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