November 4, 2025 • 35 mins
This episode of The Logbook - our History of Motorsports series - features a lecture by Dr. James Miller on the history of Formula One racing at Watkins Glen from 1961 to 1980. Miller argues that the collaboration between sporting gentlemen and local residents made the event possible but that ultimately, their differences led to the event's decline. The episode covers the origins of road racing in Watkins Glen, notable figures involved, the town's socioeconomic context, and the tensions that arose between local organizers and the globalizing forces of Formula One. Miller also speculates on the possible outcomes had different decisions been made.
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00:00 The Golden Era of Formula One at Watkins Glen 01:33 The Rise and Fall of Watkins Glen 02:03 The Community Behind the Races 03:36 Sporting Gentlemen vs. Small Town Residents 06:01 The American Small Town Identity 11:01 Key Figures in Watkins Glen Racing 19:21 The Financial Struggles and Final Years 21:41 Reflections and What-Ifs 26:51 Q&A Session; Closing Remarks and Credits ====================The Motoring Podcast Network : Years of racing, wrenching and Motorsports experience brings together a top notch collection of knowledge, stories and information. #everyonehasastory #gtmbreakfix - motoringpodcast.net
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This episode is part of our HISTORY OF MOTORSPORTS SERIES and is sponsored in part by: The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), The Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argetsinger Family.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Break Fix's History of Motorsportsseries is brought to you in part
by the International Motor RacingResearch Center, as well as the
Society of Automotive Historians,the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of
Commerce, and the Argo Singer Family
Formula one at Watkins GlenSporting Gentleman in a small
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town by Dr. James Miller.
When James Miller attended F1 races atthe Glen during the 1970s, it was for fun.
Now they have become the focus ofsocial and historical analysis.
In fact, the 20 years of FormulaOne at Watkins Glen from 1961
to 1980 are worthy of subject.
They afford a case study of thetransitional racing era between the
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near amateurism of the 1950s and theincreasingly commercial globalizing
periods that followed most especiallyFormula One at Watkins Glen is anomalous.
How do you explain a Finger Lakesvillage hosting the mostly European
pinnacle of Motorsport and beremembered by Jackie Stewart as
the most nostalgic US Grand Prix?
That Formula One ever had?
One answer is the unusual collaborationbetween Patricia Enthusiasts,
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community leaders and the volunteerspirit of a small town, an effort
that began in 1948 with the firstrace through local streets and roads.
Dr. James Miller is a professoremeritus of communications at Hampshire
College, and a former member of thegraduate faculty at UMass Amherst, a
senior researcher at the I-M-R-R-C.
He's a member of the InternationalMotor Press Association.
(01:26):
Our next presenter is JamesMiller, who's gonna be talking
about Formula One, a Watkins GlenSporting gentleman in a small town.
The 20 year history of the USGrand Prix at Watkins Glen was
bookended by two dramatic events.
The first was the approval in August of 61for the event to take place, leaving only
six weeks before the October race date.
(01:48):
The second occurred in the springof 1981 when Formula One at the
Glen was removed from the racingcalendar due to its inability to pay
participants from the previous race.
A year later, the track wassold at a bankruptcy auction.
Over time, it became clear that whatmade both the first race possible and the
apparently sudden demise inexplicable,was the remarkable collaboration between
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organizers and Glen residents, localcivic leaders and racers found common
cause with villagers of all sorts.
To bring about an annual internationalextravaganza that drew hundreds
of thousands of spectators to whatremains the longest running venue
of Formula One Grand Prix racing.
In the US three times, formulaOne drivers voted the Glen the
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best organized race of a season.
It was cooperation betweenthese two distinct groups.
Organizers and local residentsthat made it all possible.
The truth of this familiar claim isnot denied by adding a paradoxical
complication that in the end, thegroup's differences were stronger
than their shared interests.
This may have been discoveredonly too late, and that's
(02:58):
what I'd like to argue today.
In 1969, camera and Argetsingerproposed to the Watkins Glen
Grand Prix Corporation that he andprivate investors buy the track.
In order to finance the continuingimprovements necessary to hold Grand
Prix racing, his proposal was rejectedand Argo Singer left the organization.
(03:19):
This, it turned out was thebeginning of the end, even though
a full decade of racing remained.
My view is that Argo Singer and hisallies understood road racing in general.
And the Grand Prix in particular, in waysultimately at odds with local members of
the corporation and maybe some villagers.
I'm going to label these twogroups, sporting gentlemen
and residents of a small town.
(03:41):
My point is not to assign blame,but to offer an explanation that
goes beyond mere finances for whatmany of us see as a tragic outcome.
Sporting gentlemen brought anorientation to road racing that had
relatively little to do with thegeographic location of a circuit or
its benefits to a local community.
They were primarily about masculinecompetition in the context of
(04:05):
highly ritualized upper class games.
With serious but amateur traditions.
These were learned in prep schools,private colleges, and Ivy League
universities and yacht clubs andcountry clubs, and in sports like
golf, dressage, sailing, and the like.
They were cosmopolitans attracted to theinvolvement of European cars and drivers.
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In American racing, many possessedthe business savvy of wealthy people
and had a feel for both the scale ofcapitalization and political skills
required to pursue road racing.
Early road racing circuits werenecessarily located in the rural
countryside, of course, but werenearly always near metropolitan areas.
Where sporting gentlemenlived Lime Rock in 56.
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Well, that's New York Bridge, Hampton57, the other side of New York City
and Elkhart Lake 59 in Chicago.
Small town people were less likelyto be racers were, by definition
rooted in their village, happy tovolunteer their efforts that in turn
produced benefits for the community.
Maybe they were possessive about keepingthe Grand Prix synonymous with the people
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of Watkins Glen through maintaining whatthey saw as local control of the event.
Here's how I'll try to make my case.
First, the small town.
This will necessarily be a broadbrush treatment of the American small
town, especially in the second halfof the 20th century with reference
to the Glenn and a few key localorganizers of different sorts.
Next, a presentation of sociologists,Digby bolt sells sporting gentleman
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notion, and three organizer racerbiographies that I think illustrated.
Third, a two brief account of thefatal collision between sporting
gentleman's sensibility and small townattitude that ultimately brought an
end to Formula One at Watkins Glen.
And lastly, some counterfactual.
Historical fun, focusing on cameraand aring, and the recent development
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of Formula One Grand Prix Racing.
The American small town has adouble identity, one mythical
and the other historical.
The first is profoundly nostalgic,a celebration of an idealized past.
The other is more complicated.
One historical fact is at the turn ofthe 20th century, about three quarters
of Americans lived in small towns.
Perhaps out of this widespread experience.
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Grew an outside imaginary significance.
In fact, a study in the twenties andthirties, fiction in widely circulating
magazines found that farms and smalltowns were depicted as enjoying a way of
life whose essential goodness contrastedwith the evils lurking in big cities.
But as early as the 1880s.
There was concern for the future ofsmall towns that were bypassed by
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commercial roots or emerging industries.
And around the time of those magazinestories, the census reported that for
the first time, city dwellers constitutedthe majority of the US population,
especially during the post-war period.
The rural small town was under existentialthreat, industrialized agriculture
transformation into bedroom communities.
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Outmigration in searchof better opportunities.
Greatest population loss occurred fromthe thirties through the seventies.
One estimate is that between 1950 and1970 towns the size of the Glen lost one
third of their local retail businesses.
In the early fifties, one of the mostimportant American community studies
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took place nearby in the wonderfullynamed Small Town of Candor, New York.
