The Ferrari of Motorcycles

The Ferrari of Motorcycles

I only met him twice, and both times it was sort of an accident. I was down at Ernie's helping to tech inspect cars before one of the Monterey Historic races. That would have made it the first weekend in August, though I don't recall the exact year.

Ernie had known Steve Earle longer than I had, and it was a sign of respect by Steve that he allowed Ernie to hold a pre-event inspection two weekends prior to the Historics. This was a big help to those of us who could take advantage of it. It helped ease the congestion surrounding inspection at the track just before the race weekend, and also gave participants a chance to make corrections before finding out at the event itself that something was wrong and then scrambling around trying to make a correction at the last minute.

I never brought my own car to these. With Ernie as my mentor he quickly gained confidence in me to the point that he would say “I can tech your car by phone,” meaning he was sure that I had verified both its safety as well as conformance to the rules. At some point during the pre-inspection day he would surreptitiously slip me the required sticker, and then would sign my log book when we first connected two weeks later in the paddock.

For me, volunteering at pre-tech as well a number of times at the event itself was an education. I learned a lot about how different builders solved various technical problems. I also quickly found out which owners were themselves both knowledgable and skilled. Some cars were so clean and solid you could eat off the floor, while others were so obviously a lackadaisical attempt to slide by with a minimum slap-dash approach to both safety and rules that I'm still amazed that anyone would think they could pass the most cursory look. I'm also amazed at what some people think is OK in terms of safety. I quickly came to think the three scariest words in an ad for a race car were “ready to race.”

Ernie's place was a tribute to his cleverness. Though his career never made him much money he managed to design and build a three bedroom, two bath house with space to work on cars, first in front with a pit so he could get underneath, and later a 1500 square foot shop behind the house. I really need to devote at least a full blog entry to the man, but for this one it is only necessary to say that the inspections were held out front on a parking pad, followed by grilled hot dogs back by the shop later in the day. We would pitch a couple of bucks into a kitty and Ernie would do the cooking honors. It was always fun to see a bunch of pretty exotic machines trailered in and parked in front of the house over the course of the day.

Almost no one actually drove to the house, as most of the cars were not street legal. Ed Archer was an exception. His racer was and remains a bright yellow Ford Model T Speedster, and Ed embraces the part fully, dressed in white coveralls with goggles, boots, and a leather helmet, and sporting a handlebar mustache right out of the era for the car.

What year is it?

 The car had died a few blocks from Ernie's house so a couple of us went to collect him...somewhere around De Anza and Stevens Creek Boulevards in Cupertino. Quite a show.

Anyway, while I had my head buried under the lid of a GT40 I heard something that was clearly not a race car and yet still made the hair on my arms stand up and take notice. Banged my head on the car as I popped up to stare at an apparition...a guy wearing boots, leather chaps, a leather vest over his shirt, and a leather beret...astride a Vincent Black something...whether a Black Shadow or Black Lightning I couldn't say as the bikes to me were ghosts I knew only as whispers in the darkest of nights...so exotic they made the early Ferraris I was familiar with seem almost commonplace.

Pure mechanical jewelry

I knew of Vincents only through articles almost as rare as the bikes themselves. I had never seen one.

Dave Molloy turned out to be a neighbor of Ernie's from a couple of blocks away. Along with Llew and Bill Kinst these guys made up a weird little underground classic vehicle hotbed in a tiny corner of unincorporated Santa Clara county called Monte Vista. The few blocks around Errnie's house were a strange mixture of residences and car related businesses...mostly body shops. It turned out that Molloy not only lived there and owned this magnificent beast, but actually ran a Vincent restoration business out of his place.

The very idea of someone stocking parts to restore Vincents nearby was so implausible...but then Bill and Llew were doing something similar though not as totally focused, mainly but not always involving Porsches of one type or another. Dave invited me over to see his setup after the tech session ended. His two car garage contained three customer bikes in various stages of restoration, along with shelving units stacked with neatly labeled boxes of parts.

Everything on a Vincent is pure jewelry...the motor alone is eye candy.

Love and passion in every polished
and machined part

 What isn't polished is beautifully painted, and every piece is sculpted to look as well as it functions. Like virtually all Italian cars from the same era the pride of the manufacturer is apparent before you ever fire it up. But the fact that it is British and not Italian is so startling that you find it hard to believe. I love British cars and bikes, but everything out of England in the years after WWII always is so...agricultural you think it must be steam powered. It was a privilege just to be allowed into Dave's shop.

A few years later John Lewis and I were chasing a pretty special train along Interstate 80. Whoops...there he is again. I told you he would keep popping in and out of my stories. Though I was closer to Ernie and John was never a role model ( his mechanical work was embarrassing), he was much more...entertaining than Boss Mendicki...though Ernie had his own great stories and personality as well.

What we were chasing was the Western Pacific restored F3 diesel which in the late 1940s had pulled the famous California Zephyr passenger train.

