Peter Giddings Redux...
Along With Adin and the Sebring MGB
Peter Gidding Celebration of Life
The memorial...a celebration of his life...for Peter was held at Sears Point (now Sonoma Raceway) over the same weekend in March as the CSRG David Love Vintage Races, a most appropriate place and time as Peter and I were both participants fairly early in CSRG's history as well as friends with David, one of the founders of the organization, and a likely subject for a future blog post.
The celebration was held on Thursday and took place in the participants' garages which front the pre grid hot pits and main straight of the track. I would guess there were over 500 guests from all over the physical world as well as representing a number of Peter's social worlds including vintage racing, tennis, family, and business. This overwhelmed even the seating and included SRO in back, beyond which was the hospitality snack and drink area. The paddock in front of the garages was occupied by several of Peter's magnificent cars. These later did a few tribute laps together, the only time Judy (along with many of the rest of us) lost her composure and broke down and cried. To see all of these cars together on track was a truly unique experience...one unlikely to ever be repeated by such a collection or grid again. I wish I could add my video of the sound of these beasts firing up but the file is too large to upload.
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| Four of Peter's cars in the garage after the Saturday evening party put on by the Formula Ford folks |
There were a dozen or so speakers from various aspects of Peter's life, starting with some comments by Judy. The universal theme echoed my comments about him in my earlier post (“Peter,” written in January of 2019, upon learning of his death). “Perfect gentleman” came up more than once in these eulogies...to which I and others could add “perfect friend.”
Of course accompanying Judy was their Great Dane “Havoc,” a true “gentle giant.”
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| Judy and Havoc Tipo 158 Alfa Romeo in foreground |
Peter and Judy always had a passel of dogs, and often the lead canine was a Dane, sometimes named after something to do with the sport they so loved and supported...for example, I remember “Tazio,” their Dane named after the great Italian racer Nuvolari (though the dog was almost the same size as this man who was small in stature but huge in heart and driving spirit.
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| Tazio Nuvolari |
Cars Partipating in the On-Track Tribute to Peter
The first car is 1926 Delage 15-S-8, chassis #4 Louis Chiron 7th 1929 Indianapolis 500 1930 and 1931 Grand Prix car (Peter Giddings)
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| 1932 Alfa Romeo Monza…Scuderai Ferrari team car (Peter Giddings) |
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| 1935 Tipo C 8C-35 Scuderia Ferrari #65(Peter Giddings) |
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| 1947 Alfa Romeo Tipo 158D “Alfetta” re-creation(Peter Giddings) Note that many of Peter's cars bear the number 31...his age when he moved to the US |
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| 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO |
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| Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo |
Adin has become a very accomplished and talented driver. When we first got our MGB we were “blinded by the light” and did not do adequate due diligence. The car was not as represented and we learned, over a period of months, that it was really a pretty poor example. Despite that Adin managed to go from 15thon the grid to 5thwith a very sick motor at a season ender at Thunderhill the first year we owned it.
With a new engine and much work by him over this past winter he was turning under 2:12 on the 2 ½ mile 12 turn Sears Point track when something failed in the shift linkage, either locking the car in gear or making it impossible to select a gear...one of those intermittent gremlins that can drive you crazy trying to diagnose. Of course we expected and were dealing with the normal teething pains that almost always accompany major changes to a race car...the main one being tire rubbing against a rear fender, before this apparent linkage failure. As it is impossible to gain access to the inspection cover on the side of the transmission with the unit in the car, it means the entire engine and transmission will have to be pulled before we can figure out what is wrong...thus ending any further opportunity for the weekend.
Adin was, understandably, quite depressed by this. Due to some problems caused by other cars he had already had his first track session cut down to a single lap or so, and came in after only a couple in the second session to assess the tire rubbing, which was when the car locked itself out of gear and ended the testing and racing for our baby blue roadster.
The Adair family joined the vintage racing community in 2008. I never asked them what made them get involved, but they have in a fairly big way. The parents, Dennis and Susan, are in their late 70s now and were pharmacists, while their son Kevin is an orthodontist. The first car I think they bought was an Elva Mk I, but they rapidly built up a fairly large collection, including an historic Austin Healey six cylinder car, a Lotus Elite, a Cisitalia (though I don't know which model) and a Moretti coupe. I have not seen any of the latter three, but they added another very historic and interesting car a couple of years ago...a baby blue MGB racer with a bolt-on hardtop.
