Original subtitles

Carroll Shelby now in the lead,

car number 98.

The Premier Maserati burning up the course

Johnny von Neumann in second place

and Richie gets a turn over 190.

The 3.5 Ferrari in third.

Old times, watch 56 for obstruction.

Watch 56.

It's 1190, spun out right behind the bales,

I couldn't see the number on the car.

Moving, moving, very, very fast.

Johnny von Neumann right behind Carroll Shelby.

- Pebble Beach was almost like a storybook.

Beautiful scenery.

Just the smell of all those trees

and everything so pure it seems like.

I think that's what I remember, Pebble Beach.

- Pebble Beach was always a race track

we always look forward to because

it was rather prestigious and a wonderful venue.

- There was no question that the king

of the racetracks in Northern California

was Pebble Beach.

- We've got the fire truck on an escape road

at six.

Keep him there and tell him to stay there.

Okay.

Keep him there and tell him to stay there

at turn six, hold him there.

Oh, somebody lost a wheel on six.

Is he alright?

Did he flip? No, he didn't flip.

Good.

Pebble beach has grown to be world renowned,

but in the beginning, it was a glorious,

beautiful place to go racing.

- Anybody associated with a sports car

would have been at Pebble Beach.

- The smells at Pebble Beach.

The smell, the feel.

Even the rain time was beautiful.

And driving around, it's still kind of like that now.

But back then it was stunning,

it was a world apart from the rest of the world.

- The crowd was pretty huge all the way around the track.

Probably three or four deep, maybe 10 deep.

Along the snow fencing that would keep

the cars out of the crowd.

- I mean, people were crossing the track

while it was going on.

- Pebble Beach course was surrounded by

what they call soft pine trees.

And I can assure you that the only soft part

is the first quarter of an inch of the tree.

After that it gets really hard.

- The very wealthy folks were there,

even without the racing.

But they came out for the races in their beautiful cars.

- I thought there was a lot of people there

and of course, you could walk around in the course

and get near the racetrack and see the action

and that's the kind of thing we did.

- Any young kid that had a part time job

could buy himself a used car,

fix it up and go racing.

- When you think about the fact the first race

was 1950 and how that event, Pebble Beach,

evolved over the next six, seven years

and how it gained national publicity

and in some cases, international publicity.

It meant so much to the sport

in terms of expanding the awareness

of sport cars racing.

It really was the foundation of sports car racing

in the West Coast because it persisted,

then it led to a point where

it was recognized around the world.

- My neighbor had an XK120

and he walked over the house one day, apartment,

and he said, "You want to go to the races

"out at Pebble Beach?"

I said, what's that?

- Before World War Two, there was very little road racing

in the U.S., most of it was on circuits, tracks,

and the big race, of course, was Indianapolis.

After the war, some of the soldiers

who had been in England, found MGs.

The MG had come out with a new car called the MGTC

and some of the guys were able

to bring them over.

They were very different from American cars,

which were big and kind of clunky in those days.

Road racing in the United States started

in 1947 at Watkins Glen.

They had pretty much yearly races after that.

1954 was the last time and they built

a Watkins Glen race course,

which is still one of the major

road racing courses in the U.S. now.

- There was a young man by the name of Sterling Edwards

living in Beverly Hills, who was a very accomplished pilot,

which put him under the immediate wing

of General Curtis Lemay in the Pentagon.

And in the three and four ensuing years,

they became so close and they found out

they had cars in common.

When the war was over, everyone went their own way.

At the same time '45 or '46, half a dozen

young men in Boston thinking they wanted

to formulate a body with which they could enjoy

and preserve sports cars.

When they finally got themselves a legal entity,

the Sports Car Club of America.

- Now that they had a real core group of Road Racers,

that wanted to see this not only continue,

but grow, they were constantly searching

for more venues.

- Curtis Lemay went to his peers at the Pentagon

and convinced them, they could withstand

the probable liability of running race cars

on a government airport.

- In the area, there was an abandoned Naval air field

north of San Francisco called Cotati.

It was still abandoned, it had been used

by midnight drag racers and kids out there

just having fun.

And the FCCA took it over and it became

kind of their defacto home because they had control of it.

- General LeMay was a real character,

he had a car.

He set it up so we could race on basis.

- Cotati is typical of airports, flat, featureless,

not a real hospitable place,

very few creature comforts.

- It was very casual, people would put together a race

and we'd all go paint the numbers on our car,

do the race and take them off and drive home.

- I think it was the attraction was first

to race the cars anyway they could

and obviously the attraction for people to watch

these up and coming drivers as they were at the time.

- Just imagine trying to race

through Golden Gate Park now by going to San Francisco

and saying, hey, we'd like to have this place closed

for three days and we're gonna bring

100,000 people in and have probably 300 cars

and I don't think anybody will get killed.

It was just because Curtis LeMay

had gotten his nose in the tent

that it sort of saved all their concerns.

- The people who had been to races on the East Coast

said no, Road Races,

had roads go through all kinds of terrain.

- Sterling Edwards was very sensitive to the fact

that we needed to find a place to race.

- Sterling was a good friend of mine

and also the family.

- Sterling Edwards was a classmate of Jack Morse,

the owners of Del Monte Forest in college.

Jack Morse had ideas of building homes

in the Del Monte Forest, so this was a natural way

to promote potential construction of new homes.

- My brother, John Morse, he liked the idea.

My father did not like the idea

because he thought someone would get killed,

which of course, they did.

Dear Mr. Pfund, it is a pleasure to give you

all the information we have to date

on the proposed Road Race at Pebble Beach,

Del Monte Properties, California.

This should easily be a national event one day.

