It Isn’t Really Racing in These Cars, It’s Being Racy
Although multimillion-dollar contracts and million-dollar bonuses are very much part of the motor racing scene, one of the fastest growing segments of the sport offers no financial incentives.
Vintage racing--mostly older men and women driving older cars--has become a competitive counterpoint to the popular concours d’elegance displays of historic, antique and expensive collectors’ cars.
The seventh annual Palm Springs Road Races late last month attracted a colorful crowd of about 40,000 for three days of testing, tweaking and racing over a twisting two miles of asphalt laid out on Indian-owned property in front of the downtown Wyndham hotel and convention center.
“It looked like Long Beach on Sunday,” promoter Rick Cole said enthusiastically, alluding to the Long Beach Grand Prix, America’s No. 1 road race. “I liked that.”
As they loaded their machinery when the weekend was over, many of the more than 250 competitors were already looking forward to the next Vintage Automobile Racing Assn. event, Saturday and Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway.
“There are 12 to 15 of these things every year on the West Coast and I try to make them all if I can,” said Robert Lucurell, an insurance adjuster from Seattle whose 1948 Allard was one of the oldest cars entered at Palm Springs. The Allard, a rich maroon vehicle, was no match for the more nimble Porsches and Jaguars on the tight circuit, but that did not dampen its owner’s enthusiasm.
“This is the ultimate form of racing, where having fun is the only incentive,” Lucurell added. “There is no money, no trophies, no prizes, nothing but the joy of running your cars and enjoying friends who come with the same attitude. It’s as far as you can get from professional racing with its corporate sponsors, high-tech engineering and million-dollar drivers.”
The Palm Springs weekend had all the trappings of a Los Angeles Times Grand Prix weekend at Riverside of three decades ago. Fans, friends and competitors milled around the lobby of the Wyndham, much as was the custom at the old Mission Inn in Riverside, talking racing--many with foreign accents. Some drivers were still wearing their driving suits as they drank and chatted, the way Graham Hill, Jimmy Clark, Jo Bonnier, Innes Ireland and the Grand Prix drivers did during the heydey of sports car racing at Riverside.
Old cars also dotted the scenery, attracting as much attention as the drivers, sometimes more. Among them were a ’65 AC-Ford Cobra that was part of the Ford factory team at LeMans, a ’69 Gulf Mirage driven by Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver, and a 1972 Lola that Tom Sneva drove at Indy. They contrasted sharply with a 1991 Ferrari passenger car. One aluminum-bodied Cobra had an $87,500 price tag on its window.
The walls of the convention center, where former world champion Phil Hill was toasted, rather than roasted, at a black-tie dinner, were lined with posters of famous races at Monza, Monaco, LeMans, the Nurburgring, Watkins Glen, Riverside, Sebring and other familiar circuits.
Hill likened the weekend to the old Palm Springs road races held at the town’s airport from 1951 through 1963.
“I think instead of calling this the seventh Palm Springs road race, they should count the ones we ran,” he said. “We raced just a couple of blocks down Sunrise Way in a lot of the same cars that are here now. Only then they were new and we drove them as hard as we could. Now they’re vintage and so are the drivers. There is a reverence for old cars now that didn’t exist then.”
Carol Spagg’s immaculate pale pink racer even carried a time-warp sticker: “Eisenhower for President.”
“Vintage racing is like a class reunion,” said John (Bat) Masterson, whose family VW dealership in Ventura is the oldest on the West Coast. “You see a group of people--drivers, mechanics, car owners, wives, friends and yes, cars, too--that you knew 40 years ago, and it’s the only time you see them. It’s like going to another world where you once lived, and then Sunday night you go back to your regular world.”
Masterson, whose team’s lavender uniforms match the color of his 1953 Cooper-Monaco, is one of vintage racing’s pioneers. He has been been in it for 12 years, driving a succession of cars, all with his distinctive flying-bat logo. During the ‘60s, he raced sports cars and competed in several Times Grand Prix events.
“I’m too old to be a professional racer now, but I’m doing what I wanted to do 30 years ago,” Masterson said. “I started racing when I was at Stanford in 1955. I drove a ’53 Corvette. We worked on it all night Friday in a garage out behind the house, drove it to the races on Saturday, taped up the headlights and raced it on Sunday, drove home and tore it down Monday.
“Now look at me. I’ve got an 18-wheeler to transport my car and equipment, a full-time mechanic, a crew in fancy uniforms and a car that won a national championship. But I’m having just as much fun as if I were driving an Indy car.”
