"A little more regarding David Ridenour. He was a class act and braver than Dick Tracy. Late in the Pleistocene age, a friend of mine and I were at the old Pittsburg CA airport track. We were ready to race. There were two problems. We didn’t have a car and we didn’t have a driver. The first problem was solved when Charley “Tuna” from Shelby American drove the SA race car transporter into the pits. He had been delayed by fog on 101. It had one bright shiny new Mustang sedan racer and one dark blue, very gnarly ex-Nassau 427 prototype Cobra. Both of us knew that “The Turd” as the Cobra was nicknamed was beyond our capacity to drive.

Ten minutes later we had solved the second problem when Dave, whose Genie was in parts, agreed to drive the car. That was when we found there was a third problem. One of the knock-offs had been swapped out for one that did not seat in the wheel. A Chinese fire drill then ensued until we found out that the machine shop guy just outside the main gate, who was building a twin Porsche racer (!), coolly chucked up the knock-off and took about three minutes to make it fit.

On his first or second practice lap, Dave broke the track record just getting the cockpit and first impressions sorted out. The car was so intimidating that the “Vette" driver in the Main next to Dave on the grid, muffed his start. After about eight or so laps we hung out the EZ sign and Dave cruised home."