EXCUSE & PROGRESS UPDATE!!!

Where to begin? First should be the new "Lotus Love Affair" book that many of you are waiting for (some patiently, some not) and may I just say that:

A) I'm hopeful it will be worth the wait

B) I'm making good progress

C) It is evolving as much bigger in scope and content than my original, Lotus-centric theme chiefly because, as happens when I'm cooking, I'll decide to add a pinch of this memory or tablespoon of that forgotten history and that leads my brain down yet another garden path (pause here for a few stanzas of "Two paths diverged in a yellow wood") and so the project grows like that old Three Stooges brewing experiment where "We ALL put the yeast in."

I guess my guiding light has always been "That's an interesting tale or experience...people should know about it!" and so we have spur roads peeling off in some new and unexpected directions off the basic Lotus chassis structure. Like fr'instance how I got to a place and time where folks would let me drive and race all these fabulous cars I could never dream of affording. Or why I still think the incredibly successful, Chevy-powered Reventlow Scarab sports/racer of 1958 was and remains the most beautiful racing car of all time. Or why the almost equally lovely and subsequent Scarab Formula One car was such a dismal and disastrous, day-late/many-dollars-short failure? Or why the British "motoring press" would rather eat a crumpet made of rat turd rather than write something flattering about American motorsports achievements. Like fr'instance when they write about the Ford GT40s and subsequent Mk. IIs and Mk. IV that ultimately flattened Le Mans like a combination Brinks Truck and Steamroller, they always lay a huge slice of the credit off to Eric Broadley, whose most innovative, excellent and effective (albeit shoestring and largely unready) Lola GT served as the genetic springboard and source of the entire bloodline. Fair enough. But there's surely more to the story. Or howabout those glowing and fawning historical articles about the quickly-banned Brabham/Alfa Romeo BT46B "fan car" F1 machine that swept all before it (plus the track?) in the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstop in June of 1978? But those stories rarely give a wink or nod to the brilliant and radical, Texas designed-and-built Chaparral 2J "vacuum cleaner" Can Am car that introduced the same exact concept eight years before?

See wished-for tabloid headline below.

You can take my soapbox away, sonnyboy.

I'm done ranting.

LATEST NEWS!

Yeah, I been slaving away every frickin' day on the new book. Honest I have. Plus keeping up with my stretching exercises and family-and-friends stuff and my almost daily bike rides through the woods (normally 10 to 20 miles each) which I'm hoping will forestall the ravages of age and infirmity until I'm done with all my plans and projects. Another 400 years or so should do it...

But life is a fleeting, quicksilver sort of deal, and nothing brings that into clearer focus than the funeral of one of your good friends and contemporaries. Marv Primack was a skillful and fast--but always thoughtful--racing driver, a motoring friend, an excellent car preparer, a "let's get a plan and get it done" club president, a respected orthopedic doctor, an exemplary family man and, above all, a really nice and moreover caring person. He prepped and rac ed a Lester MG special that always seemed to run at the head of its race group, and then added a Lotus 18 Formula Junior. I actually worried when he got the 18 because it was so much faster than the Lester, and also because, well, I thought its intricacies and subtleties might be beyond his wrenching skills and experience. But I needn't have worried, because Marv had a keen mechanical curiosity, excellent tool skills and unusual determination, and he did a typically excellent job with the Lotus.

Marv passed away last week after a difficult and unequal battle with Leukemia--no way to put a happy spin on that--but his funeral a few days ago was something truly special and even uplifting, in that it captured the man and his positive, enthusiastic outlook as well as the incredible respect, friendship and love he inspired and nurtured in his friends and family.

What a lovely service it was.

And what a lovely man it celebrated, too.

IN OTHER NEWS

Some folks out there have been waiting an inordinate amount of time for their long-ordered-and-paid-for copies of the fourth novel in my "Last Open Road" series, TOLY'S GHOST. And I have news! After endless delays, the books have been printed and shipped, and I expect to have them in a couple days and we will begin shipping post haste. To be fair, nbot all of the problems were at my end (but, like crusty old Harry Truman once said, "the buck stops here!"). Long and short of the delay concerned the files for both the book itself as well as our color sponsorship and advertising section. I finally managed to get the necessary B&W chapter files together, but we were in big trouble on the color insert. I toyed with the notion of printing the books without the color section, but the little angel who sits on the shoulder opposite the guy with the sneering smile and pitchfork reminded me that the folks who'd bought and paid for space in that section were promised that they would be in there until the earth explodes or the sun fizzles out--whichever comes first--and it was a matter of honor (not to mention potential legal action) that I do the right thing.