 One of the engines had been restored and was being run “up the mountain” through the Sierras, along the Southern Pacific rails now part of the Union Pacific system. We would out race the train, stop as close to the tracks as we could, snap some photos, and jump back in to get ahead of it again. Our last shot at this was going to be when it came into and stopped for a short time at a little town called Colfax. Renamed after Speaker of the House and later Vice President Schuyler Colfax, the town is 2500 feet up the Sierra Nevada foothills, some 50+ miles above Sacramento. The station is a typical SP structure and sits right across the tracks from the tiny downtown.

Typical of most Southern Pacific (now Union Pacific) stations
More are being restored now than torn down,
though only a few, like this, are still active rail passenger depots

After the train left we decided to walk across the tracks to a little cafe on the adjacent main street. The pretty waitress's name tag said she was called “Sierra.” Being of a certain age I was pretty sure I remembered when unusual names like these first made the scene, and told her I thought I could guess when she was born...1972. I hit it right on the head, which surprised and pleased her, until I made some idiotic comment stating I could also guess what her parents were smoking the night she was conceived. That definitely did not please her. Should have quit when I was ahead.

But I had little time to recover as just at that moment the door to the cafe opened, and in stepped a guy wearing...boots, leather chaps, a leather vest over his shirt, and a leather beret. Really?

“I know you,” I said confidently.

“Not a chance,” he replied. I couldn't remember his name, so the best I could come up with was:

“If I say the name Ernie Mendicki, will that get your attention?”

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, somewhat incredulous.

Once we completed that dance he invited John and me to his new digs outside town, near a little place called “Chicago Park.” A bigger shop, more Vincents, but the same attention to cleanliness and detail.

Sometime later I learned that another member of what I came to call the “Cupertino Mafia” even though he lives in Los Altos, also has a Vincent. Gary Hubback has stuff stashed away in various “rooms” in his two story shop as well as a couple of other roofed lean-tos. His is a story for another day, but recently I was at his place and asked to see his recently completed restored 32 Ford 3 window coupe hot rod. There sitting just beyond was...this jewel. 

Gary's Vincent
Sitting just byond his latest restoration...
32 Ford 3 window coupe hotrod

Then there's also the one Don Bell has and which Llew and I tinkered on one day. I wouldn't say the bikes have become exactly common, but it does seem that the folks I know in the car world also have an affinity for special two wheeled machinery as well. But it started with Molloy, who apparently is still there outside of Colfax, and still working on these wonderful machines. He's about halfway down this page: http://www.thevincent.com/vin-suppliers.html

Oh, in case you're interested...a nice one will set you back about 100 large. Pretty reasonable compared to a 250TR.

7743 Miles- Dorothy Had it Right

7743 Miles- Dorothy Had it Right

There really is no place like home. By the time my East Coast racing trip was over and I returned home to California I had been away 49 days, had been through two countries, 19 states, one Federal District, and one foreign province, all while living in a camper with only a single place to sit, an area only about two feet by ten feet to stand, and, excluding cabinets and storage compartments, with less than 80 square feet of “living space.” From being exhausted after 300 or so miles of driving, I was so tired of the road and so anxious to get home that I was doing over 500 miles every day.

I was also totally alone. Don's motorhome had broken down in Hagerstown, Maryland. After a couple of days waiting for parts I was more and more anxious to end a trip which now seemed to have more “lowlights” than highlights. We were planning to head back via a visit with Gerald Davenport in Paducah, Kentucky (see “The Long and Winding Road”). So I told Don I would head in that direction and check in with him daily. If his rig got fixed before I reached Lexington I would find someplace to nest and wait for him, but if he was still stuck I would turn west to pick up Interstate 70 and head home...which unfortunately is what happened.

Don had further misadventures, culminating in his brakes failing outside Carson City. On a vehicle with airbrakes a failure causes them to lock as a safety feature, so he was stuck until the unit could be towed to a repair shop.

The last bit of luck I had was the street display and original course tour at Watkins Glen (see “Empire State of Mind”). The last bit of fun Don had was even before that, at least getting a few laps at Lime Rock before his engine blew (see “That's Racing...At Lime Rock”).

Don fought hard to not try to do anything about his car. I couldn't understand it. Local Crosley guys had offered to help, and one of them offered his shop, parts to cobble together a motor, and parking in front of his house in Newtown, Connecticut. Why was he so negative about making the attempt.

Then Hurricane Frances paid a visit.

Though no longer officially a tropical storm this thing still packed a punch of wind and, especially, torrential rain, which arrived just about the time Don had given in and we had parked in front of this fellow's house, setting up a canopy under which we were somewhat sheltered...it kept out about half the water. But it was also surprisingly cold.

Don's Nardi lacks the removable firewall of the Siata, and the Crosley motor sits tight against the panel. The configuration does not allow removal of the transmission along with the engine, and the fit is so tight that getting things back together is truly nightmarish. By the time we were done I had new appreciation for the Siata...along with a much better understanding why Don was resistant to the task. If only he had said that to begin with...

