There was another very cool thing that happened at the WeatherTech International Challenge at Road America. I mean besides selling lots of books, logo clothing and audio books and judging in the racecar concours on Friday night. That's always a great time. But I don't do the "street car" concours on Saturday night any more. Just not anal enough for that kind of work. See my story "Brilliant Chrome and Bug Splat Radius" in the A POTSIDE COMPANION short story book.

Anyhow, this deal was all thanks to longtime friend Lisa Weinberger, wife/widow of John Weinberger, who was both a highly successful, multi-dealership sports car tycoon--all the way up from a gas-station grease monkey, BTW--and a hell of a nice guy in the bargain. Not to mention one hell of a fine racing driver and a genuine and tremendously knowledgeable enthusiast. He knew what went on inside a motor or suspension layout and he could fix it if he had to, too.

Lisa has kindly and thoughtfully looked for appropriate ways to honor John's memory, and besides the plaques and memorial benches at Road America and such, she's thought up and backed, through her "Driven to Care" program and in concert with the Tech Force Foundation, an educational and scholarship program for young people studying automotive technology and pursuing future careers in related fields.

For the second year in a row, I've been privileged and delighted to lead a tour for some of these prospective motoring professionals at the WeatherTech race, and it's been a wonderful and fulfilling experience. I mean, you look around the average vintage paddock and you not only see lotsa neat vintage cars, but also lots of getting-near-their-sell-by-date drivers, fans and crew people. And so I think it's a great concept to expose budding automotive talents to the world and possible career opportunities in the motorsports and restoration fields. So here's some pix (courtesy, again, of Nick Lish) of what we all did on Saturday morning at Road America:

Above: Longtime friend/TR3 and Formula Vee master racer, VDCA founding and perpetual chief honcho and sometimes track adversary Mike Jackson explains the finer points of ducking the inevitable shrapnel if you try using an 8000 rpm redline in a Triumph TR3.

Below: That's me next to the Keck Racing Cheetah "Cro-Sal Special" clone that my friend Brian Garcia drives the wheels off of--sometimes literally--whenever he steps behind the wheel. I've driven that thing on a couple occasions (see lower photo) and it is indeed a highly explosive package with an exceedingly short fuse. But the team has groomed, improved and developed it over the years until it's now a frequent race winner (it won again at the WeatherTech, and ahead of some formidable opposition...like Lola T70s, fr'example!) and Brian does a wonderful job shoe-ing it around.

You should've seen the bugged eyes and open-mouth expressions on all the young faces when he fired it up for them and blipped the throttle a few times. You could hear every single one of that Chevy's 700+ horses...

So we got home late-ish Sunday night and come Thursday we were out on the road again, headed for Pittsburgh, PA, for the regularly incredible and totally off-the-charts Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. This is one of my very favorite events--you frankly run out of superlatives--but most years it's a date conflict with the WeatherTech at Road America reported above. But not this year! So we were chomping at the bit to give Pittsburgh another go. Especially since PVGP Executive Director and longtime friend Dan Delbianco (he was the event's first real staff hire back in 2003) offered me the distinction and title of "Honorary Starter." Plus he wrote the most flattering, blush-inducing piece about my books in the official race program. Here it is:

Aw, shucks...

Or, as Goofy would say: "Gawrsh, Mickey..."

In any case, the Pittsburgh event is simply not to be believed. To begin with, it goes on for a week plus two weekends, it takes over the whole damn town and it raises millions of dollars for its partner charities. There are car shows and rallyes and tours and a black-tie gala or two plus a full, three-day/weekend-before Vintage/Historic race at the excellent and nearby PittRace International track (which BTW hosted this year's Shelby American convention) and did I mention the Thursday night shindig out at the airport? It featured lotsa cool cars--Ferrari and Panoz were both featured, along with Grand Marshal/longtime friend Luigi Chinetti Junior and Honorary Race Director Danny Panoz--plus some WWII Warbirds like an F4U Corsair, which are always worth a long look.

Hell, the damn race program at Pittsburgh is 125 pages thick and of more beautiful layout and higher quality rendering than some of the magazines I've scribbled for. See image below:

But all that is NOTHING compared to the race weekend at Schenley Park. It is FABULOUS! It is WONDERFUL! It is NUTS!

