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From
Bugatti to Bougainvillea: SEPTEMBER
2000 Sutherland became interested in European cars at an early age. He was a longtime vintage racecar enthusiast and driver who is credited for founding the Colorado Grand - a rally modeled after the Mille Miglias in Italy - and for designing the Maxton, an automobile which he produced with the help of Michael Mate, a technical illustrator turned vintage auto artist, in the mid 1980s. He also collected vintage racecars. His collection, estimated to be worth five million dollars, included some of the most significant pre-war American and European racing cars. On August 20, The Christy's International Motor Cars division of Christy's auction at the Pebble Beach Equestrian Center in Pebble Beach, Calif. auctioned off thirteen of his collection of vintage race cars. Among the cars auctioned off was a 1932 Maserati 8C 3000, which is an ex-Fagioli, Campari, and Borzacchini French Grand Prix winner, and one of only three of its kind remaining in the world today. Sutherland raced it in the Colorado Grand and the Mille Miglias. The collection also includes a 1948 Maserati. Also auctioned off, was a 1948 4CLT/48, a single seat racing car. Sutherland had four Miller Indianapolis racing cars from the Harry Miller dynasty in his collection. The Majestic Special, used by Sutherland to win the Pebble Beach Cup; the 1924 Miller 122, which was once part of the Anthony Bamford Collection in the United Kingdom and is regarded by many to be one of the most original Millers in existence; the TNT Special; and the 1934 Miller V8 Novi. The collection included three Ettore Bugattis: the Type 51 Atlantique Aerodynamic Coupe; the Type 32 Tank Replica, which is an exact copy of Bugatti's early racing GP sensations; and the Type 23/13, a short chassis Brescia model. Post-war racing machinery in the collection include the 1970/71 Tyrrell Formula 1, 1948 Bowes Seal Fast Special, Lotus 23B and Lotus 12 F3. Bob Sutherland Jr., Robert D. Sutherland's son who now takes an active role in the family-owned lumber business, doesn't share quite as strong of a love for vintage racing cars as his father. Thirty-three years old, with a young family, he doesn't have the time to become involved in vintage racing, but still, putting the cars on the auction block isn't easy. He'll keep one of his father's cars for himself, a 1968 Jaguar, which he wants for a keepsake; the rest will go to the lucky highest bidder. Perhaps the most fitting tribute to Sutherland is an excerpt from his book, "From Bugatti to Bougainvillea: Racing and Spirit". In chapter 16, Sutherland recounts the emotions of running a race to the finish. It is time for the vintage race... all day, my opponent, Dick Riddell, and I have been engaging in little friendly psychological warfare. We'll be racing against each other with similar cars. Both are Grand Prix Bugattis, mine, the Type 37A machine, which gave me such a good ride up to Los Angeles this morning, and his, a Type 35C, which has been under restoration for many years but is not finished. Often in vintage racing, the cars are not evenly matched. A machine much newer and faster is pitted against something older and slower. Not so today. Riddell's engine is more powerful than mine. It is a 2-liter, 8-cylinder, while mine is a 4-cylinder, 11/2 liter. My gearing is slightly better, and I believe my car handles better, having been raced for so many years, whereas his is a fresh and unsorted restoration. Yet, his work was done by "Bunny" Phillips, a man who has been racing and restoring Bugattis for 50 years...My car... has been looked after by Bob Seiffert, my friend, who is trying hard to establish his reputation as a Bugatti mechanic. In his own way, he is as intense as his older rival. The banter between Riddell and me goes on...The same type of exchange is going on between Bob Seiffert and Bunny Phillips, who spar back and forth about whose engine is the best. "This car is terminally cute, Dick," I say, preening my hair by my reflection in his Buggatti's perfectly polished radiator. "You ought to put it in your living room; it just doesn't belong out on the track!" Riddell counters without hesitation, "That contraption of yours has got a lot of cracks in it. It's not only dirty, but dangerous...Park it, Robert, and come out and watch me run... We both know that we have good cars today. Bugattis are easy to drive fast. They give you all the signals. The controls are perfect. The sensation of sliding around fast in a Bugatti is terrific. They are so well made that they rarely ever break; both of us can expect to finish if we can keep our cars on the track... The retired Grand Prix drivers will be racing all of the faster cars but, concurrently, Dick Riddell in the other Bugatti and Peter Giddings in the Talbot and I will make up the pre-World War II race. The gate is opened and the two of us push our machines across the shiny cement floor of the big exhibition hall... There are crowds of spectators but, as we approach, they step aside... We get a lot of thumbs up and a few "awrights!" We reach the huge sliding door of the building...The California temperature is perfect, as usual... Riddell, Peter Giddings, and I jump into the cars and they start up instantly. After a little warm up period, we drive off through the infield to the starting area. The other historic Grand Prix cars are already at the front of the grid, and the three of us pull up in back, about a hundred yards from the rest. I look at all the concrete