When we got his motor out of the car and took off the water jacket covers we stood there in total shock. The #3 cylinder was...gone! None of us had ever seen anything like it. It seems Don had decided to try an experimental block he had somehow acquired...one that never was put into production, likely because in testing it must have experienced similar destruction. Powel Crosley was always trying to reduce costs, and this block used less iron in the block casting, mainly by thinning out the cylinder walls. The middle cylinders run hotter than the outers due in part to the siamesed ports as well as less air circulation, so are subject to more stress.

Despite a long, wet, cold and exhausting slog to build up the spare motor, when we tried it there was a noise Don did not like and so he refused to risk destroying someone else's property and so did not run, though he graciously came along to the Glen and then up to Mosport.

After the mixed “joy and sorrow” of the Glen we went to Ontario for what was supposed to be a vintage race event. Things got off badly when I wound up in the commercial vehicle line crossing the border. The Canadian officials had not, as I was promised, been notified about us coming, and were extremely nonplussed about the race car. They seemed to not know what to do and wondered if I was going to try and sell the car in Canada without the proper permits. I could have been smuggling trailers but apparently that thought never crossed their minds and did not bother them.

The track at Mosport is quite uninteresting for a low powered car like the Siata. In fact, there is only a single “fun” turn on the entire track...the “Moss Complex.”

 It also turned out the race was just a single vintage group stuffed into a modern car weekend. Worse still was that only about four other vintage cars showed up. Most of the Canadian racers had been at Watkins Glen the weekend before, and were headed for another race weekend at Mt. Tremblant the following weekend, so had decided to skip Mosport.

As you can see, 

Mt. Temblant is a much more interesting configuration as well as a beautiful setting. The other vintage guys decided, after Saturday, that they were not having fun and wanted to bail on the event, but told me they wanted me to make the decision to stay or go as I had traveled the furthest. They also invited me to join them at Tremblant. Obviously I could not see selfishly keeping them at Mosport, particularly since I found the track uninteresting. And Tremblant would mean adding another two weeks to what already was a very long and tiring trip.

So Mosport and Canada became a write off. There was some compensation though. The Canadian Association of Sports Car clubs (CASC) is an FIA affiliate, so the track tech inspection gave me the only FIA approval stamp in my log book. I was also officially timed at 99+mph on the track, the first such speed verification I had.

To end this saga on a positive note I'd like to relate an amusing incident that happened while we were freezing and drowning in Newtown trying to get an engine for Don. I've introduced Peter Giddings before in this blog. Peter was at the Lime Rock event, getting re-acquainted with the 250F Maserati F1 car he had owned some time earlier and had just repurchased.

One of the Prettiest F1 Cars Ever
Driven by a true friend and gentleman

Peter had a day to kill while waiting for a flight out of the country. I don't recall where he was going. Though I had known him for many years, for the most part I only connected with him at race events, though Sherri and I had been to his house in Danville a couple of times and, as mentioned elsewhere in the blog, the Siata had “convalesced” there for a number of months after my traumatic incident at Sears Point in 1987.

Peter asked if he could hang around with us, and of course I was happy to have him join us. He offered to help “chase parts” or do any “gofer” tasks we needed. A real insight into how down to earth he is...a guy with Bugattis, Maseratis, and Alfa racers with fantastic histories “chasing parts” for a couple of low buck Crosely racers.

At some point we were running out of food, so Don's wife and I needed to go to a grocery to replenish supplies. Of course we could not take the motorhome and it would have been very clumsy to move my rig as well. Peter quickly offered to take us in his rental car....and then pushed the grocery cart around the store while we loaded it with stuff.

Peter was dressed well...tan cashmere slacks and a snappy dark turtleneck, also cashmere. He also has a refined British accent. With his close cropped hair and that accent he was quite a contrast to my sloppy work clothes and Alice's housewife outfit. I could sense people looking at us and I just know they were wondering who this scruffy couple with the Brit butler were.

Peter Giddings with his usual warm smile

Empire State of Mind

Empire State of Mind

There were not many other “highlights' of my racing trip back East in 2004. The track event at Watkins Glen was badly mismanaged and due to an on-the-fly schedule change whose announcement did not reach the “back 40” of the paddock where I was pitted, I never heard it and wound up only running a practice session on Friday. To make matters worse, Sherri had flown back to New York and, with her cousins, had driven all the way to the north end of the state to watch and be with me.

But there were at least three compensations. Her cousins graciously gave up their own motel room and moved in with their kids, who had come with them, so Sherri and I could be together. My first night in 23 in a bed other than in the camper. I noted:

“Standing in a real bathtub and just letting the hot shower water run was heaven.”

The second compensation that weekend was the “Street Festival” which included a car show on the main drag in Watkins Glen (Franklin Street) and what turned out to be a very enthusiastic two lap escorted tour on the original street course used from 1948 to 1952 (see “The Long and Open Road).