Arthur Viic and Joseph Besman describeda kind of collective delusion that candor
was actually the master of its own fate.
They also revealed a shared illusionof democracy when actually a limited
number of influential citizens calledthe shots, and when church members
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organized most of the town's public life.
They termed the crisis of the smalltown modernization, by which they
meant an often unwelcome intrusionof outside influences that were
imposing new ways of living.
These inescapable authoritiesran the gamut from radio and TV
to national retailers to statelevel offices of education.
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Watkins Glen would not have been immunefrom these unsettling dynamics around
the time that road racing arrived.
Part of racing's allure all the waythrough the F1 years was surely a
manageable antidote to forces thatthreatened a deeply established,
rewarding small town way of life.
Watkins, as it was long called.
Shares the features of manyother small rural towns of
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upstate New York for decades.
However, schooner and steamferry boats crisscrossed Seneca
Lake, facilitating local traveland trade and bringing visitors.
By the end of the 19th century, theboats had been replaced largely by the
railroad, which then brought internationalguests to the curative waters of the very
grand Glen Spring sanatorium and hotel.
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Next door to its 300 acres.
New York established a state park in 1906.
Its centerpiece is a 400 foot deep gorge.
That, along with a score ofwaterfalls, was given pride of place
when the town literally changed itsname in the 1920s to Watkins Glen.
During the Grand Prix years, theGlen's population was less than
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3000, except for the unusualproduction of salt from brine wells.
The local economy depended ontourism, agriculture, and retail.
The first bank was builtin 1922, the first cinema.
Two years later, the municipal building,A New Deal project housed the fire
and police departments and the mayor'soffice, the court, and also the library.
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Another depression area interventionwas the Civilian Conservation
Corps, which established severallocal camps where young men work to
improve the state park, making itmore accessible and more beautiful.
Jean Argetsinger in her history ofthe local Catholic church says that
the Erie Canal and the local Mongcanal, and later the railroads brought
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waves of immigrants to the Glen towork as loaders of coal barges, stone
masons, farmers, and at the hotel jobs.
First the Irish, and then in largernumbers, Italians joined the descendants
of the early British settlers.
The primacy of tourism, a seasonaleconomy that encouraged openness to
visitors was threatened when the luxuriousGlen Springs founded in 1890, closed
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its doors during a war after Cornellbriefly housed GI Bill students there.
It became a Catholic seminaryin high school for 20 years
and then was abandoned.
Perhaps the loss of the resortwas an incentive to try to extend
tourism into the autumn, whichwas a rationale for October road
racing and, and later Formula One.
During the fifties and sixties,regional tourism promotion
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became an organized effort usingFinger Lakes to brand the area.
It emphasized boating and camping andstressed the ease of transportation
afforded by the new interstatehighways, Cornell University,
even established and Office ofRegional Resources and Development.
Here are biographical sketches offive men with different sorts of local
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identities who were involved in racing.
Donald Brubaker brought hisfive children to the Glen in
the forties to start a new life.
After the death of his wife, he hadconnections here, new Yorker cartoonist,
Sam Cobe, a friend of Cameron Argetsinger,who lived in the village was his cousin.
Brubaker was a graduate ofPenn's Law School, but he became
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proprietor of the Seneca Lodge,whose food he grew organically.
The lodge was famous forhousing, F1 teams, and its
raucous post-war celebration.
Active in promoting local tourism.
Brubaker became presidentof the Chamber of Commerce.
Malcolm Curry came to the Glen fromMassachusetts and with a partner
bought local newspapers beginning in1951, which they published until 1987.
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He later succeeded Argetsingeras executive director of
the Grand Prix Corpor.
Henry Valent was the son of Italianimmigrants and a native of the Glen.
He graduated from Cornell andits law school later establishing
his own practice in town.
He was co-owner of the local AM and FMradio stations and like other leaders, he
was active in a number of organizationsfrom the Chamber of Commerce to the
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Board of Education and the area hospital.
Liston Kuhn was born in arural hamlet near the Glen.
His father was a farmer and malecarrier and his mother, a teacher.
After a short period following the warteaching school, he attended Cornell's law
school and he practiced law in the Glen.
Later he was elected district attorneyand county judge, and served for
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decades in the Air Force Reserve andwas active in the county Republican
party and other organizations.
Joe Fran's parents wereItalian immigrants.
He and his wife Helen, built touristcabins during the late thirties
on the family farm along the lake.
After the war, they establishedthe Glen Motor Inn, which featured
40 rooms or restaurant and a pool.
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It became a storied lodging placefor Grand Prix teams and operated
until just a couple of years ago.
They donated land thatbecame the local golf course.
Where Joe taught Formula One drivers howto play the game, he too was president of
the chamber and their son Vic was himselfa racer and a racing team owner, sporting
gentlemen, is Digby Bolt sells term forthe tradition of gentleman amateurs, upper
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class Protestants, mostly who followedconduct imported from aristocratic
England at its core is the idea that gamesdemanded loyalty, self-discipline, and
a sense of command and accomplishment.
Their code of conduct stress quote,winning is less important than
playing hard and fairly in the states.
The newly formed national upper classof the 19th century steel and railroad
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economy imbued these values in its sonsby means of Episcopal boarding schools in
New England and the originally Calvinistcolleges of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
So to say, sporting and gentlemen,implies social position.
Competitive, but rule abating,masculinity, a deeply socialized
sense of how to play well, certainvalued games, and a shared sense of
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camaraderie among the select few.
Both cell even suggests thatunderpinning this orientation is the
unstated view that sporting gentlemenpossess the natural fitness to rule.
Three biographies of sportinggentlemen capture its varieties.
The closing weeks of the 19 39 40New York World's Fair featured a
race of 18, mostly European sportscars, over a seven 10th mile circuit
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between the exhibition buildings.
The winner who averaged 35 miles anhour was 26-year-old Frank Griswold Jr.
Months before he owned a car that ranin the Indy 500, and in 1948, Griswold
won the first road race at Watkins Glen.
He ran a machine shop outsidePhiladelphia and became the North
American importer for Alpha Romeo WeberCarburetors and Nty Steering wheels.
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Frank Griswold Jr. Grew up onthe family's 34 acre estate
on Philadelphia's main line.
In Harvard's class of 18 94,20 fifth anniversary report.
His father identified himself asa retired banker and broker, and
his club as the Racket Club, whichtoday says, quote, continues to
be one of the most prestigiousprivate city clubs in North America.
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Griswold's parents and grandparentsappeared in the 1917 social register.
They were said to season in Bar Harborand Newport of Palm Beach and in Europe.
Finally, it seems likely that theextensive Wikipedia entry for the Griswold
family refers to Frank's relatives whofirst arrived from England in 1639.
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William Milliken Jr. Was born in1911 in Old Town Maine, a town known
for canoe building and paper making.
He and his buddies entertainedthemselves by constructing various kinds
of vehicles, including an airplane.
Milliken's academic performance atthe neighboring University of Maine.
Persuaded his parents to findmoney for two years at MIT, where
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he in 1934, earned a degree inaeronautical engineering and math.
His long life.
He lived to 101 was filledwith remarkable achievements.
His work for Boeing carryingout high altitude test flights
led to flight dynamic researchat Cornell's lab in Buffalo.
This soon expanded to researchwith GM on automobile control
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dynamics and passive safety.
Two of his books on race cardynamics and chassis design are
considered classic references.
Milliken was an earlyofficial at the SECA.
