> (and ladies...hey did Denise McCluggageever race a TR?
Okay, as one of those "over-55" people somebody mentioned, I can confirm that
Denise did compete in a TR3 but not on the race track. She drove one of the
team cars in the American International Rally, an event set up like the Monte
Carlo with a number of starting points and a finish in Las Vegas. This was
held in 1959 and the Triumph team started from Sardi's restuarant at
something like 3 a.m. Denise co-drove with Eleanor Halmi wife of Bob Halmi
now known for producing epic TV series (Ulysses) but then just a Hungarian
photographer. The other team cars were crewed by Walter Cronkite/Doug Kennedy
(he was editor of TRUE magazine) and Bob Halmi/Lou Batori. Batori was an
engineer who had invented some sort of navigation system which the team used.
The McCluggage/Halmi and Batori/Halmi cars noth finished but Cronkite put
his car in a lake in Tennessee. They might have been able to continue after
having the car hauled out and the oil changed but the local garage forgot to
drain the water before adding theoil so the bearings went bye-bye.
Several days before the event began, as the assistant ad/pr manager,I was
assigned to meet Denise and hand over a loner TR-3 so she could familiarize
herself with it. I was naive (or stupid) enough to try to show her the ropes
with the car in the middle of Manhattan traffic, not remembering that this
was a woman who competed with the best of the men in the top ten at races
like Sebring. In machines liie Ferraris and OSCAs. Despite my presumption,
fortunately, we are still friends.
More than you wanted to know.
Mike Cook
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