So I was in a quandry (which is similar to a quagmire, only I think there are saltwater crocodiles, ill-tempered pit vipers and stinging insects at the bottom) and it went on like that for quite some time until--hallelujah and while rummaging around for something else--I found an old Zip Drive (remember those?) with the missing files on it. Books will start shipping this coming week, and thanks for your patience.

the above should explain a lot...

TRIVIA ANSWERS & MORE

Okay, so I thought more of you would have seen every blessed racing movie that's ever been made, So imagine my horror and surprise when I discovered that NOT VERY MANY OF YOU have committed every blessed scene and line to memory.

I know I can't be the only nerd in the room...

So here are the answers (and hide your heads in shame):

  1. "Into the lion's mouth" This was from the almost excellent pot-boiler racing romance "The Racers" featuring Kirk Douglas as up-and-coming/out-for-himself Italian racing driver Gino Borgesa and Gilbert Roland as his experienced teammate Del'Oro. Shots of the old racing cars are wonderful...and whatever happened to Bella Darvi, whom I remember from her "starlet-on-the-rise" photo shoot in Playboy magazine back when such things were as close as any of the borderline pubescent males in my generation thought we would ever get to pay dirt.
  2. "Do you ever get tired of the driving?" An easy one. Yves Montand as excellent but world-weary grand prix champion Jean-Pierre Sarti in John Frankenheimer's still class-of-the-field epic "Grand Prix."
  3. "He ran out of road" From "The Green Helmet," which has some wonderful period race footage from the late-fifties/early 1960s, and one unforgettable scene were a flipping C1 Corvette miraculously morphs into a Henry J so they wouldn't have to wreck the 'Vette. That moment is worth sitting through the whole rest of the movie.
  4. Also, what make/model sports car was Rusty having trouble with when she met Lucky at his garage? More of you got this than anything else: It's from "Viva Las Vegas" (which features some WONDERFUL old early-sixties racing cars!) wherein a brilliantly curvaceous Ann-Margret (we went to the same high school!) as "Rusty Martin" drives up in a really skimpy pair of shorts and an ill-running Triumph two-seater so that Elvis (as racer/singer/mechanic "Lucky Jackson") can bang on the valve cover with a crescent wrench. But--please note--the Triumph is a TR3A (or maybe a TR3B?) and NOT just a TR3. So Nyahhhh, ill-
  5. Identify the car, driver & event in the pic at the bottom.

That's Meister Brauser team leader/burgeoning race driver Harry Heuer in his Colorado-built Bocar at, I believe, Meadowdale. The fuel tank had split, and there's much more to the story in the new book... I'm hopeful you'll enjoy it.

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FROM THE WEBSITE

UPCOMING "BS" LEVY BOOK SIGNINGS & SHAMELESS MERCHANDISE FLOGGING

AUGUST 24: At the SCCA Display on Campbell St. just east of Third at THE GENEVA CONCOURS in Geneva, IL. Huge show, well worth the trip and some wonderful cars & motorcycles, too! Do drop by.

AUGUST 29-SEPTEMBER 1st: At the Lime Rock Vintage & Historic Festival at Lime Rock, GT. Haven't been in years and one of our very favorite events! Wonderful place with unbelievable cars & history. Hobbs will also be there. Please stop by and say "Hi" and spread the word, too.

SEPTEMBER 6: MIRPA show at Meadowdale. Always fun/always eclectic.

SEPTEMBER 7: British Car Union show at Harper College. Lots of Olde British Leakers and lovers of same.

SEPTEMBER 11-14: VSCDA Fall Vintage at Road America. Always a great event.

SEPTEMBER 16-21: Alfa Romeo Owners Club national convention in Crystal Lake, IL. Know for sure I'll be flogging books & instructing at their Track Day at Blackhawk on 9/19 and presenting yet another "I (we) did it with our own hands" Buddy Palumbo Awards at the Concours on 9/20.

OCTOBER 2-4: Flogging/signing books with Hobbo in the Road America Paddock Shop during the SCCA National Championship Runoffs at Road America.

More to come?

Catch the latest poop & pictures, the Jay Leno interview, Last Open Road swag & highly inappropriate attire from Finzio's Store and the lurid & occasionally embarrassing "ride with Burt" in-car racing videos on the hopefully now fully operational website at:

WWW.LASTOPENROAD.COM