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Joe Marchetti by Burt Levy

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The essential Joe Marchetti.

By Burt Levy

The huge annual “International Challenge” vintage race at Road America is one of the must-do events on the vintage calendar—and I was privileged to be there, sometimes on the sidelines, sometimes covering it for magazines and judging in the concours and sometimes right in the thick of the on-track action as the event became what it is today. It all started for me back in the early 1980s, when my longed-for “racing career” was going exactly nowhere. I’d begun racing in 1971 in a series—maybe more like a plague?—of self-wrenched, under-funded, nickel-rocket and borderline lethal Triumph TR3s that rarely finished a race. Then I met Joe Marchetti. [Read more…] about Joe Marchetti by Burt Levy

Stories for the AROC National Convention

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Click on each photo to read three stories tailored to get the Alfa owners attending the National Convention revved up this week: Dennis Pillar and the Porsches From Dale LaFollette comes a series of photos taken in 1971 at Portland International Raceway, showing how his Alfa-tossing friend Dennis Pillar trounced the Porsches that fine day….

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Alfa Amore: Learning, Winning and Cheating

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Taking the Loeber receptionist for a victory lap at State Fair Park in 1981.

By BS Levy

Would you sell your soul for half-a-second? OK, how about a WHOLE second?

As detailed last time, with our extensive rulebook reading (much of it between the lines) and subsequent garage preparation at the dealership (which, BTW, rampaged through our checking account like Godzilla demolishing Tokyo…but, jeez, don’t tell Carol) we had a promising track weapon with which to do battle. Even so, it was obvious we had some dialing-in and detailing to do. Which meant money.

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BS Levy: More Alfa Amore

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Burt’s agile Alfa nips adroitly to the inside of a lumbering Datsun Z-Car at Blackhawk Farms Turn Four. Courtesy BS Levy

By BS Levy

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There’s a great story about a younger friend who came to visit the irreverent, irascible and famously sour comedian W.C. Fields in the hospital towards the end of his life. The friend was surprised to find him leafing through a copy of the Holy Bible. The friend of course asked what he was doing, and the oft-taciturn W.C. arched up an eyebrow and answered: “Lookin’ for loopholes, son. Lookin’ for loopholes…”

And that, dear friends, is where one begins, in the dead of a Midwestern winter—rulebook in hand and green 1974 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce racecar-to-be sitting as-yet untouched in the garage—dreaming, scheming, plotting and planning how to build a world-beater. Or, on a slightly less ambitious scale, a top-flight Midwestern Council of Sports Car Clubs Showroom A-class contender.

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BS Levy Part 2, Alfa Amore

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Alfa Amore? The reader who submits the funniest caption gets a free copy of The Last Open Road. Please send caption to vack@cox.net.

Story by Burt Levy

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Hello again!

As you may recall, we last left our story of “Burt Levy, Racing Driver Semi-Extraordinaire” somewhere in the dusty, paint fume-infused interior of Loeber Motors third-floor body shop on Chicago’s trendy/money-spendy near north side. That’s where I found my soon-to-be-beloved and not-so-nearly totaled (no matter what the insurance company was led to believe) 1974 Alfa Spider racecar. [Read more…] about BS Levy Part 2, Alfa Amore

Burt Levy on Selling and Racing Alfa Romeos

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My first win in an Alfa Romeo, co-driving the resurrected “totaled” ’74 Alfa Spider a Midwestern Council Enduro with my friend Mike, who also worked at Mellow Motors.

By Burt Levy

Craig Morningstar was a big, Viking-looking guy with a great sense of humor, a huge love for Italian cars and motorcycles and a massive taste for fun. And he needed that sense of humor because it was his job to visit Alfa dealerships, make nice with the dealership principals and staff and smooth the ruffled feathers of sometimes—no, make that more than sometimes—indignant recent Alfa purchasers who had encountered difficulties, real or imagined, that the dealership couldn’t seem to satisfy. [Read more…] about Burt Levy on Selling and Racing Alfa Romeos

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