A Celebration of a Challenge!

This is the Statt Mann Baby. Time to Scatt a little bit.

Watching the Can-Am Challenge race at the Long Beach Grand Prix Saturday took me back to my early 20s at Riverside International Raceway. A long time ago on both fronts!

The noise from these Jurassic monsters set off car alarms and shook windows all around the track. I was standing next to a very young Millennial who grabbed his ears on the first of the parade laps. I told him if that hurt his ears he’d better leave now.

As I suspected, it was a parade, though. Promoters called it a celebration of the cars. Some has build dates some fifty years ago with values approaching multi millions of dollars. Still some were more suited for a more gentlemanly vintage race. One or two were running on three or four of their eight cylinders at the end.

The two black Shadows did put on a choreographed show swapping positions at safe places on the track. They managed to be wheel to wheel at the end crossing the finish line less than two ten-thousandths of a second apart.

It was a celebration of an era when drivers drove and cars raced unfettered by computers, electronics and mufflers. A wonderful trip down memory lane for me.

Peace.