The Thrill of a Lifetime
At the Old Stone Bridge
Original Watkins Glen Street Course
A Return to the Car's History

I was a bit stunned by all the attention the Siata got on display. Most comments were that it was by far the most beautiful car there. But this SVRA event seemed to have a “run what ya brung” philosophy and, to be generous, most of the cars were very uninteresting and poorly prepared. But two other things which happened at the display were even more exciting.

I overheard an older gentleman talking with someone I assumed was his son, saying that the car had run at Sebring. Although that information was known to John deBoar and Ernie and was published in John's “Italian Car Registry,' and while it also was supplied on my entry forms for races, it was highly unlikely, particularly back East, that someone would know that. When I asked him who he was, he explained he was Otto Linton, and had sold the car to Tom Scatchard in 1952!

Otto was pretty famous in early post WWII racing circles. In addition to distributing and selling many unique sports and racing cars through his Speedcraft Enterprises, he was an active racer, and his is one of the first few plaques engraved in the “Walk of Fame” sidewalk, starting at the courthouse, which was the Start/Finish line for the race at the Glen. I established a contact with Otto and Roger which I have maintained to this day, and have learned much about the early history of the Siata through contact with them. If you scroll down the following link, there is a picture of his “Orchedea” special, which was the test bed for what became the 300BC Siata, next to my car in a garage at Sebring after Otto had lost his motor in practice. Behind my car stands Tom Scatchard and his wife.http://www.speedcraftspecial.com/wpperfect/category/otto-linton/.

Also, another fellow, perhaps a few years younger than me, came up and said he was a pro photographer and thought he might have a picture of my car racing on the street, and if so would I like a copy. Are you kidding? For $10 or so Alan Isslehardt later shipped me this print, which is one of very few period photos of the car I have ever found.

September 1952
Tom Scatchard, Pilot
At the end of Franklin Street
Just before making the right to head uphill

“Compensation” number 3 was the course “tour” itself...a fairly wild and fun ride. In many ways it was just like movies of the original races looked...hay bales along turns, folks out in lawn chairs or sitting on the fenders of cars in their yards watching the cars go by. The tour started and ended from the display on Franklin Street, then made a right just past the entrance to the Glen state park to go uphill. After winding up and around the outskirts of what is still, today, a small village, it then runs downhill along he side of Seneca Lake back to town. At the bottom of the hill you make a sharp left followed immediately by another 90 degree turn to bring you back onto Franklin. You can trace the route on the map shown in “The Long and Winding Road,” and there is a video here which shows some of the action from the 1952 race, including many clips of my car out in the countryside (note the yellow #52...I never knew the number was not white until I found this film).https://vimeo.com/145458319

The tour was at an enthusiastic clip...I'm not used to driving the Siata without a helmet, but I would guess we were hitting speeds exceeding 75, which is pretty fast considering all the obstructions and spectators. It got really hairy coming back downhill along the lake. As I came screaming in I became intensely aware that the sweeping straight I was on ended at...a four story brick building!

There was only a stack of hay bales in front of the building, at the edge of the sidewalk, behind which was a good-sized group of spectators. It really did cross my mind that if my brakes failed I could wind up wiping out a good part of the population of Watkins Glen. But they worked just find, I hurled into the left hander...to immediately face another stack of hay bales and spectators. A wrench of the wheel to the right and they disappeared in a flash of color, to do it again.

Given the historic tie of my car to this town and event, it remains one of the great highlights of my stewardship of the car.

Amazing Grace

There is no racing ever at Lime Rock on Sunday...an agreement with the local residents to keep peace with neighbors whose houses surround the track and are quite close to it. So the September event there involves practice and races on Friday and Saturday, with a car show on Sunday and then, if it is Labor Day weekend, more racing on Monday. 

It was after practice on Friday. The track had shut down...one of my favorite times of day, when the racing tension and noise are gone. If they have gone well, things always seem very mellow and Zen-like. And no time more so than when, wandering around the paddock, I came upon this little vignette.

"A most unusual sight at sundown.

Little concrete madonna on the grass

facing Big Bend.

Bagpier in kilt, shirt, tie, and tam

marching to-and-fro

before her playing hymns

Whie a group scattered or buried 

some racer's ashes under the turf

on the inside of the turn

Odd

haunting

Moving"

That's Racing...At Lime Rock

That's Racing (At Lime Rock 2004)

From my 2004 journal:

The track (Lime Rock) kinda reminds me of the old (circa 1986) Laguna Seca. Not as high speed and perhaps a bit shorter and not so vertical, but deceptively subtle in the nuances needed to drive it well.

Our first session on Friday had both of us (Don Baldocchi and me) “daed and confused” and sort of lost. I sort of motored around from point to point in a mental fog, not really picking up much in the way of visual cues for turn-in or braking points. I think I was more rattled bu the though of drivers I knew nothing about than an unfamiliar track. But everyone behaved and drove well, which was calming.

