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Got back from a FABULOUS Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix late yesterday and have so much to tell you. And the weekend before that, we were up at Road America for the monster, blow-out, all-guns-blazing, all-gaskets-leaking WeatherTech International Challenge at Road America, where stalwart/salt-of-the-earth/my-first-sports-car/my-first-race-car marque TRIUMPH was featured...along with some fly-by-night little car company in Italy founded by a guy named Enzo Somethingorother... It was a spectacular! Full report on both weekends to follow. But I do want to mention (brag? boast? sound trumpet fanfares?) that I was inducted into the British Sports Car Hall of Fame--alongside longtime friends, much longer-time heroes and (here comes the plug) audio book Mystery Celebrity Guest Voices David Hobbs and Brian Redman! What a big, fat honor! Here's a couple pix of the ceremony and a quick glimpse of the award plaque, which is bigger than the yellowed plastic back window on your average British roadster and weighs as much as a set of stock connecting rods (which you should have already taken out of your TR, MG or Big Healey and replaced with something a bit stronger and better engineered if you plan on any serious track work).
More Anon...but FIRST: THE CLOCK IS TICKING!!!!
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SATURDAY, JULY 29th Ol "BS" will be the after-dinner-and-lots-of-drinks guest speaker for the Jaguar Club of Illinois annual Concours d'Elegance. Starts off with the show itself at the St. James Farm Pavilion (use the Hoy Avenue entrance) at 25451 Winfield Road in Warrenville, IL 60555. It's FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC and there should be a whole passel of shiny, svelte, sharp-looking, sweet sounding Jaguars on display from, oh, say 11am-3pm. I'll be there to display some books and help select a worthy recipient for another BUDDY PALUMBO award (only two criterion: the entrant(s) must have done most of the restoration & preparation work themselves--I'll be checking fingernails to make sure!) and they have to USE the bloody car. I mean to DRIVE, not to just look purty). Then, later on (socializing commences at 5:30), there will be a really nice dinner at a nearby place called Adelle's in Wheaton ($89.oo a head for non-club members), after which I will speechify. It's mostly about Jaguars, but sports cars in general, too, and maybe some funny stories about all the cars I've driven, things I've broken and failed to fix, dumb things I've gotten away with and why on earth wife Carol has stuck with me all these years. That last one is still a mystery! If you might be interested in attending (even if you don't have Jaguar drippings in your driveway), here's a link to the club and the event: |
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Yes, folks, friends & fans, work is proceeding like a runaway locomotive on the new Potside Companion II short-story anthology, "Responsible Jobs & Irresponsible Driving," which will include possibly/partially true tales about working in a drop forge and on a paper plate packaging line, serving as a hod carrier for two redneck, country-western-listening, block-layer brothers from Tennessee (by way of a pool hall they once owned in Paducah, KY), working as a dishwasher, then ad-hoc cook at the Boulderado Hotel in Boulder, CO., my days as a foreman at a hippie-commune (sort-of) leather clothing factory overlooking the then-slums of Oakland, CA, delivering phone books in all sorts of wonderful and sometimes scary neighborhoods in Chicago, fixing and selling cars, the "Uncle Max" who wasn't really my uncle, gave me my first-ever job and became the inspiration for the Big Ed Baumstein character in my novels, running around my folks' new neighborhood with no pants on as a wee toddler, serving as a second-string stunt driver when "THE BLUES BROTHERS" movie was shooting in Chicago and lots more. And lotsa car and motorcycle stuff, too.
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MORE "BS" IN YOUR FUTURE? August 3-6: Carol & I are planning, once again, to be hawking, schmoozing & signing in the wonderful THE PADDOCK SHOP store at Road America alongside fellow speedy huckster David Hobbs during the IMSA pro weekend. See you there? |
Catch the latest poop & pictures, the Jay Leno interview, Last Open Road swag & highly inappropriate attire from Finzio's Store and the lurid & occasionally embarrassing "ride with Burt" in-car racing videos on the hopefully now fully operational website at: |
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