For all of you people who missed the race Sat., I gotta tell you that it was a
blast for me. I was there when the track opened in '57 and went to all of the
events for the first 3 or 4 years, maybe longer, because my wife remembers us
going and we didn't meet until '62. The Healey race just brought a big grin to
my face. I got to watch it with a newspaper sports reporter who knew very
little about sports car racing and less about Healeys. I got to fill him in on
a lot as we watched the race from the infamous turn 3. True to form, during
the race 4 cars spun into the dirt there and there were a couple of great
saves as well. Since the newspaper didn't know why he was there, I told him to
check the newspapers archives, but better than that you all can go to
http://www.virhistory.com/ and see info about the good ol' days. All of the
articles that don't have a byline were written by my Dad. The Danville paper
did not allow bylines back then.He worked for the Danville paper in the
newsroom, but became fascinated with this whole thing, and ended up with an
extra assignment that he really loved. We made up the press kits at home,
working around the kitchen table. I always had a press pass so we got to rome
the Paddock. Boy, was that fun. BTW, Steve Byers, that blue car that we did
not recognize; There is a pic in that archive of Carroll Shelby driving one,
Maserati.
But yesterday, all of those Healeys roaring around the track was just great.
The Aussie's kicked American butt big time, but I also heard that one of their
cars may have been damaged when it ran off the track in the Upper Chicanes and
hit the tires pretty hard. Anyone know anything more about that? One of the
American drivers told me about it, but he did not know the outcome. Sorry some
of you guys had to miss it due to the schedule change. I guess it had to do
with the "Italian Festival" the track was promoting. Talking as we were
walking out, I told Steve that the only thing That was really different about
the atmosphere was that there was no "aroma" of Castrol around the paddock.
Bob Johnson
BJ8
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