The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

Future.” [We’ve reprinted that article here, to give you an idea of what Miles said that found its way into the article and what was left out.] The interview was recorded on a quarter-inch, reel-to-reel tape recorder and after using it as a reference for the article, it was buried in Smith’s stuff after a lifetime’s worth of automotive involvement. His stint as editor at C/D followed Brock Yates’ (February 1966 to October 1966). During the time he was at Car and Driver he and Yates became best friends. They became so close that when Yates moved from New York City to a farm in Wyoming, New York, a peaceful, rural valley up- state near Rochester, Smith moved there, too. He called it his home for thirty-odd years and when Yates de- veloped Alzheimer’s disease in 2005 and passed away in 2016, Smith was still living in the area but was now de- prived of his longtime friend. It was Smith and Yates who came up with the original idea for the Can- nonball Baker Sea-to-Shining Sea Me- morial Trophy Dash in 1971 (although Yates usually gets all the credit). They made the first run from Manhattan to Redondo Beach, California in 1971 in a Dodge van. The fifth and last Can- nonball was run in 1979. In 1984 Yates inaugurated the Cannonball One Lap of America and it was through this event that I got to know Steve Smith. He was teamed with C/D editor William Jeanes in a new Lincoln. We drove an ‘84 Shelby Dodge Charger and our starting position was right after theirs, so we were always in close proximity during the entire eight-day, 8,800 mile event. Smith and I maintained a friend- ship ever since and I put him on the club’s complimentary mailing list. Fol- lowing the remembrance article I wrote about Brock Yates after his passing, Smith e-mailed me express- ing his compliments on the article. We discussed Brock Yates and during the on-line correspondence that followed, he happened to mention that he had interviewed Ken Miles a week after Daytona in 1965, but had lost track of the tape. He promised that if he ever found it we could print the contents. When Smith moved into a condo near Rochester, he felt hopeful that he would locate the missing tape during his move but had no luck. Until re- cently. The long-lost tape was subse- quently located and we are excited to include Smith’s interview with Ken Miles in its entirety. This is a very spe- cial piece of Ken Miles history and our thanks go to Steve Smith for his gen- erosity in sharing it with us. – Rick Kopec MILES: (speaking of Ferrari) It takes a long time to get that way, when you have virtually a self-contained unit. The thing that is also interesting is that Ferrari had a long line of progres- sively-developed winners that they could do a new car from. This is a tremendous asset which as yet we haven’t got. We’re in a better position now than we were a year ago, but I looked on the GT business given the duration in which we created the GT cars; you sit back and analyze these things – the car is a highly developed, most sophisticated form of racing ve- hicle and you’ve got two ways of going about it. You’ve got the trial-and-error approach, which Ferrari has got there by, and that’s fine, just great, but he’s taken forty years to get there. We had a very short time to get in it, so we took a cold, scientific, analytical look at the problem, analyzing all of the factors, you know, the ingredients such as power-to-weight, aerodynamics, braking capabilities, driveline capabil- ities, driver involvement and so on. All these factors you can measure and you can say, “ Yeah, we’ve got to strike a The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 42 Steve Smith ( Dinah M. Smith photo)