In the afternoon, after listening to a number of opinions on how to drive each turn I was able to actually practice some of this advice. People have been super nice, friendly and sharing. But although the track is not familiar I have great trust in the Siata's rhythm and flow, and began gradually to experiment with lines my little gem seemed happier with.

And then (Oh shit, oh dear) Don's motor blew. We think he over-revv'd it and dropped a valve- stroker cranks and 5mm stems aren't crazy about 8000+ revs. Talk about putting a cloud on the whole adventure.

Although at first he did not want to consider it, through a number of local racers we have lined up a possible buildable motor about 1 ½ hours drive from here¹. So we gotta try and get him running, right?

As for me, this AM I short-shifted into fourth at the bottom of the hill before the diving turn and carried 5-800 more revs down the straight...close to 100mph. Yee hah!

In the qualifying PM race (Joy, Rich, and Karen got to see me²) I tried to pass 2 Mgs on the start but they manged to cover the entire track width so I hung back until after “Big Bend” and got the green one first and the white one soon after.

He managed to stick to me like glue for the rest of the race (he's raced here for decades). I kinda dozed off at the end of the main straight on one la, finding myself past the “1” marker with my foot still buried in the carb. This left me no time to blip the throttle for downshift and in the disruption to my rhythm he got by.

I then dogged him right down the chute to the left hander and repassed before we got to No Name Straight.

And that's the way we finished.

1It turned out to be Newtown, CT...the very place now unfortunately known for the most horrible event in recent memory...the slaughter of 26 people, including 20 five and six year olds, at an elementary school called “Sandy Hook”

2My sister, her husband, and their daughter

The Long and Winding Road IV

The Long and Winding Road IV

It had been many years since I drove more than 150 miles or so in a single day; longer than that alone, and I had never driven more than 200+ miles in the truck with a fully loaded camper and pulling a closed trailer. The rig totaled over 6 tons, and my Dodge pre-dated the company's update to the product to the hemi-engine and four wheel disc brakes. It is underpowered and underbraked, and barely able to handle the load. 

Once out of California trucks are no longer limited to a 55mph speed, and on Interstate 80 both cars and big rigs were ripping along at 75...a speed virtually impossible for me to reach or maintain, particularly uphill. The tension was significant; the distances vast. My Day 1 journal entry was titled “Inches on the Map- hours on the road". After 325-350 I was exhausted, and the maniac inside my head with the hammer was having a ball.

But despite the headaches I was enchanted by the land. Here's a few clips from my writings:

In western Wyoming I wrote:

“Runnin on Empty...what a choice of music- Jackson Browne's poetic song of life on the road; here the perfect accompaniment to the unearthly landscapes of western Wyoming.

Not a tree in sight, and strange flat plateaus from which the far from flat plain seems to hve sunk away from.”

Not the greatest English, but a pretty effective picture.

In Nebraska I commented:

“And everywhere this huge vault of sky- a constant reminder that we really are beings of the stars.”

And in Iowa an attempt at haiku:

“Impossibly green field

White house

Sky full of

Dirty cotton ball clouds”

We visited an odd little museum in Minden, Nebraska which included some cars, including a Crosley sedan. But the real prize was a steam driven merry-go-round run by a soft spoken young guy adorned in a cowboy hat. ( http://pioneervillage.org/I. had commented:

“We al road it, me on a zebra, and it was a wonderful step into this very different world than the one we left so far back down the road.”

The Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum in Indiana was so spectacular we spent the better part of two full days there: http://www.automobilemuseum.org/#home.html.

And about which I said it was:

“...an Art Deco vision of perfect proportion and balance from the magnificence of cars that are the height of American craft, ingenuity, and accomplishment to the glass of the light fixtures and the tapestry-like draperies and accents on the walls.”

Remember this guy?
The car Whittell gave John
and the model Ernie built is in my shop
More information can be found at: http://duesey186.com/Datasheets/Model_J_Index/data2354.htm
Though I suspect the owner listed was not who John sold it to
See the notes below this picture, from the book "The Survivor Series"
The photo was taken, along with others, after John Mozart bought
As far as I know he still ownes the car

An Amish village we visited, on the other hand, just confused me. Although impossible to achieve, I could somewhat understand an attempt to stave off the “evils of modern society.” But to simply draw the line sometime in the 1830s was baffling. I do “get” that this was a cutoff just at the invention of the full, instant communication between people, via the telegraph. Still, it seemed arbitrary and just strange, as Illustrated by horse-drawn carriages with electric tail lights.

On the 1^st of September we finally arrived at Lime Rock, Connecticut. It was already 16 days since I had left home. But...

“It is achingly green

and starkly manicured

as if not a blade of grass

dare be out of place

But it is charming

and steeped in 25 years or more

of history

at a depth

(at least for White America)

that exists nowhere else in the land.”

