 Hi, this is Kerry Kautzer. I'm here reporting at Road America for the Vintage Weekend with Brian Andrews. I'm in an XK150 Jaguar, one of the major sponsors. We're going to take you around the track with interviews and racing footage, so enjoy the program. Thank you. We're here at Tony de Lorenzo and Bob Serna racing at the Vintage Weekend here at Road America. Tony, can you talk about the car that you're racing in? Well, it's a Revent Lo Scarab. It's basically a tube chassis, aluminum bodied roadster. It's got a Chevrolet V8 in it, 300 and... 500? Some horsepower? Yeah, 500 and some horsepower, 356 cubic inches. And mechanical fuel injection. This car was built 25 years after the original three front engine cars were built by Lance Revent Lo's brother. Bob and I are college buddies and I wasted my life driving race cars and he was busy working so now that he's in the vintage business he asked me to drive the Scarab and it's an honor to do it and it's a beautiful car and it runs extremely fast for being having only six inch wide tires on it. So it's a lot of fun. And you've raced here at Road America before? Yeah, I raced in SCCA Nationals and... What was your first year? 1967. I ran the June Sprints. I won the June Sprints here in 1968, 1969 and came back here and ran in the Trans Am several times. We ran SCCA Nationals and FIA long distance races and Trans Am series and IMSA GT pro races and I think I did it for a living for about six years. I had a good time and being able to drive in a vintage car is like the old saying, Yogi says deja vu all over again. So it's a lot of fun. Bob, you want to talk about your car? Yeah, I'm driving a 52 Mercedes-Benz prototype race car. The factory made ten of these race cars for the 52 season. They made them from their parts bin from their sedans. The engine in this car is an original one of five in the world 52 racing engine, serial number 21. The car is a recreation of the car that John Fitch drove for the Pan American Carrera in 1952 in Mexico. I had the privilege of buying this project about one-third finished and it's essentially a faithful reproduction from blueprints, drawings and photographs of the original works race car from 1952 using an original works racing engine. It's an original Mercedes Museum by the way. And it is essentially a 1955 Galwing drivetrain which is essentially the same as the 52 racing season. All the parts are the same and it runs beautifully. It has legs. It doesn't like this short course here at Road America. It's like another 10 miles straight. It just gets moving as we come to the first turn. And it's a wonderful car to drive and it's been a lot of fun. I've gotten to know a lot of good people. John Fitch has driven it for me. He's a very bold. We took it to Goodwood. We've taken it to Monterey. And this is my first time here at Road America with this car. We've been coming since 98 with the Scarab. This is our sixth year with the Scarab. My first year here with this car. Tony, what do you think of the Road America track itself? It's one of my all-time favorites. As I said earlier, I came here in 67 and I've had a lot of good races here. Very fast. But there are some technical parts too. The carousel for one. The kink, which is very famous, coming out of there into Kettle Bottoms and into Canada Corner. But it's wide. There's a lot of places to pass. You've got to have good brakes here because you use your brakes real hard. Three times a lap. It's just a great place. The food is the best and the facilities. And for today anyway, the weather can't beat it. And we can't really beat Wisconsin hospitality. People here are just really great people. We've always had a good time. We've always been treated well in Wisconsin. And my cousin lives in two rivers. Oh, that's right, yes. And the track's too short for you. Track's too short for this car. Anything else you'd like to add gentlemen? We're having a great time and we're just happy to be here. How often do you campaign these cars at other tracks? This is the first time this year for both cars. But typically I'll race this one three or four times a year. Monterey, Coronado, maybe here. So typically I do three or four to five races a year. And we do one with a scare. We do one with a scare, but we usually do a test session first and then we run the race weekend. So twice. Nice race weekend car that they restored. Can you tell us about the car Bob, give me the history on that. Well, this particular car was built in 1967 by Red Legrand in California. It was a prototype Formula A car right when the series was developed. This car ran the whole 68 Formula Continental series driven by Bruce Eglinton. It won the first Formula A race in the United States at Las Vegas. And then in the third race, Stamposi went on to drive the car. To no