In 1964, my buddy, Chip, asked If I would like to go to the Big sports car race at Daytona with him and his older brother. At age 12 I was already a fan of any kind of auto racing, already a big fan of Richard Petty and Don Garlits. However I didn't know a thing about this sports car racing, but hell, it was racing so I said sure. "One problem, "I told him, "I've got no money." He said, " don't worry about it, we will get you in."
We get near the track and Chip's brother Terry pulls the family 1963 Chrysler 300 over and tells us to get in the trunk. We removed the camping gear, slid all the way to the front and Terry piles the gear back in, covering us. If you don't know these cars, the trunk was as big as most folks' backyard. We got to the gate, Terry pays for himself, starts to drive through the tunnel when a security guard stops him and tells him to pull over, he would like to look in the trunk. Terry complies, thinking all the while the jig is up. He opens the trunk for the guard, who moves some of the gear around but never sees us, closes the trunk and tells Terry to go on in.

Once In, I got to see some of the coolest cars ever in racing, Ferrari 250 GTO's, Cobras, Porsche 906's (I think). Great drivers, The Rodriguez brothers, Phil Hill etc. I was Hooked! In 1964 the race was called the Daytona Continental, not becoming the 24 until about 1966. I have never missed one, from 1964 to the present. Saw the GT40's, the 917's, 934, 935's 962, The Brumos Porsche's and then BMW's, John Greenwood and his crazy fast but fragile ZL1 Corvette, the Dekon Monzas, The Bizarre, like the Morgan+4 cruising around at about 100 mph with a 917 streaking by above him at about 220 mph. Brian Redman in the Cooke Woods Lola, John Paul jr, AJ, Mario, Rolf Stommelen, David Hobbs, David Pearson and Bobby Allison runnin the 24 in stock cars. What A show.

In 1992 at age 39, with two kids and 17 years on the Orlando Fire Department and newly promoted to District Chief, I finally reached my goal, purchased an ITS 280 Z with Chip. We both made it through drivers school that year and in November finished fourth at the Sebring Turkey Trot Enduro. We thought, were good, this is easy. Well, 14 years later and I'm still lookin' for that first ITS win. I did manage a number of wins in E Production with a 240 years later but have found road racing ain't easy.

I retired from the fire department in late 2004 and immediately set out to build a GT-1 Monte Carlo, six months and about 35 thousand dollars later we hit the track. Daytona ain't the place to shake down a new GT-1 car, it was brutal. I quickly found that most of what I learned driving Z cars don't apply to 650 hp stock cars on 10 inch tires.

The Monte and I are gettin' to know each other and driving it is amazing. It is hard to get back in an ITS car. At 54 years old and almost 15 years into this I love it as much as ever and hope to be still driving at the age of my heroes Paul Newman and Charlie Kolb (Nart Ferrari driver in the fifties who was still racing in CFR just a few years ago).

"Bosco" Logsdon