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These are essentially exhibitions,
not races, but nobody goes out there to
drive slow–and nobody does. There are
breakdowns and incidents and occa-
sionally a crash, though event man-
agement does an excellent job of
eliminating car-on-car accidents.
There are occasional off-road agricul-
tural excursions and bent fenders, cuz
guardrails and K-walls are harder.
Somebody lost control of a Cobra
replica, hit a wall, and busted up the
bodywork. A fender, trunk, tire and
wheel were sacrificed along with a lot
of scraped fiberglass. Nobody was hurt
except for pride, maybe. Still, sobering.
I greeted Joe Silva, owner of Cus-
tom Alignment in Mountain View. I
hadn’t seen Joe since the last time he
aligned my car in 2004. He’s a world
traveler now, working crew for a BMW
race team trackside in addition to
managing Custom Alignment. Joe
Silva, Mustang track car owner, long
time Shelby Club member, a bastion of
Ford competition changing tires on a
BMW. The
HORROR!
Joe told me business was tough for
a few years, as far as keeping his head
above water, but it’s coming back now.
It correlates with the change in the
grids and the paddock at Mini-Nats,
this year filled with all kinds of Fords.
It’s Monday afternoon now. I’m re-
porting from the Marin County town-
house of friends nice enough to put up
with me for a few days in return for a
bottle of exquisite Washington State
cabernet. Tomorrow morning, Tuesday,
I’ll be driving to Monterey to check in
and pick up my crew credentials for
the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Re-
union at Mazda Raceway (formerly
Laguna Seca). The event begins with
a staged photo-op of the race cars on
the front straight on Wednesday. I’ll
meet Don in Carmel for the Carmel
Concours and Tour, and that will begin
the next five days of vintage car cul-
ture emersion. Report and photos to
follow…
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2015 329