great success. And it won the first race out of the box. And then that was the end of its career. It was destroyed in 1969, the testing accident. You want to tell us a little bit about the restoration work you did? Okay, the car was very severely in 1968. It went in for several times. The works driver, Bruce Eglinton was driving it. He was hurt, but he was alright. The car at that time was pretty much obsolete on the road circuit. Cars went away from the tube chassis into the monocoques. So it pretty much sat in Red Legrand's shop for several years. And it finally got traded through a couple of hands. Never got restored at all. We found the car in New York itself. And it was basically a basket case then. It still had the mud in the wheels from Riverside Race Track. We started restoration of it. Everything was pretty much broken. There was not one corner that was usable. We started straightening out all the parts to make drawings of what they looked like. And about a third of the way into the drawings, we had notified the Formula A registry that we were restoring the car. And we got a call from a guy in Venezuela. He introduced himself as the Vice President of General Motors Venezuela. It's not going to send you something you're going to appreciate. And about a week later we get this about five foot high tube in the mail and rolled it out. There's one-to-one drawings of this car. The original drawn one-to-one. No dimensions. You need to make a part. You go up to the wall and measure it and build it. We pretty much built all the parts you see here that were broken. Chassis wasn't great shape. We really had to make new uprights. Build new suspension. All made to the original drawings. We believe the car is very accurate to how it was when they first put it together. Down to the color. Down to the color. The color was in 1967. We have original construction pictures of it from Le Grand's shop. We try to follow those as accurately as we could. It's a pretty good restoration of antique history. And you were out of the track here? Yes. We had three cars here. We threw a rod, unfortunately. The motor's blown up. On the cheeto? On the cheeto over there. This one right here is going to the concourse this evening. And then the yellow Ford here. We've been running a lot. We have no problems yet. We also have your son here. What do you do on the crew? Polishing. Whatever is needed to be done. Folding transporters up. Has your dad given you the opportunity to drive the car? A few times. Nothing major yet. He's just hitching the go though. We need to get a couple more years under his belt for us at the driver's school. We're going to put him on the track probably in two more years. He still has to pay his dues on polishing. Tell us about your transition from motorcycles to race cars. Motorcycles and cars. Well, I never imagined I would be involved in cars. In fact, I'd never seen any car races. I'd been totally involved in motorcycling from a time my father took me along to the first event in England after the war. And there he was competing with a motorcycle and side car at a place called Cadwell Park. Well, I went on and I obviously started motorcycle and I did the world championship series. And in 1958 which was just after the championship had been won by Mike Hawthorne. Mike, Tony Vanderville who had created the Van Wall car and Reg Parnell who was in fact team manager of Aston Martin, the sports car team we were all sitting at the same table for a sportsman a year contest. This was held in Park Lane in London. And as conversation got round Mike was going to ride a motorcycle in the Pressman's trial on the coming weekend and I was going to do likewise. He said, you ever thought of driving a car? I said, well, no, no, no, no. I really thought about it. I just raced bikes and that's what my first love is. He said, oh, cars stand up easier. So I said, oh, well, no, no, I might say. With that, Reg Parnell turned around and said, I'll give you a drive. And Tony Vanderville turned around and said, no, you're a motorcyclist. I'm a motorcyclist. I'll give you a drive. So I said, no, no, no. But things developed with my team in Augusta whereby they wanted to cut me back into doing a very restricted program purely World Championship events which meant that I'd only be doing perhaps 10 races a year and I love my racing. And when I was riding for Norton's and riding privately as well I was doing something like 76 races a year. So there's a little bit of a change. So I thought about it and it coincided with Reg Parnell ringing up and saying, come down to Goodwood and try an Aston Martin. So why not? So I go off to Goodwood and I test the Aston Martin that Sterling Moss had won the 1,000 kilometers of an Nürburgring with. And this was a DBR1 Aston Martin, 3-litre sports