See, first you have to understand that, unlike my hometown of Chicago, which is flat as a damn sheet cake, the City of Pittsburgh sits amongst all sorts of woodsy hills and low mountains and such--all of it green as Robin Hood's tunic--and the organizers, with the blessing, support and enthusiasm of all the movers and shakers in Pittsburgh right up to the mayor hisownself, simply shut down a huge local park (think Lincoln Park in Chicago or Central Park in New York or Griffith Park in L.A...you get the idea) and turn it into a blessed racetrack. Really.

I've driven there a couple times and actually won my first-ever race there in friend J.R. Mitchell's early Lotus 7 mit Coventry Climax power (see pic below). But I also overstepped the boundaries of common sense, caused a red flag and damn near killed another driver I was about to lap in the process. You can read all about it in my story "The Agony of Victory" in the A POTSIDE COMPANION short-story anthology (If you don't already have one, don't you think it's about time you bought yourself a copy?).

Anyhow, it's an unbelievable racetrack--identical in many ways to the "real" open road circuits I wrote about in THE LAST OPEN ROAD--what with sun-dappled paavement from the occasional canopies of trees overhead and mighty elevation changes and solid concrete curbs and light poles and tree trunks big around as a 55-gallon drum and a tombstone-like marble memorial that you'd really rather not hit and scenery like an immense conservatory/botanical garden that you scream past in a giddy, 4-wheel drift (maybe even in top gear?) and a reflecting pool that you skitter past 'round a hairpin and thick stone walls around an incredibly tight downhill serpentine that really deserves the name and..

Like I said, there's nothing like it. Not anywhere.

I wrote a piece for this year's program about driving the track, and it made my mouth dry, my eyes light up and my palms itch just remembering how it felt to race there at Schenley Park. There's a marvelous flow and rhythm to the place. But it also requires the utmost in respect. And what a thrill to be allowed to assume that sort of risk and responsibility in a world over-full of "you-can't-do-that" laws and nuisance warning labels.

The drivers understand that this is a special sort of challenge--even as they go wheel-to-wheel with each other--and that they are responsible for not only their own safety, but the safety of those around them as well. And that makes it even more special.

Here's a link to a You Tube channel about the races through Schenley Park:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GLchd0XCVI

But the races through Schenley Park are only part of the race-weekend festivities. There are manufacturer and dealer displays and celebrity (or, in my case, demi-celebrity) interviews and acres upon acres of car-club/enthusiast group shows and vendors hawking everything from good things to eat (never had an "authentic deutschtown hot dog" before, but I can now recommend them) to clothing to posters to straw hats and handbags to new siding or storm doors for your house. It's carnival time for sure. And on a VERY large scale. Thanks to Clay Yonker and his Union-Jack buddies, we were set up in the middle of the British Car Display on Saturday--over 500 cars!--and we sold a LOT of books and associated effluvia. And there is no truth to the rumor that a thick layer of 40-weight was weeped out onto the grass...

The cars were varied and wonderful. As were the racing cars out on the track (everything from T-series MGs, a 1934 Lagonda Rapier, the "Canada-Class" VAY special--which I have driven--a double-bubble Abarth coupe, a 1939 Mecury-based sprint car and an Austin A35 to your more typical Spridgets, MGBs, Triumphs, TVRs, Alfas, Volvos, right up through Porsche 911s and BMWS...and let's not forget the FFords and FVees). It's an incredible feast for the eyes and ears (Brian Dolan's ex-Group 44 GT6--which, BTW, I have also driven--makes a noise like a chorus of chainsaws cutting up trash drums! "All lean meat," in the immortal words of Henry N. Manney (although I think he was talking about the then-new Ford GT40 racecars at the time).

Now producing a show like this--remember, it runs for a week and is bookended by a pair of race weekends--takes an incredible number of volunteers, all kinds of production, artistic, sales-pitching, organizing, logisitcs and negotiating skills, and the list of volunteers recognized in the race program runs six-and-a-half pages. In four columns per page. In very small type. And they all pitched in and did whatever had to or needed to be done. Then add in the business, city and corporate sponsors and contributors and you have some small inkling of what a singular and utterly massive undertaking this is. But the city of Pittsburgh loves and embraces it, and I don't think there's another town or municipality in North America where you could hope to pull this off.

Maybe even the world?

So put it on your bucket list. Right at the top. And bring your racecar if you've got one and you know how to keep your head straight when things get hectic and challenging. Or bring your old British sled or German panzer or Italian opera star or French oddity or even your Deuce Coupe or Ramcharger or metalflake Continental. There's a place for YOU at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix.

