57 / 134
niversary for the GT350. I don’t think
it gets any better than that for a
GT350 guy like myself.
I was still a little nervous about
leaving the car unguarded at night,
but so far I had experienced no prob-
lems. I got up often to check on the car
and a lot of times I saw people looking
at it or taking pictures. When I
checked out of the hotel on Tuesday
the guy manning the front desk told
me that a lot of people had asked him
about the car.
MONTEREY
I picked up Leslie at the airport
and headed down Highway 1 to Mon-
terey. Now the trip was really on!
Leslie had rented us a place in Pacific
Grove with a great view of Monterey
Bay and a garage for the next two
nights until we moved to Carmel Val-
ley.We relaxed and walked around Pa-
cific Grove and Monterey. We went to
Lovers Point one night and had steaks
at the Whaling Station on Cannery
Row (highly recommended by Kopec)
the next. I went to the track on
Wednesday and hung out in the pits
with Marty Beaulieu, Ross Myers and
a bunch of other guys running
GT350s. They had the traditional
photo shoot under the tire and it was
great to be out there with everyone. I
talked to so many people, including a
reporter from the Monterey Herald
and Jim Schield and his wife Jan. She
mentioned that she had wanted to get
lettering to put his name on the
Shelby. I told her he didn’t really need
it since he’s the only one who has ever
driven that car since Day One and
everyone pretty much knows it’s him.
He said he liked that idea. I also got
some good coverage in the Monterey
Herald’s story about the reunion in
their Thursday edition.
I passed on going out to the track
on Thursday because I wanted to take
Leslie for a drive along the Coast
Highway, since we didn’t get to do that
on the way down from the airport. We
drove south to Big Sur where we had
lunch. The weather was great and the
car drew a lot of attention. It was neat
to be taking pictures at these scenic
sites and have people ask if they could
take pictures of the Shelby.
The Monterey Motorsports Re-
union went great; the weather was
perfect and the races were spectacular.
I was able to take parade laps on the
track on both Saturday and Sunday.
Dave Redman and Larry Barnett rode
with me on Saturday and Leslie was
nice enough to wait until Sunday. It
was a lot less crowded on Sunday be-
cause of the people who went to Pebble
Beach. What more could you ask for?
The SHELBY AMERICAN
If it’s #37, it must be Jim Schield. He is the
original owner of 5S272 and started auto-
crossing it and running open track as soon
as he took delivery. He began vintage rac-
ing at Laguna Seca when it started and
ran there every year until recently, when
he retired the old warrior. But he just had
to “un-retire” it for this event.
300 Fall 2015