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OK, I know it's been a long time. I mean a REALLY long time. But I been busy, see. Oh, you probably think I've been gallivanting all over creation driving swell cars, sucking up top-shelf hooch, eating rich foods with fancy French cream sauces I can't even pronounce and sleeping in beds the size of football fields with 400-count combed cotton sheets. In yer freakin' dreams... Truth is, I've been hacking away at the NEW BOOK (really I have!) and will, God, my typing fingers and the muses willing, have it finished & out sometime this summer. Or maybe early fall. We'll see. I did take some time off to do my great friend Bill Warner's regularly amazing Amelia Island Concours & then the 12 Hours of Sebring the following weekend (full report coming) where I signed books alongside certified Famous Racing Guys Now With Books of Their Own Hurley Haywood and David Hobbs. It was a lot like being one of those clever little remora fish that latch onto big, hungry sharks so as to gobble up the stray morsels of whatever the sharks may be devouring.

Suffice to say we sold a LOT of books & merchandise. Famous Porsche racer John Fitzpatrick was there with his book as well, and my great friend Jack Webster was also on hand with his most excellent motorsports photography book, RACING PILOTS (you really need a copy!). Tell you more about it in the next E-blast, which will be coming up very shortly. Honest it will. But I'm kinda rushed right now on account of I'm supposed to be packing to leave early ayem tomorrow (in company with long-suffering spouse Carol and our ever-faithful Wire-Haired Fox Terrier "Buddy") to drive down to Braselton, Georgia for the HSR WALTER MITTY CHALLENGE!

Good friend John Morton will be grand marshalling & Datsun/Nissan is the featured marque, and it looks like they're gonna have a bunch of them on hand (pic of me in Richard Fisher's very quick Datsun Bluebird below)

I'll be hawking books at our "World's Fastest Novelist" booth on Vendor Row just up on the hill above the Pro Paddock (just follow the smell of the corn dogs & barbecued ribs) as well as covering it for the magazine (VINTAGE MOTORSPORT) and hopefully getting to drive some stuff, too. So if you happen to be there, please stop by. And buy something while you're at it, too! More to come shortly, but let me take a moment to remind you that the new book is getting somewhere close to finished (no, really it is) and so we're shamelessly beating the bushes for sponsors and advertisers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but since this WILL INDEED BE THE VERY LAST BOOK IN THE SERIES, this is your

OK, what movie (yeah, we had this one before)? More coming next week (including new trivia & lots more drivel) See you at The Mitty? Burt

OK, what movie (yeah, we had this one before)?


More coming next week (including new trivia & lots more drivel)
See you at The Mitty?
Burt

 

LAST E-BLAST TRIVIA:

(just a re-run reminder in case you forgot)

Part 1: how many ignition wires are coming out of the distributor cap on this car? OK, so lots of folks took their eyes off the stylish, leggy model long enough to recognize the car was a Jaguar E-Type, and a few even realized, based on the wheels, that it was most likely an early V12 rather than a 6-cylinder model. Fair enough. But EVERYBODY whiffed on the correct answer. See, I asked how many "IGNITION" wires (rather than "SPARK PLUG" wires) might be coming out of the distributor cap. So I believe the coil wire counts, so the answer has to be "13" rather than the "12" most folks answered. Got'cha. Nyaaahhhh!


As to the essay portion regarding how she could possibly heel-and-toe downshift in those shoes, we had some fascinating end even marginally printable answers (even one from France). General consensus is that you can kind of see a steering wheel behind the crook of her arm, so the obvious answer of "she's not driving, she's the bit of crumpet in the off-side seat that will likely have the driver's wife calling a divorce attorney" doesn't quite fit. More likely it's an automatic (many of them were) although I much prefer "she takes her shoes off."

Question Two got a surprising number of right answers thanks to modern web-searching software that don't let you sneak up on nuthin' no more. Mostly correct answers (per the regularly insufferable Bob Allen, as per usual) are:

Question Two


a) who are these guys? Fred MacMurray (right) and Eli Wallach playing "First Man" Thad McCloud and Central America dictator Raphael Valdez Jr. respectively.

b) what movie are they in? 1964's Kisses for My President, by Curtis Bernhardt

c) what kind of car are they in? A Costin-bodied Lister, although I couldn't say for definite whether it's Jaguar or Chevy powered - probably the former, I believe. And it's no good watching the movie to hear which one as they're invariably dubbed! You'll notice it's right-hand drive: that's because it has just been collected from import from the U.K. by Valdez and he's taking it for a hair-raising test drive, which involves racing a train and scaring the **** out of McCloud.

d) who is one of them supposed to be married to? Thad McCloud is, in the film, married to the first U.S. female president, Leslie McCloud played by Polly Bergen, which is the main premise of the film. Did you choose this subject because a year ago that almost came true? And how much would you rather Polly Bergen was the pres. now? Oh dear, getting into things that are none of my business! Well, maybe they are.

Only think off kilter is that although there is certainly a Costin-bodied Lister in the sports car shop Wallach and MacMurray visit (see below) my recollection (never a sure thing these days) is that the car they actually go for a ride in is white rather than bare metal and looks more like a Knobbly Lister (albeit with an odd, full-width "mouth" opening) than a Costin version. Haven't got the time to look through the whole damn film to see if I'm right, so we'll leave that to the ever-anal-and-inquisitive Mr. Allen.

NEW TRIVIA!!!

OK: What? Where? When? (extra credit: who drove?).

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:

WWW.LASTOPENROAD.COM