Cunningham

Cunningham

Sherri sent me a link to an article about Briggs Cunningham, though it was more about his affinity for and history with rare watches, some of whom were unique “one off” pieces, rather than his work with car or yacht racing (he won the Americas Cup race in 1958 with his boat “Columbia”) with which the public is arguably more familiar. At any rate the article triggered my own recollections about Briggs and his cars. I never met him, and yet there were a number of times my own history crossed paths with his earlier one.

The first instances of this occurred in my childhood, though I did not realize there was a connection until many years later. Cunningham spent much time in Florida, and the factory in which his eponymous cars were created was in West Palm Beach, no more than 60 or so miles from where I grew up.

The other connection was through his friendship with the Collier brothers, fellow racers from the Gulf Coast of the state. This was terra incognito for me while living in Florida. The only time I was in that area, prior to the wedding to my first wife (kind of an odd story in itself, getting married in a town neither of us had any ties to, but not for this blog), was a weekend trip to Naples with the family when I was a young child. Back then the place was a dismal little dot of nothing surrounded almost totally by Everglades wilderness. It was also many years before I learned that the elder Collier had earned his fortune in advertising, and that one of his innovations was the invention of advertising cards originally for Pullman railroad cars and later seen in buses and commuter train cars as well. Oh, and he also built the Tamiami Trail, the first road between Miami and the Gulf Coast, upon which we took that early 50s trip to Naples.

At some point I became aware that there was a southwest Florida county called “Collier,” and that Naples was the primary city in that forsaken place. But it was decades later when I first learned about the Collier brothers, that the county was named for their father Barron, and that they were not only friends with Cunningham, but along with him and Cameron Agetsinger were the major forces in bringing racing to Watkins Glen, New York.

But first I had to “discover” Briggs, and I owe that pleasure, as many others, to John Lewis, some of whose exploits weave their way through many of the blog posts.

In the late 1970s the Long Beach Grand Prix was not an “Indy Car” event, but was on the international Formula One calendar. The Ferrari Owners Club had an entire grandstand on what originally was the dangerous “Queen's Haripin” turn, so named because of its proximity to the permanently docked Queen Mary. Sherri and I attended that event twice with the club, though unfortunately this was an era where Ferrari was not doing well in F1. I no longer recall if we drove down to SoCal or flew, but I have no recollection of driving the Ferrari there at any rate.

But aside from the race itself and other club events and parties there was ample free time and, at John's suggestion, we accompanied him to the Cunningham car collection and museum, which I believe was in Costa Mesa. While we did not meet the man himself, John did know and introduce us to the curator of the collection, John Burgess. John was an artist who did a lot of work painting racing machinery, though much of it related to American dirt track “Sprint” type cars and venues. However, there were exceptions, such as this tempra and watercolor piece now listed for sale here:https://rogallery.com/Burgess_John/w-1720/burgess_john-painting-alfa_rain.html.

John L. impressed upon me that all the cars in the collection were drivable and were “exercised” regularly. I don't recall many of them but two made a lasting impression, a Ferrari and a Bugatti.

The Ferrari is a 166 Corsa, and though shockingly utilitarian and not at all the sleek and refined look I expected, was an important beginning to me education about the early racing successes of the marque as well as being important for another reason...it is said to be the first Ferrari brought to the US. 

1947-1948 Ferrari 166 Spyder Corsa
http://dark-cars.over-blog.com/article-1947-1948-ferrari-166-spyder-corsa-63007209.html

One of the Six Royale
The Coupe Napoleon
Wikipedia Photo

The Bugatti memory stays with me, as it would with almost anyone, simply because of the presenceof the machine. It is one of the six surviving Royale models, and like all of them, it is huge.They are over 20 feet long, and I have a photo buried somewhere of Sherri standing next to the front fender and wheel, which comes nearly to chest height. 

Cunningham used to outrage local Bugatti Club members by driving the car to lunch every so often.Just to show that Ettore must have had a sense of humor, he allowed this hood ornament, designed by his brother, to adorn the cars.