again, realizing that this is a dangerous business, reminding myself to be careful. We sit on the starting grid, waiting to be flagged away for the pace lap. It will be a rolling start. The Talbot Lago is on the pole position; I have been placed next to it, and Dick Riddell, whose practice times were not quite as quick as mine, has been placed in third position. It is obvious that I am in the slowest car in the race. The Talbot is 23 years newer and has three times the cubic capacity of my car. The other Bugatti engine is much larger than mine, yet I am determined not to let anyone by unless he really earns it. This is a race and, if I can possible stay ahead, I'm going to do just that! I tighten the lap strap one more time and really cinch it down. There is some lateral support in the Bugatti, but nothing like the upholstered cocoon that makes up the driving compartment of a modern racing car. My helmet is on now, and I am more in my own world since most of the sounds around me are muffled. I pull on my driving gloves, and again the surge of intensity comes over me... I am determined to take maximum advantage of every physical, mechanical and psychological element at my disposal. Finally, the flagman signals for us to fire up, and the little Bug lights up beautifully. As we move off, the cars are all bunched up...I look over at Riddell. He is wearing an open-faced helmet and has put on one really evil pair of period goggles. This gives him a particularly nasty, Emperor Ming look, which serves to heighten my own rising spirit. Ahead of me, I can see the other cars in a sublime array of racing colors and shapes. Carroll Shelby, in the Aston Martin, is starting on the pole...Behind him is Phil Hill in the Dino Ferrari...Behind him is Richie Ginther in the Porsche and then Jack Brabham...in the big Aston Martin DB3S sports car. Dan Gurney is in the 300S Maser. Lou Selyei, Jr., is the first amateur in the 250 Testa Rossa Ferrari. Behind him is Pete Lovely in a Cooper Monaco and next is the Talbot, then my own Bugatti, then Dick Riddell. I can hear my breathing inside of the helmet. I'm trying to focus myself, garner my energy... The concrete walls loom beside me, ominously, on both sides. The spectators are packed around the track. I approach the first of the two hairpins, going only 35 or 40 miles an hour in second gear. Riddell is immediately behind the Talbot and I am beside it. I'm worried that Riddell, with his larger engine, will just accelerate at the flag and stay behind the Talbot, leaving me in third. I'm determined that this not happen. We move off down the freeway section of the course, normally the fastest part, now doing about 50 miles per hour. The cars are still nicely bunched up. There is a good race car stink coming back to me, partly from methanol, which some of the old racers use, and partly from castor oil, which, when heated, gives off a marvelous odor that somehow electrifies most car crazies. It's the best of all car smells. My excitement is rising. I'm trying to control it, focus it. We get to the end of the straightaway and move up through the short chutes, the last of which rises sharply to Pine Avenue, the pit straight. I can hear the intermittent roar of lots of good racing machinery in front of me...There are shrieks, yelps, howls and every other kind of gorgeous animal machine noise you could imagine. As we round the corner onto the pit straight, the faster vintage cars are already at the start/finish line. They take the green flag and blast away, creating a powerful hammer of sound... We, too, now approach the flat. I look back at Riddell, my rival, and he is staring intently ahead through his Emperor Ming goggles. Seeing his face again triggers a glandular surge of competitive animus within me, and I'm determined not to let him beat me in this race. The flag drops. I step on the gas. I tuck in behind the smoking, spinning wheels of the Talbot. Riddell Looms in my mirror. I dive off of Pine Avenue, the car unweighting, just like skiing. 5500 in second. The Bug is strong. Such a great old car. I sweep around the left hander at the bottom of the hill and then take the S's. I'm watching Riddell closely to see if he will try to pull around me...but he just stays back there close on my tail. I slide forcefully around the hairpin leading onto the main straight and accelerate hard out of the corner. I know my motor is strong, because in the lower gears I can even pull away from Riddell a little. Now I am in the fastest part of the circuit, sweeping around the freeway bend, and Riddell again is right on me, probing, looking for a way to get around me. With a few judicious weaves back and forth, I keep him in his place all the way down the straight. 5500 in top gear. 115 miles per hour. In a 52-year-old car...The joy surges within me. The primal, competitive push has me. Hard on the brakes, and down through the gears, sliding around the corner. The tail is way out, but Riddell is still back there. Hard on the gas through the S's. Flailing the car. Will it last? Can it? Up the chute, toward Pine Avenue, the sound echoing powerfully off buildings. Riddell and I sliding in perfect formation. Up through the gears again. 5500 in third. I know I can beat him! He would have come around me by now if he could! As Riddell and I begin the second lap, I feel my control... I am settling into a good rhythm. The car is perfect. As I slide it back and forth through the next set of corners, Riddell makes another attempt to pass me, but I cut him off... Up through the gears again. 