You'll be glad you came. Really you will!

Deep breath...

So I had a business call in Ohio early Monday and then we headed home to a VERY hot week and a lot of computer work to finish and re-packing/re-organizing to do and books to ship.

But it all came good on Saturday. Following a hellacious mid-night storm, the weather cooled off beautifully for the Illinois Jaguar Club Concours d'Elegance at St. James Farm (adjacent to Cantigny), where we gave away yet another Buddy Palumbo award. There's no question that the best and most historic car on the show field was the early, all-alloy XK120 entered by Jim Kakuska (see pic of me in it below), but Jim and brother Gary run a well-respected Jaguar restoration shop in Oswego Illinois (JK Restorations) and, in fact, many of the E-Type and earlier concours entrants are or have been customers. So, in the true spirit of the Buddy Palumbo award, I put that car in the "pro" class gave it to a lovely couple, Greg and Carol Kozak, who bought a slightly raggedy and paint-crazed XKE from an old racing buddy of mine (are your ears burning, Scott Fohrman?) and brought it back to far-better-than-presentable condition. They USE it, too. And that's important.

A couple hours later, I was guest speaker at the club's after-concours dinner at Adelle's in nearby Wheaton. And not only was it delicious with lots of great, like-minded company, but my speech/slide-show presentation didn't ramble on and on like it has sometimes in the past (hey, I'm talking about my favorite subject...ME!!!) and even Carol said it was pretty good.

Honest she did.

MORE "BS" IN YOUR FUTURE?

August 3-6: Carol & I are planning, once again, to be hawking, schmoozing & signing in the wonderful THE PADDOCK SHOP store at Road America alongside fellow speed huckster David Hobbs with his enthralling, entertaining and occasionally even plausible autobiography. It's the IMSA pro weekend and it looks like it's going to be a biggie.

Thanks in great part to my longtime friend (I used to race against his dad when he was in diapers), supporter, book booster, audio book "mystery celebrity guest voice" and now President of IMSA John Doonan, we'll be doing an audio book RIG DRIVER RAFFLE. It will work like this:

See, rig drivers--I mean the guys and gals who drive those eighteen-wheelers full of team racecars, tools, parts, shelters, awnings, tires, wheels, merchandise and support equipment all over the damn map, sometimes thousands of miles in a stretch--never get much in the way of perks or recognition. So we thought we'd pick car numbers out of a hat and give away 25 of our highly entertaining (ask anybody...or read the online reviews!) THE LAST OPEN ROAD audio books. At damn near 20 hours, they're the perfect companion for any long-haul road trip or cross-country journey. And they're also instructive about the origins of the sport here in America, which is a good thing for a current racing team to understand.

Gotta know your roots, right?

In any case, we'll be drawing and giving away 25 copies to the lucky teams/rig drivers--15 from the top-of-the-heap IMSA WeatherTech series (the cars that race at the Daytona 24, Sebring 12 Hour etc.) and 10 to teams/rig drivers from the insanely competitive and entertaining Michelin Pilot Challenge support series--and we sure hope they enjoy them.

If they really like them (and we're hopeful that they will), maybe we can get some of our "best-ever advertising tool" THE LAST OPEN ROAD decals on a few of their racecars?

That would be cool!

ONE LAST THING DEPT:

You all know that I love to ride my bike (at least when the weather's not miserable cold or wet) and that, although I've biked trails and byways all over this country at one time or another, my very favorite place to ride--the Bemis Woods path--is something like 1.25 miles from my back door. Depending on the day, I'll do the "run to Brookfield zoo" (right around 10 miles all told) or the western spur (up to fifteen miles with various side-loops/double-backs included) and sometimes I'll even do the whole blessed thing, which is right at 20 miles without the side-loops. I love it and it's where I get some of my best thinking and music-listening done, what with classical one day, country the next, motown, old rock-n'-roll, jazz...you name it and it's probably somewhere in my music files. Except rap, that is. I just don't think much of rhythmic bleating without any discernible melody...but then my folks didn't care much for The Stones or the Flying Burrito Brothers, either.

In any case, I hit kind of a milestone yesterday afternoon. See pix below. Should be self-explanatory:

More anon. But first, a little trivia. What is the strange powerplant pictured below?