car. And I went around and did about 10, 15 laps I think it was. And I came in and Reg said, oh, John, stop for a moment, sign here please. So I picked it up and I actually read it and said, what's this? He said it's a contract. No, no, no. I'm still a motorcyclist. I can't contract to drive a car. Well, I get home and there's a phone call. And in fact it's Tony Vanderbilt on the phone. What the hell are you driving for that? And he made some rather disparaging remarks about David Brown. Which I gathered they didn't get on very well. So he said, I will bring the van walls down. So David York, the team manager turned up at Goodwood next day with a truck and three van wall Grand Prix cars. Well, I thought it was interesting to look at because also of course he'd won the world championship and then retired from racing with the cars. But they were built around the design of four Manx Norton engines. Which of course I was well connected with. So I went out and I went round and round and round and he said, I'm coming out of retirement. I'm going to build you a new car. I said, no, no. But I'd done enough to think that there's nothing in my contract to stop me driving cars. So I went over to John Cooper and said I'd like to buy a motor car. I'm not going to drive for any work so I'd buy a motor car. He said buy a Formula 2. And so we agreed to buy a Formula 2 Coventry Climax engine, Cooper for a total sum complete with wheels and gear ratios of £2,350. Perhaps a little discounted but still you just see the sort of cost of things then compared with now. However standing there was a rather tall gentleman I'd never seen before who he introduced me to is Ken Till. And Ken Till said you're driving for me at the Easter meeting in my Formula Junior car I've spoken to the RAC. They're going to give you a licence if you perform satisfactorily they give you a full licence so you can do anything. I said oh yes thank you. It had all been put together of course by John Cooper between them. And so that's how in fact I got started. I saw my first ever race, a car race from the cockpit. And that day I had a bit of a dice with Jim Clark in the works lotus. In fact I would have had him except that I forgot on the last lap that I had two extra wheels. And I tried to go through a gap which was a bit too small and ended up using half a grass but he just pipped me in that. The second race I in fact used my Cooper Formula 2. Dad was chief mechanic and van driver. We put the Formula 2 on the back of the van and went off to Alton Park and competed against the works lotus teams and the works Cooper teams and came second behind in his island in the works lotus. It was off then to Aintree racecourse famous for the Grand National horse racing where there was a good road circuit. And this was an international Formula 2 race and Porsche's brought all their cars over. And they took the first three places but I was the first British car and set a record lap in fourth place. Next thing is Colin Chapman's on the phone you're going to drive Formula 1. Are you? I said yes. Okay, I'll come and try Formula 1. So I turn up at Silverstone and there's Colin Chapman. He'd been buzzing around in the car because Colin drove the cars and drove very quickly. Rather like Eulenhardt with the Mercedes cars. Colin was a good driver and in his island had been going round. He said come on, sit in here. It's a Lotus 18, Coventry Climax two and a half litre Grand Prix car. So right, jumped into it. A little different to the van wall which I'd driven before. And I went round and round and then stuffed it in the bank at Stoke Corner. I thought, oh, I didn't get that quite right. And I got back and in his island let off with such a tyrant at me about bending their equipment etc. But Colin Chapman turned round and said I want you to join the team and drive in all the races when you're not motorcycling. So I thought, well, that's not a bad idea. So that was it. I suddenly become a works driver for Lotus at the same time as I was a works driver for MV Augusta. At that time was sort of I suppose a rising person. And I'd been driving a Lola that I got from John 30s. Got it in 67 but this was 68. And Ferrari called and for Gary called. He said can you come to modern and test the formula, do I? And so I arrived and I went and I tested and at lunchtime for Gary took me on one side. He said you see over there under the trees in the raincoat. I said yes. He says this is Commendatore. I said oh well this was for pressure you know from Ferrari. So I go I try a little bit harder and it's okay. So now I'm going to race at the Nurburgring with team leader Jackie Yix in the Dino. For you. But before that you know in that weekend when I was testing at Moderna I went to have lunch in the Ferrari headquarters and I suppose there