From: roamic@sover.net (Bob Immler)

I'm 53, I'm married and have a 19 year old son attending college in NYC and a 16 year old daughter who's a sophomore in high school.

On my window sill is a toy, aluminum racing car which I received as a present on my first Christmas. That's sort of my "Rosebud" and maybe that's where my interest in cars and racing began.

>>From that time on, I have been interested in cars and racing. I can remember an aunt and uncle visiting us in the late 40s. They drove a pre-Loewy Studebaker, which before VWs became commonplace, were known as Studebaker "bugs." I wanted to sit in that car or even go for a ride.

But the couple had no children of their own, didn't want me in the car, and stated that "a kid wouldn't know the difference between one car and another." How wrong they were!

I grew up in Southern California which in the 50s and 60s seemed to be the center of the automotive world. Porsches were common. My dentist drove an injected 57 Corvette and somebody in town had an Allard. I assumed every community had as many interesting cars as Pasadena.

My first visual exposure to racing was via KTLA, channel 5 in Los Angeles, and their broadcast of the jalopy races at Ascot. I especially loved the broadcaster, Dick Lane, and his commercials...usually for a used car dealer. I think Parnelli Jones was one of the local stars.

Sometime in the early to mid-50s I became aware of Indianapolis and every Memorial Day was spent listening to it on the radio, while keeping very accurate lap charts.

My parents were divorced when I was an infant, and they didn't have visitation rights in those days. I saw my father once or twice a year. I can remember two things. How tall he was (6'4") and his cars: a green 54 Chevy convertible with a louvered hood (nobody else's dad had either a convertible or a car with louvers); a black 56 Buick convertible (with some kind of electronic engine gadget, which I still don't understand); a black 58 Corvette; and a black 62 Corvette (now parked in my barn).

My mom didn't allow my dad to do anything with me alone, but I remember going out with both of them on two occasions. We went to a race at Ascot , which was my first live experience at a car race. Jimmy Bryan won the race in a then new 57 Ford. And we also went to a gymkhana, sort of an autocross for sports cars. The grand marshal of the event was the actor Jackie Cooper.

At about that time I discovered Road and Track. I still have the first issue I bought. R&T introduced me to Grand Prix and sports car racing.

My grandfather always had nice cars, but he knew nothing about them. But he had a friend who loved cars. He drove a 53 Alvis and his wife drove a hemi engined Imperial...as close as I ever got to being in a Chrysler 300. But his son-in-law drove an XK-140. For a few years he worked at the Lockheed plant in northern California, but his wife and children remained in Southern California. So every Friday evening he'd drive the Jaguar back to L.A. via Hwy 33 and then return on Sunday evening. In those pre-Interstate days, he could cruise on Hwy 33 at 100+ mph. (Is that the same route James Dean was killed on?) He also had a type 57 Bugatti convertible. I got a ride in that once. I figured that since the car was 20+ years old, it would be sort of putt, putt, putt. But it was a very fast ride through the countryside..wow! And his brother drove a Lancia Aurelia. He took me for a "spin" in the Lancia and that was a revelation. Here was a man the same age as my grandfather and he was driving like a "teenager." We hit some sand, the car slid, but he corrected it beautifully.

In 1960 my grandfather, his friend, his friend's grandson, and I attended my first sports car race at the Pomona track. I know it was 1960, because I remember a Valiant racing a Falcon in one event. Everything else is a blur. But Pomona has great memories for me. Ken Miles racing in Porsche RSKs and in Otto Zipper's Ferrari SWB GT-250. Bob Drake driving the then new Maserati Birdcage. And Shelby driving through the parking lot in the prototype Cobra. And later a Cobra winning the production race and then finishing either 1st or 2nd in the modified race.

That same year my father took me to Riverside to see the Saturday practice for the Times Grand Prix. I think the front engined Chaparrals were there that year, but there were two cars I remembered: One was the prototype for the E Jaguar. I think it was driven by Jack Brabham. The other was a running version of the Cyclops, the cartoon car out of R&T.

As soon as I got a license, I attended every sports car race in Southern California: Riverside, Santa Barbara (where I saw Lance Reventlow introduce the mid-engined Scarab sports car), Pomona, San Diego, Willow Springs. But I also attended a lot of drag races. A friend of mine worked for a dentist. The dentist raced a 57 Corvette which had a Hilborn injected engine and as I recall would do about 115-120 in the quarter. My friend and I would take it out to the races on Saturday morning and he would qualify it. Then the dentist would arrive in the afternoon and race it in the Saturday evening program. This was the era of Don Garlits, Connie Kalitta, Shirley Muldowney, Gas Rhonda, Don Prudhome, etc.

At this same time there were pay TV broadcasts of the Indy 500. I knew all the foreign drivers and it seemed like I was the only one in the audience cheering for Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart. Unfortunately, I also saw Dave McDonald and Eddie Sachs crash. This really bothered me because I was a fan of Mickey Thompson from drag racing and a fan of Dave McDonald from his Corvette and Cobra drives.

