had never been to the SVRA Zippo US Vintage Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. However, this year, Alfa Romeo was the featured marque, and that gave the event a special allure. Peter Krause (of Krause & England), the SVRA’s event chairman, was relentless in his promotion of the weekend. Peter promised that, if you brought your Alfa, he would find a class for it to race in, and he was merciless in twisting arms to get entries. In addition to the usual three days of qualifying races and real races, there was to be a special Alfa-only race. Bonnie, the famous Alfa Spider Bonneville land speed record holder, was slated to be there. Alfa Trans Am champion Horst Kwech was to be the guest speaker at a special Alfa owners banquet. This thing was turning out to be huge! The buzz amongst Alfa vintage racers was enormous and it became clear that the entry list would be giant. Cars were coming from all over the US (with several entries from AONE members); a substantial Canadian contingent was signed up too. We were looking at a momentous event in US Alfadom—like Woodstock, mannnnnnnnnn. Well, it was pretty clear that this would be the right year to go. Brian Shorey was interested in going as well, so we made our plans!

The weekend’s schedule was pretty intense. The track was open for practice on Thursday; the first qualifying races were scheduled for Friday. Saturday had two qualifying races for each class. Sunday had a 21-lap enduro, then SVRA class races, and finally the Alfa race. Plenty of racing for one weekend! Perhaps the most interesting feature of the race weekend was a quasi recreation of the olden days when the races were actually held on the public roads around Watkins Glen. Late Friday afternoon, the race cars would drive down to the town center, park on Main Street for display to the crowds, and then run several laps of the old race course. We definitely wanted to be there for that!

After a later-than-planned start, we were off. We managed to get to the Glen just in time for the street "race" laps and watched on the "back straight"—on top of the hill outside of town. It was the oddest experience! Spectators were lined up along the road, some of them in lawn chairs. Cops were directing traffic, waving open exhaust race cars through! Many, many Alfas of every type. AONE members Eliot Shanabrook in his GTV, Chris Francis in his Spider, and Mike Lawton in his Giulia Spider blasted by us. Bugattis, pre-war Alfas, Stanguelini, Minis, Shaguars, Lancias, Mustangs, Porsches (including a very cool 917K), Corvettes, MGs, Allards—you name it! What a great way to start the weekend!

From there, it was off to the Alfa banquet. There must have been at least 200 people in attendance. Peter Krause introduced all of his staff and guests of honor. Horst Kwech gave a small talk. It was clear from the conversations at dinner that many of the Alfa competitors were off to a bad start. It seemed that there had been a number of serious failures—mostly engine failures! The list of competitors was dropping at a furious rate. Fortunately, the AONE contingent was doing well, and looking forward to the next days’ qualifying and racing.

Saturday was bright and clear—a beautiful day. We got to the track early, and the view was astonishing. The general entry was enormous, and there were Alfas everywhere. Looking at the entry list, there were more than 60 Alfas entered! The Alfa entries ranged from a 1933 6C 1750 to a 1989 Milano Verde. The most exotic Alfas there were the Tipo 33s of Joe Nastasi and Nick Soprano (really), and Dino Crescentini’s Ralt F3 car w/ 2.0L Alfa power—the fastest Alfa at the event. Joe had also entered his F1 Alfa but didn’t bring it. Brian and I wandered around checking out the Alfas. They were so thick on the ground that it was easy to be jaded—"Oh, just another GTA"! There were cars from California, Florida and everywhere in between. By far, the biggest group were the GTV/GTAs—probably more than half the entry. A handful of Spiders and Duettos. A Super. Plenty of Giulietta Sprints and Spiders. An Alfetta, GTV6, and the lone Milano. We visited Roman Tucker, his family, and their stable of GTAs, GTVs and the badddddddest Berlina I have ever seen. Keith Goring was there with a customer’s Firehawk GTV6. Mike Besic’s beautiful yellow Duetto. Jim Steck with Bonnie. Mike Besic and Jim are responsible for building Bonnie, and I must say that the level of fabrication and preparation is truly breathtaking. I guess that knowing you will be running at 215 mph makes you careful in your work. Al Leake was there with his famous Giulietta Spider—another beautiful car. Jim Ziegler brought his Bobsy-Alfa SR3 (1600cc).

I can not say that I understood the SVRA classification scheme—there were so many classes, and it was impossible to tell why some cars were in one and an identical-looking car was in another. However, everyone seemed to be happy with their classification. Racing was on the 3.37-mile long course. Saturday’s events were divided into qualifying sessions and then qualifying races that determined the grids for Sunday’s races.

Some notable results:

Sunday’s first race was the enduro. The fastest Alfa was Eric Woods (GTV/AM 2.0) at 12th overall and 2nd in class, fastest lap of 2:21.512. Chris Francis (IT Spider) was 34th overall and 6th in class. Mike Lawton (Giulia Spider) was 41st overall and 4th in class. Unfortunately for Mike, right at the end of the race, an Elva spun right in front of him. Mike had nowhere to go and smote the Elva a good one, ending Mike’s weekend. What a shame to see his beautiful yellow Spider that way! Racing is like that sometimes…