A Champion's Secret Thoughts

I had several cars during those wartime years—first a Model A Ford with a V-8 engine, and then a 1932 Plymouth, a 1926 Chevy Four and a 1940 Packard convertible. But as much as I liked street drag racing, it was not the most important thing in the world to me. I got perhaps an even bigger kick out of working on my cars in the family garage.

I studied business administration at the University of Southern California in 1945, '46 and '47, but finally quit because my grades were getting to be so bad. They went to hell because I got so interested in being a mechanic on a pair of Offenhauser midget racing cars. The postwar midget craze was on, and I worked with a couple of other guys on cars driven all over California by Gib Lilly and Walt Faulkner.

I loved those days. I really don't know why except that it was such a simple life—perhaps that's the reason. I was totally devoted to it and totally interested in it. My parents were apprehensive, but they didn't seem to get through to me.

I finally raced in those midgets—with conspicuous mediocrity—for a few months. In the meantime, I had bought one of the old MGs, a supercharged TC model. I had been an enthusiast of road racing for years, reading everything I could find on the great European cars and drivers. Once I got Gib Lilly to try the MG, and he was astonished. Compared with it, the typical big American car of the day was a wallowing pig. The sports car had—how should I put it?—an air of truth about it.

It was in 1949 that some foreign-car races started in Los Angeles on a half-mile paved oval called the Carrell Speedway. I entered my MG in them and, profiting from the midget-racing experience, really cleaned up, mostly against other MGs. Attendance was heavy for a while. People came out for the comical aspect, to see those funny little wire-wheeled cars being stuffed into the fences. I avoided the fences and on a good night I could earn $400 to $500.

By the next year I had one of the early XK120 Jaguar sports cars—complete with a plaque saying it was a replica of one that had done 132 mph. I raced it in June at Santa Ana in the first honest-to-goodness road event we had in California. The course was laid out on a blimp base. I finished second, but I was the hero of the race because I drove with more verve than anyone else. I had to. I spun out in the first turn and had a lot of road to make up.

After Santa Ana I won the first race on the old treelined Pebble Beach course at Monterey. That was a big step in my life. From then on I raced in sports car events all over the country as the road-racing boom gathered momentum, and everywhere I went I met with considerable success.

I had a strange hope, right from the beginning, that I could be an especially good driver. I don't know whether I needed to believe that for my ego's sake or whether it was a logical, rational conclusion. I do know that my view of life has always been a pessimistic one. I am always pleasantly surprised when something good happens to me.

After the Jaguar I bought a 2.9-liter supercharged Alfa Romeo—a Mille Miglia veteran from the works stable managed by Enzo Ferrari before the war—and then an English Aston Martin. Next I went deep into hock for my first Ferrari car. It was a 2.6-liter model that had already raced in France. Receiving it was a thrill. Gee! A Ferrari, you know. Ferraris have always been glamorous, but they were all the more glamorous then because of their extreme rarity. Still, I expected some kind of further thrill. Up to that time, taking possession of the MG had been the greatest thing in my life—I can't tell you how far out on cars I was in those days. But I didn't get the same feeling from the Ferrari, because it wasn't pure and perfect. It was a dirty blue, and there had been some crude hammering-out of dents in the bodywork.

After tuning it up, I did well with the Ferrari and with other racing sports cars. In 1953 I went to Europe and for the first time met Enzo Ferrari himself. I remember being rather awestruck. Afterward I codrove a little Italian Osca in the 24-hour sports car race at Le Mans with Freddy Wacker of Chicago. We lasted eight hours.