Hoping this letter gives you enough information

regarding our current West Coast activities,

I remain sincerely, Sterling Edwards.

February 10, 1950.

- So they continued to look to venues

that they could rely on from year to year.

One of the key movers behind this

was Kjell Qvale.

Kjell, being the MG importer,

was the primary source for race cars of that era,

pre 1950 and the MG Car Club of Northern California

was the main vehicle in which events

were organized and promoted.

- Kjell was more a race organizer in those days.

He'd gone to Watkins Glen earlier

and saw how the FCCA could put on a weekend event.

He needed some organization, the California one.

So Kjell organized the event with the help of my mom

and mom was sort of the Owner's Club representative

for our import company and Kjell put on the races.

- Kjell Qvale who was so active

in Northern California region,

a terrific guy and great organizational skills.

- Sterling Edwards and Bill Breeze were customers

of my dad and they bought MGs and they were part

of the MG Owner's Club and they knew the Morse family

down in Pebble Beach and could go down there

and try a 17 mile drive on for size.

- I remember dad telling me a story

of how he went down and met with Bill Breeze

and over lunch on a napkin,

drew out the layout

four the course and after lunch,

they hopped in a car and they went out

and drove the course and that was going to be

the first Pebble Beach Road Race.

- First they were going to use 17-mile drive

and their various configurations

and finally they settled on the course,

which revolves around the Polo Grounds.

- And designed the course, I think that was

in the Spring of 1950.

- So in 1950, the first race was held.

- This was a prestigious event,

you wanted to go there and you wanted to win.

- It was all out racing.

We truly enjoyed it.

- I just think there's something very special

about the area around Pebble Beach.

The mystique of the trees and forest.

There's a more elevated sense than to be,

baking out in the sun on some airport circuit somewhere.

- In the beginning, you see the lineups,

there were a lot of MGs, some Jaguars,

Allards, the Allards were tremendously powerful,

the MGs weren't.

The Jaguars were somewhere in between

and they could manage the course

with competent driving.

- The reason that there were so many MGs

at the first few Pebble Beach Road Races is,

basically they were sports cars

that were adaptable to be raced,

but they were also fairly low priced.

I think they had maybe 50 or 60 entries.

They had a good crowd.

I think they surprised themselves.

- Some of the names of race drivers

who went on to become quite famous

that participated at Pebble Beach,

are household names for most any race fan

and beyond that.

The first one that comes to mind is Phil Hill.

Phil Hill was the winner of the very first race

at Pebble Beach and a Jaguar that

he had brought back from England.

- The XK120 was just the sleekest, newest,

most modern sports car of the day.

There were some others around, but this was

the new, lightweight foreign sports car.

My dad went up to Pebble Beach having done

all sorts of modifications with his friend, Richie Ginther.

They were both very skilled in mechanics,

but the problem was the engine wouldn't start,

so he had to push start the car.

And he just tore off, just going through the gears,

tearing through the field

and about halfway through the race,

he had actually done a great job working his way

through the field and Richie Ginther puts out a sign

as he's going by the pits and says, "Long lead."

Well my dad, being the bundle of nerves

and anxiety and thinking he's probably still in last place,

thinks that a guy named Long is leading the race.

Well, what Richie was telling him is

you have a long lead, you can cool it, you know.

- He could handle just about any kind of car.

And he would do well and generally win.

- We raced against each other

and beat each other a many, many times

here in the states and in Europe also.

The thing I remember most about the race is

we were sitting in the garage the night before

and he says, "The ass end is coming loose all the time."

I says, well, maybe if we put a little weight,

add a little weight in the back end.

He and I took some coat hangers

and put some weight in the back end of the car

and he had the race is over he said,

"It didn't help a damn thing, did you know

"it wouldn't help a damn thing?"

We got to laughing about it after that.

That was a great race, that was a great place to race

and historically, we don't have

those kind of places anymore.

Phil was down there an artist

and whatever he did, it was 100%

and I savor the thoughts of him every day

that he was probably one of the greatest endurance drivers

who won Le Mans three times, was second twice I think,

and he was the greatest of our era at Le Mans.

- As we know now, Phil had an expertise,

had an uncommon ability

to take a car

and make it dance and talk.

- You know, all in all, that made

for such a great win and a huge weekend

for the both of them, my dad and Richie.

Turn one there's a dog on the course,

on turn one.

On turn one?

Between the starting point and turn one.

A big one or little one?

It's a large brown one, it's by a tree.

Spectators are getting him.

- While the '50s were the beginning

in sports car craze in this country

and around the world, and back in the '50s,

it was very informal.

You grabbed what you got and you went with it

and there wasn't a lot of money being spent

like there is today.

- Always wanted to be a race car driver,

but I didn't know how to do it, you know.

Who knows how to become a race car driver

when you're 17 or whatever.

Met a guy along the way, Dave Carter,

who had his father had a parts store

and he and I teamed up,

and we built a race car together.

- In those days, you know you could just drive your car

to the races, very few people had trailers.

When we'd go to the races, there was usually

oh anywhere from five to eight guys

and we'd pick up more guys along the way

and we'd rat race all the way up to these races

and it was pretty thrilling because,

you know, we were really racing on public roads

at that time.

- In those days, you could build a car

and go out and compete before

the factories got into it.

A lot of them did, Roger Barlow, Ken Miles.

- It was kind of a glory days.

It was the days, when if you wanted to race,

you could get an MG or a car like an MG

and by not spending a lot of money, at least,

get a car on the grid, have some fun.

There weren't a lot of requirements

as far as licensing or what not.

If you wanted to race and were in good health,

you could race.

- When you go really back and quite a few generation,

you know, 20 to 30 years ago,

cars it was pretty dangerous.