With Cornell colleagues, he designedthe Glenn's first permanent track
and he served as chief stewardat the Grand Prix races competing
in more than 100 road races.
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Included campaigning a 1932four-wheel drive Miller at Pikes Peak.
Carl Luson named him Mr.
Supernatural.
Cameron Azinger was born in1921 in Youngstown, Ohio.
His father, James Cameron, or jc,the first became general counsel
and vice president of the SteelCompany, Youngstown Sheet and Tube.
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He was born and raised near WatkinsGlen where his parents had established
a farm in the late 19th century.
Cameron was the only child of wealthycivically engaged parents, both of
whom graduated from Cornell, wherehis father also attended law school.
JC collected cars andown a number of packers.
He taught Cameron at age 12 to drivethe country roads around the glen, where
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they had a summer place on the lake.
Shortly before his 20th birthday,Cameron became co-owner of a
Youngstown area Packer dealership,which closed a couple of years later
when he and his partner were drafted.
What is now Youngstown State Universitygrew out of a 19th century YMCA school.
In the thirties and forties, itbecame Youngstown College and severed.
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Its YMCA roots.
It was very local, a commuter school,financially supported by the president of
Youngstown Sheet and Tube among others,and prominent people were members of
its board, including JC Argetsinger.
It was the logical place forCameron to attend after the war
when he was married with children.
If he hoped to become a lawyer likehis father, Youngstown College would've
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given him the necessary undergraduatedegree without complicating his
life or perhaps taxing his mind.
Cameron's dream of racing on thestreets and roads of Watkins Glen
began about the time of his graduation.
He would spread magazines onthe living room floor to explore
different possible circuits.
Maybe with thoughts of theTarga Florio and the Vanderbilt
Cup swirling in his mind.
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Cars were a lifelong infatuationand Cameron's daily drivers
were Packards and Cadillacs.
He also owned an MGTC, an AllerJ two a Bugatti Type 35, a Healy
Silverstone, and a Mercedes 300 SL.
In 1970, when the Watkins Glen GrandPrix Corporation rejected by one
vote, his offer to buy the circuit.
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Cameron resigned as Executive director.
A post he'd held since 1955 replaced byMalcolm Curry, who had been press officer.
Argo Singer, soon left the corporation.
His son, Michael, writes thatHenry Valent pressured the board
to vote against the proposal.
Vol also falsely claimed that the racemight be removed from Watkins Glen.
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During the late twenties, theGrand Prix Corporation embarked
on projects to improve the track.
These included a 4,000 seat grandstand,expanding the pit lane facilities,
and enlarging the Kendall Tech Center.
After the vote to retain nonprofitownership, still more was done to
modernize the track at very great expense.
The circuit was lengthened bya mile and widened, and two
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new buildings were constructed.
About seven miles of armco.
Barriers were built close to the circuit.
This design later contributed totwo driver deaths in 73 and 74.
The GP driver's Association demanded thebarriers be moved back from the circuit,
but the improvement project had alreadybeen funded by a $3.5 million bond, plus
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the expense of another million dollars.
Today, these figures wouldtotal a debt of $36 million.
What was probably an early, slightlydesperate sign of financial problems
along with unpaid bills took placein July of 1973 when the track was
rented for a weekend rock concert.
Summer Jam.
Featuring big names like the bandsold 125,000 advanced tickets.
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Eventually, attendance doubledthe size of Woodstock to 600,000.
Traffic was backed up for scores ofmiles and services were overwhelmed.
Afterward, local people filed more than20 lawsuits against the corporation.
It's felt that summer jamdamaged the collaborative spirit
between track and village.
During this time, Bernie Ecclestone's,formula One Constructors Association
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flexed its muscle against the FIA overregulatory and commercial issues and
prize money awarded by organizers.
It was a tumultuous time in the sportthat put additional unprecedented
pressure on Watkins Glenn.
After he won the final F1 race at theGlen Alan Jones, who was also that year's
champion, said quote, sure the Glen is anice scenic track, but that doesn't mean
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we should have to live in the Stone Age.
Henry Valent admitted that the race failedto break even during its last four years.
Two accountants separately reviewedfinances and both concluded
that conventional accountingpractices had not been followed.
This led Cameron Ainger to remarkquote, why no one has blown the whistle
on this business Is hard to say.
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Adding that in his last year ofthe corporation, the race earned
a hundred thousand dollars profit.
Reflecting on the situation, I'minclined to sum it up by employing
two metaphors that I used last year.
For sporting gentlemen, the GrandPrix was like a traveling circus.
It came from far away places once ayear bringing exotic entertainment
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and displaying advanced technologies.
Often seen.
For the first time, therewas danger in the activities,
which were often death defying.
Its visit was briefed but exhilarating.
It had no local link exceptto the fairgrounds it paid
to use, and for the circus.
This was just another stop in a season oftravel facilitated by local organizers.
For villagers, the Grand Prix mayhave been more akin to a county
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fair, which is supremely local exceptfor the visiting amusement rides.
The fair is all about displays oflocal good natured competition, fruit
and vegetable canning, tractor poles,livestock breeding, and nostalgic
objects like old time farm implements.
The long local history of the fairitself is proudly evident at every turn
in posters, signage, and activities.
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Generations of local families participate.
But a circus is not a county fair, noris a fair a circus expecting one to be
the other is bound to provoke, clash.
The loss of the Grand Prix and thebankruptcy of the track had negative
consequences for individuals onboth sides of the local issue.
Henry Valent and Malcolm Curry raisedmoney by mortgaging their houses.
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Valent died barely a yearafter the track was sold at 67.
Curry was younger, buthe too lived only to 67.
After he left the corporation in1970, Cameron went to work for
Jim Hall on a project with gm.
He then served as SCCA Directorof Professional racing and
its executive director.
But in 1977, at age 56, he returned toWatkins Glenn to open a law practice.
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He died 31 years later.
Argo Singer's full-time auto racingemployment after leaving the track
was brief and he came home justin time to witness the corporation
begin its grim, slide into oblivion.
He must have felt a deep sense offrustration and disappointment.
It's hard to imagine that being asmall town attorney afforded inger the
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same satisfaction as running F1 races.
Michael Ettinger reports thatnear the end of Cameron's life, a
journalist asked if he regrettedthat NASCAR had replaced F1 nascar.
By the way, first raced here in 1977.
Well, true enough, but pretty bloodlessand maybe masking the passionate
feelings of a sporting gentleman.
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Racers like Cameron and VolunteerVillagers would surely agree that the
unique reward of hosting Formula Onetranscended mere commercial activity
from the mid seventies and after Fone's departure from the Glen until 2017
when Liberty Media bought the sport.
The US Grand Prix raced at seven Tracks.
All but Indianapolis and Austin weretemporary and they hosted the race
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from one to eight years, four times.
There were four US Grand Prix ina single season, only at Coda, a
new $300 million permanent track.
Did the race finally find somethinglike a. One reading of this is to
say that it was chaotic and revealsan uneven, maybe declining US.
Interest in Formula One, NASCAR andAmerican Open Wheel Racing were likely
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more popular then with network TVcoverage and Fortune 500 sponsorship.
You could almost say there was US GrandPrix racing before and after Watkins
Glenn, with neither comparing favorablywith the Glenn years until very recently.
This raises the intriguingquestion, what if Cameron
Argetsinger had bought the track?
There were public perplexity anddisgruntlement when the race was lost.
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Lenz and Curry's lives andmaybe reputations were damaged.