Prancing Elephant
Royale Hood Ornament
Wikipedia Photo

When I got the Siata I was not particularly sensitive to its history. I wanted to go racing. Vintage at that time in California meant “real” been there, done that racers with documented history. For the Siata at that point all I was told was that it had raced at Sebring and ran number #56. That information came from Ernie Mendicki, another name you will see elsewhere numerous times in this blog, but I'm pretty sure it was sourced from the research of John and Jarl deBoer. At some point I will, no doubt, delve more deeply into the complex story of the deBoers as well as John's publication of rare Italian cars and their history, but it Sebring which first tied me back to Briggs Cunningham.

As the years accumulated I also accumulated...more historical documentation about my car. At first this consisted of copying material from magazines Ernie had which discussed the 1953 Sebring race. One of them even listed the results in detail. That is where I learned how successful the Siata was at that race, but also that the overall winner was a Cunningham C4-R driven by Phil Walters and John Fitch.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_12_Hours_of_Sebring

So naturally, one year at Sebring one of the booths was selling copies of the Randy Owens poster showing the first and second place finisher (Reg Parnell and George Abecassis/Aston Martin DB3). 

Randy Owens Poster
Still available at
http://stores.randyowens.com/sebring-53-cunningham/

Obviously I had to buy one.

My final connection to Cunningham relative to cars came after I learned the Siata had also raced at Watkins Glen in 1952. Although Briggs was not involved directly in the tragedy which ended street racing at the Glen forever, a Cunningham car was. The result in terms of my history and that of the Siata is that it participated in, and completed, the last race ever run on the original Watkins Glen street course(the preceding Queen Catherine's Cup).

Briggs was leading the race when the second C4-R, again piloted by John Fitch, almost collided with the Allard driven by Fred Wacker as Fitch set up for the right hand turn at the end of Franklin Street. While both drivers reacted by swerving away from each other, the tail of the Allard came out and clipped a young boy sitting on the curb with fatal results. I have an original photo of the Siata taken earlier the same day and just yards from this spot and the casual lack of effective crowd control is readily apparent.

Note the guy weighing himself
and the lack of barriers of any kind

There is, perhaps, one final link to Cunningham, though this is (literally) a stretch. For decades I wanted to learn to sail, and finally took a sailing class on San Francisco Bay a few years ago. While my boat does not have one, a device I learned about and which was present on the boat we sailed, was invented by Briggs. Though not relevant to this blog, here is a picture of it from Wikipedia: 

Cunningham Downhaul
Tightens and changes shape of mainsail

Riverside Run

Riverside Run

I first saw Riverside Raceway some time in the mid 1970s. It was actually one of the first tracks I was at in California, and my exposure to this legendary place started even before I joined the Ferrari Owners Club.

This is the configuration used when I ran the track.
Once, at over 100mph, I was split by two faster cars going by on either side between 8 and 9

Steve Tillum was the head of Neurosurgery with Kaiser Health in Redwood City. He lived in Atherton and had just purchased a second Ferrari to stable along with a 308GT4. The new addition was a 275GTB/C Competizione. That didn't mean much to me at the time, as I didn't know much about Ferrari models, and it looked very much like any other 275. The only visual differences, until you opened the hood, was the “stinger' exhaust tips and the brake cooling “gills” behind the rear wheels. But the competition model not only was built in aluminum rather than steel, and had a four cam engine like other late 275s, but was a dry sump motor.  

Note the Family Resemblance to the Series I 250GTO, particularly at the rear

At the time I really did not know what that meant, but would learn that one characteristic was a huge oil capacity, even substantially beyond the 10 quarts my wet sump 250 2+2 would turn out to require...a lot of oil for a relatively small 3 liter motor.

John Lewis introduced Sherri and me to some of the people in the FOC...Bill and Judy Morton, Tom and Tish Thinnesen, Tommy and Verna Griffiths, and Bob and Theresa Jones, and through them we met other members of the club like “Crazy Bob” Epstein, Steve Tillum, Marshall and Nancy Matthews, Bob Donner, and many others. They were a warm and wonderful group of people and we quickly got wrapped into a social circle with them and the club.

