So this was not some hoity-toity catered affair. Just like all the club events, it was strictly a volunteer operation.

I had volunteered to cook burgers, and found myself next to Ernie where, over the next few hours, we became friends. I had heard Phil was at the party and that he was a member rather than a guest, but did not see him until he stood before the grill for a burger. He thanked both of us for working the event, and walked off.

But later, when our cooking chores ended, Ernie brought me over and more formally introduced me to Hill. As this blog develops there will be lots of Ernie Mendicki stories, but suffice it here to say he knew literally everyone in the car world, and everyone knew (and respected) Ernie. Therefore Ernie and Phil were renewing a relationship that was already several years old. You can get some idea of the breadth of Ernie's reach through the car world just by “Googling” his name.

But what impressed me was Phil's demeanor and quiet understated persona. He clearly was at ease with this group of people and acted and reacted not as America's first Formula One champion and world class race driver, but just another one of the club car guys. It was pretty disarming and made it equally easy to interact with him.

Another of my interactions with Hill occurred at an FOC meeting...we had those once a month, usually involving dinner, a short “business” session-usually regarding the next planned driving event- and some sort of talk or presentation. On this occasion Phil was going to show and talk about slides he took during his racing career.

Hill was an accomplished photographer, and had some great and entertaining comments about shots he took at places like the Targa Florio or LeMans. But set up, of course, involved more than connecting a computer to an electronic projector. There was a heavy and clumsy screen, a projector, and numerous “carrousels” of slides to carry in from his car. I was walking by as he was starting this process and offered to help. As we dragged each load in we swapped a few stories that made me feel like a real driver even though I had just begun my early track experiences.

Phil's wife Alma walked along on one trip, while Phil was inside setting up. She thanked me for the help, saying “you know, Marty, Phil is past 50 after all.”

Hmm...at the time that did not seem an odd comment at all, as I was more than a decade younger. But now, at a more “mature” stage in my life, the comment just makes me giggle. It took almost ten years past my 60^th for my son to stop saying “Grab the other end of this, Dad, and we can lift it onto the bench.”

50, eh?

Phil at Monterey in about 1989
Wonder what he's measruing?

Then there was the time at Monterey Phil borrowed a tool from me. He was pitted across the aisle from me, and was on the ground underneath a Bugatti he was driving. The mechanical brakes were not working to his liking. Bugatti brakes did not use hydraulics to increase clamping pressure, and could be tricky to adjust. If not done correctly it could be a real handful to stop.

It is notable that Phil was under the car himself. He had no problem at all getting his hands dirty. In fact, people passing by saw only a disembodied pair of legs in somewhat dirty white overalls peeking out from under the car. Of course they had no idea who it was.

“Hey Marty!” I heard him shout. “Have you got a ____?” I have forgotten exactly what it was he asked for, but I did indeed have one and told him I'd bring it over, but before I finished the sentence he was out from under the car and crossing the aisle...suddenly followed by a whole entourage of spectators who now knew who the grease monkey under the Bugatti was.

The final memory was at one of those FOC track days after the Monterey Historic Races. These were on Sunday until the races expanded to two days, whereupon they moved to Monday. Though I had promised Sherri to never again put the Ferrari on the track after I got my own vintage racer, I was asked to be the pace driver for run groups.

The club track events were not races, and cars and drivers were grouped together based on performance potential of both. Passing was limited to the main straight and only if “waved by,” and the first couple of laps were run behind a pace car with an “experienced” driver to make sure things were under control. I was flattered to be asked and of course immediately violated my pledge to Sherri.

After a few sessions had gone smoothly (I only had to advise the steward to black flag two drivers, one in a 250SWB and another in a 308GTB, neither of which had any clue what a driving line is and were all over the place on turns) Jon Masterson came up to me and asked if I would give up the pace car role for the next session so Phil could drive Jon's 512BB LeMans.

The 365 Berlinetta Boxer and succeeding 512 were not legal in the US, though some “grey market” cars made it to these shores. An aside is that Porsche had to add a “t” between the “x” and “e” in Boxer for their 550 tribute, calling it the “Boxter” when Ferrari politely told them that the name “Boxer” was trademarked.

The street car looked somewhat like an enlarged 308

365/512BB

, but the LeMans racing version looked considerably wilder with its elongated tail. 

512BB/LM

“Sure,” I said to Phil, who was standing next to Jon and made it clear he did not want to interfere with the operation of the event.

“On one condition...you take my son with you.”

Hill readily agreed and I borrowed an obviously oversized open faced helmet and sort of poured the kid into it.

So I'm sitting there on the pit wall with Alma and their son Derek, who was perhaps 10 or 11 at the time, watching this beast slam by at 140 or so.

“Don't worry, Marty” Alma said. “Phil is a very safe driver”.

“I'm not worried, Alma...I'm envious. What was I thinking? That should have been ME in the car.”

When they pitted and Adin exited the car the helmet was twisted almost sideways and his knees wobbled. Sherri has a picture around here somewhere of them before entering the track, shot through the windscreen. The kid looks like a helmet with no one in it, and you can't even see Phil, but...

Every time the topic has come up Adin gets this faraway look in his eyes and they sort of glaze over. I guess he had a good time.