The message about Phil Cade got me to reminiscing. Back in the mid fifties,
my sports car friends and I used to go to the races at Thompson, Conn. We
would frequently see Phil Cades Maserati on a trailer towed by a huge V-16
Cadillac touring car. Now that was an elegant tow rig.
The races were organized primarily by displacement and by stock or modified,
but the last race of the day was Unrestricted, meaning everything else.
This pretty much amounted to a group of the biggest cars like Phils
Maserati running against the smallest cars, mostly 500cc Coopers. A typical
lap would have the big cars flying by the Coopers in the straights and the
Coopers passing the big cars in the curves. We, along with most of the
crowds in the stands cheered mostly for the Coopers.
About 20 years later I had added to my car collection a Cooper-Norton and
when there was a VSCCA race at the old Thompson track I entered. Amazingly,
one of the other entrants was Phil Cade and his Maserati. Unfortunately the
V-16 Cadillac tow car was long gone, but the Maserati was still there just
like the earlier SCCA days. I must say that that day was one of my most
nostalgic and thrilling driving experiences. I actually found myself flat
out on the back straight only to have the Cade Maserati blast past me, only
to pass him in the turn and come out ahead at the start of the next short
straight. I felt like I was actually reliving my childhood fantasies. As it
turned out, shortly after this event the road course part of Thompson was
closed and only the oval was used after that time.
I find it hard to imagine that anyone from VSCCA would give this car
anything but a hearty welcome, but, in the unlikely event that that is not
so, I can personally attest that this car was accepted and has run in both
SCCA and VSCCA events.
Herb Tobin
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