MONARCHS OF THE GLEN

An enthusiast looks back at his album from a memorable summer of 1971, when the world's most exciting racers hit New York state

- MICHAEL AIKEY

I was a motorsport fan who grew up in a small, rural town in upstate New York in the 1960s. Sports cars weren't common then: you would sooner see a John Deere or Massey Ferguson tractor on the road than you would an MG or a Triumph. My 1960 'Bugeye' Healey Sprite, in basic primer grey, stood out in the high school parking lot. My primary connection to the world of sports cars and racing was through the pages of Road & Track and Sports Car Graphic magazines, and attending the occasional race at Watkins Glen (aka 'The Glen').

The Glen was situated among even more cows and cornfields than my home town, but several times a year the international motorsport world made the trek to upstate New York. Jackie Stewart remarked to Motor Sport: "It was a nice circuit, but it was rural America in the fullest sense and unlike all of the other places we would be travelling to, be it Monza [for the Italian Grand Prix] or Brazil." Regarding the modest Glen Motor Inn, where many of the drivers stayed, Jackie remembered: "To get a room in the Glen Motor Inn on a GP weekend was more difficult than getting the Hotel de Paris in Monte-Carlo!"

For a young motorsport enthusiast, The Glen was a sports car Mecca and I began my regular pilgrimages as a teenager in the mid-'60s. From behind the fences, alongside kindred spirits, I gazed in awe at the drivers and cars I had previously only read about Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill and Pedro Rodríguez, piloting exotic Ferraris, Porsches, Alfas and McLarens.