In fact, I mean, one of the main reasons I race

was because it was dangerous.

You know, when you're 17, 18 years old,

you want to do something crazy.

- So I think of Pebble Beach,

I think of Bill Pollack.

Bill Pollack had the best winning races around there

and I think for three or four years

he always won the race on Pebble Beach.

- My ride at Pebble Beach really started

at Hollywood.

I was driving a TCMG at the time

and I dropped in on a friend of mine, Al Moss,

and we were just talking and he said,

"By the way, there's a guy up there in Tacoma

"that just bought a new Allard and looking for a driver."

I said, really?

So then I called Carstens.

He says, "What kind of experience have you had?"

I said well, I said I won the novice race at Palm Springs

and I did this and said.

He said, "Have you ever ride in a Allard?"

And I said, well, yeah, sort of, okay.

So there was the car, it was absolutely beautiful

and they said, "Well, you want to take it out?"

I said, well, yeah, I think so, yeah, okay.

And they said, "Well, she's ready to go."

- Well, this car is a fabulous car.

It's got a great racing history and Pollack

was a really good driver.

It's fun to drive, it's very dangerous to drive

because the rear end flips out on you very fast.

You go around a corner too fast and don't handle it right

and you find yourself going the opposite direction.

But the sound is lovely.

It's the noisiest sports car I've ever heard in my life.

It's got no mufflers.

It's a straight exhaust a big Cadillac V8,

but it's a great car, fun to drive, and a lot of noise.

- My father had a very hot MGTC

that was well know, number 88.

Driven first by Bill Pollack

and later on by Jack McAfee.

And Bill went out on the course

and did some great laps with it.

Next time he came around the pits,

my father was standing way out,

almost into the track and signaling to come in.

So Bill came into the corner.

Bill was thinking he told me later,

years later he says, "You know I thought that was it,

"I thought John Edward was just gonna can me.

"I done something wrong, he didn't like the way I drove,

"I was gonna be out of the race altogether.

"And when I stopped, he came over to the car,

"he didn't say a word, opened the door,

"the passenger side door, and pulled out

"from the door pocket, his scotch whiskey,

"that's what he wanted.

"As soon as that was done, I was off and more practice."

- A name very well know, Carroll Shelby

was an early competitor throughout the West Coast.

He raced the first race and I believe

he was the first winner at Santa Rosa,

which was actually Cotati Raceway in 1957.

So he goes back a long way.

Of course, Carroll Shelby is a legend

for his development work on the Cobra, the GT40,

the Sunbeam Tiger, a variety of cars

and then on to a car manufacturer.

- I was around him quite a bit

as he was involved in racing and I really enjoyed him.

He was a great guy to be around

and he was full of good ideas, you know.

He had a lot of ideas and I was not surprised at all

to see him end up putting together that Cobra deal with Ford

and he just very capable of doing those kind of things.

- I think the best thing that really explains Carrol Shelby

is they didn't call him Billy Sol for nothing.

And if you knew any history about American

Billy Sol Estes was one

of the greatest Texas oil scammers

in the business and that was Shelby.

He was a fabulous salesman.

He could convince everybody in management

that he had great ideas and he collected

the best people around him and built

probably the best racing team that we've ever had

in America at that time.

- Won Le Mans, won the World Sports Car Championship,

a legend.

- My father realized that with the power

that these guys were making, in the old cad Allards,

some of these big American V8s,

that the Jag simply wasn't gonna be able to keep up.

So he sold the Jag, the XK120

and he bought an Alpha Romeo 8C, a beautiful car,

but he sold it so he could go on to purchase

his next race car, which is when he started

getting into Ferrari.

- Behind me is the 1953 Ferrari 250 MM Vignale Spyder.

That probably is most associated

with its original owner.

It was purchased new by Phil Hill in 1953

and he drove it up to the Pebble Beach Road Races

that happened in April that particular year.

My understanding is that he was qualified mid-grid

between some Cadillac and a bunch of C types.

But Phil being Phil and the driver that he was,

by about lap 24 of the race, took the lead

and he went on to win.

This being his first win in a Ferrari,

and I think it's because of the drives in this race

that he became aware for the Ferrari factory

and he secure one of his many factory drives,

which ultimately landed him the full factory drive

and he went on to become, you know,

the first American Formula One drivers World Championship.

- Well there wasn't any official qualifying to say,

people just ran there and they'd stick you in line someplace

where they felt you might be competitive

or more or less equal with the surrounding cars.

- I walked over to the reception area was

and we went in, we said, we want to go in your race.

They said, "Okay, where are your licenses?"

We'd never been to a race before.

"Okay, sign here!"

- Our entry fee was $15.

And the other thing too is that

we could drive the car and look like this.

- Race cars all of a sudden became cars

you could drive on the streets.

Virtually impossible to drive today

a race car on the street, but also the '60s or '70s.

Up to that point in time, you could actually

drive your car, put on a Randall helmet

if you're advanced.

Some guys, they never wear helmets

and you would go racing.

- On the qualifying that day

I got on to that back straight

and there was a Morgan.

And I think he was stopping

to get sandwiches or something,

but he was just puttering along, you know.

And when I came in, everybody's looking

at their stopwatches saying, "What the hell happened?"

And I explained what happened.

And they said, "Well, we're very sorry

"about Mr. Pollack's misadventure,

"but we have a whole lot of cars

"that have to qualify and he can if he wants to,

"he can go out at the end of qualifying."

By now I'm really pissed off too that I've got to wait

all afternoon and you know.

So I went out and was gonna do a flying lap

and I came by the start and finish.

Absolutely flawed.

