Volume 4, Issue 6 - September 1997

1st Annual Los Angeles Vintage Grand Prix and Ferrari Concours d'Elegance

by: wally clark

your club was proud to have been asked by dr. bill burke of los angeles marathon fame and his la events office to sponsor the first racing and concours event on the streets of los angeles. through his association with the politicos of the city, vintage auto racing association (cris vandergrif) and the southwest region of the fca were able to hold our separate events in the area of olvera street and the newly completed area of the mta complex east of the union station. for those of you unable to attend the one-day concours and three days of racing let me say that you really missed history in the making. to see ninety-five early vintage to contemporary ferraris on the architecturally magnificent new oval with sculpted glass, stone and ironwork portrayed the essence of the streets of italy.

what could be more fitting for ferraris 50th anniversary. live music and girard-perregaux timepieces awarded to the eight class winners by non other than carroll shelby. he was in great form and when our own master of ceremonies, don meder, introduced him he went on to tell the crowd that there was never any really bad blood between him and enzo, that it was really an old rumor. what a wonderfully warm personality.

steve tillack presided over the judging made up of club members and city/media celebrities. i would say that all went well as planned thanks to the many wonderful early morning members and eager participants. you could not have asked for a more interested, excited and polite crowd that came to see the ferraris. a real tribute to the city center and angelenos.

if no one minds their buses rerouted, the trains rescheduled, olvera street surrounded by barricades and traffic stopped then we'll do it again next year. thanks to one and all for a great day of friendship and participation. it was a genuine success. the results of the judging are listed on page 15.

President?s Message

by: wally clark

your new board is working hard on getting the club better organized. with our new editor of the newsletter, earl gandel, we will get the newsletter out more timely. we are working on the 1998 calendar of events and already have some events planned. the board is meeting monthly to discuss a number of items that affect the club. input from club members is always welcome and if you would like to attend a board meeting, let me know.

as i write this, we are preparing for the ferrari concours at the los angeles vintage grand prix. it seems like august has been one car event after another! monterey was great as always. there were 130 ferraris on the grass at the quail lodge and the 50th anniversary display at pebble beach was outstanding. i thought that this year's pebble beach concours was one of the best shows there in years.

by now most of you know that the santa barbara concours was cancelled. the organizers of the newport beach concours asked us, as a club, to provide a ferrari display celebrating the 50th anniversary of ferrari, on which weÕll report next time.

we are also planning to have an fca meeting in the petersen when the 50th anniversary display comes to an end. there will be an auction of the various posters, photos, etc. at that time. please see the calendar on page 3 of this issue.

F355 World Tour at the Petersen

by: wally clark

on monday, august 18, we had about 140 members and guests attend the los angeles unveiling of the ferrari f355 world tour car at the petersen auto museum. this car is on its way around the world on a good will tour to prove the reliability and visibility of the f355. the car is being driven from city to city by automotive journalists, who autograph the side of the car when it is handed over to the next drivers.

after its los angeles appearance, the car will go to various other u.s. cities on its way to new york where the tour will end.

mr. gianpaolo letta of ferrari north america addressed the group on the tour and the travels of the car and also showed us a video of the ferrari 50th gathering in rome.

fca member charles betz also addressed the group about the cars on display at the museum and on the early days of ferrari ownership.

food was supplied by michael osborne's pie and burger, a feast that was not to be missed!

thanks to the petersen automotive museum, ferrari north america, and beverly hills ferrari for helping organize the event.

Oldtimer's Corner - Racing a Daytona at (you guessed it) Daytona

by: ed niles

all rights reserved

this story really starts in 1976, when my good friend ken starbird took his 1972 ferrari 365 gtb/4 (daytona) to the 24-hour race at daytona, florida. daytona is known to the good old boys of the south, as a place where one of the greatest stock car races of them all is run on a huge banked oval track. getting less publicity, however, but more important to the sporty-car types, is the 24-hour race which is run in late january or february of each year.

ken had used his competition daytona (s/n15685) as an every-day driver, but had arranged for what was essentially an amateur effort to take the car to daytona in 1976. without going into detail about that race, suffice it to say that ken's car came in 6th overall, and ken starbird was hooked on long distance racing!

after having been to lemans for the 24-hours, twice, i still had a little bit of the infection contracted from the 24-hour racing bug. so when ken decided to return to daytona in 1977, i was one of the first volunteers.