Cameron and Argo Singer's full-timeinvolvement in motor sports came to
an end three decades before his death.
None of these things might have occurred.
The next years of Formula One transformedthe sport, especially technologically
with respect to engines, aerodynamicsand safety TV coverage in the US was
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sporadic, but in retrospect, F1 wasmaturing alongside new media like cable
television that soon brought aboutthe mediatization of sports generally.
Finally, formula One became aglobe spanning business, so.
Could a successful USGP have influencedthese changes and made the sport
more attractive to North Americans.
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If the USGP took place at multiplevenues, there are now three.
Could Watkins Glen havebeen their owner or partner?
Might this have given the Glen a seatat the table or offered at a role in
sanctioning when Liberty bought the sport?
And conversely, would Watkins GlenInternational be a different enterprise?
Most of all, less dependent onNASCAR for big crowds and financing.
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And finally, in 1974, Cameron Argetsingerproposed a US Grand Prix race through
Central Park in New York City.
Think about that if only Thank you.
Thanks, Jim.
That was fascinating.
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I always liked Alan Jonesuntil I heard that comment.
Uh, stone Age.
Come on.
Uh, does anyone haveany questions for Jim?
I have a question about the relationshipbetween Mr. Valent and Mr. Argetsinger.
Was there a history of bad bloodthere, or why was he so opposed to
Cameron Argetsinger purchase offer?
So there's a great deal ofspeculation in this kind of analysis.
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It's difficult to find records,for example, where are the minutes
to the corporation meetings whereyou might have seen a disagreement?
One could say from what is on the recordand even some of what I proclaim today,
Valent was a very local guy who didvery well for himself and probably had
strong connections in the community.
Different from Cameron, who arguablydes descends from a family who had spent
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more than a century here, but was a kindof outsider and a and a privileged guy.
And there may have been somethingat the very, very personal level
that had nothing to do with.
And I guess I would wanna say that ifany of that is the case, I, I wanna
try to locate, locate it in this ideaof, of a sporting gentleman, which
I would say Cameron Arge Singer,the guys who initially set up road
racing, uh, shared, and then someonelike vit, smart, educated, but
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very local in, in a different way.
There's also probably a danger andover personalizing this kind of thing.
No, I just wanted to clarify the twoquotes that you attributed to Len.
In 11 years, he switched hispoint of view from private
being bad to private being good.
That's what you put up there, right?
I think I'd rather just letthis, those quotes stand alone.
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I mean, I, it was remarkable tosee that whatever was going on, I
mean, he just may have been veryfrustrated and angry at the end.
Full stop.
As far as you know, have there beenany clashes between sporting gentlemen
and local places elsewhere, or is thisa uniquely Watkins Glen phenomenon?
Well, what I might pursue next issomething called the Watkins Glen
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Effect, where there's a claim that.
In the fifties when road racingcame to America and tracks like
the three I mentioned, bridge,Hampton and Lime Rock and so forth.
They were sort of part of a largerphenomenon that the Glen had led
the way and there was a kind ofimitation and cross fertilization.
Now, would that mean there was a tension?
Well, bridge had doesn't exist anymore,and a lot of that is due to people
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hitting the noise and what have you.
You can't race on Sundays at Lime Rock.
So maybe this happened, but itwasn't fatal, and maybe that's the
case because the stakes weren'tas high as Formula One racing.
That's an intriguing question becauseif you claim to be doing a a case
study, well then a what and how aboutsome other examples to the previous
gentleman's point, I think Las Vegaswas actually a great example of that,
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where at one point they blocked theview of the course for the walkway.
So you're seeing sort of anurbanization where you're still
creating a, an us and them.
And so I guess my question would be withthe major circuits being in major cities,
how are we transitioning from this?
Small town, us and themto big city, us and them.
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I think what I'm trying todescribe was a different era.
Post Liberty Formula One issomething entirely different.
It's a media spectacle and thesecities are knocking Liberty's doors
down to have this opportunity forattention and moneymaking and, and
most of all, celebrity presence.
So it's sort of an apples and orangescomparison and maybe last year's.
Las Vegas race was kind ofteething problems as they figured
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out how to organize things.
The best.
The more interesting question aboutVegas is that there was one years ago
through a parking lot, I'm forgettingthe author's name, but it, it was heavily
inflicted with or assisted by the mafia.
You know, so that would be moreinteresting Vegas then and now.
Yeah.
You had brought up the possibilityof proper accounting methods
(30:32):
weren't used in those final years.
How did that play out in the town when,I have to think that just brought in
suspicion of theft and questionableuse of, of proceeds and monies.
I think, again, there's a problem withlack of records and when I've talked with
people, they would say things like, well.
(30:52):
Sale of tickets was always pretty casual.
There was even someone suggestedthere might have been phony tickets,
you know, produced and sold.
I think in a, in a way, maybesome of this has to do with a
conception of this whole enterprise.
It's just a bunch of friends whoget together and do things that
are good for the local people.
And was there criminal activity?
I don't know.
(31:13):
The lack of records isreally a, a difficult hurdle.
And maybe in the end it doesn't matter.
'cause the effect would,would be the same.
Would anyone like to challenge thesort of argument that I've laid out?
Okay.
I'm not gonna challenge, but as thenew archivist at the International
Motor Racing Research Center,we're gonna get you those records.
That's, that's a promise.
(31:35):
It sounds like you've justarrived the other day, right?
Dusty boxes of.
Okay.
I'm old enough.
I was at one of the original LasVegas gr pri in the, uh, parking lot.
Did somebody else have a question?
Did I step on somebody else there?
I just had a comment.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yes.
Lynn, I'm gonna challenge youGood when I make my presentation.
(31:56):
Oh, good.
Good.
Ooh, stick around for that.
Yeah, I was actually going outfor lunch during that time.
Uh, I just wanna say that that'sthe nature of this kind of work.
None of us claims to havethe truth, you know, it's a
conversation that doesn't stop.
So thank you.
I, I would be honored.
All I can say is somebody oldenough to have attended a lot
(32:17):
of those Grand Prix up on here.
It was just a magnificent time of year.
We geared up for it.
It was great.
Vegas, the first Caesars Palace Grand Prixwas really corny and fake and ridiculous.
I was at Long Beach when theywere still running Grand Prix
cars, and that was pretty cool.
I liked Mosport a lot too, but thiswas still not to sound like the old
guy telling people to get off my grass.
This is really the rightful homeof the US Grand Prix, and that was
(32:40):
a fascinating presentation, Jim.
So thank you again very much.
Well, I can't, since you've mentioned oldguys getting nostalgic, I can't resist
the reference to weather everything youread about the Glen, you know it's in
the fall and the leaves are turning.
I came here one year and it's snow.
Thank.
(33:07):
This episode is brought to youin part by the International
Motor Racing Research Center.
Its charter is to collect, share, andpreserve the history of motor sports.
Spanning Continents,eras, and race series.
The Center's collection embodiesthe speed, drama and camaraderie
of amateur and professional motorracing throughout the world.
(33:31):
The center welcomes seriousresearchers and casual fans alike
to share stories of race drivers.
Race series and race cars captured ontheir shelves and walls and brought
to life through a regular calendar ofpublic lectures and special events.
To learn more about the center,visit www.racing archives.org.
(33:54):
This episode is also brought to you bythe Society of Automotive Historians.
They encourage research into anyaspect of automotive history.
The SAH actively supports the compilationand preservation of papers, organizational
records, print ephemera, and images tosafeguard, as well as to broaden and
(34:17):
deepen the understanding of motorizedwheeled land transportation through
the modern age and into the future.
