Yes, the row of 16 Ford GT40s along the show of Stillwater Cove was amazing and awesome, as was the adjacent array of Delahayes. But what really revved my engine last Sunday at the 66th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance was the Two-Man Indianapolis Race Cars 1930-1937 class.
My Dad wasn’t into racing cars, so I was never able to get down to the Rialto Theater to watch the closed-circuit telecasts of the Indy 500 when I was a kid. But I listened every year to the radio broadcasts and, in my senior year in college, I was covering the race in person for my local newspaper as Mario Andretti crossed the finish line and got that big kiss from Andy Granatelli in the Winner’s Circle.
And I’ve watched video and read about the earlier days when there were riding mechanics crammed into the cockpit alongside the driver, working oiling and other controls as they fought together not only against the other racers, but fought — and too often in vain — simply to survive the dangers of a sport an era in which death lurked just around every one of the Brickyard’s turns.
Photos by Larry Edsall