5500 in third. I know I can beat him! Now we're out on the straightaway again and halfway through the second lap of the race. I am wondering if I can sustain all this for another eight laps. I'm remembering early Grand Prix drivers who were able to concentrate for four and five hours without stopping, and my admiration for them roars... We sweep around the corner, Riddell and I. I can see no one else on the track. The newer cars are on the other side of the course. I try to watch Riddell as he tears around the corner behind me. His control seems good, but I know that he has not had as many races as I. I don't think he has the confidence in his machine that I have in mine. I'm thinking about Bob Seiffert and Jim Stranberg and how well they have tuned this engine. Hammering out of the slow corner, again, I pull away from Riddell a little, and I am marveling that I can stay ahead of his 2-liter engine. Riddell is still back there, pushing, trying. He is relentless, but so am I. When I turn, he turns. When I shift, he shifts. When I slide, he slides... It's a dance. Riddell and I are dancing, to the same music. We are moving to the same rhythm. We are on the same wavelength. The primal beat'em urge subsides, as our dance continues. To the right, and the left, now faster, now slower. The cars scream. The tires slip. We sweep around, then slow down. I grin at Riddell in my mirror. And he sees it and grins back at me, moving in a little closer. As I drive around one corner, I see Peter Giddings' Talbot parked at the side of the track. There is no damage, and he gives me the thumbs up sign as I go by. My heart leaps because it means I am now leading the pre-war race... I feel a surge of strength as I blast along, leaping through corners, running my little engine up to the red line in every gear, going just as fast as I possibly can. Riddell is still behind me...still trying to get past... And the Yin and Yang go back and forth. At some moments we are deadly competitors while, at others, we are deepest soul mates. By now we are on the sixth lap of the 10-lap race, and I know that if I can keep myself and my old car together, I will win the race. I can't hear anything except my engine noise, but I can see spectators pressed up against the fence, waving their arms and clapping their hands as we go by. The thing about old racing cars is that the crowd can see the driver's face and much of his body as he fights the car around the course...as he tries to concentrate, to maximize every possible opportunity within limits, to win and yet not be killed. Riddell and I have covered two more laps, and only two remain. I know that I have beaten him if I can just finish. I have never won a big race like this, in front of a crowd, but I'm trying to repress those kinds of thoughts. I'm praising Ettore Bugatti in my mind for such a brilliant piece of equipment. I think of the aesthetic pleasure that this little Bug gives me when I go out to see it in my garage on late winter nights. The curves, the lines, the visual syncopation, the eloquent forms, the elegant stance. Now all of the excellence manifests itself once again in how the car works, in doing what it was designed for, blasting to the limit around a race course. Keep it together. I never pray for help in an athletic contest, only safety, and I am murmuring a few of those prayers since I know that the level at which Riddell and I are now playing the game is very dangerous. Now I just try to concentrate, to purge extraneous thoughts, to be right here in the current scene, to immerse myself in the moment-to-moment unfolding of this race. Just keep it together, I keep saying. Just be very careful. Then, as I come up the chute onto Pine Avenue to begin my tenth and final lap, in full view of my team and family, who are in the pits, I make a mistake. Nearly all racing cars get a little oily in the cockpit as races progress. That's why you wear leather-soled shoes; they slip less on oily pedals. The Bugatti's fluid-filled clutch has been throwing some oil and my feet are getting slippery and, as I dance the pedals to shift from third to second, my foot slips and I fail to get the lever into gear. I fumble for a split second before nailing the brake to the floor, but it is too late. The wheels lock up instantly and I am slowing down quickly...I am only going 15 miles an hour when I drive into a wall of tires that has been erected to collect just such objects as myself and my car... the rear of my car lifts off the ground about a foot as the impact is absorbed. I heave forward in my seat but am able to hold myself away from the dashboard and the steering wheel. Just then, I feel a little snap in the car. The car slams itself back on the track, and I immediately hit the starter button to try to get the engine going again and catch Riddell who is by now down the pit straight. The engine fires but the steering wheel is turning loosely in my hands and I know that I have broken the steering arm. My race is over. Riddell has won. Can't catch him now. All he has is one more lap. But God, wasn't it fun! Wasn't it just exquisite! The heirs of Robert Sutherland are offering the proceeds from the sale of the Brescia Bugatti to The Robert Sutherland Memorial Fund, which will contribute to treatment programs that help people with Bi-Polar Disorder, also known as Manic Depression. Those interested in making a tax-deductible contribution to the Fund or who want more information can contact Bob Sutherland, Jr. at (303) 651-6122. Stories
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