One of the first, if not the first club activity we did was to join them for a track weekend co-hosted by the southern California FOC chapter and the Shelby Club at Riverside. This was in March of 1978. Crazy Bob, Bill and Judy, Steve, the Thinnesens, and the Joneses were all planning on “caravaning” down to the event together, and we were invited to come along, though of course we did not have a Ferrari so would be spectating and not participating in the event. And the only car which was at all appropriate for us to bring was my Porsche 914, which at that time was still a fairly new car. But it had, as it still does, all of 85 horsepower in its 1.7 liter motor...not quite up to the 250 or more in the three to four liter motors in the rest of the group. The line consisted of Steve in his new to him red 275, the Mortons' silver 330GTC, Bob's red 250LM, the Thinnesen's red 246GTS, and the Joneses yellow sister 246GTS. 

Once out of the Bay Area we picked up I5 for a stretch that ran to an offramp to CA33, which parallels 5 for many miles, but is a two lane rural highway with more pronounced twists and turns. It was also, on this occasion, closed. California had a very wet winter that year, and there was significant flooding through parts of the Central Valley. We all stopped at the barrier across the road, but only long enough for Bill, who was leading, to decide that we would chance it, at which point we all simply drove around the barrier and started down the highway. And we never found a flooded section anywhere on the route.

Up to this point the group had been well behaved, but once past that barrier all hell broke loose. Suddenly I found myself trying desperately to keep up with half a dozen maniacs doing anywhere from 80 to well over 100MPH.

The top speed of a 1970 4 cylinder 914 is 105, but the car is decidedly “on the ragged edge” as you exceed about 85-90. And at that point I had little to no serious racing experience and terms like “lines” and “apexes” were still very much a foreign language. I was “rowing gears and pedaling” as fast as I could, “white knuckling” my way down the road and really tossing the car around. I was convinced I was not only over my head, but was now desperately mixed up with the best drivers I had ever seen. It was only after owning and driving a number of Ferraris that I realized, taking nothing away from the skill of these folks, which was quite high, that a Ferrari can make any driver who isn't a total klutz look really good.

When the 914 was rear-ended on the McArthur Causeway in 1972 I decided I would have the car repainted in German Silver, as I thought that was the most appropriate color for a Porsche and, back then, I was not at all sensitive to “originality.” The repair and paint was done poorly and within three years I had it redone, contributing to such depth of paint on the car that it began to crack on the crash bar pillars. But it was still relatively pristine silver for the run down to Riverside, and I have a color portrait I did of the car in the paddock at the track 

The 914 in Silver
Note the stock wheels
I stopped using the bra when I found it put a line right across the middle of the front deck lid

..along with shots of the Morton's car and others.

The Morton's 330GTC at Riverside

I don't recall if it was on the way down or on the trip back, but at one point we stopped next to an auto parts store. Steve had purchased the 275 from Ferrari of Los Gatos, an independent sales outlet, and a mechanic from the shop rode along to make sure the car was healthy. Perhaps it was at a stop for fuel when Steve realized that he was losing copious amounts of oil. I don't recall the car smoking so maybe it was leaking, but at any rate he exited the parts store with a full case, which he proceeded to empty into the separate oil reservoir. Again, with my lack of knowledge about dry sump engines I was totally flabbergasted and laughing wildly, even as he explained that, with no oil showing on the dipstick the car was down at least ten quarts!

I do remember that, at one of these stops, Bill congratulated me on being able to keep up with the group. He was obviously aware of the Porsche's modest power. I'm sure he did not know how very close to the ragged edge of the car's capability, and as well as my own, we were. Sherri looks back on it now and expresses surprise at how calm she remained during the drive.

Just past some little town we all got stopped by the Highway Patrol. The officer said he knew where we were going and expressed appreciation for the cars, but said that when the CHP gets multiple calls from various outraged farmers as we screamed by at well over 80, he had to act. He warned us to get back on I5 and keep the cars to 70. Of course as soon as he left we continued our screaming way down Highway 33. I would guess a pack of a half dozen Ferraris at full chat could be heard for many miles in that rural quiet.

The event was fun but I had no sense then that I would ever drive my own Ferrari on this wonderful track. On the way back from the event Steve decided he needed to buy his wife a gift ands we waited for him outside an antique store. He came out quite happy with his purchase, a ladies purse made from the hide, and in the shape of, an armadillo. It was possibly the ugliest thing most of us had ever seen, and coming from the part of the country where these things roamed I was particularly amused. I could not imagine his rather staid wife appreciating the thing.