For more information about theSAH, visit www.auto history.org.
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(34:38):
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Society of Automotive Historians,the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of
Commerce, and the Argo Singer Family
Formula one at Watkins GlenSporting Gentleman in a small
(00:20):
town by Dr. James Miller.
When James Miller attended F1 races atthe Glen during the 1970s, it was for fun.
Now they have become the focus ofsocial and historical analysis.
In fact, the 20 years of FormulaOne at Watkins Glen from 1961
to 1980 are worthy of subject.
They afford a case study of thetransitional racing era between the
(00:41):
near amateurism of the 1950s and theincreasingly commercial globalizing
periods that followed most especiallyFormula One at Watkins Glen is anomalous.
How do you explain a Finger Lakesvillage hosting the mostly European
pinnacle of Motorsport and beremembered by Jackie Stewart as
the most nostalgic US Grand Prix?
That Formula One ever had?
One answer is the unusual collaborationbetween Patricia Enthusiasts,
(01:05):
community leaders and the volunteerspirit of a small town, an effort
that began in 1948 with the firstrace through local streets and roads.
Dr. James Miller is a professoremeritus of communications at Hampshire
College, and a former member of thegraduate faculty at UMass Amherst, a
senior researcher at the I-M-R-R-C.
He's a member of the InternationalMotor Press Association.
(01:26):
Our next presenter is JamesMiller, who's gonna be talking
about Formula One, a Watkins GlenSporting gentleman in a small town.
The 20 year history of the USGrand Prix at Watkins Glen was
bookended by two dramatic events.
The first was the approval in August of 61for the event to take place, leaving only
six weeks before the October race date.
(01:48):
The second occurred in the springof 1981 when Formula One at the
Glen was removed from the racingcalendar due to its inability to pay
participants from the previous race.
A year later, the track wassold at a bankruptcy auction.
Over time, it became clear that whatmade both the first race possible and the
apparently sudden demise inexplicable,was the remarkable collaboration between
(02:13):
organizers and Glen residents, localcivic leaders and racers found common
cause with villagers of all sorts.
To bring about an annual internationalextravaganza that drew hundreds
of thousands of spectators to whatremains the longest running venue
of Formula One Grand Prix racing.
In the US three times, formulaOne drivers voted the Glen the
(02:36):
best organized race of a season.
It was cooperation betweenthese two distinct groups.
Organizers and local residentsthat made it all possible.
The truth of this familiar claim isnot denied by adding a paradoxical
complication that in the end, thegroup's differences were stronger
than their shared interests.
This may have been discoveredonly too late, and that's
(02:58):
what I'd like to argue today.
In 1969, camera and Argetsingerproposed to the Watkins Glen
Grand Prix Corporation that he andprivate investors buy the track.
In order to finance the continuingimprovements necessary to hold Grand
Prix racing, his proposal was rejectedand Argo Singer left the organization.
(03:19):
This, it turned out was thebeginning of the end, even though
a full decade of racing remained.
My view is that Argo Singer and hisallies understood road racing in general.
And the Grand Prix in particular, in waysultimately at odds with local members of
the corporation and maybe some villagers.
I'm going to label these twogroups, sporting gentlemen
and residents of a small town.
(03:41):
My point is not to assign blame,but to offer an explanation that
goes beyond mere finances for whatmany of us see as a tragic outcome.
Sporting gentlemen brought anorientation to road racing that had
relatively little to do with thegeographic location of a circuit or
its benefits to a local community.
They were primarily about masculinecompetition in the context of
(04:05):
highly ritualized upper class games.
With serious but amateur traditions.
These were learned in prep schools,private colleges, and Ivy League
universities and yacht clubs andcountry clubs, and in sports like
golf, dressage, sailing, and the like.
They were cosmopolitans attracted to theinvolvement of European cars and drivers.
(04:26):
In American racing, many possessedthe business savvy of wealthy people
and had a feel for both the scale ofcapitalization and political skills
required to pursue road racing.
Early road racing circuits werenecessarily located in the rural
countryside, of course, but werenearly always near metropolitan areas.
Where sporting gentlemenlived Lime Rock in 56.
(04:49):
Well, that's New York Bridge, Hampton57, the other side of New York City
and Elkhart Lake 59 in Chicago.
Small town people were less likelyto be racers were, by definition
rooted in their village, happy tovolunteer their efforts that in turn
produced benefits for the community.
Maybe they were possessive about keepingthe Grand Prix synonymous with the people
(05:11):
of Watkins Glen through maintaining whatthey saw as local control of the event.
Here's how I'll try to make my case.
First, the small town.
This will necessarily be a broadbrush treatment of the American small
town, especially in the second halfof the 20th century with reference
to the Glenn and a few key localorganizers of different sorts.
Next, a presentation of sociologists,Digby bolt sells sporting gentleman
(05:36):
notion, and three organizer racerbiographies that I think illustrated.
Third, a two brief account of thefatal collision between sporting
gentleman's sensibility and small townattitude that ultimately brought an
end to Formula One at Watkins Glen.
And lastly, some counterfactual.
Historical fun, focusing on cameraand aring, and the recent development
(05:59):
of Formula One Grand Prix Racing.
The American small town has adouble identity, one mythical
and the other historical.
The first is profoundly nostalgic,a celebration of an idealized past.
The other is more complicated.
One historical fact is at the turn ofthe 20th century, about three quarters
of Americans lived in small towns.
Perhaps out of this widespread experience.
(06:21):
Grew an outside imaginary significance.
In fact, a study in the twenties andthirties, fiction in widely circulating
magazines found that farms and smalltowns were depicted as enjoying a way of
life whose essential goodness contrastedwith the evils lurking in big cities.
But as early as the 1880s.
There was concern for the future ofsmall towns that were bypassed by
(06:44):
commercial roots or emerging industries.
And around the time of those magazinestories, the census reported that for
the first time, city dwellers constitutedthe majority of the US population,
especially during the post-war period.
The rural small town was under existentialthreat, industrialized agriculture
transformation into bedroom communities.
(07:06):
Outmigration in searchof better opportunities.
Greatest population loss occurred fromthe thirties through the seventies.
One estimate is that between 1950 and1970 towns the size of the Glen lost one
third of their local retail businesses.
In the early fifties, one of the mostimportant American community studies
(07:27):
took place nearby in the wonderfullynamed Small Town of Candor, New York.
Arthur Viic and Joseph Besman describeda kind of collective delusion that candor
was actually the master of its own fate.
They also revealed a shared illusionof democracy when actually a limited
number of influential citizens calledthe shots, and when church members
(07:48):
organized most of the town's public life.
They termed the crisis of the smalltown modernization, by which they
meant an often unwelcome intrusionof outside influences that were
imposing new ways of living.
These inescapable authoritiesran the gamut from radio and TV
to national retailers to statelevel offices of education.
(08:09):
Watkins Glen would not have been immunefrom these unsettling dynamics around
the time that road racing arrived.
Part of racing's allure all the waythrough the F1 years was surely a
manageable antidote to forces thatthreatened a deeply established,
rewarding small town way of life.
Watkins, as it was long called.
Shares the features of manyother small rural towns of
(08:32):
upstate New York for decades.
However, schooner and steamferry boats crisscrossed Seneca
Lake, facilitating local traveland trade and bringing visitors.
By the end of the 19th century, theboats had been replaced largely by the
railroad, which then brought internationalguests to the curative waters of the very
grand Glen Spring sanatorium and hotel.
