My Mom A Formula 1 Driver?
It was loud and Clear! All we heard was "Start Your Engines"... issue # 74
ifOnlyi…hadn’t been running late on April 8th, 1979. Mom was driving me, and if the guys giving directions to our parking spot hadn’t sent us the wrong way, the race would have started on time.
The 1979 Long Beach, California, Formula One Race was coming up, and that always garnered a lot of excitement in our Family.
We had annual tickets for the race back when it was a street race, not on tracks. This was the third year we had been going each year.
You may have read in my early issues that my Mom used to race cars as a hobby. She even traded cars with James Dean one weekend to use his.
But this was Sunday, and we were running a few minutes behind.
We had special passes that allowed us to park the car next to the building where we would be watching the races. It was a retirement home, I believe, about 30 stories tall, and on the top floor was a restaurant from which we could see the best parts of the race.
On the way to the event, Mom was pushing it, driving fast to get there on time for the start of the race and to meet her friends.
Once we got to the parking area, there were a lot of orange cones and guys waving us this way and that, helping us find an open spot outside. But Mom missed the turn, went through the wrong gates, and made a right.
She didn’t know it was wrong until we felt the massive vibrations of the revving engines under our seats. She just kept on driving, as if maybe this was a new entrance they sent her to.
You could see a bit of worry on her face about where all the cars were parking. The noise got louder and louder as we approached the back end of the car line-up. OMG!
Mom panicked in a small way. She was way too cool, calm, and collected to fully panic. As she kept driving, she saw—we saw—thousands of hands waving, and it was getting exciting. The race was about to start, or was it?
The waving was at us. The Yelling was at us! “GET OFF….. GET OFF!” Suddenly, it clicked, wholly shit, we were on the track, and YES, the race was being held up because of us on the track.
So Mom being Mom, whipped a 180 in her Cadillac Coupe de Ville and hauled butt back through the gate. The gate slammed shut, and the drivers were off.
It was that quick!
We missed seeing the start because we were already there. The rest of the day went off so well. We all ate from the buffet, and then the belly dancer came at the end of the race with most of the drivers and their wives, girlfriends, or mistresses… Not only did I get to shake hands with the drivers, but I also got a free Belly Dance.
Ferrari came 1st & 2nd. What a day, what a race.
Sadly, the F1 would soon be gone from Long Beach forever. Many years later, they introduced Grand Prix street racing cars, and it was undoubtedly a larger event, but not the same as Formula 1. At Least I saw three F1 races there, and later most of the Grand Prix events.
#…ifOnlyi… short stories are published chronologically and follow my life growing up in California from 4 years old. If you’ve just found me, the stories will come together when you start reading from...Issue #1