The Main straight at Lime Rock
Tower and building desgined by Sam Posey
A study in green beauty

The Long and Winding Road III

The Long and Winding Road III

Bonneville is the spookiest car venue in the world. Fortunately in our days there in August of 2004 it was cool and moist, though that made tuning for a run a nightmare. God had to have been laughing as you installed jets for 4800 feet and suddenly the sun came roaring out from behind a cloud, cooked your mind, and shot the effective density of the air up to about 8000 or so...in the middle of your run.

Funny, eh? Well, at least it was driving anyone with a carb intake system as crazy as it was us. But the spookiness is multi-dimensional. You are, after all, standing on a dried up lake bed that is over 20 miles long, on a crust of salt left over from the eons in which it was part of an inland sea. It is, or appears, totally flat, and I do mean totally. The nearest uprisings, which are deceptive looking mountains, appear both squashed down somehow and less lofty than they really are...and also seem to be close enough to touch.

It's all that sky...really unnerving. Makes everything seem tiny compared to that immense sweep of blue. The rain had left a small lake of its own near the start of both the short and long course (that one spans seven rather than three miles, and is for vehicles which exceed 175mph)...so the crew merely moved the starting lines...a mile! And yet the end of the courses were still nowhere near the boundaries of the lake.

As cool as the event is, the place truly gives me the willies.

But that might have been, in part, because our arrival at Bonneville was the culmination of a whirlwind of activities and feelings...which really started here: http://thunderbirdtahoe.org/. Cute, eh? And it, once again, involved John Lewis.

You do remember John, right? Sometimes, all these years later, the stories I weave about him seem so improbable I wonder if I have made up not only the stories, but John himself.

Anyway, I know I introduced you to John in more than one blog entry, including a discussion about his relationship as a young man to George Whittell, and I'm positive that somewhere or another I talked about the Whittell “cottage” on Lake Tahoe and the time John and I, along with John Boyle, went there so John could provide some amusing anecdotes for the docents to use when leading tours through this “Cabin in the Sky.” Well...that was not the only time John and I were together at the Thunderbird. He had somehow managed to convince the foundation responsible for the site to open it up to him and his guests for a birthday party celebration. While now you can rent the place for such affairs, at about ten grand a night, John was granted access for this party, with a couple of hundred guests, in recognition of his relationship to Whittell. Sherri came along with Adin, and of course Don and Alice were there as well. In addition to all the other festivities, on that earlier jaunt Boyle, Lewis, and I meandered down to the Carson City airport to speak with the world's leading experts on Grumman seaplanes to see if we could track down the Albatross Whittell had owned, and supposedly “crashed” on the lake.

Excuse me? Why the hell would those folks, along with their restoration facilities, be located in the desert? Yeah, I get it that nothing rusts in such a dry climate, but it is still...unsettling to drive by a line of seaplanes, including Pappy Chalk's fleet which he used to fly charters off the McArthur Causeway in Miami to the Bahamas during my youth. Really...strange.

As a kid I would watch these lumbar into the water off the causeway
Near the equally weird Goodyear blimp base
But they were a lot more elegant once airborne

We did not learn much about the plane, but John contracted with one of the pilots to bring a Albatross to the lake so Lewis could take clients for seaplane rides. When Denny brought this dinosaur down it literally stopped traffic completely around, and on the lake. No one could believe their eyes. It was as if the world's largest California Condor had just swooped in over the mountains. Like a hallucination or an LSD flashback.

One of John's clients refused to get on the thing...probably a smarter man than me...but when John then asked Sherri and I, in passing, if we wanted to go, we were in the Zodiac and scrambling onto the plane before he finished the question.

“You know,” I said to her as we started to taxi, “trying to get a 60 year old seaplane off of and then back onto this lake with all this wild and rugged terrain around is not exactly the smartest or most responsible thing we've ever done.” Oh well, the kids are grown and on their own now I suppose.

After the party Sherri and I parted for what was to be the longest period we have ever been apart. In my journal I wrote:

“I just flashed on the sight of that mind chilling vertical land of the Desolation Wilderness- turned to wallpaper out the side hatch of a Grumman Albatross- with a freezing wind blown straight into my face at more than hurricane force by the prop wash- Jesus, it's been a hell of a 24 hours- and Lord am I glad I got to share at least a part of it with those I love so much- Especially Miss Bright Eyes.

And that was before I saw that salt mirage!

The Long and Winding Road II

The Long and Winding Road II

It started with a hailstorm, though over 1000 miles away. It was in the Spring of 2004 and I had just seen a piece in the evening news about baseball-sized ice falling from the sky someplace in Texas.

“Holy Crap!” I had an instant nightmare about what that would do to my hand built aluminum car body on the open trailer I used. I jumped on the phone to Don to tell him we needed to buy closed trailers.

“But Marty,” he said, “the hail will beat up the closed trailer as much as the open one.”