And just past the start and finish

is just this little bit of a bend

and when I got into it, I realized

that I was going just about 10 miles an hour

too fast.

I'm feathering the brakes

and doing this and doing that

and it's just no way, I'm not gonna make the turn.

So when I got to the end, I just spun

and I killed the engine.

I said, well, that's it now, whatever.

Whatever they want to do.

So they put me on the pole.

We don't want to see that again.

Spin out on turn one,

spin out on turn one.

- This is the 1953 Tatum GMC Special.

Was built in Stockton, California

by Chuck Tatum.

Chuck was a young man having just returned

from World War Two in the Pacific.

He was a survivor of the first wave on Hiroshima.

- Well the idea to find the Tatum Special,

was the fact that I'd always been interested in race cars.

And I'd built a lot of race cars before the Tatum Special.

- This is a car that was,

according to Chuck, built almost on a bet.

- One time, I was at a race

in Stockton, California Road Race

and they had a lot of big, famous cars out there.

One of them was called a Cadillac Allard,

and that was a real fast car,

no one could beat it, actually.

- He was having dinner one night

with Sammy Weiss and with

Phil Hill in Stockton

ahead of the Road Races.

- Someone says, "It's hard to ever beat an Allard".

I said, well, I could.

And they said, "Well, how could you do that?"

I said, well, I'd make a car that could out run it.

They said, "No, no, forget all that."

- And there was a lot of discussion.

I suspect there were some jokes back and forth.

- And later on, one of the guys there says,

he came to me and he says,

"Is that really true, you can build a car

that would beat an Allard?"

I said, absolutely.

- But this is what resulted.

So, what do we have here?

Tube frame, coil over shock absorbers

on a rear axle, all four junk yard suspension components.

Big GMC truck motor and a beautiful aluminum body.

And that is the Tatum GMC Special,

as it was.

First raced in 1953.

- There was a certain amount of talent

that was developed just by the men being there

and racing and every race, they got better.

They learned more about their vehicle,

their vehicles got better,

and therefore, their talent grew.

- That whole era of designing cars

and building them and racing them.

Was so influential in my life

because you got to see guys who built stuff

with their hands.

And the lines that came out in some of these cars

were really excellent.

I mean, as good as anything that came out

of Europe at that time.

- It's really too bad that

more people don't appreciate

just exactly how much thought and work

goes into balancing all of those delicate aspects

to building a car.

- And of course, Phil Hill was in some of those races

and there's some really exciting drivers back then

and it was a fun time and a very early time,

very early period of racing.

- The first time I was going to race this car,

I looked down and there's masking tape

covering the tachometer, the speedometer,

the oil pressure gauge, they were all taped up.

And I turned to Carsten, who owned the car

and I said, what's going on here?

What's all this tape?

He says, "I don't want you looking at the instruments,

"your job is to look at the road."

Carstens wanted to be sure that I was paying attention

and looking straight ahead and he was right.

He was, bless you, Tom, thanks.

- Tell you how wonderful it was

to walk around the pits and see

all the innovation, ideas that were going on

from these guys that were building these cars.

Nothing like that today, absolutely different.

- A well known driver was Ernie McAfee,

who was working on other people's cars

for quite some time.

- Below a large sign, it was very visible.

Was Turtle Wax, a huge thing of Turtle Wax.

And down below was Ernie's shop.

And he took care of everybody,

he was an engineer.

He was a first rate mechanic,

he competed in Montville,

hot rods and so forth earlier on.

When my dad started Remak Engineering he backed him.

Ernie always wanted to drive sports cars

and so my dad financed his career, started it

in sports car racing in California.

- In 1952, Ernie entered the Mexican Road Race

with a co-driver, Jack McAfee.

They were not related.

They entered and came in fifth

in the Mexican Road Race.

- My father became frustrated being a mechanic

and in 1954 really decided to go racing.

He raced before, but not seriously.

- Ernie was such a good driver.

He would drive in the under three liter class

in the Monza and win that.

And then he would jump right into the 44 Ferrari

into the main event and win that.

And he did that a bunch of times.

- This car is a 1516 OSCA engine

with .

The car has quite an interesting history.

It started off as a OSCA entry in the 1955 La Mans,

where the driver name's Roberto,

who failed to finish.

After that, the car came back through the league

and a few races again as a factory car.

Did a few things on it and then sold it

on to America.

Now the car was at that time owned

by the OSCA distributor John in Arizona

called Chapman.

He then contacted Ernie McAfee in late '55

and said, Ernie, you anyway participate in race

how about you try to compete this car

on my behalf and therefore,

spread the OSCA gospel.

- In the 1956 Pebble Beach, he entered

an OSCA MT4 in the small car race

and the 44 Ferrari in the main event.

- He did quite well, led the group

the under 1500 cc on a Sunday, then the distributor,

the rotor broke.

He had to retire and hop into his now infamous

121 LM Ferrari.

- And as Jack McAfee tells it,

the 857 Sport of Jack McAfee was overtaken

by 121 LM of Ernie McAfee.

- And Jack said that he missed a shift

then got in the wrong gear

in a corner and went straight into a tree.

- He just, there was never any doubt

what his passion was.

Growing up he was always cars,

cars, and more cars.

- Jack McAfee started in MG that was sponsored

and owned by John Edgar.

- John Edgar had this real famous MG,

number 88 that Ernie McAfee kept at his shop

and did all the work on.

- Because the Edgar MG did so poorly

in the first Pebble Beach race, one lap,

a lot of effort out of Ernie McAfee's engineering

shop went into preparation

for the second 1951 Pebble Beach race.