(08:54):
Next door to its 300 acres.
New York established a state park in 1906.
Its centerpiece is a 400 foot deep gorge.
That, along with a score ofwaterfalls, was given pride of place
when the town literally changed itsname in the 1920s to Watkins Glen.
During the Grand Prix years, theGlen's population was less than
(09:14):
3000, except for the unusualproduction of salt from brine wells.
The local economy depended ontourism, agriculture, and retail.
The first bank was builtin 1922, the first cinema.
Two years later, the municipal building,A New Deal project housed the fire
and police departments and the mayor'soffice, the court, and also the library.
(09:37):
Another depression area interventionwas the Civilian Conservation
Corps, which established severallocal camps where young men work to
improve the state park, making itmore accessible and more beautiful.
Jean Argetsinger in her history ofthe local Catholic church says that
the Erie Canal and the local Mongcanal, and later the railroads brought
(09:58):
waves of immigrants to the Glen towork as loaders of coal barges, stone
masons, farmers, and at the hotel jobs.
First the Irish, and then in largernumbers, Italians joined the descendants
of the early British settlers.
The primacy of tourism, a seasonaleconomy that encouraged openness to
visitors was threatened when the luxuriousGlen Springs founded in 1890, closed
(10:22):
its doors during a war after Cornellbriefly housed GI Bill students there.
It became a Catholic seminaryin high school for 20 years
and then was abandoned.
Perhaps the loss of the resortwas an incentive to try to extend
tourism into the autumn, whichwas a rationale for October road
racing and, and later Formula One.
During the fifties and sixties,regional tourism promotion
(10:44):
became an organized effort usingFinger Lakes to brand the area.
It emphasized boating and camping andstressed the ease of transportation
afforded by the new interstatehighways, Cornell University,
even established and Office ofRegional Resources and Development.
Here are biographical sketches offive men with different sorts of local
(11:06):
identities who were involved in racing.
Donald Brubaker brought hisfive children to the Glen in
the forties to start a new life.
After the death of his wife, he hadconnections here, new Yorker cartoonist,
Sam Cobe, a friend of Cameron Argetsinger,who lived in the village was his cousin.
Brubaker was a graduate ofPenn's Law School, but he became
(11:27):
proprietor of the Seneca Lodge,whose food he grew organically.
The lodge was famous forhousing, F1 teams, and its
raucous post-war celebration.
Active in promoting local tourism.
Brubaker became presidentof the Chamber of Commerce.
Malcolm Curry came to the Glen fromMassachusetts and with a partner
bought local newspapers beginning in1951, which they published until 1987.
(11:51):
He later succeeded Argetsingeras executive director of
the Grand Prix Corpor.
Henry Valent was the son of Italianimmigrants and a native of the Glen.
He graduated from Cornell andits law school later establishing
his own practice in town.
He was co-owner of the local AM and FMradio stations and like other leaders, he
was active in a number of organizationsfrom the Chamber of Commerce to the
(12:15):
Board of Education and the area hospital.
Liston Kuhn was born in arural hamlet near the Glen.
His father was a farmer and malecarrier and his mother, a teacher.
After a short period following the warteaching school, he attended Cornell's law
school and he practiced law in the Glen.
Later he was elected district attorneyand county judge, and served for
(12:37):
decades in the Air Force Reserve andwas active in the county Republican
party and other organizations.
Joe Fran's parents wereItalian immigrants.
He and his wife Helen, built touristcabins during the late thirties
on the family farm along the lake.
After the war, they establishedthe Glen Motor Inn, which featured
40 rooms or restaurant and a pool.
(12:58):
It became a storied lodging placefor Grand Prix teams and operated
until just a couple of years ago.
They donated land thatbecame the local golf course.
Where Joe taught Formula One drivers howto play the game, he too was president of
the chamber and their son Vic was himselfa racer and a racing team owner, sporting
gentlemen, is Digby Bolt sells term forthe tradition of gentleman amateurs, upper
(13:22):
class Protestants, mostly who followedconduct imported from aristocratic
England at its core is the idea that gamesdemanded loyalty, self-discipline, and
a sense of command and accomplishment.
Their code of conduct stress quote,winning is less important than
playing hard and fairly in the states.
The newly formed national upper classof the 19th century steel and railroad
(13:46):
economy imbued these values in its sonsby means of Episcopal boarding schools in
New England and the originally Calvinistcolleges of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
So to say, sporting and gentlemen,implies social position.
Competitive, but rule abating,masculinity, a deeply socialized
sense of how to play well, certainvalued games, and a shared sense of
(14:09):
camaraderie among the select few.
Both cell even suggests thatunderpinning this orientation is the
unstated view that sporting gentlemenpossess the natural fitness to rule.
Three biographies of sportinggentlemen capture its varieties.
The closing weeks of the 19 39 40New York World's Fair featured a
race of 18, mostly European sportscars, over a seven 10th mile circuit
(14:33):
between the exhibition buildings.
The winner who averaged 35 miles anhour was 26-year-old Frank Griswold Jr.
Months before he owned a car that ranin the Indy 500, and in 1948, Griswold
won the first road race at Watkins Glen.
He ran a machine shop outsidePhiladelphia and became the North
American importer for Alpha Romeo WeberCarburetors and Nty Steering wheels.
(14:58):
Frank Griswold Jr. Grew up onthe family's 34 acre estate
on Philadelphia's main line.
In Harvard's class of 18 94,20 fifth anniversary report.
His father identified himself asa retired banker and broker, and
his club as the Racket Club, whichtoday says, quote, continues to
be one of the most prestigiousprivate city clubs in North America.
(15:21):
Griswold's parents and grandparentsappeared in the 1917 social register.
They were said to season in Bar Harborand Newport of Palm Beach and in Europe.
Finally, it seems likely that theextensive Wikipedia entry for the Griswold
family refers to Frank's relatives whofirst arrived from England in 1639.
(15:43):
William Milliken Jr. Was born in1911 in Old Town Maine, a town known
for canoe building and paper making.
He and his buddies entertainedthemselves by constructing various kinds
of vehicles, including an airplane.
Milliken's academic performance atthe neighboring University of Maine.
Persuaded his parents to findmoney for two years at MIT, where
(16:03):
he in 1934, earned a degree inaeronautical engineering and math.
His long life.
He lived to 101 was filledwith remarkable achievements.
His work for Boeing carryingout high altitude test flights
led to flight dynamic researchat Cornell's lab in Buffalo.
This soon expanded to researchwith GM on automobile control
(16:24):
dynamics and passive safety.
Two of his books on race cardynamics and chassis design are
considered classic references.
Milliken was an earlyofficial at the SECA.
With Cornell colleagues, he designedthe Glenn's first permanent track
and he served as chief stewardat the Grand Prix races competing
in more than 100 road races.
(16:45):
Included campaigning a 1932four-wheel drive Miller at Pikes Peak.
Carl Luson named him Mr.
Supernatural.
Cameron Azinger was born in1921 in Youngstown, Ohio.
His father, James Cameron, or jc,the first became general counsel
and vice president of the SteelCompany, Youngstown Sheet and Tube.
(17:09):
He was born and raised near WatkinsGlen where his parents had established
a farm in the late 19th century.
Cameron was the only child of wealthycivically engaged parents, both of
whom graduated from Cornell, wherehis father also attended law school.
JC collected cars andown a number of packers.
He taught Cameron at age 12 to drivethe country roads around the glen, where
(17:32):
they had a summer place on the lake.
