"My brother and I bought the Kurtis from a guy named Gary (?) on Glendale Blvd. near Frank's place.  We paid a $1,000 each for a mostly assembled car with a Kurtis chassis, Mark VII Jaguar rear end, transmission and drum brakes. It had never run.

   We worked to finish the car in Bill's garage in Winnetka and missed the Memorial Day Santa Barbara Race.  After an all-nighter we made the Labor Day race along with Lance Reventlow's Scarab, Gurney's 4.9, Bob Drake's Aston-Chevy, Duffy Livingston's 27T, Von Neumann's Ferrari, and a lot of other big boars.

    I practiced the car on Saturday and on the back straight the full windscreen split.  I found it hard to judge a shutoff point for the final hairpin as the sedan drums seemed a bit lazy.  But the speedway chassis really liked the sweeper off of the back straight.  In fact it required all the gears and both feet on the brake to honk it down on the short chute for the greasy hairpin.  The fiberglass was about an inch thick and the car probably weighed up to 3,000 lbs. The sweeper felt so good I tried to power through it in 3rd gear but when I feathered the throttle it popped out of gear and the engine died. I tried holding it in gear with my right but couldn't control it with my left. Getting through the hairpin was a real fire drill.

    Waiting for the Saturday main, I was catching a nap in the car when I inadvertently hit the throttle and it stuck behind the tranny mount bracket.  That got quick attention!

    For the race they put me in the back row behind a bunch of 2 liter cars.  At the flag the old Firestones got a surprising bite and a lane opened in front like the parting of the seas.  I was passing cars so fast and knowing the bottleneck around the hangar I backed off.  Then came the carambolage when the Eliminator and Von Neumann, et al, got together.  I dove for the corner of the hangar and collected a tire stripe from Bill Muth's Frazer Nash.  Around turn 2 I pulled up on Harold Erbs supercharged MG when it blew up.  First wispy smoke, little black pieces gouging my fiberglass, and then a sheet of flame as big as the car.  Then I was alone for awhile.  A couple of laps later, tooling down the back straight, Duffy went sailing by.  Another lap and setting for "my" turn, the sweeper, in my mirror is Drake's Aston-Chevy, nose high and full bore.  I think, shit!  I'm dog-meat.  But I have to look to the turn and get slowed for the hairpin.  After the dogleg onto the intermediate straight, there's no Drake?  (After the race, Bob said his throttle was stuck and he went so far off course he had to drive back in the spectator entrance!) Then I have a dice with the Reynolds' Wrap and the brakes are fading and the clutch is slipping.  I finally get around him and finish 2nd in Class B. Got a little pewter ash tray.  
 
  On Sunday, Bill puts John Timanus on his head entering the sweeper and then the engine blows.  (According to Bill, I must have over revved it.)  I told Timanus he shouldn't try to sneak a Lotus inside a big boar at the apex of a corner.

    The next race at Hourglass, I took the car down on Saturday and after practice started the race on the outside front row with a Ferrari on the pole.  We were side-by-side on the run to the first turn when my engine quit momentarily.  Then on the back side, I spun and the cockpit was full of oil so I parked it.  Bill showed up on Sunday pissed because I hadn't fixed the car for him.  I don't remember where the oil came from but he got it fixed and we tried to fuel it on the starting grid which caused official panic.  I don't know the finish, probably blew again.

    After much work on the oil pan and pump, and several engines, Bill went to see Andy Granatelli!  Andy said the stock pump was adequate but the mounting bracket holes were too small and caused the pump to cavitate at high RPM.  He went to his parts bin and, for a few dollars, no more blown engines.

    After Hourglass, I was offered a drive in a Maserati and opted out of our partnership.  The car burned because the hood latch had broken at the race track and it had been screwed down.  When the carbs backfired in traffic, they couldn't get the hood up to douse the fire.

    Years later I talked to Ben (?) Boldt at Willow about his success with the car but didn't get by to see it.  I think the only similarity to our car was the frame and the torsion bar suspension.

    Bill and I got out of small bore production cars into the biggest, baddest of cobbled together, ill-handling, big bore home-builts.      Survival of the eager dumb!
    
    The car was a cream color when first raced at Santa Barbara on Labor Day.  George "The Arab", who was partnered with Walter and Von Dutch, and drove the Cal Club tow truck, painted the car red.
     After the fire only a part of the right rear fender remained.  A guy in Gardena (?) had a car with a body that was obviously from the same mold but slightly different detail."