Thompson, CT Speedway 1954. Bill Spear with his wife as passenger holding the checkered flag.

1954 Watkins Glen. Gentleman Jim Kimberley in his gorgeous 375MM Ferrari drives down the track starting grid. Kimberley would run in the top 3 behind Bill Spear’s Ferrari and eventual winner Phil Walters. When Spear’s car broke Kimberley would finish 2nd ahead of the other Cunningham C-4R.

1954 Watkins Glen. The Cunningham team is lined up and ready. Two C-4R’s and Brigg’s odd looking 4.5 Ferrari. Phil Walters would win in #18; Sherwood Johnston 3rd in #19 and Briggs 6th.

A neat photo showing how basic things were back in the day. 1955 Sebring. Fred Allen’s #46 Austin Healey 100S heads for an old hangar that was serving as the event garage. Note the Choice of Champions Amoco sign just to the right of the door.

1955 Sebring. Alfred Momo works on the Cunningham C6R with its Offy engine. It broke after 54 laps. You can see the #19 on the Cunningham D Type which won with Mike Hawthorne and Phil Walters.

1955 Watkins Glen. A village workshop houses Bill Spear’s 300S Maserati, Briggs #61 OSCA and both a Cunningham C-4R and C-4K as well as the winning #60 D Type Jaguar. Not quite what you would see the #1 team in racing have today.

A closer view of the shop Cunningham rented to work on his cars. The two Cunningham C4’s were out of date but still managed to finish 7th & 8th. Spear’s Maserati was 2nd. Is that Briggs himself wearing the white hat?

1955 Watkins Glen. Big Jake, the Allard JR with driver Big Jake Bucher (behind open door) in the paddock looking at the uphill section of the track. Bucher led the Seneca Cup but had troubles. The uphill you see is still part of the track in 2024.

1955 Watkins Glen. The first Sadler Special comes out of Tech with Bill Sadler driving. This car did not have the big Chevy engines we all remember Sadler’s using. It was an FM 1500cc 4 cyl Jowett Jupiter powered car.

1955 Watkins Grand Prix. Candy Poole’s PBX was quite a story. The car was a success with its Crosley motor and custom built Fiat chassis. Happily the PBS exists today beautifully restored and still raced by Santo Spedaro. We love folks like Santo who keep these great designs where they need to be-on the track.

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1955 Watkins Glen. A typical Spankey Smith photo with the car cut in half, but a great view of how close the spectators were to the track, separated only by a wood slat snow fence. This version of the track was very fast and this Cunningham was doing well over 100 mph.

1954 Andrews Air Force Base. Jim Kimberley’s Ferrari easily led this one off event before retiring. Andrews today is best known as the home for Air Force One, the President’s plane.

1957 Lime Rock. Carroll Shelby sits in John Edgars 4.5 Maserati with famed mechanic Joe Landaker. Joe became famous for driving the hot rodded Edgar hauler at 100+ mph on his way from CA to FL taking the cars for the Nassau Speedweeks.

The Scarab Mk I sits in the morning fog. The paint scheme and pinstriping were done by west coast artist VonDutch. The next 2 versions were right hand drive. The people who Reventlow put together to build the cars all became hall of famers.

1958 Montgomery, NY. Sunday morning and Lance Reventlow looks over at Joe Tierno snapping his photo. The Scarabs arrived early morning from California. The truck driver first went to Montgomery, AL by mistake. We on the east coast had not seen these magnificent cars.

1958 Montgomery. The amazing Scarabs have appeared. Reventlow knew he needed to beat the Cunningham team for racers to take his project seriously. At Montgomery the race was fierce between Chuck Daigh, Walt Hansgen, Ed Crawford and Reventlow. Metal was bent and the racing hard. Daigh won and the Scarabs changed the world.

1958 Watkins Glen. Gil Geitner stops for lunch leaving his Ferrari 500TR on its two wheel trailer behind his Ford Wagon. The Glen is still a nice, sleepy little village until the racers show up.

1958 Watkins Glen. The simpler time when an enthusiast could drive his Healey to the race, pull out his tools and luggage, take off the muffler and windshield and go racing.

1958 Watkins Glen. The famous 029 MGA waits for fuel. Owner and notorious race figure Spankey Smith owned the car and Bob Bucher drove it. In ‘58 #029 won the Collier Cup by inches over Sherm Deckers MGA.

1958 Watkins Glen. Back in the 50’s people would open their homes and rent rooms to race fans. We think we remember this home as Mrs. Duane’s where the BARCboys stayed for several Glen weekends.

1961 Sebring. Nothing more than a great look at Grahame Hill and Dan Gurney. Both were super heroes to the teenage barcboys. Gurney drove a Porsche with Jo Bonnier, Hill a Maserati with Stirling Moss.

1961 Sebring. Denise McCluggage in her iconic polka dot helmet chats with Stirling Moss. Jazz Sax player Allen Eager on the left co drove with Denise to win the GT class and 10th overall. Then drove the Ferrari back to New York.