Shortly before his 20th birthday,Cameron became co-owner of a
Youngstown area Packer dealership,which closed a couple of years later
when he and his partner were drafted.
What is now Youngstown State Universitygrew out of a 19th century YMCA school.
In the thirties and forties, itbecame Youngstown College and severed.
(17:53):
Its YMCA roots.
It was very local, a commuter school,financially supported by the president of
Youngstown Sheet and Tube among others,and prominent people were members of
its board, including JC Argetsinger.
It was the logical place forCameron to attend after the war
when he was married with children.
If he hoped to become a lawyer likehis father, Youngstown College would've
(18:16):
given him the necessary undergraduatedegree without complicating his
life or perhaps taxing his mind.
Cameron's dream of racing on thestreets and roads of Watkins Glen
began about the time of his graduation.
He would spread magazines onthe living room floor to explore
different possible circuits.
Maybe with thoughts of theTarga Florio and the Vanderbilt
Cup swirling in his mind.
(18:38):
Cars were a lifelong infatuationand Cameron's daily drivers
were Packards and Cadillacs.
He also owned an MGTC, an AllerJ two a Bugatti Type 35, a Healy
Silverstone, and a Mercedes 300 SL.
In 1970, when the Watkins Glen GrandPrix Corporation rejected by one
vote, his offer to buy the circuit.
(19:00):
Cameron resigned as Executive director.
A post he'd held since 1955 replaced byMalcolm Curry, who had been press officer.
Argo Singer, soon left the corporation.
His son, Michael, writes thatHenry Valent pressured the board
to vote against the proposal.
Vol also falsely claimed that the racemight be removed from Watkins Glen.
(19:21):
During the late twenties, theGrand Prix Corporation embarked
on projects to improve the track.
These included a 4,000 seat grandstand,expanding the pit lane facilities,
and enlarging the Kendall Tech Center.
After the vote to retain nonprofitownership, still more was done to
modernize the track at very great expense.
The circuit was lengthened bya mile and widened, and two
(19:43):
new buildings were constructed.
About seven miles of armco.
Barriers were built close to the circuit.
This design later contributed totwo driver deaths in 73 and 74.
The GP driver's Association demanded thebarriers be moved back from the circuit,
but the improvement project had alreadybeen funded by a $3.5 million bond, plus
(20:04):
the expense of another million dollars.
Today, these figures wouldtotal a debt of $36 million.
What was probably an early, slightlydesperate sign of financial problems
along with unpaid bills took placein July of 1973 when the track was
rented for a weekend rock concert.
Summer Jam.
Featuring big names like the bandsold 125,000 advanced tickets.
(20:29):
Eventually, attendance doubledthe size of Woodstock to 600,000.
Traffic was backed up for scores ofmiles and services were overwhelmed.
Afterward, local people filed more than20 lawsuits against the corporation.
It's felt that summer jamdamaged the collaborative spirit
between track and village.
During this time, Bernie Ecclestone's,formula One Constructors Association
(20:51):
flexed its muscle against the FIA overregulatory and commercial issues and
prize money awarded by organizers.
It was a tumultuous time in the sportthat put additional unprecedented
pressure on Watkins Glenn.
After he won the final F1 race at theGlen Alan Jones, who was also that year's
champion, said quote, sure the Glen is anice scenic track, but that doesn't mean
(21:13):
we should have to live in the Stone Age.
Henry Valent admitted that the race failedto break even during its last four years.
Two accountants separately reviewedfinances and both concluded
that conventional accountingpractices had not been followed.
This led Cameron Ainger to remarkquote, why no one has blown the whistle
on this business Is hard to say.
(21:35):
Adding that in his last year ofthe corporation, the race earned
a hundred thousand dollars profit.
Reflecting on the situation, I'minclined to sum it up by employing
two metaphors that I used last year.
For sporting gentlemen, the GrandPrix was like a traveling circus.
It came from far away places once ayear bringing exotic entertainment
(21:55):
and displaying advanced technologies.
Often seen.
For the first time, therewas danger in the activities,
which were often death defying.
Its visit was briefed but exhilarating.
It had no local link exceptto the fairgrounds it paid
to use, and for the circus.
This was just another stop in a season oftravel facilitated by local organizers.
For villagers, the Grand Prix mayhave been more akin to a county
(22:18):
fair, which is supremely local exceptfor the visiting amusement rides.
The fair is all about displays oflocal good natured competition, fruit
and vegetable canning, tractor poles,livestock breeding, and nostalgic
objects like old time farm implements.
The long local history of the fairitself is proudly evident at every turn
in posters, signage, and activities.
(22:40):
Generations of local families participate.
But a circus is not a county fair, noris a fair a circus expecting one to be
the other is bound to provoke, clash.
The loss of the Grand Prix and thebankruptcy of the track had negative
consequences for individuals onboth sides of the local issue.
Henry Valent and Malcolm Curry raisedmoney by mortgaging their houses.
(23:03):
Valent died barely a yearafter the track was sold at 67.
Curry was younger, buthe too lived only to 67.
After he left the corporation in1970, Cameron went to work for
Jim Hall on a project with gm.
He then served as SCCA Directorof Professional racing and
its executive director.
But in 1977, at age 56, he returned toWatkins Glenn to open a law practice.
(23:28):
He died 31 years later.
Argo Singer's full-time auto racingemployment after leaving the track
was brief and he came home justin time to witness the corporation
begin its grim, slide into oblivion.
He must have felt a deep sense offrustration and disappointment.
It's hard to imagine that being asmall town attorney afforded inger the
(23:49):
same satisfaction as running F1 races.
Michael Ettinger reports thatnear the end of Cameron's life, a
journalist asked if he regrettedthat NASCAR had replaced F1 nascar.
By the way, first raced here in 1977.
Well, true enough, but pretty bloodlessand maybe masking the passionate
feelings of a sporting gentleman.
(24:10):
Racers like Cameron and VolunteerVillagers would surely agree that the
unique reward of hosting Formula Onetranscended mere commercial activity
from the mid seventies and after Fone's departure from the Glen until 2017
when Liberty Media bought the sport.
The US Grand Prix raced at seven Tracks.
All but Indianapolis and Austin weretemporary and they hosted the race
(24:32):
from one to eight years, four times.
There were four US Grand Prix ina single season, only at Coda, a
new $300 million permanent track.
Did the race finally find somethinglike a. One reading of this is to
say that it was chaotic and revealsan uneven, maybe declining US.
Interest in Formula One, NASCAR andAmerican Open Wheel Racing were likely
(24:54):
more popular then with network TVcoverage and Fortune 500 sponsorship.
You could almost say there was US GrandPrix racing before and after Watkins
Glenn, with neither comparing favorablywith the Glenn years until very recently.
This raises the intriguingquestion, what if Cameron
Argetsinger had bought the track?
There were public perplexity anddisgruntlement when the race was lost.
(25:19):
Lenz and Curry's lives andmaybe reputations were damaged.
Cameron and Argo Singer's full-timeinvolvement in motor sports came to
an end three decades before his death.
None of these things might have occurred.
The next years of Formula One transformedthe sport, especially technologically
with respect to engines, aerodynamicsand safety TV coverage in the US was
(25:41):
sporadic, but in retrospect, F1 wasmaturing alongside new media like cable
television that soon brought aboutthe mediatization of sports generally.
Finally, formula One became aglobe spanning business, so.
Could a successful USGP have influencedthese changes and made the sport
more attractive to North Americans.