When the McAfee's, Jack and Ernie

loaded the MG 88 on to the trailer

to take it to Pebble Beach,

they got as far as the Ridge route,

the wheel on the trailer came off

and rolled out into a canyon.

So there it was with the trailer inoperable,

no wheel to replace it.

- You know, my dad was kind of asking Ernie

what he thought they should do and Ernie said,

"Well, let's roll it off the trailer

"and just drive it up there."

- So, he drove the race car,

the short stacks, no mufflers.

- Exhaust headers about this long.

- The loudest thing you could ever imagine

from Grapevine on the Ridge route

all the way to Pebble Beach.

He said when he got there,

he couldn't hear a thing.

He says it's probably one of the reasons now,

which he told me a few years ago,

before he passed, that I don't hear too well.

- And he graduated to Porsches

and then graduated from there into Ferraris.

He had a fairly long career that went beyond a decade

and was very successful in his reason.

- Today we're sitting in front

of the 857 Sport serial number 0588,

that's in the Les Wexner collection.

Very fascinating history on the 857 Sport

in that it was a factory team car

originally given to Olivier Gendebien

and Masten Gregory.

Their first time out in the car during practice,

they crashed the car, rolled the car.

After the factory rebuild, 0588 was sold

directly to John Edgar, who was a California businessman,

who was one of the original Ferrari race teams.

Jack McAfee driving for John Edgar's team

was terrifically successful in the 857 Sport

all the way to 1956 Pebble Beach,

where he was third overall.

- The course itself was really interesting.

We got some practice, I can't remember just how much.

The course wasn't too hard to learn,

there were only approximately five turns

that really were turns.

The change in elevation was the interesting part.

Up at the top of the course,

was like a more or less a hairpin

and then you were on a downhill section,

which was quite fast.

Then into the bottom turn,

which was about a 90 degree turn

back to the start finish.

It was an enjoyable track to drive.

- The thing you worry about, I worry about

is getting through that first turn.

I mean, that is a crucial thing,

getting stopped, not over doing it,

so easy you can't even get your right foot off the floor.

I mean, you are glued all the way to the firewall.

- In the shadows that the trees created

and then as you ran your cars through the course,

there was this strobe effect

that was distracting to many.

- He was standing in the paddock

listening to the cars going around.

You could tell the sound they make

going through the trees.

Usually exactly what was going on in that car

a mile away.

When he'd change gears, when he'd brake.

And of course, straight pipes, were the only thing.

You were allowed to make it as slow as you want to.

And everybody did.

I wear two hearing aids most of the time.

- It was pretty exciting on the starting line

because all our cars had to be hand pushed to start.

And then they wanted to have a standing start,

so everybody was sitting there

with their engines running like crazy

wanting to get off the line.

And when we got the flag, it was a real scramble.

Guys were going in all directions it seems.

And it was pretty exciting.

- The first time that we saw the course,

there was this

literal wandering path

through the Del Monte Forest.

Fortunately, the old corral was there

where the horses had been.

You could sit on the fence there

and watch them go by on the straight away.

- So you had to watch where you stepped

'cause you were walking around in the pits.

- I must've started under him

in Northern California, even Southern California

and I remember him today with this white

and red shirt on.

He was a portly gentleman, but quite active

and he could jump like a kangaroo,

which he managed to do at the end of every race.

But he also got half way out in the race course

and then it was sort of a challenge

whether you were gonna hit him or not

and he wanted to be close to the car,

so he was in the picture you see

when you came across the start finish line.

But this was unnerving, because you never knew

where he was gonna be.

He was a darn good starter.

When he ran from the lead cars to the back

to the line we would try to watch him coming,

you know, and try to outguess,

which we couldn't do because we'd be jazzing the engines

and then he wouldn't do anything,

he'd just stand there flat footed

and then all of a sudden, he'd leap three feet

in the air and we were supposed to be off.

I had a good respect for him,

but I think he was in the bullfighting business

or something before he signed up

for the Sports Car Club.

- Pebble Beach wasn't very popular

because once they knew where it was.

Plus the fact that it drew a crowd

from Los Angeles as far as the drivers,

as well as Northern California.

- It was the first time that we'd

first me all the guys that came up from Southern California.

And they were a totally different group

than the guys that raced around the Bay area.

These guys were far more professionally race oriented

than the sort of the amateur gentlemen racers

that you found San Francisco.

These guys had a lot of hot rod background.

So instead of running MG engines,

they were running V860s.

So there was a whole transition there

that went away.

The guys that came up from Southern California

were a whole different kind of racers.

- And of course, you had your rivalries,

but it was still something that you supported

one another in.

- And it was getting more aggressive all the time.

More competition, more money involved,

people from back East were coming out.

- We didn't have any foreign drivers.

One has to remember that we're simply,

this was a fletchling bonus of a new course.

It didn't have the draw

of a fixed, known venue.

I think that played into the fact

that we didn't have a lot of drivers

from the East Coast.

Jim Kimberly was one of the few that made the effort.

- Kimberly was a hell of a good driver

and he was doing well in the race

until the big sweeper at turn three,

Jim Kimberly rolled his 166 Marketta

and who was there to give him a kiss

and make sure that he was not feeling too bad

about everything?

Ginger Rogers.

- It was pretty obvious that the movie industry

did not overlook the fact that we had already found

these beautiful scenic places to race.

The film Fast and Furious was shot there.

- Connie, will you give me a break?

You drive people off roads,

you engined men unconscious.

- Alright, don't give me a break,

just remember I've got a gun

and I know how to use it.

- We had a shop here on Sunset Boulevard,

Remak Engineering.

I was over there at bench race

every Saturday and one of the customers,

Remak Engineering was Steve McQueen.