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| Some of the Adairs' "Stable" from Conceptcarz Elva Mki, historic Austin Healey, and the "Bahama Blue" Sebring MGB |
The MGB debuted in 1962 as a replacement for the earlier A model, which in turn succeeded the first post-war European sports cars seen in the US, the famous “T” series cars beginning with the TC, then moving through the TD and TF from 1947 to 1955
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| 1949 MGTC Note the 19" wheels Barrett Jackson Photo |
As with all cars, the first few can be considered “prototypes” in one manner or another. For example, Hollywood Sports Cars secured one of the first two or three serial numbered cars, which in turn became the first B model to win a race. Within the first five cars, three were built specifically to race at Sebring. One of these three has never been found, but two were located and restored to their Sebring configurations by Butch Gilbert many years ago. One of these eventually found its way to the Adairs .
Two MGBs were entered in the 1963 race, but both cars failed to finish, suffering bearing failures. So for 1964 the factory approached Kjell Qvale ( Shell Kuh-valay) in San Francisco, as he had been successful at Sebring, finishing 7thoverall the previous year with a lightweight Jaguar E-Type. Kavle received three stock B platforms along with lightweight body panels stamped in aluminum from the production car dies, and a “high performance” motor, which was immediately rebuilt by Joe Huffaker (https://www.sportscarmarket.com/profile/1962-mgb-sebring-lightweight). Though one of the cars was out after only 15 laps due to an accident, the other two did quite well, although the #48 car bought by the Adairs was not quite as successful as the #47 car driven by Ed Leslie and Jack Dalton. It finished 17thoverall and 3rdin class, while the #48 car finished 22ndand 4threspectively. As the Adairs track board shows, #48 went on to race in SCCA for a decade before disappearing until Butch found it. Note that in contemporary or current pictures of the car Merle Brennan's name is not on the car, even though the Sportscarmarket artivle by Thor Thorsen and records of the race show him as a third driver. I don't know why he is not included on the car. Perhaps he only drove a short shift, but that is speculative.
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| Period and contemporary photos of #48 Brennan's name not on car |
On Saturday Dennis spun the Adair Elva in turn 11 and though there was no damage to the car he did “kiss” the tire barrier on the outside of the turn. Then in a later session he spun at the same place again, this time hitting the exit wall and damaging his car and also apparently causing another competitor to hit the wall and damage his car. The result was Dennis was banned from further driving for the weekend, leaving Kevin to drive the Austin Healey with no one to campaign the MG.
The Adairs (and likely a lot of other people at the track) were aware of Adin's competence as a driver, as well as how much knowledge about the MGB he has accumulated as he educated himself regarding the model and its racing potential. Still, it was a surprise to both him and me when he was offered the Sebring car to drive Sunday to replace our own ailing vehicle. The Sebring car is very likely the highest priced MG ever sold, at $180,000, and of course is a rare and historic racer, being one of only ten such cars with a factory “works” pedigree. But then, Adin has also successfully raced the Siata, which is valued at twice that amount and has an even more extensive history.
We used the Sunday short “warmup” for Adin to familiarize himself with the car. It runs on wire wheel rather than the bolt-on alloys Adin put on our car over the winter-no small task, by the way, requiring replacement of the carrying hubs and drums-and at this point my son is much more conversant about the car and model than I am. The Sebring car is also softly sprung and was set up to run reliably for twelve hours on a 5.2 mile virtually flat airport course rather than the 2 ½ hilly miles of short sprint racing we do at Sears Point. But adin adapted very quickly and was comfortable as the pilot with the handling, shifting, and power. His only concern was braking, as the soft suspension resulted in a lot of front end “dive” and rear end “wiggle” under hard deceleration, though he said it was still easily controlled.
He started last in the actual race Sunday afternoon, which was not a surprise to the other drivers as they were expecting the pilot to be Dennis. But by the end of the race he had caught and passed at least seven or eight cars, with lap times in traffic of under 2:09 or about a 70 MPH average. I'm sure his racing colleagues were wondering either who was in the car or what Dennis had eaten for breakfast that morning!
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| At tha back of the grid...but not for long! |
A number of people congratulated me on my “coaching” and teaching of Adin, but as I explained, except for learning by watching, as he has done almost from birth, I had little to do with his skill and success. He is like a singer with “perfect pitch,” a “natural” behind the wheel.
Still, I am quite proud of him and was flattered when, some time ago, he told me that everything he knew about working on or racing cars, he picked up from observing me.
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| Adin waiting to staart warmup session |
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