Lawyer founded road race at Watkins Glen

Cameron Argetsinger, 87, a lawyer who started the road-racing tradition at Watkins Glen in western New York 60 years ago and helped lure Formula 1 to race at the track for two decades, died Tuesday at his Seneca Lake home in Burdett, N.Y.

Inspired by his love of fast automobiles and the natural beauty of the Finger Lakes where his family spent summer vacations, Argetsinger, an early member of the Sports Car Club of America, proposed an amateur road race called the Watkins Glen Grand Prix to the local chamber of commerce in 1948.

The chamber liked the idea, and Argetsinger selected a 6.6-mile course using mostly paved roads with a short dirt and gravel stretch, and obtained the sports car club’s sanction for the inaugural event.

In that first race, he drove his MG-TC to a ninth-place finish; he remained active as a driver through 1960.

Argetsinger brought full international races to Watkins Glen in 1958, and in 1961 the inaugural U.S. Grand Prix was run.

A strong voice for international and professional road racing during a period in the 1950s and early ‘60s, Argetsinger received the Grand Prix Drivers Assn. award for the best-organized Grand Prix in the world in an era when promoters negotiated with each team and handled all details of transportation and logistical movement of cars, equipment and personnel.

After leaving Watkins Glen in 1970, Argetsinger was executive vice president of Chaparral Cars and served as director of professional racing and executive director of the Sports Car Club of America from 1971 to 1977. He also served as commissioner of the International Motor Sport Assn. from 1986-92.

Born March 1, 1921, in Youngstown, Ohio, Argetsinger earned a bachelor’s degree at Youngstown State and a law degree at Cornell University. He served in the Army during World War II.