Here's a wee bit of history from my life that some of you Geezers might enjoy:
In late September of 1973, I was working as an apprentice mechanic at Stewarts Sunoco, in Whitby, Ontario, Canada. One afternoon a transporter pulled up to the pumps and a number of fellows jumped out of the truck. I went out to sell them some fuel. They had heard that Sunoco 260 had the highest octane rating of pump fuel available in Canada and wanted to fill their cars and spare fuel tanks. They explained that they were the crew for one of the F1 race teams that would be participating at the Grand Prix of Canada over the September 20-23 weekend at Mosport. I offered to fill their cars (naturally I wanted to get close to the cars) and spare tanks but they preferred to do it themselves. While I hung out with the crew we chatted about racing. They thought it was great that I would be in the support race immediately prior to the GP. After they had completed the fueling they came into the garage to pay and take a look at my Mini. It was kind of exciting having an F1 crew looking over my race car. As they prepared to leave they told me to come by the pits after my race if I wanted. It rained hard during my entire race. Thankfully I had switched to a set of full tread street Pirellis. After the race I decided to look up the F1 crew. I remained in my driving suit and had no problem getting past the minimal security of the day. As I walked along behind the pit boxes one of the crew I'd met was rolling some mounted wet tires into their pit. He recognized me and asked if I wanted to join him. He introduced me to the three drivers who were getting changed into their driving suits. Those were the days prior to fancy motor coaches. The crew member told the drivers that I had just come in from my race. All three of the drivers wanted to know what the track conditions were like especially any locations where there were "rivers" flowing across. I told them everything I knew and they thanked me. The drivers were Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Peter Gethin and Niki Lauda. The crew allowed me to stay in their pit for the entire race. I was able to take some great close-up photos of some of the famous drivers of the day. And I even got to help out during the pit stops as their cars came in to change to dry tires when the rain stopped and the track dried. I'll never forget hauling a fat steaming rear wet weather tire back into the pit box and being astounded how light it was and how hot and gummy the tread was. Looking back, this was definitely the highlight of my amateur racing career.
SEE EVERYBODY TOMORROW NIGHT
