Tim,
Enjoyed your column on Toly Arutunoff
I happened to meet him May 22, 2016 at the La Quinta in Ely at buffet breakfast;
I noticed this "older fellow" (my age bracket) with a copy of Octane Magazine on his table; ( I tho't maybe he was someone departing late from the past weekend's Silver State 100). As I passed by to get some chow, i said "I see you are reading Octane; You must be a serious car guy"
After my querying whether he had been "here" (Ely ) for the Silver State, "no", it turned out he'd been at Sonoma Infineon the past weekend and then he launched into a delightful nonstop breakfast conversation about Ferrari's, the Tulsa dealership, racing, et al, during which I confessed that i currently owned & had raced my 914/6-6-GT (a real one) and an MGB vintage racer, and had done SCCA Driver's School, in the rain, at Sears Point 20 yrs ago.
We never made name introductions, but it was clear to me by then that he was an "important guy, who knew everybody in the sports car racing scene". He was driving back home to Tulsa in an RS-5, which he slightly sheepishly said he was an automatic, necessary "due to his "wooden leg"". Good enuf!
A bit later, I happened by as he was about to depart in that striking black Audi, i stopped to give him my card with a picture of my 914/6-GT, to which he responded by handing me his own card, at which moment I exclaimed "Whoa, I know who you are!" A few more pleasantries regarding that I'd read him for years, and he was gone.
Ya gotta admire that he was driving solo cross country on "the loneliest road" when he certainly had the wherewithal to fly to any event anywhere ..... A real "car guy".
LarryM