1959 Watkins Glen Classic, Jim Forno in his Cisitalia. Jim owned Continental Motors in nearby Vestal, NY. Jim had some wonderful cars over the years, but the Cisitalia was perhaps the best.

1959 Watkins Glen Classic. The Glen Classic was created to use the track more often. It was summer in upstate NY and the weather was spectacular. This is Dave Adams from Buffalo in his Lotus IX with an Alfa engine. He called it the Lofa

Don Peters in his Ferrari Mondial. This particular car went through several owners, all in the upstate NY area. A beautiful design with its 2 liter motor, the car could not compete with the newer designs.

Hal Keck, already a force in V8 racecars passes an Austin Healey on the way to winning the B, C, D production race. Keck would dominate the 60’s in his 427 Cobra.

1960 Watkins Glen Grand Prix. Charley Kolb, Elva F Jr. Kolb won in every kind of car he drove. Tall and rangy, he lived in the DC area and to us, was kind of a strange guy. But he could drive.

Another super day at Watkins Glen. The start of the 1960 Grand Prix. Walt Hansgen led but dropped out in the Cunningham birdcage. The late Augie Pabst would win in the Scarab.

Lavender Hill Mob starter Tex Hopkins waves off the E production race. Bob Poupard in the blue twincam would finish 10th, Gorman’s Healey wouldn’t finish at all and Wright’s Porsche ended up 8th.

1960 Grand Prix, BARC driver Millar Ripley in a Lola Mk I next to Barry Brown’s Lotus. Rip would finish 2nd, Brown a DNF. This part of the track was the Start Finish in those days, today it is the area just after the first turn heading up the hill.

1955 Watkins Glen. Most cars stayed in town at their motel or in a local car agency or gas station. It was common to see exotic cars going down a village street. This is Howard Hanna in his Maserati Grand Prix car.

The Ferrari 166 coupe of John Sharpe is just off the jack outside tech inspection at Smalley’s. Driven by Fred Woodmansee, the little V12 was a DNF.

1955 Watkins Glen. Brooks Stevens Excalibur sits in front of the local Pontiac dealership. Many local schools just accepted teen boys wouldn’t be at school. Here a bunch admire this very unusually styed car.

1956 Watkins Glen. The first race on the new course. One of the first Elva’s in North America in front of a Healey 100s and alongside Bob Wilson’s Allard J-2-X

Despite cloudy weather and the SCCA removing sanction, the folks came to see the new track. It was not 100% completed but the entrants voted to race despite Jim Kimberley’s telegram asking them to withdraw. Amazing is that telegram was read to drivers sitting on the grid for the first race, the Seneca Cup.

John Clapp gets his Porsche 1500 ready in front of the Pontiac dealership. Clapp was quick and finished 2nd in the Schuyler Carrera for FP & GP cars.

Old Tech. Some younger readers may not recognize what is happening, but this shot is performing a wheel balance on Bob Bucher’s Allard JR. The little wheel has an electric motor that spins the cars wheel and a strobe looks for the imbalance.

We’re not sure what is happening here. Dozens of race cars on the starting grid, but of all different classes. More cars are coming into the course on Wedgewood Road. Could it have been a track familiarization run on Thursday or Friday?

The grid for the he first race on the new course, the Seneca Cup. This field was basically unrestricted, but most cars were DP Healey’s, Triumph’s and a couple Morgans. You can see Bill Millikens’s monster 4WD Archie Butterworth #2. The race was won by George Weaver’s GP Maserati 4CLT.

The second race was the Collier Brothers Memorial and the new MGA’s placed 1 to 8. BARCboy Sherm Decker won and gets congratulations from starter Tex Hopkins. The two would meet many more times as Decker won a lot of races.

Tech Inspection has Bob Goldich’s Ferrari next to the Milliken Butterball Special. This was a Brit F1 car from 1948 that Milliken brought to the US and rebuilt in the Cornell Aeronautical Lab where Milliken taught.

The winning D Type Jag driven by George Constantine. I’ve seen a retouched color shot of the car being light blue. I was there and remember it as being a kind of mustard light yellow. Does anyone have a color photo of that car?

The fabulous last turn at the original Glen course. Bill Sadler’s car handled terribly with its new Chevy engine replacing the original 4 cyl. Behind him is the Excalibur of Hal Ullrich and the Ferrari of Bob Goldich. Sadler finished 9th, Goldich in a dead heat tie for 7th and Ullrich was a dnf.

The last lap of the first race weekend at the new Watkins Glen circuit. George Constantine takes the checker from Tex Hopkins. Thanks to Doc Wyllie and the drivers who said “hell no” to the SCCA and raced. If they had cancelled, the Glen as we know it, probably would have failed.

A long story here of an HM special driven by BARC member Ed Licht. The car was built in Rochester by the Morgan family. They brought it to the Glen to race but neither had a competition license. Ed was suggested and drove the car but it didn’t finish.