The warmer temperatures held up through the weekend as forecast – and it was a great weekend. It started early for me on Friday. I was up before sunrise as Mike Hall was picking me up at 8am. Sunrise here in central Arizona can be just as spectacular as the sunsets sometimes are.
Mike showed up with our friend Jeff Van Deren and we headed out toward Payson to do some target shooting in the desert. Even on a weekday, it pays to get out there early to claim a good shooting spot. We had a blast (pun intended) and spent a couple of hours burning up ammo.
Mike dropped me off before noon – he planned on going out for lunch with his wife, Jodi. Donna was out – she had met up with Sara Graff for breakfast, then ran some errands. I made lunch and showered. Donna came home by 1pm and then I took the Midget and drove to Mike Hall’s place. We had a plan for the afternoon.
The Phoenix Art Museum had an exhibition called The Art of Speed, which was scheduled to be on display from November 3, 2019 to March 15, 2020. This exhibit had a number of historic race cars from around the world. Many of the cars were racers I read about as a youngster and dreamed of driving. Most of the cars were racing machines I was aware of, but had never actually seen other than in photos.
The first car we saw outside of the hall was the John Player Special Lotus 79 Formula One car driven to the World Championship in 1978 by Mario Andretti. I saw Mario drive this car at the Long Beach Grand Prix.
Most of the cars inside the exhibit hall are part of privately owned collections and were on loan to the museum for display.
The first two to catch my eye as we entered the hall were enough to give me chills. The first was a car that many consider to be the most beautiful Formula One car ever built – the 1967 Gurney Eagle. Dan Gurney won the 1967 Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps with the Westlake 12-cylinder powered Eagle – the only American-made car to win a Formula One race in the modern era.
Right behind the Eagle was the 1965 Lotus-Ford Type 38 – which one the greatest drivers of all time, Jimmy Clark, drove to victory in the Indianapolis 500. It was the first rear engine car to win at Indy. No front engine car has ever won since then.
This Ford GT40 was owned by John Wyer. His team raced to victory at Le Mans in 1968 and 1969. The story of this car is currently in theaters in the Ford versus Ferrari movie.
The next car epitomizes the sports cars built in Southern California in the late 1950s – the Scarab of Lance Reventlow. Lance was described as a “young man with nearly unlimited funds and a taste for all things fast and beautiful.”
Back in the day, it was common for race cars to be painted in nationalistic colors. Many race fans were fervently nationalistic. Italian cars were traditionally red, German cars silver, English cars green and American cars were blue. This wasn’t always the case, but was true more often than not.
The Ferrari 250 GTO is an icon. It won three straight GT Championships.
Some of the photos aren’t as clear as I would’ve liked, but the lighting for photography was difficult and flash was not allowed.
The 1957 Maserati 450S was developed specifically to compete with Ferrari.
This 1954 Lancia D24 Spyder won the Targa Florio – a race in Sicily run on public roads with a lap distance of 45 miles!
The next car was known as a “Birdcage.” This 1960 Maserati Tipo 61 had a space frame chassis built of approximately 200 tubes. If you look at the area between the instrument panel and firewall, you can see the construction technique. This car – chassis number 2470 – entered 16 races, winning six of them and finishing in the top three 13 times.
Next we have a Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe. This car won the GT class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1964 driven by Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant.
Stirling Moss drove this Maserati 250F Formula One car to victory in the 1956 Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
A.J. Foyt won his first Indianapolis 500 in this Trevis Offenhauser in 1961. A.J. would go on to win Indy three more times.
There were several other cars on display, but I didn’t try to capture photos of everything. The car Mike and I both wanted most to see wasn’t there! The Roger Penske-Sunoco 1973 Porsche 917/30 was probably the best race car ever built. It decimated the field in Can-Am racing with its flat 12-cylinder engine producing 1,500 horsepower. It was so far ahead of everyone else that it killed the series when everyone gave up on beating it. I found out later that the owner had a commitment to show the car at the Amelia Island Concours where it won best in show.
After touring the museum, Mike and I retired to Lucky Lou’s for a cold one or two where we were joined by Jodi and friends. I came home to find Donna had cooked up a new-to-her dish, Creole chicken and sausage. Tasty!
Saturday morning, Donna competed in the Viewpoint Pickleball Club Ladies Tournament. Donna played in the 3.0 group. She won the round robin portion handily, scoring a near perfect 65 points out of a possible 66. She went on to win the semi-final and then – wait for it – she and her partner won the tournament! On Monday she joined me in the 3.5 round robin session and played well. She’ll continue to try her hand at the higher 3.5 level.
Last night, we attended the annual Viewpoint Pickleball Club meeting and banquet. There are 510 members in the club this year and around 200 came to the meeting and dinner. Pickleball continues to grow as a sport and the Viewpoint Pickleball Club has grown as well over the four years we’ve played here.
In my previous post, I said I thought we’d reached the end of wintry weather here in Mesa, Arizona. I mis-spoke. Yesterday, we had a few rain showers after a warm and sunny weekend. It continued to rain off and on overnight and has been raining most of this morning. The temperature is expected to reach 70 today, but the next few days will be a few degrees cooler with more rain. If this all winter has for us, I can’t complain.
This coming Sunday, Donna will perform with the Viewpoint Concert Band in their final performance of the season. I’m sure she’ll continue to practice clarinet daily, but she won’t have the rehearsal and performance schedule to motivate her.
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