Maybe I’ve been doing this all wrong. I started with Substack because Facebook had really begun to irritate me. I’d sworn off it completely and started writing longer-form missives on this platform but that resolve only lasted a few months until the 2024 racing season began here in Central Florida, starting with the HSR Classic 24 Hour At Daytona, then the Roar Before the 24, followed in quick succession by the Rolex 24 At Daytona itself, the season-opening St. Pete Firestone IndyCar Grand Prix weekend and finally the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. For my purposes, nothing works quite as well as Facebook when it comes to hooking up with friends at races in real time. I was never a big fan of Instagram and now that it’s all three-second vertical video clips (which I abhor) I avoid it completely.
Anyway, here’s a memory I just shared on Facebook. I’ll start doing this on a random basis and see what happens:
Great clip, great tune.
In 1973, two buddies and I drove from Newton, Massachusetts to San Francisco in a year-old BMW Bavaria. "Easy Rider" had been released four years earlier and while we were driving north from San Simeon on the Pacific Coast Highway a silver Porsche 911 tucked in behind us and followed us into a gas station. The driver introduced himself and said that he'd noticed our Massachusetts plate and wanted to say hi since he'd attended Harvard.
That led us to hanging out with the guy the rest of the day. We went back to his home in Carmel for beers and weed and, among other things, he told us he'd been a producer on "Easy Rider." He invited us to come back for an actual Hollywood party that evening where I figured I'd meet a starlet who'd steal my virginity. Unfortunately, while racing around the Seventeen Mile Drive at Pebble Beach our Bee Em Troubleyou failed us for the second of what would be three times that trip when the throttle linkage fell apart. No party, no starlet.
Weird side note: when we left the producer's house earlier that afternoon he asked us to drop his toaster oven off at the Carmel hardware store for repair. I sliced my finger open on some sharp piece of metal on the thing. Damn!
Side Note
Ahh, the days of carburetors where you could turn up the idle to produce forward motion despite a broken throttle, which is how we made it to the nearest BMW dealer where I saw my first (and thus far only) 2002 Diana, a rare quad headlight luxury version not sold in the US that featured metallic gold paint and tan leather upholstery:
Never heard of a Diana before. Thanks for the inadvertent educational lesson!