“Don, I don't give a damn about the $4000 trailer, but I do care about the all aluminum car inside it!”

So...about $5000 later....

There went the entire budget for the trip.

In February of 2000 we had bought a fairly large Lance camper for the truck. The truck itself was purchased two years before, but I had opted for the long bed, high capacity variant...laughingly called a “3/4 ton” though its actual load rating was more like a ton and three quarters. The camper had a bed area which sat up over the cab of the truck and living space which extended two feet beyond the rear bumper of the truck, with loads of storage space, a full bathroom, furnace, air conditioner, and a more than adequate refrigerator and freezer. We had purchased it after tiring of the outrageous motel rate increases during the Monterey Historic races and car week at Laguna Seca. When a motel asking $45 a night for the Wednesday before the rent went to $150 a night with a three night minimum for the weekend we'd had enough.

So with the new trailer as the final addition I was “good to go.” I had managed to find three races on or near the Eastern seaboard on consecutive weekends in early September. The weather would be ideal...not yet the cold and forbidding snowbound winter and yet past the sticky humidity of Estern summers. Perfect. And if we left early enough we could even take in Speed Week at Bonnevile, something Don wanted to do as he was the engine builder for a land speed record car.

Wait...a Crosely powered record car? It is to laugh, no?

No. Gerald Davenport was, of course, wacko....but the car and attempt was quite real. It came about this way:

I first met Gerald through the West Coast Crosley Club chapter started by Dave Brodsky. Gerald was from Kentucky, and had tragically lost his son some time before. The young man apparently really loved Crosleys, so in tribute to him Gerald built up what he claimed was the largest Crosley dealership in the world...which might not have been that much as a stretch cause I think it is also the only Crosley dealership in the world.

Step right up, folks
Truly one of a kind
Paducah, KY

Gerald was at this particular meet to pick up a car he had bought, a pretty little thing called the “Tholens Special,” built by Dale Tholens in the 1950s and quite well known among “small car afficianados.”

 The car had been owned and raced by another friend of mine, Terry Matheny, though I don't remember whether Gerald got it from Terry or it has passed to someone else by this point.

Beautiful workmanship
A tiny jewel I lusted after

Anyway...Gerald's route back home, on I80, took him past Bonneville during Speed Week, run by the Southern California Timing Association...and one of the world's truly best car events. Like Monterey the pits are open to wander around and talk with owners and, despite the usual race event tensions, everyone is open and easy to talk with. The participants range from scruffy Home-builders to full pro teams from the likes of Honda and Nissan.

Great People
Spooky Place
Great Event

The “short course” is three miles marked by a black line on the salt...one mile to get up to speed, one for timing, and one to slow down. Gerald decided to stop and watch, and the SCTA guys good naturally enticed him to unload the car and run the course...whereupon he turned 86mph with no prep work at all.

Ah...another fish on the hook. Gerald returned home and promptly built up a real racer to go after the 750J/Pro class...which he won in 2002 at just under 100mph with this pretty beast (the 1010 number refers to some biblical phrase or another, with which I am totally out of my depth about).

It started as a stock 47 sedan
On the salt at Bonneville

In 2003 some smart asses with what started life as a Honda 600 took the trophy from Gerald. The rules are such that this bomb ran in the same class even though it had a totally flat bottom and fuel injection. The former results in less undercarriage turbulence while FI automatically, unlike carbs, adjusts for changes in altitude and air density. Hmm...unfair advantage.

I should note, at this point, that I had decided to keep a journal of the trip, so I have very detailed documented memories...and this part of the trip was, even absent the migraines, frustrating. Gerald refused to take advice from Don and had his own “expert” with him...who I think was way out of his pay grade. Between the use of the original intake manifold of the Tholens...pretty but too restrictive of airflow, and advice from the expert to continue to richen a motor which was already hoking on fuel as the “density altitude” readings the Honda guys readily shared with us went from 4800 to over 8000 feet almost instantly...things were going brown and ugly.

And of course Don had forgotten to bring jets for the Weber carbs. Fortunately Speed Week guys are real princes, and a group running an Alfa roadster in two different classes, one with carbs and one with FI, willingly shared their stash with us. But we never did manage to get the car above 86.

Still, it was a fun event and I would urge any car buff to put it in their “bucket list.” But..gotta fly. We had a schedule to make and a race to do in Connecticut. The main problem was going to be how to keep from going nuts, alone all that time with no one to talk to but the stupid little voice inside my head.

The Long and Winding Road

The Long and Winding Road, I

By far most of my racing with the Siata was done on the tracks of California...the vast majority at either Laguna Seca or Sears Point. I'm not complaining...these are stellar places and Laguna in particular has worldwide fame and mystique. Even though Sears was a shorter drive from our home in San Carlos Laguna always said “home” to me. I think it was the more rural setting, the golden hills filled with hawks and eagles, the fog across the paddock at night, and the stillness when the track was not in use. I as much enjoyed camping there for the Skip Barber racing school or the week between the Monterey “Pre-historics” and the main event the following weekend as the races themselves.