were 40 managers you know and executives there. And I think it was Andrea Cleary takes me into this glass door and there at the far end of the room is Enzo Ferrari with his lieutenants. And as I come in he stands up and he's a very imposing figure. You know he walks down to me and one side at each side of him there was for Gary and Cleary and he stops in front of me and I sort of I'm not sure what to do you know I start to put my hand out to shake hands or something and he shoots his right hand out but high up and he gets hold of my cheek here like this and he shakes it. And he says nice a boy. At this point I was extremely worried and wasn't too sure whether I wanted to drive for Ferrari at all. But anyway we get to the Nurburgring on the such life the south circuit which is still a difficult up and down through the trees circuit but it's about 6 miles instead of 14 miles on the north track. Well about 10 minutes from the end of qualifying I came in the pits because for Gary rushes up to me. Brian Brian he said why you stop why you stop I said I've gone belt as fast as I can. He said Brian he said go out and try harder you are in 10th place so now I go and drive like a maniac. I go on 10th of a second faster and I'd never been in 10th place I'd been in 4th place and so the race started and there was Jackie X and Pierce Courage and Kurt Ahrens German who was an expert on the Nurburgring and on about the 5th or 6th lap I felt a tremendous blow in my eye here and in those days we used ex World War 2 goggles you know with no strength in them at all and a stone had gone through my eye and so I thought it had hit me in the eye you know I flung my hand up flung my goggles off slowed down and came to a halt and then blinked and this eye was you know teary and sore but I could see so I drive the rest of the way around it was only just past the pits I go 5 miles going fairly slowly get in the pits for Gary leaps up and down where are your spare goggles so he throws me X's spare goggles which were sun goggles with the green lens and now I go out and I drive like a madman and set a new lap record and finish 4th but when I go back in the hotel I sat on the bed and I was not happy and at dinner that night for Gary came to me he said Brian he said I have spoken with the Signo Ferrari and for the rest of the year you would drive a formula and in September Formula Uno and I said no thank you and he said no thank you what do you mean and no thank you and I said if I drive for Ferrari I said I'll be dead by the end of the year so that was that Dave Swigler Dave you want to tell us about your car that you have here at the vintage weekend? Sure I've been glad to this car is a Sertes TS8 Formula 5000 car which was built in 1971 Team Sertes sent it over from England for Peter Rebson to drive at the Questar Grand Prix out of Riverside California then it went back to England and it was raced over there for several years. Has there been any restoration work done on it? It was semi restored when I got it I bought it from Brian Redmond back in the mid 80's and then I've upgraded it and done some of the paint work since then so it's been a gradual work of love over time. What other tracks have you camping in this car at? We've been to Road Atlanta Ohio, Watkins Glen and this is our first time up here at this track What do you think of the Road America track? I'm still trying to learn it 4 miles with 14 plus turns is unbelievable it's a great track though I wish I could spend more time up here. Alright anything you'd like to add? Well I guess the one claim to fame of this car it won the Monza Formula 5000 race in 1972 with Allen Rawlinson fastest Formula 5000 race ever run and that's probably the high point for this car in 72. John Surty's Lola T-70 David could you tell us a little bit about the car? One of two cars that John Surty's used in 1966 when he won the Can-Am Championship. It went to another racer after that it sat for a number of years I acquired the car in 1977 and have raced it in vintage events myself. It's very very fit to date by today's standards. Do you have to do any restoring to it? Yes it's been an ongoing project mechanically as well as cosmetically but it is a very active representation of the car as it was raised in 1966 You know have you yourself been here at Road America? I raced here many times starting in the late 70's in the Impsen series and I raced here actively annually until about 1988 and then from that point on it's been in vintage racing both with this car as well as several others. We had a chance to talk to John Surty's this morning for some of the things he talked about Sort of reminiscing about the car back then and what all he went through and he talked about the modifications he's made to the car after it came from the Lola factory