ken's enthusiasm was catching: he had such a good time the previous year that in l977 it was decided to put together a 3-car effort. ken's car, serial no. 15685, was to be joined by no. 14437, an ex-filipinetti all aluminum series i car, and no. 16407, an ex-nart series iii car, with "motore speciale". otto zipper was once again recruited as team manager, while bruno borri, pietro lurilli and luciano fabbio of modena sport cars supplied most of the serious mechanical and engineering personnel.

we became known as the "hollywood team". why? it wasn't enough that modena sport cars was located in hollywood, california. s/n 16407 was owned by the famous actor david carradine, and one of the drivers of that car was david's younger brother, bobby. even more to the point, one of the drivers of s/n l4437 (entered by rick schrameck and ray ramsey of ferrari of san francisco) was none other than p. l. newman, known in hollywood circles as paul newman.

this line-up of interesting personalities carried with it its own baggage. on the upside, we had little difficulty attracting last-minute sponsors to help the finances along. on the downside, we found ourselves so swamped with spectators and autograph seekers that it was almost impossible to get any work done. we ended up going into "town" for lumber and plastic sheeting, together with hammers, nails and saws, so that we could build an enclosure around our pit. this was not really up to the job, as the spectators started poking holes in the plastic, so that they could stick their cameras through to shoot pictures of bobby, david and paul.

we ended up hiring a local policeman to keep the spectators away. he was your prototypical southern cop: 9' tall, 300 lbs. shiny boots up to the knees, and wearing mirrored sun glasses underneath his heavy helmet. he came equipped with a pistol with a 9" barrel on one side, and the biggest night stick i have ever seen on the other hip! finally, relief from the autograph seekers!

the driver line-up was as follows: 14437 had paul newman, milt minter and elliott forbes/robinson. 15685, ken starbird's car, had dick barbour, john cannon and tony adamowicz. 16407 had bobby carradine, roy woods and john morton. among the crew members was john morton's dear friend, sylvia wilkinson, who was, in her own field, a wonder-woman. i had volunteered to help with timing, but sylvia said, "don't worry, jut leave it to me". as it turned out, sylvia was able to maintain a chart on both of our cars (more on that later) and keep tabs on the rest of the field as well. she did this for 24 straight hours, so far as i could tell, never even taking a break for a pit stop! she was absolutely amazing: she could tell which cars were approaching her pit position by the sound of their engines.

in earlier years, bruno borri and milt minter had bee

4 Cam Touring in a Grand Style

by: tino mingori

many of you own ferraris which carry the designation gtb, gts, gtc, gt 2+2, etc. we all know that the letters gt mean that these are cars were designed for grand touring, but how often do we use the cars for that purpose? not often enough. last spring patrick ottis in berkeley california decided it was time to encourage some serious grand touring and the focus of his attention was the fabulous 275gtb/4. it is not surprising that patrick picked the 4 cam as the model to be featured on this back road adventure. he has owned a 4 cam himself for quite a few years and this model has always held a special place in his personal ferrari lineup. as the writer of this article i should admit that i share this assessment, so the comments you are about to read are not likely to be objective. lynn and i have enjoyed owning and driving our 275gtb/4 for over twelve years and it is still exciting to open the garage door, remove the cover and embark for an hour or two (or ten) of 4 cam automotive pleasure. you can always tell the big time 4 cam lovers. they are the people who purchased their cars prior to 1985 and still own them. but i digress.

in addition to his affinity for the model patrick had another reason for selecting the 4 cam as the featured car for this drive. most of these cars were built during the single year of 1967, so 1997 is the 30th anniversary of their construction. when you consider the anniversary aspect and think about the fact that these wonderful cars are rarely seen on the road any more, it becomes natural to dream about seeing them once again doing what they were created to do. patrick put out the word and received numerous responses from 4 cam owners all across the country. as often happens, the numbers shrank as the departure date drew near, but when the first hint of daylight filtered through an overcast sky on august 12, 1997, there were still six 275gt'b/4's fueled up and ready to roll from a secure warehouse near patrickÕs well equipped restoration and repair shop in berkeley, ca. the drivers included mike higgs, tom garber, patrick ottis, brandon wang, eric zausner, and myself. we were accompanied by wives, relatives and friends who either rode along as passengers or traveled in the backup car, an alfa romeo 164. it was comforting to know that we had a professional mechanic tools) on the drive. guy mangiamele, a journalist affiliated with cavalino magazine was also with the group. (an interesting fact i learned on the trip is that mangiamele means "eat apples".) while waiting to depart my thoughts turned to serial numbers which indicated that our car was built directly behind patrick?s on the maranello assembly fine all those years ago. it had been almost 30 years since these two cars were together in the same room

