The nerve of that young visionary! But they did join not all, yet there were enough drivers and cars signed on to fill that historic grid for Watkins Glen’s inaugural Grand Prix on October 2, 1948. said of his father, “was fascinated with the Roosevelt Speedway before the war when Mercedes and Auto Union came over, and after the war he bought an MG TC and joined the new Sports Car Club of America.” The story goes-during the SCCA members’ dinner at Indianapolis the night before the 1948 “500”, Cameron, a willing enthusiast from New York State, daringly announced he was “going to have a road race next fall” and invited everyone to join his entry list. Argetsinger, son of Cameron and Jean Argetsinger, founders of the first Watkins Glen Grand Prix and, later, the IMRRC facility. Invited 64 years later to speak on sports car racing in America at the Glen’s International Motor Racing Research Center, brought me to meet IMRRC’s president, J.C. Perceived as totally unearthly, the affair launched my sensibilities into what the outrageous world of cars truly was and, by the second day of October, I was all set to savor the outcome of America’s first post-WWII grand prix race run in anger over a 6.6-mile road course skirting, and slicing through, the hamlet of Watkins Glen, New York. The car of choice, his daily driver 1938 Type 57C Bugatti, offered me the first real steering wheel to grasp while comprehending the left-handed shift pattern of that straight-8 drophead French classic. I was fifteen and already riding an Ed Iskenderian-tuned 500cc Triumph Tiger, getting about on it, nicely enough, quickly enough, but my father decided I should step up and learn to handle a four-wheeler. If the idea of a blog post is to pass along personal history having subject matter that might appeal to others, then here goes.įor me, autumn of 1948 was a pivotal time.
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