So I got to know Steve McQueen and sort

of the Hollywood group.

- I got to know Steve fairly well

because I was running a company then

and we had a motorcycle type machine

that he wanted to play with.

Steve took one of these and broke it in an hour.

He was tough on cars and I don't know about girlfriends,

but he was tough on cars.

- The nexus between Hollywood and it's honor

and speed, which in those period

was very much a personal thing.

So, you know, you could basically buy a car

and race it yourself.

Don't need a big team behind you, became a little bit

of a weekend hero type.

And that feeling kind of attracted a lot of gizmo types.

I think you look at all this mix and say,

you know, it was a very special time, Yogi Berra.

- Jackie Cooper was a frequent visitor

to the races.

It's a romantic place, at a Highway one,

boy oh boy, you know, Kim Novak lives there,

that's enough for me right there.

I don't even need to see her,

I just know she lives on Highway One.

- All of a sudden the guy came out

and he was talking to me and he says,

"We're making a movie called Johnny Dark,

"it's about road racing."

For those of you who just tuned in,

we are speaking to you from the starting point

of the border-to-border race.

A three day, 2200 mile ride from Canada to Mexico.

- And suppose you do lose the race?

Who cares?

- I care.

- We'd like to rent your car.

I said no.

I knew I had a good car and I was proud

somebody wanted me to be involved in it, you know.

But along the way, they kept calling me up.

Wanted to know if I'd rent my car.

I said no, and no one ever asked me

to be an actor before.

Finally it turned out, we're sending you a contract.

Off, stay off the track.

- And the brakes went.

So help me, coming round the turn I lost them.

Maybe it was a brake fail.

- Then the brake drums would be hot, wouldn't they?

Oh, you can do better than that, Duke.

- Forget it.

- Johnny, he was trying to explain,

you didn't give him a chance.

- I thought, well, you're gonna need

a lot of money in life, you better make

as much as you can.

- Liz, so I lost the race, who cares?

- I care.

- I made about $10,000 off of that thing.

Most money that I ever made in my life.

Screwing around with race cars in Hollywood.

- Pebble Beach started in controversy

and ended in tragedy.

John von Neumann entered a new TD

and he ended up winning the race.

With a guy named Bill Carrigan second in another MG.

- And we ran three or four races together.

He would win it, I would win it.

And when it got to be a habit form,

a speech Johnny.

- He was the importer for Porsche cars

and came up with the first 356 Porsches.

Nobody had ever seen anything like the Porsches.

You know, I mean, rear engine air cool.

I mean, this is a total departure

from our English background with the MGs.

- I caught up with him on the uphill.

I tried to go through the turn with him.

So I'm going through the turn sideways,

I ended up in a ditch.

I lost a lot of ground so I had two laps to go.

By the time I got to the last lap,

I'd caught him, second place is second place.

- After the race, the SCCA disqualified him

claiming that he had ethanol in his fuel.

Not only that, the SCCA said that all of the entrants

were required to drain their fuel before the race

and refill it with the fuel at the track.

John didn't do that, so he was disqualified.

- In the mail, a letter, from one of the officials

Sport Car of America.

Awarding me first place.

It was a surprise.

I always wondered, through the years,

if anybody ever remembered that

because I always thought I was the only one.

But now, originally I found out different.

It still doesn't matter, I was second.

- Sterling Edwards bought the car new

and he really wanted to race it at Pebble Beach.

So he entered it and Phil Remington

was his mechanic.

- I went out to test the car

and came in after a couple of laps

and told Phil, there's something wrong

with the handling of the car.

So Phil crawled underneath the car for a little bit

and tinkered around and sent dad back out

and dad came in the next lap

and said, no, there's still something wrong with the car.

- He says, well, take it out and see what you think of it.

So I took it out and we were probably doing

90 or 95 and as I was coming up the hill

on this Jaguar, some fellow in a Jupiter,

so I nailed him and might've hit a couple of pine trees

and shortened the car about four feet.

- So the guy leading the race

was the other C Jag, so that guy gets a big sign,

pit now and the driver, you know,

he was driver, not owner, he comes in and said,

"What are you doing, I'm winning the race?"

And the owner said, "You're sitting

"in Mr. Edwards' car."

So Sterling just wrote him a check

and he said, "Bring the car in."

And finished the race in his new C Jag.

- It was a pretty good shunt,

but it didn't damage the chassis or anything.

It still has the original tub tail section

door and the rest of it.

- The moment of truth is when the starter.

Starts his run back between the cars

and that's when you know,

for the 97th time you check to make sure

the ignition and all, the car's in the right gear.

God forbid if you had you know,

this is a three speed box.

When he finally came back up.

My adrenal glands were in high speed

and just when he told us to fire up,

I hit the starter button and this thing

just let out a boom, you know,

and it actually blew a piece of asphalt

about the size of a salad plate

off it, knocked it right on the gloss

and knocked it right onto the side

of Michael Graham's car.

And I thought, well, game is ship,

he's out of the race right now.

When my exhaust will put a dent in his car.

- I don't know how much those cars cost back then.

My father didn't really have to concern himself with that.

He was fronted the car by Chuck Hornberg,

but I do remember him saying

that the best thing was to actually not race your own car

race someone else's car.

- My dad would help out some kid with his MG

while they're calling his name

to ask him to come up for the start line.

I remember Sir once saying, "Lou, you can help that kid

"after your race, so will you please

"come up to the line?

"Mr. Hill and a few other people

"will enjoy having a drive with you."

- Al Moss came up to me a couple of years ago.

He said, "You're McAfee's boy, aren't you?"

And I said, yeah.

And he said, "Well, I've got a story for you."

