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Welcome
to my Sports & Competition Category
Here
you will find some of the many sports I participated in (skiing and
scuba diving, as well as horseback riding), and some of the motorsports
I competed in (automobile and motocross racing).
I
was fortunate enough to come of age in the golden age of automobiles,
when cars looked, sounded (and smelled) like real cars.
Anybody
who has ever smelled Caster bean oil burning in a Tipo 60/61 Maserati "Birdcage"
racer (at the rate of about a quart an hour!), will know exactly what
I mean.
I
actually got to drive a blood red Tipo 61 in and around the paddock
area at Riverside Raceway in 1961.
The first car I really fell in love with was the Jaguar XK-SS (forerunner
of the XK-E series, and derived from the very successful D-Type
racing cars).
I
saw a pre-production example at an auto show in the mid fifty's,
but lacked the funds (besides being too young to drive), so I was
not able to acquire one.
Just think, at that time, a new Jaguar XK-SS sold for just a bit more
money than a new, fully loaded, top of the line Cadillac. The
Cadillac was luxurious transportation, the XK-SS, a once in a
lifetime driving experience.
My
future taste in automobiles was forever forged on that one car.
When
I was in a position (both financial and age-wise) to acquire one,
the cars were very, very scarce and I could never really connect on
one (I had the same experience in trying to acquire a Ferrari GTO,
finally settling on a red GTB instead).
I
did purchase a new "E" type in 1962, but it was
probably the worse exotic I have ever owned as far as maintenance
and engineering was concerned, not even a synchro 1st gear in the
model build I had —
but what a huge crowd magnet!
Later
on, I was fortunate enough to have my friend, actor Steve
McQueen, lend me his very immaculate British Racing Green
RHD Jaguar XK-SS for a day. It was well worth the wait, and I can
still remember the experience.
Years
later, I shot a TV Special that featured his former wife, Neile,
and we talked about that XK-SS. She commented on how much Steve really
loved driving that car.
I
was exposed to exotic cars at a very early age (in Italy, my uncle
Salvatore had a mint early '30s 1750 Alfa Romeo), and in California,
I used to hang out at von Neumann's Competition
Motors in North Hollywood whenever I had the chance.
That's
where I met actor James Dean (who used to call me "kid"),
and it was there that I learned the difference between cars used
as transportation and cars used solely for the joy of driving them,
a lesson that has stayed with me for my entire life.
The
engine of my late uncle's supercharged 1750 Alfa Romeo (what a work
of art!)
(this absolutely mint vintage Alfa, which now belongs to me, is
in secure storage in Italy)
Even
though the exotics have since then diminished in many ways, my fondness
for them has not. Pictured here are just a few of the many cars
I have owned and some of the cars I have raced...
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