The only other purpose-built track I had driven in California was the old Riverside Raceway, but that was in the Ferrari in the late 1970s.

Besides those tracks I also ran events at temporary road courses set up for special events at Buchanan Field, a former military training airport which then became a general aviation strip for the city of Concord and was the scene of the first post-WWII sports car race in the West in 1947, as well as on the runways and taxiways of the US Navy's North Island Naval Aviation base on Coronado Island.

Out of state excursions were rare, and only as far as Nevada. The first of these was multiple runs on closed public roads with the Ferrari Club...the Virginia City Hillclimb. I also did a couple of events on a temporary track created in the parking lot of the Reno Hilton; once with the Siata and once with the Quantum Formula Junior. Neither of these were happy events as I blew a Bob Graham motor in the Siata (this is the one in which he “saved me money” by using Crosley rods), and blew out the center section of the clutch disk in the Quantum.

The only other Nevada events I ran were on a purpose-built course at Fernley, some distance outside of Reno. A compensation was a street recreation where at least there was the opportunity to drive on that original street course. Unfortunately, the other tracks where the car ran are no longer there-Bridgehampton having succumbed to the bulldozer relatively recently, while Allentown disappeared decades ago.

This is the only tconfiguration of the track I ran
Thy later added other sections
But on this one the only fun for a little car
Is how fast you can get through the esses at the end of the front straight...
At least until some idiot ran into me at the 10/11 chicane

But I always had dreams of going further afield. Of course I thought about the Mille Miglia in Italy, and had actually been invited to do a series in New Zealand, but both of these realistically were financially far beyond my capacity. A more realistic, though still ambitious goal, was to try and run tracks where the car had appeared during its “real” racing career. Sebring would have been the first among these, as that event in 1953 was the high water mark of the car's success, with a startlingly good finish...but Watkins Glen and Thompson would also have made the list, as these are still around, though it would not be possible to actually race on the course the Siata did at the Glen in 52.

I don't recall what provoked me trying to turn that dream into reality, but late in 2003 I began to do so, concurrent with the publication of the race calendar for 2004 in enthusiast magazines. I was hoping to do the Glen and Sebring and perhaps one other event, but it was quickly apparent that this was impossible in a single trip. The Sebring 12 hour is always in March, while the Glen event mirrors the dates of the original street races, sometime in early September. As I viewed the calendar, there seemed to be better opportunities for other events in the Fall, so started to put something together around the Watkins Glen SVRA weekend festival, which included races at the track outside the town as well as a street concours and an escorted “recreation” on the 1952 street course.

The Original 1952 Street Course

The other events bracketing that weekend was a vintage race weekend at Lime Rock organized by HMSA, which was one of my “home” groups and thus very comfortable for me, and one at Mosport in Canada put on by CASC, the Canadian Association of Sports Cars, an FIA affiliate. While the configuration of Mosport did not look all that suitable for a small, low powered car like the Siata, the fact that it was international and sanctioned by the FIA made that event attractive.

The thought of a 7000 mile roundtrip by myself, however, was decidedly less so. Perhaps, I thought, I could talk my racing buddy and engine builder Don Baldocchi bring his motorhome and Nardi/Crosley along. 

Don and his wife accepted...Sherri bowed out. Don requires a bit of patience. He had some serious illnesses and difficulties as a child which left him with a deep stutter, deficient hearing, and some problems in cognition and decision making. These did not keep him from becoming an accompished racer and machinist...but it did mean his engines were always a bit of a mistery.

Don on the Corkscrew
Kip Fjeld's Miller bhind
Me Bringing up the Rear
But in front of a Porsche...for the moment

Don was neither the neatest mechanic, not the sloppiest, I ever knew. Ernie would definitely be the former (Bill Morton thought Ernie must never have used his shop because it was so clean you could eat off the floor); while Bob Graham was the latter...Don was somewhere between, though working with him could be frustrating as we both wasted a lot of time looking for tools he had put down somewhere and then forgotten.

He also never kept notes about what he did, hence the mystery of his motors. When something went wrong he could not remember what specific changes he had made to that particular version which might explain the problem, nor did he discipline himself enough to make a single change and then test the impact before doing anything else, so when things went well...or badly...it was unclear what change or combination was responsible.

Being with Don and Alice together also was somewhat like handling a couple of young children...they always deferred to your own decisions and rarely offered any of their own. They were great people, but Sherri was not willing to take on the full management logistics of things like meals for the trip, and I rather naively stepped in for that as well as all the rest of the planning including routes, stopping places, and timing.

It gave me the longest stretch of continuous migraines I ever had...eight straight days and nearly 3000 miles trying to ignore the hammering in my skull while ferrying over six tons of tuck, camper, and trailer along with keeping Don's huge Class A motorhome and trailer with me. What was I thinking?