He said, you know, at the first Pebble Beach

my fan belt came off and he was driving

a J2 Allard.

He goes, "My fan belt came off

"and I came into the pits and your dad was standing there,

"and he said, Jack, get a screwdriver,

"a big screwdriver, we've got to get

"this fan belt back on."

And somehow he goes, you know, "Your dad

"just grabbed the belt with his hands

"and got it around the pulley and put it on

"just like that and off I went."

And he said, "I'll never forget that."

That's how casual things were back then, you know,

it was guys, it was drivers helping drivers

and you know, it was that kind of camaraderie

that made that era so special.

- So 1955 was a big year for my father

at Pebble Beach.

It kind of was the icing on the cake, sort of speak

for what his whole experience over the years

at Pebble Beach was.

That year he decided to not only enter the race,

racing the 750 Monza for Alan Geiberson.

And it rained that year, so it was a very tricky race.

- I think it was quite an effective race car.

Most Ferraris in those early days

were B12s and they continued with that,

but during these years, they built

some of these four cylinder light weight cars

and they were quite good.

Obviously by the way that this car

was able to compete for a whole year.

- He made an outstanding performance in that

and it just showed the real dominance

of what the Ferrari could do on that course

and he won the race with it

and the car that Phil Hill won the 1955 race with,

the 750 Monza, came into Carroll Shelby's hands

the following year, and he won the race,

the main event with the same car.

- I really enjoyed having it

and realize what a wonderful car

that Ferrari makes and the fact

that Phil and Carroll both won several events in it.

Make it and I won my first sports car race in it,

so it's got a lot of history for me.

It's kind of an interesting car to own

still at this time of my life.

- Another well known name and another Grand Prix racer,

is Pete Lovely.

Pete Lovely came down from the Pacific Northwest.

His first car that he drove here,

if I remember correctly, was a home built

Porsche powered Volkswagen special.

He did quite well in that car.

It had a Cooper body.

It had been a former Streamliner

that had bone to Bonneville

to set records and they bought the car

without the engine, put in a Porsche engine in it

and they called it a VW Porsche Special.

And it was also known for it's short name,

the Pooper.

In one race, he was running up front in his group,

when a throttle spring broke.

So he drove the balance of the race

with one had behind him actuating the throttle,

which was a rear engine car and driving

with the other hand and he finished the race

and did quite well.

Pete Lovely went on to win the very first race

at Laguna Seca in a Ferrari.

- After John von Neumann, who was leading the race

in his Ferrari, kind of lost a bit

on the final turn.

Beyond that, he then traveled over to Europe.

He had a Lotus Formula One car,

as a privateer race in many Formula One races,

came back to the United States

and was a vintage racer in his cars

and a car restorer up in the Northwest

for many, many years and just passed away here recently.

Skip Hudson was a teenage friend

of Dan Gurney's.

They both got into sports car racing

and while Skip Hudson was over shadowed by Gurney,

'cause Gurney went on to international fame.

He was never the well-known driver

that some of his compatriots, always overshadowed,

but a very good driver, nonetheless.

- He loved racing and fast cars I think,

probably more intensely than anybody I know.

I mean, you get to talk to Skip

and he'd come up right in your face

and his eyes would just focus on you

and he was just vibrating about it.

He was so passionate about this stuff.

And a terrific driver and he never made it

and had a chance sometimes, and it just never clicked

for him the way it should've, but great guy, great guy.

- The Speedster, it's a perfect creation.

It's one of the most beautiful automobiles

in my opinion, that has ever been made.

It's just a perfect balanced machine.

And I think he thought exactly the same,

that this car would be perfect for racing.

It's compact, it's small, and it just looks sturdy

in every way.

Skip Hudson wanted to be seen by the photographers.

He wanted to stand out, to be able to come into the press.

All his race cars was either white, red,

gray, there was nothing unique to them.

So he decided to put two stipes down the front

running down the back, and it did work.

It drew attention of all the photographers.

There again, is it a myth?

Is it a story?

Could it actually be a fact that Skip Hudson

was the guy who started the stripes

down the middle of the sports cars that we see today?

But of course, the most famous outing

of my Speedster, would be

1956 Pebble Beach races.

On the 17th lap, Skip Hudson was maintaining first place

until he lost control of little Speedster,

he crashed into some tree stumps,

the left front panel was actually damaged,

but it wasn't damaged enough

so he couldn't continue the race

and he did.

And he actually came second place in that race.

He's kind of a forgotten race driver.

And in some of the documents that I found,

that came with my car,

there's something that he wrote in there,

which I find a little bit sad

that he wrote, but it's very true in everything in life.

He said, "If you don't come first,

"you're not remembered."

but there again, why should he have been remembered?

He was there together with everybody else.

He was there to start it.

I mean, who were these young guys?

They're just normal guys who would jump in their car,

drive down to the race track and race.

Imagining Skip Hudson being behind my steering wheel,

is quite a thought, it's quite amazing, actually

that I'm over here in Spain

with Danish origin myself, and I'm driving a car

that used to race in America.

I think that's fantastic.

- One of the things that was most

intriguing about going down to Pebble Beach

was the Concord that went along with it.

- Of course down there, is just who's who

of beautiful, beautiful automobile.

- There were a lot of socialites at Pebble Beach.

They would come down for the conquerors.

They were just starting to get interested

in car racing.

I think that was something new to them.

- It wasn't just Hollywood.

There were actresses that were considered

the sort of thing.

If you sat at certain tables

you were identifiable as a socialite.

- I thought brilliantly arranged

to have it coincide the same weekend

as the Concourse that had gone

through all these years.

After having started with the car racing

through the forest in 1950.