the first 30 minutes or so of our drive were spent negotiating the morning traffic on the san rafael bridge and in southern marin county. then things thinned out and we were off on highway 1 tracing our way along the winding coast and listening to the wonderful v12 sound that only ferraris make. we passed through stinson beach and fort ross on the way to our lunch stop at the historic gualala hotel. after lunch we continued to track the mainly wild and undeveloped coastline to our evening destination in little river, just south of mendocino. when we arrived we filled up the main parking area in front of the little river inn and spent an hour or so admiring the cars and checking them over to see that no problems had developed. (none had.) then it was off to the hot tubs to relax and get mentally prepared for a marvelous meal awaiting us in the dining room of the inn.

we were hoping for sun the next morning, but no such luck. the morning photo session had to be conducted with the overcast skies which are apparently common to the area at this time of year. other obligations made it necessary for three cars in our group to turn south af

Race to the Clouds

by: earl gandel

following the interest in the virginia city hillclimb, here?s a report on another famous hillclimb, admittedly a non-ferrari event, but we hope of interest. ed.

that's the official name of the pike's peak hill climb, an institutional american event held every year on the 4th of july. this year's race marked the 75th anniversary of this classic world-renowned challenge of the 14,110 foot mountain, and a spectacular party it was.

pike's peak highway was built in 1915, so naturally, the first race was held in 1916. (the road was closed during wwii, which accounts for the missing years. 1997 was the 75th event.) the course is mostly gravel, with a little bit of blacktop added only in the past year or two, and is 12.42 miles from the 9,402 elevation start to the peak. basically, it's a narrow (20') dirt road with no guard rails and what appear to be sheer dropoffs to oblivion and hundreds of opportunities to do so. it's a toll road, and the normal tourist drive at 25-30 mph can scare the hell out of you. once you've seen it, it's hard to imagine doing the same thing flat-out in a 1,000 hp 4wd race car, or on a motorcycle, or an open-wheel sprint car, or any of 21 classes of cars, trucks and bikes. (including class 8 trucks, like a full-size, brand new kenworth tractor, which had to be seen to be believed.)

the current record was,set by rod millen in his toyota celica at 10:04-06. rod is an incredibly likeable new zealander whose need for speed and winning is belied by his easy manner. his car is phenomenal, with 4wd, ground effects, and a superturboed version of the imsa gtp engine that produces over 1,000 hp at sea level, around 800 at these altitudes. rod is back to go for the magic 10-minute mark. there's only one other car in the unlimited class, a so-called suzuki sidekick, a factory entry that looks more like a landspeed record car. however, there are plenty of others that could give the unlimiteds a run for their money.

bobby unser holds the record for 6 consecutive wins, and the unser family --al, louis, louis j., jerry, bobby, al jr., and robby, have too many overall and class wins to count, beginning in 1934. robby is back this year in a factory chevy truck for an all-out chev vs. ford battle. other classes include open-wheel, multi-winged roadsters, porsche twin turbos, mustangs, a clutch of pro rally cars, (the fastest hyundai anyone's ever seen), vintage cars, and trucks, cars and motorcycles of every possible description. most are prepared or built just for this one event, once a year. this is truly one of the last old-time motorsports events. it's billed as the second-oldest sanctioned race event in the u.s., and looks a lot like the good old days, with no pits to speak of, everyone just sort of parked around in the woods below the start line. there are maybe four big-time factory rigs -- toyota, suzuki, ford and chevrolet -- but for the most part, everyone towed, trailered or drove in. everyone seems to know everyone else, spectator provisions and restrictions are, shall we say, loose, (20,000 people spread up the mountain), and a picnic-like atmosphere pervades.

there are no ferraris. or anything italian. a quick look over the years show very few europeans, with the exception of the audi quattro and peugeot rally cars of the '80's, and way back to the '60's, some porsche rsk's and rs-61's. (1960 was the year of the last-maybe only-recorded ferrari entry. it was dick morgensenÕs 500tr, which qualified 5th among sports cars. no record of its finish.) let's face it, it's the 4th of july, it's in the middle of the country, and it's a singular american event. also, the road conditions aren't too inviting for 2-wheel drive, expensive or classic machinery that isn't specifically built for the job.

the almost 200 entries get off the mark, one at a time at about 10-second intervals in beautiful, cloudless summer weather, and most mak