and those modifications are still on the car today so it's quite an experience and listening to him reminisce about the car. Alright is the car going to have any track time this weekend? It has developed a severe vibration and rather than continue to push the car I think we'll just make a static display for the rest of this weekend until we can get it home and diagnose the problem Ok thank you It's nice to move up a little bit Well just before we started I interviewed you you said I'd like to be a little further up a second is a second you know it's not a first and you know it was certainly well learned on that I knew I had a chance for a second when I saw Craig throw some rubber up on one of his rear tires going down the back straight so I don't know that isn't going to last too long so There's a gentleman here to make some presentations I think you might know him his name is John Surty Mr. Surty sir. One of my favorite colors seeing yellow about actually I always used to prefer the red of our lolas but Bruce McLean and the team obviously did a wonderful job and the cars are still going on doing a wonderful job this is it and so all I can say is it's nice to hear the thunder of those eighths again and see that they're all alive and well and it's all working so congratulations well I have to get that in here well you said you know important thing is to win them now you've got that awesome engine awesome engine and awesome chassis and I think I'm ready to do no deploy them like someone can get used to this well I walk around the paddock and talk to people actually and I look at the engines that I used to use and the rest of it and then they start telling me they've got 200 horsepower more than when I used to use them that's what probably means awesome but we're still not going as fast as you guys are but congratulations thank you John sir John sir, what's happening here folks is that we're having drivers arrive as you're beginning to do these presentations and Tom, hold on we're going to talk to you next Christmas to make the presentation for your class win we found fantastic driving today on behalf of Jaguar North America and the Midwest region Jaguar retailers I'd like to say congratulations thank you very much I've been getting Jaguar the presentation of Peter Kidjack that's that handsome guy in the black and yellow do I get a hat too? you get a hat sir, not me, you didn't want that yeah just thank you well thank you very much and we're excited to be here with Jaguar Select Edition and we're very happy that you won this race thank you Peter I'd like to say closing I can't put you at the spot there didn't I very little, these prize givings gone for quite long enough as it is without me adding to it but I'd like to thank everybody for coming and to congratulate the winners on their fine performance and also of course to thank Jaguar, Aston Martin for their support of this event I think this year we've seen probably the best in the past 10 years we've had great weather a great entry and a very nice crowd thank you all very much thank you Brian Rissum thank you Jaguar, thank you John Seke and our fine driver and the gentleman who will stay up there do the hats and the photos we'll get ready for more racing and thank all of you for joining us here at Winner Circle and one was one of the most interesting winners circle I've ever done sure I've owned it about 4 years we bought it from a widow in Minneapolis her husband she met on a cruise in Greece when she was 18 he wanted to impress her parents so we bought it off a lot in Virginia drove it up to Canada and asked for her hand in marriage they were married many years they owned it 38 years and we bought it about 4 years ago it's completely original I had 58,000 miles on it when we bought it and it's still unrestored we've had it every summer ever since we took it on the vintage sports car Rondevue in Thunder Bay Ontario a couple weeks ago we usually do about 15 to 20 vintage car events over the course of the summer last weekend we did a hill climb at a ski area outside of Minneapolis where they laid out a course up the road going up the hill it's a lot of fun what makes this the Jaguar? this car had the same engine that would come out in the E type just a year and a half later and they were able to test out the engine on the S model which was a special edition of this car it's sporty it's fun it kind of typifies the Jaguar mark last question what do you think about America? I'm from Minneapolis Minnesota this is the best racetrack in the country I've been here several times and make it now an annual pilgrimage here love the area we stay in Plymouth and great towns great atmosphere and fun people alright that's our show for today Vintage weekend at Road America I'm here with Team Jaguar and bye for now