Masterson’s Cooper-Monaco won in the 1964 United States Road Racing Championships at Riverside with Skip Hudson driving. Hudson was a spectator at Palm Springs but had no ride. Why didn’t Masterson let Hudson drive the old car?
“A driver would rather share his wife than share his car,” Masterson said.
If there is a downside to vintage car racing, it is the growing importance of winning, even if there is no financial reward. Several cars, valued at far more than their original price, were damaged during the Palm Springs weekend.
“If you have 30 drivers in a race, 10 of them will be here to race hard, 10 of them will think they’re here to race and 10 couldn’t care less where they finish,” Masterson analyzed. “The problem is getting the three groups on the track at the same time without creating problems.
“The philosophy changes from race to race, too. I call this (Palm Springs) our NASCAR race because there is a lot of fender-banging going on out there. At Monterey, where Steve Earle runs things differently, if you as much as spin out, you sit out the rest of the day. And, horrors, if you touch another car you’re black-flagged for the whole thing. I know, it happened to me.”
The Monterey Historic Automobile Races, held each August at Laguna Seca Raceway, constitute the granddaddy of vintage car racing. It was started in 1950 as a concours d’elegance on the lawn of the Pebble Beach Lodge and moved to Laguna Seca for racing when the road course was opened in 1956. The most recent event honored 80-year-old Juan Manuel Fangio, the five-time world champion who came from Argentina to drive several cars he campaigned on the Formula One circuit.
Masterson also decried the disparity between equipment competing in the same race.
“In my class, the cars ranged from 1953 to 1981,” he said. “To me, that’s not true vintage racing.”
Carroll Shelby, who planned to drive one of his original Shelby-Cobras at Palm Springs, dropped out after taking a pace lap because of overcrowded conditions.
“There were so many drivers out there that you couldn’t help but bend up your machinery just parking it,” Shelby said after bringing his Cobra into the paddock. “My idea of vintage racing is getting out on the track and showing off your car, going through the gears and having fun. Some of these guys want to race like professionals. That’s not my idea of what vintage racing is all about.”
One of the racier types was John Marconi of Orange, who admitted he is driving in vintage races with the idea of gaining experience that will lead him to the Indianapolis 500. Marconi, 34, drove this season in the Indy Lights series, a steppingstone to Indy cars, and next year plans to drive in CART Indy car races at Vancouver and Elkhart Lake as well as Indy Lights.
“I guess I’m going at it backwards,” Marconi said after driving his 1975 Lola Formula 5000 to an easy victory in his class. “Most vintage car drivers are pros first and then go to this sort of thing later. But I’m getting the feel of racing here with the idea of moving the other direction. Sort of a reverse process.”
Bob Bondurant, a former Formula One driver who runs a driving school at Chandler, Ariz., is a supporter of Marconi.
“Driving these older cars will give him a better feel for racing through the corners than some of the newer cars,” Bondurant said. “(The new cars) are so aerodynamically balanced that they are too easy to drive. Then, when something happens and the aerodynamics change, you’re not prepared for it. I think this is a good training ground.”
Dan Gurney, who extended a driving career into a car-building dynasty first with his own Indy car Eagles and now Toyota GTP sports cars, said he quit driving in vintage races because it is too difficult to control his enthusiasm.
“If you were a racer once, you’re always going to be a racer,” Gurney said, “Some guys out there take it easy, but they probably weren’t real racers in the first place. If I was out there, I couldn’t keep myself from trying to beat everybody. It always happens.”
Actor James Garner, who was on hand to toast Hill, said he had the same feelings as Gurney. Garner, after starring in the 1966 movie “Grand Prix,” drove in sports car and off-road races and had his own racing team.
“Shelby offered me a Cobra to drive,” Garner said. “I was tempted, but not that much.”
Nigel Ollson, Elton John’s drummer from 1968 to 1985, made his vintage-racing debut at Palm Springs. In fact, it was his racing debut of any kind.
“I was too busy touring with Elton John to race, but I’ve had the itch to try it ever since I drove my Ferrari around the roads in Europe in the ‘70s,” Ollson said. “I followed Formula One closely and always admired the ability of the drivers.
“When I left the group, and moved out here, I decided to try it. I bought a 1963 (Triumph) Spitfire from Hollywood Sport Cars three weeks ago and now I’m ready to get the chance of experimenting what it’s like to race. My wife wants a Mini-Cooper so she can race, too. It’s contagious, but it’s also expensive.
“I had to form my own group, the War Pipes, with some other fellows who used to play with Elton John, so I could go back on tour and sell some records. I had to do something to support my racing habit.”
