Racing the Alfa Giulietta in America Part II

By Carl Goodwin

Stoddard Racing
Chuck Stoddard won national SCCA championships in 1959, 1961 and 1965 in Alfas. “The Giulietta didn’t get interesting,” he says, “until the Veloce was introduced. Bob Grossman was one of the first to run one. Max Hoffman was behind it – he pitted Porsche against Alfa. He would go to Porsche and tell them ‘The Speedsters are nice but the Giulietta is nicer.’

That’s how the Convertible D originated, with its wind-up windows. He had a man named Linge to service the Porsches. He was a one-man band. He could do everything. He even had an FIA competition license. Hoffman wanted to prove that Alfas were faster so he entered Linge in an Alfa against some Porsches and Linge won. There was an immediate controversy because you weren’t supposed to drive in SCCA events with an FIA license. That was Mister Linge’s last race in America.

“We used to beat everything with the Veloce, except the 4-cam Porsches. We could even beat some of them. We did ten or twelve races a season, at Lime Rock, Bridgehampton, Thompson, Watkins Glen, Dunkirk, Akron Airport, Put-in- Bay, IRL, Road American, VIR. People racing Alfas then were Charlie Rainville, Chris Noyes, Ed Hugus, Reed Rollo, Norm Webb, Dave Elder and William Wuesthoff – he was a good driver. The secret was in the preparation of the car. You couldn’t pay someone to do the same job you would do – it’s like Bruce Jennings or Vasek Polak in Porsches.”

Stoddard was well-known not only for his competition successes but a 2-part series of articles in Sports Car, the Sports Car Club of America magazine, on preparing the Giulietta within the rules. It included everything from carburetors to valves, timing, suspension, shock mounts, alignment settings, et cetera. “One time I was protested – it was at Louisville Fairgrounds – I was chasing Duncan Black in a Daimler SP250 and they thought I was too fast. They put my car in impound and tore down the engine. They could find nothing illegal so they had to pay to reassemble the engine. – I still have a copy of their check in my scrap-book – the amount was $270.” Stoddard’s careful preparation has paid off over the years. “In 37 years of racing,” he says, “I’ve only had one DNF. That was at Elkhart with my Porsche Spyder. It had a roller bearing crank that just stopped rolling.”

Reliable racecars
Alfas are not only rugged mechanically but structurally too. Longtime racer John Fitch used Alfa Giulietta coupes at his competition driving school at Lime Rock in the days before roll-over bars were required. One day, while speeding around the course, a student managed to roll the car with Fitch riding as a passenger. “Both of us were belted in,” recalls Fitch. “Neither of us was injured and you could barely tell that the car had rolled. In fact, the windshield wasn’t even cracked.”

A sometime competitor of Stoddard’s in the Midwest was stockbroker Bob Parsons. “The thing I remember about Stoddard was that his car was always under a cover. He would take the cover off and go out for practice, then bring it back and the cover would go back on. He believed in preparing the car before the race and not working on it at the track. I was dumbfounded that I had the chance to beat him.

“I ran two races – Put-in-Bay and Watkins Glen – and then I went into the Army. I was in Europe from March ’58 to August ’59, stationed in Schweinfurt, where they used to have the ball bearing plants. Before I left I ordered a new Alfa Veloce and had it shipped to my folks in Cleveland. I couldn’t afford a Porsche but I knew the Veloce was the souped-up Alfa. They drove it out to Colorado where I was finishing school and I ran it at Continental Divide Raceway and La Junta Airport. At La Junta, the car ahead of me kicked up a big chunk of asphalt and it shattered my windshield. Next spring I got out of school and started racing at Lawrenceville Illinois Airport, where I got a 4th. For over a year I drove it to events, until I bought Ernie Ruffini’s trailer. He was a dealer in Rocky River, Ohio. Then I stripped the car down and Ernie’s mechanic prepared it for the races. He did a hell of a job because that was a fast car. I was in E-Production with the Porsche Supers. The fastest one was Bill Romig from Detroit – his car was so fast that the best you could do was second place. King Heddinger in Cleveland was also fast. I remember racing at Waterford Hills in Michigan because I could beat the Corvettes. They were just too much car for the tight twists and turns there.

“The height of my driving career was beating Chuck Stoddard at the Dunkirk, New York Airport course. We started side-by-side on the front row. I beat him to the first turn and held the lead through the race. I’ll never forget coming around one corner, sliding out, I threw the wheel the other direction and just at the last second before spinning, it caught. It was the toughest, most rewarding race I ever drove.

“Later I had a big crash at Meadowdale – like several other people. I was also leading Stoddard at the time. The car was pretty well banged up, so we put my engine in Russ Smith’s car and took turns racing it. We took it out to Vineland, New Jersey for a 12-hour race they had and won the Index of Performance. Later on I drove a Porsche Speedster for Julius, the Hungarian guy who had a garage out near Cleveland Airport. His wife said she’d divorce him if he raced it, so we took it to some events and I drove. It was fairly successful.”

With virtually a continuous race history now going on a half century, the Alfa Giulietta Promises to remain a treasured classic with a genuine racing heritage.

Read Part I

The author would like to thank Dean Russell and his sidekick Jim at Trail Auto in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Their website is www.trailalfa.com

Portions of this story previously appeared in Sport Car International magazine.