In 61 I attended a stock car race at Riverside. It was won by Steady Eddy Gray in a 60 Thunderbird, but the thing that took me there that day was an exhibition race by sports cars of that era. There was a D Jag, a Ferrari Testa Rosa (driven by Gurney), and an Aston Martin. Bet that's that only time sports cars ever raced on the long, Riverside stock car course.

But it was sports cars that really got my attention and I attended every Times Grand Prix from the USRRC era and into the Can Am era. I would attend Friday, Saturday and Sunday and would take B&W pictures, slides, and 8 mm movies. I soon learned that if there was a race at Riverside, my dad would also be there. We wouldn't call each other to confirm this, but I'd go to Riverside and he and my stepmother would be parked next to the fence at turn 7B.

In the early 60s I drove to the Marina del Rey section of Los Angeles and poked my head into the original Cobra factory (the old Reventlow Scarab shop). When Cobra moved their production to the old L.A. airport, a friend and I took the public tour. There were Cobras everywhere, but that's also where they prepped the GT-40s.

At that same time a friend, who was building a small block Chevy, and I drove to an engine shop in Culver City. This place built high performance engines and my friend was looking for a place to buy stock parts very cheaply. One of the owners gave us a tour of the shop. His name was either Travers or Coors, and of course the shop was Traco.

The same friend and I also drove down to Harbor City one day to pick up some wheels at Halibrand. We thought it odd that the Harbor Freeway was relatively empty, that there were a lot of Army vehicles on the road, and there were a lot of fires on both sides of the freeway. Later, we learned that we had driven through the Watts Riots. Always thankful I hadn't pulled off at the wrong exit for gas for something.

I attended one Indy car race and one other stock car race at Riverside. I can still see Dan Gurney climbing into a Ford stock car...wearing a wool sweater over his nomex.

I can remember watching LeMans on Wide World of Sports: watching Phil Hill have trouble getting the beautiful Ford GT to start.

Ontario opened in the early 70s and I saw the practice for the first Indy race and went with my dad to the first Ontario 500. Gurney spun out right in front of us and hit the wall hard. He must have gotten one headache out of that one! I went with my wife, my dad, my stepmother, my three stepsisters, their husbands, my stepbrother and his girlfriend. My dad said "we're going to do this every year." But oval racing just wasn't that interesting to us and it was the only time we attended. Although I did attend the F5000 vs F1 race at Ontario. I'd love to see a F1 vs Indy car race, but I guess that could never happen.

In 70 or 71 I visited England. One day my wife went to see a Shakespearean play and I drove to Silverstone to see some vintage races. The only vintage racing I'd seen were as a part of races in Southern California and the old cars went by so slowly that it looked like you could beat them in a golf cart.

But the races at Silverstone were to feature one of the pre-war supercharged Mercedes GP cars. But when I arrived, it was raining and I figured they'd never risk this priceless old car in the rain.

Wrong! I can still see that car in the lead, kicking up incredible rooster tails! 600+ horsepower on those skinny tires...on a wet track. Just amazing.

The last Can Am race I ever saw was Donohue's win in the Porsche at Laguna Seca. Then in the mid-70s, I took up bicycling rather seriously and somewhat lost interest in car racing.

But I continued to subscribe to R&T and when ESPN began broadcasting F1, I got up early (lived on the west coast then) to watch each one.

In 81 I took my then 2 1/2 year old son to the Friday practice for the Long Beach F1 race and also attended the race in person.

My dad passed away in 83 and since I was his only child I assumed he would have left me his Corvette, but I ended up having to buy it from my stepmother. The Corvette sparked an interest in Vintage racing and in 87 I attended the Monterey Historics, which featured Chevrolet. All the cars I loved were there: Scarabs, Cheetahs, McLarens (with Denny Hulme at the helm), Chaparrals (with Jim Hall in attendance and Phil Hill at the wheel), etc., etc.

I attended a few races at Palm Springs. Then in 91 we moved to Vermont and every Labor Day weekend, I attend the Friday practice for the vintage races at Lime Rock. I also went to Loudon to watch the qualifying for the Indy cars the year Mansell was driving and another year I drove to Montreal to see the Friday practice session (and the fabulous automobile exhibit at the art museum).

From 84 to 91 we lived in Altadena, CA. The neighbor on one side had several old Studebakers including a Golden Hawk and an Avanti. He had an XK-120, an MG-TC, an Alfa, an early Porsche 911S and a Motto-Guzzi motorcycle. Oh, and he was in his late 70s.

The vehicles in our family consist of a 4X4 Suburban, a Dodge Grand Caravan and an 80 CJ5 Jeep with plow. There's also a 62 Corvette in the barn. The restoration will start as soon as the kids are out of college.

And since I love high performance vehicles, I'd love to have an old Range Rover.

Bob Immler

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