The 275 was the same car Steve later put “on its roof” at the Virginia City hillclimb event. See “Nevada Insanity” (January 2017) for details about that little fiasco.

I actually did two track events at Riverside in the 2+2. Both were also co-hosted by the SOCal region of the FOC and the Shelby Club. I loved the track and have a few memories worth noting, but cannot remember which event occurred associated with which event.

The first thing which comes to mind occurred on one of the return journeys home. The 250 lacked, of course, air conditioning, and in addition a fair amount of engine heat gets into the cockpit. I stopped by the side of I5 for a few minutes to try and cool off, exiting the car and sitting on the ground on the shoulder of the road to get a bit of air. Probably not the wisest move in the world but, in those simpler days things were not as risky as they seem now. A fixed wing CHP aircraft noticed me and circled overhead, asking over a bullhorn if I needed help. I waved him off but acknowledged the offer with a salute.

When I got home I expressed to Sherri, with some wonder, that on the highway the car got 18 miles per gallon, second only to our Toyota pickup truck, which averaged 21. In any other situation, no matter how gently or aggressively the Ferrari was driven, it got about 8. But on I5 at least, it was the second most fuel efficient vehicle we owned.

Now that I think about this, both these memories must have been on the second trip down. I borrowed Gary's trailer and towed the car down for one of these events, and I think it most likely that this was the first of the two. As I gained confidence in the car's reliability it seems more plausible that it was the second trip where I drove it down and back.

I think it was also on the first event where I had both a mechanical problem and a driving incident. The mechanical was a leak from one of the front brake assemblies, which was pointed out in the tech inspection by Larry Bloomer, at that time president ,I believe, of the southern region and chief of tech. Somehow he or someone else pointed me at a shop nearby which was able to rebuild the caliper, though I did lose perhaps most of the first day of the event.

The driving incident was about the only time I have ever had a problem on track which did notresult in damage to the car I was driving. Just unlucky that way as, except for one incident, all of the others except one were due to mechanical problems...that one being another driver's lack of judgement. 

As I exited the last turn (9) on one lap, maybe an early one after the brake repair and perhaps I was still decomposed by that, I lost situational awareness of where I was on the track. That last turn was banked, with a large radius and 180 degree change of direction. As you exited the turn there was an access road which angled off to the left towards some garage buildings. The road should have been closed off with cones, but at any rate I mistook it for the main straight. By the time I realized my error I over-reacted and tried to cut back to the right too quickly, and the car spun a full 360 degrees.It really shook me up and I immediately exited into the pit lane. Larry was acting as operating steward for the event and told me “no harm, no foul...go ahead back out when you feel up to it.” Once again I realized I had a lot to learn about car handling at speed.

The only other memory I retain might be associated with an event there in which I was not a participant, but was along to film John Lewis in his 365GTB4 “Daytona,” as he participated in one of these joint track events.

John Lewis's 365GTB/4 at Riverside

John actually paid my airfare down to Ontario so I could do both Super 8 film and color still photography of him. On a lunch break, since I had no car related responsibilities, somehow I wound up making a lunch run for a number of folks, to a local fast food joint a few miles away. I don't recall whose car it was, but I became a passenger in what must have been a very early 308GTB...maybe even a fiberglass car and certainly a carbureted version, as this was again before I had my own Ferrari, which means prior to 1979.

What I remember was that, best I recall, the car was something like a metallic Kelly Green, and that we were blasting down the freeway at over 120. When I asked the owner whether he was worried about tickets or police, he said “at this speed at least I know they won't be coming up behind me.” Ah yes...simpler times indeed.

Makes me think of “Crazy Bob” telling us he had once been stopped by the CHP for doing over 140 in his 250LM...though he did not say how they managed to catch him. At any rate, they wrote him up for that full speed rather than being easy on him. He photographed the ticket (he was the attorney for one of the two biggest professional photography companies in the Bay Area), and later had a gold engraving made of it which hung on the wall of his office in San Francisco.

Indeed.