Then in 1956, the racing being canceled,

the Concourse kept on running in its own way.

And had gone through some high and low periods,

but was enjoying generally

of a very wonderful reputation worldwide.

- All I remember was good picnics

on the side of the track,

great parties.

Bring your own booze.

- And pretty girls, oh boy!

- I remember the picnics much more

than I do the races.

- Yeah, it was wonderful.

- You look back, you think,

that was a time I could've died.

And this was a time I could've died.

You wonder how you ever get to be 30 years old.

- There was a lot of questions about safety

as far as crowd control,

trees.

- They had little tires

and a lot of power.

So they would be skidding all over the place.

- The helmets were not much

than just a normal hat.

- They did manage to put a few hay bales

on the corners,

which seemed to help a bit.

- No place to go for an escape.

Right off the paddock on the start and finish

there was maybe 10 feet of soft shoulder

and then the big pine trees are right there.

So you didn't have much of an avenue of escape.

- It had this little Philip of danger

in the background.

You knew that if something went wrong,

it could go terribly wrong.

Instead of scaring people off,

many people were drawn to it

because of that.

So you had a little bit of everything

in sports car racing.

- When the accident happened,

I'm sure I was following.

Jack McAfee at the time and did not see

Ernie coming down the hill

until I heard the crash.

- Ernie was an aggressive driver.

Some say that perhaps he shouldn't have driven,

he should have stayed with engineering,

which was really his forte.

But he just loved to drive.

- You know, his number one asset

was a mechanic and fabricator.

And when he stepped into the Ferrari,

you know, albeit, he did very well

for a couple of races, but when you go to Pebble Beach

and there is no room for error.

- By now the cars were so fast

on the Pebble Beach course.

Through the rises past the trees

and hay bales, spectator fencing

just you know, a few feet away

off the course.

- It was amazing that they didn't have

an incident like that in the year

or two previous, 'cause they started having

some pretty high horse powered cars

on little tracks like Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach.

It was really a matter of time

'til somebody got hurt.

- Earnie and the 4.4 that he was driving

was really trying to make up

and move up on the leaders

and was doing a spectacular job.

- He was attempting to pass

a car on the approach to turn six.

He missed a downshift.

He skidded into hay bales

and ricochet into a tree and died instantly.

- Ernie McAfee was driving the car in 1956.

It was damaged very heavily.

The family that owned it was the Doheny family.

They had retained the car after it was crashed.

They thought, you know, was on the borderline

of being destroyed, but they painstakingly

spent two years restoring it,

bringing it back to its original condition.

Was always blue with a white stripe

and the number 76.

It was probably a late entry,

so in order to get in, they put a number two on it.

That was the way that it raced

at Pebble Beach in 1956.

- And that accident, the loss of Ernie McAfee,

not only caused a restart of the race,

but it caused the finish of the Pebble Beach races.

They would never race there again.

After the tragic death of Ernie McAfee

and after the restart of the race in 1956,

Carroll Shelby went on to win

in Decal's 750 Monza.

Phil Hill was second and Jack McAfee

driving John Edgar 857S Ferrari.

A wonderful looking car with a tail fin on it

was third.

But that was the last of it.

There would never be any racing at Pebble Beach again.

Only the time honored and wonderful prestigious

Concord d'Eleganza continues to this day.

Now, the races are canceled.

Sam Morse is very concerned,

and he wants his cash flow to continue

to come on through.

He goes to Monterey,

they concur, they form a group

they call themselves the Sports Car

racing on the Monterey Peninsula SCRAMP

and with the good fortune of a man named Lou Gold,

was placed as a first chief or head of SCRAMP.

- And SCRAMP was the group that got together

with the U.S. Army.

Who had a little bit of property there

called .

They took a corner of

and in I believe was in 90 days,

and for a very small sum of money,

I think it was about $100,000,

they built Laguna Seca Raceway.

- So the Pebble Beach races in 1957

actually continued in name only

by going to Laguna Seca as the eighth annual

Pebble Beach National Championship races.

- In many ways, it's amazing the evolution of this.

You know, Pebble Beach and some of the pioneers

driving these cars.

These heroes through the pine trees

ended up evolving into a purpose built racetrack

called Laguna Seca.

It was a world audience.

The MOTO GPs, the Grand Am series.

Some of the most prestigious series in motor sports

come to Monterey County and guess where they go now?

Laguna Seca.

- For a long time, after the end of that era,

it was forgotten.

And only until, I would say the last 25 years,

has the remembrance reappeared.

And a such an interesting piece of history

of auto racing.

- I think it's important that we don't only focus

on the guys that made first place,

or were driving the most exotic cars at the time,

like the Ferraris.

But let's not forget the guys

that came number two and they were driving

under 1500 engines.

And let's not forget their families out there today.

Let's give them honors as well

that they were part of history.

- As far as being a gentleman sport,

I guess you could say it was.

- It was a romantic period of racing

that it's gone,

it's no longer with us.

- I miss that exciting time,

when we were all a large group

of enthusiasts.

- It was quite a big thing.

It was an enjoyable thing at the time, really.

- These are the ghosts of Pebble Beach.

I don't know how else to say it,

but nothing is really there

to show you that these races happened.

And I think this was a much bigger deal

than people can even fathom today.

- We look back at that age,

and every age in the past

is always called a Golden Age,

a Heroic Age.

As a man once said, "You can return to a place,

"but not to a time."

The Cal Club days of that era are gone

and it just remains in photographs, maps, and memories.

- The words Pebble Beach are just,

they're almost magical in that

this is where American sports car racing really began.

- It was just a magic time.

Racing through the trees.

- But it all started at Pebble Beach.