(26:03):
If the USGP took place at multiplevenues, there are now three.
Could Watkins Glen havebeen their owner or partner?
Might this have given the Glen a seatat the table or offered at a role in
sanctioning when Liberty bought the sport?
And conversely, would Watkins GlenInternational be a different enterprise?
Most of all, less dependent onNASCAR for big crowds and financing.
(26:25):
And finally, in 1974, Cameron Argetsingerproposed a US Grand Prix race through
Central Park in New York City.
Think about that if only Thank you.
Thanks, Jim.
That was fascinating.
(26:46):
I always liked Alan Jonesuntil I heard that comment.
Uh, stone Age.
Come on.
Uh, does anyone haveany questions for Jim?
I have a question about the relationshipbetween Mr. Valent and Mr. Argetsinger.
Was there a history of bad bloodthere, or why was he so opposed to
Cameron Argetsinger purchase offer?
So there's a great deal ofspeculation in this kind of analysis.
(27:09):
It's difficult to find records,for example, where are the minutes
to the corporation meetings whereyou might have seen a disagreement?
One could say from what is on the recordand even some of what I proclaim today,
Valent was a very local guy who didvery well for himself and probably had
strong connections in the community.
Different from Cameron, who arguablydes descends from a family who had spent
(27:33):
more than a century here, but was a kindof outsider and a and a privileged guy.
And there may have been somethingat the very, very personal level
that had nothing to do with.
And I guess I would wanna say that ifany of that is the case, I, I wanna
try to locate, locate it in this ideaof, of a sporting gentleman, which
I would say Cameron Arge Singer,the guys who initially set up road
racing, uh, shared, and then someonelike vit, smart, educated, but
(27:58):
very local in, in a different way.
There's also probably a danger andover personalizing this kind of thing.
No, I just wanted to clarify the twoquotes that you attributed to Len.
In 11 years, he switched hispoint of view from private
being bad to private being good.
That's what you put up there, right?
I think I'd rather just letthis, those quotes stand alone.
(28:19):
I mean, I, it was remarkable tosee that whatever was going on, I
mean, he just may have been veryfrustrated and angry at the end.
Full stop.
As far as you know, have there beenany clashes between sporting gentlemen
and local places elsewhere, or is thisa uniquely Watkins Glen phenomenon?
Well, what I might pursue next issomething called the Watkins Glen
(28:42):
Effect, where there's a claim that.
In the fifties when road racingcame to America and tracks like
the three I mentioned, bridge,Hampton and Lime Rock and so forth.
They were sort of part of a largerphenomenon that the Glen had led
the way and there was a kind ofimitation and cross fertilization.
Now, would that mean there was a tension?
Well, bridge had doesn't exist anymore,and a lot of that is due to people
(29:05):
hitting the noise and what have you.
You can't race on Sundays at Lime Rock.
So maybe this happened, but itwasn't fatal, and maybe that's the
case because the stakes weren'tas high as Formula One racing.
That's an intriguing question becauseif you claim to be doing a a case
study, well then a what and how aboutsome other examples to the previous
gentleman's point, I think Las Vegaswas actually a great example of that,
(29:27):
where at one point they blocked theview of the course for the walkway.
So you're seeing sort of anurbanization where you're still
creating a, an us and them.
And so I guess my question would be withthe major circuits being in major cities,
how are we transitioning from this?
Small town, us and themto big city, us and them.
(29:48):
I think what I'm trying todescribe was a different era.
Post Liberty Formula One issomething entirely different.
It's a media spectacle and thesecities are knocking Liberty's doors
down to have this opportunity forattention and moneymaking and, and
most of all, celebrity presence.
So it's sort of an apples and orangescomparison and maybe last year's.
Las Vegas race was kind ofteething problems as they figured
(30:11):
out how to organize things.
The best.
The more interesting question aboutVegas is that there was one years ago
through a parking lot, I'm forgettingthe author's name, but it, it was heavily
inflicted with or assisted by the mafia.
You know, so that would be moreinteresting Vegas then and now.
Yeah.
You had brought up the possibilityof proper accounting methods
(30:32):
weren't used in those final years.
How did that play out in the town when,I have to think that just brought in
suspicion of theft and questionableuse of, of proceeds and monies.
I think, again, there's a problem withlack of records and when I've talked with
people, they would say things like, well.
(30:52):
Sale of tickets was always pretty casual.
There was even someone suggestedthere might have been phony tickets,
you know, produced and sold.
I think in a, in a way, maybesome of this has to do with a
conception of this whole enterprise.
It's just a bunch of friends whoget together and do things that
are good for the local people.
And was there criminal activity?
I don't know.
(31:13):
The lack of records isreally a, a difficult hurdle.
And maybe in the end it doesn't matter.
'cause the effect would,would be the same.
Would anyone like to challenge thesort of argument that I've laid out?
Okay.
I'm not gonna challenge, but as thenew archivist at the International
Motor Racing Research Center,we're gonna get you those records.
That's, that's a promise.
(31:35):
It sounds like you've justarrived the other day, right?
Dusty boxes of.
Okay.
I'm old enough.
I was at one of the original LasVegas gr pri in the, uh, parking lot.
Did somebody else have a question?
Did I step on somebody else there?
I just had a comment.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yes.
Lynn, I'm gonna challenge youGood when I make my presentation.
(31:56):
Oh, good.
Good.
Ooh, stick around for that.
Yeah, I was actually going outfor lunch during that time.
Uh, I just wanna say that that'sthe nature of this kind of work.
None of us claims to havethe truth, you know, it's a
conversation that doesn't stop.
So thank you.
I, I would be honored.
All I can say is somebody oldenough to have attended a lot
(32:17):
of those Grand Prix up on here.
It was just a magnificent time of year.
We geared up for it.
It was great.
Vegas, the first Caesars Palace Grand Prixwas really corny and fake and ridiculous.
I was at Long Beach when theywere still running Grand Prix
cars, and that was pretty cool.
I liked Mosport a lot too, but thiswas still not to sound like the old
guy telling people to get off my grass.
This is really the rightful homeof the US Grand Prix, and that was
(32:40):
a fascinating presentation, Jim.
So thank you again very much.
Well, I can't, since you've mentioned oldguys getting nostalgic, I can't resist
the reference to weather everything youread about the Glen, you know it's in
the fall and the leaves are turning.
I came here one year and it's snow.
Thank.
(33:07):
This episode is brought to youin part by the International
Motor Racing Research Center.
Its charter is to collect, share, andpreserve the history of motor sports.
Spanning Continents,eras, and race series.
The Center's collection embodiesthe speed, drama and camaraderie
of amateur and professional motorracing throughout the world.
(33:31):
The center welcomes seriousresearchers and casual fans alike
to share stories of race drivers.
Race series and race cars captured ontheir shelves and walls and brought
to life through a regular calendar ofpublic lectures and special events.
To learn more about the center,visit www.racing archives.org.
(33:54):
This episode is also brought to you bythe Society of Automotive Historians.
They encourage research into anyaspect of automotive history.
The SAH actively supports the compilationand preservation of papers, organizational
records, print ephemera, and images tosafeguard, as well as to broaden and
(34:17):
deepen the understanding of motorizedwheeled land transportation through
the modern age and into the future.
For more information about theSAH, visit www.auto history.org.
We hope you enjoyed another awesomeepisode of Break Fix Podcasts, brought
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to you by Grand Tour Motorsports.
If you'd like to be a guest onthe show or get involved, be sure
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