From Sea To Speeding Sea

Everybody was ready except me. Then, the evening before we were to gather in Manhattan for the start of the race, the telephone rang. It was Gurney. We exchanged a few niceties, then I asked him why he had called. He paused for a moment, then said, "I'm ready to go on the Cannonball."

"Are you drunk, or have you lost your mind?" I asked.

"I don't know, maybe a little of both," he said, laughing. "But I've had a change of mind about the whole thing. Something I read. I'll tell you about it when I get there. I've decided we just can't sit on our fannies anymore. Everybody's terrified of offending somebody, and I almost got caught in that trap. I'm jumping on the redeye out of Los Angeles right now. I'll meet you just before the start."

Beautiful. I hung up knowing that the Ferrari would be used the way old Enzo had intended it to be used.

A friend's apartment on 35th Street was to be the rendezvous point for the racers and the actual start would be at the Red Ball Garage, a typically grubby Manhattan commercial parking establishment on East 31st Street between Third Avenue and Lexington, chosen because it was near midtown and because its staff would be calm in the face of almost any lunacy involving automobiles. Because everybody had intended to start about midnight, we had scheduled a drivers' meeting at the apartment for 10:30 p.m. Slowly the place began to fill up: the Bruerton brothers staggered in, unshaved and exhausted. They had just completed their 44-hour, nonstop run from California and announced that they were going to sleep for eight hours before restarting.

Larry Opert burst in, smiling. With him were his two friends, Ron Herisko, a law partner, and Nate Pritzker, an engineer. They had a car, they announced, thanks to The New York Times and the unconscious generosity of a wealthy Long Island man. Determined to find a car to race in the Cannonball, the three men had looked in the Times classifieds in search of a "driveaway" deal—an arrangement where one drives another's car to a destination for nominal expenses. This is a common tactic used to transport personal cars by people who don't like to drive long distances. The Long Island gentleman wanted his new Cadillac Coupe deVille driven to California. Opert & Co. obliged, nodding hazily at his firm orders that his prized machine not be driven after nine o'clock at night, not before eight o'clock in the morning and not run faster than 75 miles an hour. Naturally, all the regulations would be violated before the car left Manhattan.

The Polish Racing Drivers arrived, decked out in full, Nomex driving suits. The room was full of good-natured banter, as if nobody was thinking of the 3,000 miles that spread out before us.

Then the doorbell rang over the din, and there was Gurney. There was that familiar chiseled face, revealing half the age of its 40 years, the firm mouth set in a crooked, little-boy grin. Dan Gurney is a big man—6'2" and perhaps 200 pounds—so big, in fact, that he spent much of his career on the Grand Prix circuit wedged into tiny cockpits that had been intended for smaller men, racing sort of sideways, with one buttock perched on the seat. He was wearing a tweed sport coat, a navy-blue pullover and khaki pants. He carried only a shaving kit. Dan obviously intended to get the trip over with in a hurry.

The drivers' meeting was brief. I outlined the rules once again, noting that we would start from the Red Ball at timed intervals, with the PRDA going first. They had, after all, requested the "Pole" position—pun intended. The team arriving at the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach in the briefest elapsed time—to be documented by the electronic time clocks at the Red Ball and at the Portofino's registration desk—would be the winner.

The cars had been parked on the main floor of the Red Ball, lined up under the harsh light of the bare ceiling bulbs. There was a van entered from Little Rock, Ark. parked alongside the red and white PRDA van, with its flanks covered with sponsors' decals and large type proclaiming, "The Polish Racing Drivers of America go Coast to Coast nonstop!" By contrast, Moon Trash had been painted, from bumper to bumper, in an ominous coat of flat black. Crouching beside it was our Ferrari Daytona, its mirror-polished, royal-blue paint glinting in the raw light. The elegant finish was highlighted by a masterful network of yellow pinstriping, and its fenders were amply covered with decals from sponsors that Kirk White's staff had attracted to help defray expenses. Gurney's and my name were displayed in neat lettering under the windows. It had been the first time I'd seen the car up close and its appearance was a trifle stunning. "Holy cow, it's been cunningly disguised as a racing car!" I gasped.