<VV> Phil Hill - No Corvair

[Vairtec at optonline.net]

At 09:35 PM 9/17/2008, Dave Thomson wrote:

>Not too much off topic, as Phil was the only american driver to win F1.

Well, American-BORN.  Mario Andretti was of course a naturalized 
citizen long before he won in F1.  And should anyone care to question 
Mario's American-ness, the fact that he came up through the dirt oval 
ranks makes him thoroughly American to me.

I claim a distinction:  I know of no one else who, like me, saw Mario 
race in person, in his first open-cockpit machine (a TQ Midget, in 
the Teaneck, NJ Armory) and in his F1 car (the John Player Lotus, at 
Watkins Glen).  I was a kid in the stands at Teaneck but I had pit 
credentials at the Glen.

Andretti's TQ Midget, which continued racing long after Mario moved 
up, is now restored and displayed at the Eastern Museum of Motor 
Racing in Pennsylvania.  I don't know where the Lotus may be.

--Bob