This past weekend was packed with motor racing of the best kind (unless you're an oval track enthusiast, which I'm not, except when there's nothing else to watch on TV). It marked the opening race of the F1 season. It also brought us the "12 hours of Sebring", second in the "American LeMans" series of endurance races that began in Daytona a few weeks ago. I viewed the opening and final hours via Speed Channel, soaking up the atmosphere for nostalgic reasons while hugely enjoying the GT2 battle between a Ferrari and a Porsche; the closest finish in Sebring's 55-year history when the two exited the final turn together, bumping sides as they accelerated towards the checkered flag, the Ferrari ahead by a meter after 12 hours of rugged racing.

Mention of Sebring takes me back to the early 1960's when my buddies and I would grab a 4-day race weekend in the Florida sun. If flush with cash we'd fly down, otherwise we drove non-stop from Toronto and return, taking turns at the wheel, with a brief dip in the warm Atlantic surf plus a few hours to ogle the spring-break babes on the beach. Of all those 12-hour enduros the one that sticks in my mind is the year when, as a freelance announcer, I broadcast the race for CBC radio. No crew accompanying, just a local station engineer to set things up and keep me on the air. We weren't live for the entire 12 hours, of course, settling for an hour at the start, another midway, one hour at the 10PM conclusion. In those days motorsport was not high profile in Canada, yet the station manager later informed me that this brought more positive listener phone-ins than any sports broadcast in its history.

Along with announcing the Sebring race for radio I was reporting for magazines and newspapers. The photo above was one of several taken in 1963 when, just as today, Porsches and Ferraris were fighting for top honours. This is a night driver change with Scarfiotti about to take over from team-mate John Surtees in the winning Ferrari. "Ludovico Scarfiotti" was an F1 (one victory, the 1966 Italian Grand Prix) driver who shared the 1963 24 Hours of Le Mans win for Enzo's racing team. Sadly, the well-mannered and very quick Italian died in 1968 at a hillclimbing event near Berchtesgaden, Germany. In case you missed the 2007 race, Audi's unstoppable diesels again swept the field.