[Fot] Side Glances (JAN 2009)

[BillDentin at aol.com]

Amici...

I am sure we have more than a few Peter Egan fans on the FOT List.  Peter was 
the Honorary Grand Marshall and Featured Banquet Speaker at the Elkhart Lake 
Vintage Festival at ROAD AMERICA a couple of months back.  Austin Healey 
Sprite was the featured marque, and Mr. Egan has owned and raced more than his fair 
share.  Team Thicko Flounder and premier Sprite owner Wm. Severin Thompson 
provided a Sprite named WALTER for Peter and wife Barb to use all week end.  It 
was a really special car (UN-restored original racer from the Hey Day) still 
sporting tech stickers for the 50s and 60s.  Peter's article embraces the car's 
innocence, purity, and the ton of memories it stirs in his heart.

I like everything Peter Egan writes.  At the end of the article he says, "
Maybe in our constant club-racer quest to make our cars faster, safer, and 'more 
reliable' we pushed for changes that simply accelerated the rate of entropy.  
Every class of production racing does this, of course, until it finally brings 
on its own demise.  Or metamorphoses into some generic, tube-framed parody of 
its form self, as "stock cars" have done."   And, of course, I loved the 
classic Egan ending that reads, "So it was fun to drive WALTER just for the pure 
innocence of the thing; my first drive in a steroid free competition sports 
car.  We were a little slower than the other vintage race cars, but we drove all 
weekend on the same head gasket.  Something I've never tried before." 

Bill Dentinger



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