Gary Mason sent us a whole pile of his photographs shot as a teenager during his travels through Europe hitting every motor race he could. His passion for racing, however, did not wane once he was back stateside. Here is a collection of his photos from the 1960 SCCA Nationals at Marlboro Motor Raceway in Maryland. Some great images here from the President’s Cup race which featured a wide variety of machines ranging from the heavy iron of Corvettes and big Ferraris down to Porsches and Lotus Elevens.

I love these mixed grids, especially when the finish order isn’t just a descending list of horsepower. Roger Penske took the day in his Porsche 718 after taking over the lead from fellow 718 driver Bob Holbert on the 3rd lap. If we were giving out trophies for aesthetics I’d be tempted to give a special prize to Bill Mitchell’s Corvette. That Stingray still looks exotic.

There are some photos from additional races that weekend, but I’m not immediately finding documentation about this MGA heavy grid or the little blue Devin.

Now I know how to do that if the situation ever arises.

Edit: Not that I look at this again.. it’s probably not late night. Oh well.

I suppose it’s possible that out there somewhere is a Maserati A6GCS roller sitting in the back of the race workshop just waiting for an appropriate lump of iron to be dropped in. Maybe there’s an empty frame and fiberglass body from a properly established sports and racing aftermarket maker out there in need of some proper racing grunt: a Bocar, a Devin, or the like. Or perhaps, as the seller suggests, you don’t want to risk your numbers matching engine should you decide to race or rally your already restored or preserved A6GCS. If you have one of these situations, jump on this.

This engine though… I wish more vintage sportcar enthusiasts thought a bit more like vintage hot rod enthusiasts and could see this beautiful engine not as final piece to a project, but as a beginning of a new one. I’ll grant you, a $160,000 Maserati engine is a very different thing from a $500 Hemi FirePower slowly rusting in a junk yard (or even a $15,000 professionally prepped example). But part of what made racing so amazing in the 1950s and 60s was that spirit of experimentation and tinkering away at home brewed racing specials.

Look at this engine. Doesn’t it make you want to start pulling steel tubes out of the pile and start laying out lengths on the garage floor into the vague shape of frame rails? … To grab a stick of chalk and start sketching body silhouettes on the workshop wall? It worked for Frank Kurtis and Max Balchowsky. There’s more in this engine than the history and the legacy of the Maserati brothers. There is also the twinkling of promise for what it can be.

More information at Fantasy Junction’s inventory detail page. Gorgeous stuff.

The earlier post of John Shea’s photo of the 1960 Sebring Camoradi Porsche 356 piloted by Joe Sheppard made me start digging around for more of the Camoradi effort at Sebring. This is some marvelous stuff narrated by Camoradi cofounder Fred K. Gamble. What a priceless insight into the formative years of America’s “olympic motor racing team”. Feel free to skip to about a minute 15 in to bypass the introductory text.

That’s part one of the video above, continued in part two below. Magnificent.

As we embark on Maserati’s centennial, this chart tracking the genetics of the 1950s Maserati Grand Prix cars is fascinating. At the time, this might have demonstrated the storied history of Maserati in contrast to the post-war upstarts who’s garages started producing racing machines. Today, however, we can look back at this as quite the opposite: The slow death of Maserati’s monoposto efforts.

Imagine if we could have added another 50 years to to this dynasty of single-seat Maserati racers.

2014 is the 100th anniversary of Maserati and they’ll be highly visible at several events next year. The announcement came out today that they’ll be the featured marque at the 2014 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion.

If it guarantees that there’ll be more scenes like this one of a ’57 250F leading a ’39 4CL through the Corkscrew, then 2014 will be a photogenic year indeed.

Keep your rookie cards and let’s dig back into the Topps World on Wheels trading cards sets. This time, Maserati.

From the card’s reverse:

“Maserati is one of the great names in racing cars. Some of the most famous drivers in racing history have used the Maserati to win prizes… Wilbur Hatch having twice driven one to victory in the Indianapolis Races. In Italy, the Maserati Company is known more for production of spark plugs and batteries than for racing cars.”

Fascinating to me that they played up the Indy 500 connection and were so dismissive of Masers in Europe.

More Topps World on Wheels in the archives.

Here it is, the best reason you’ll see today for having quality speakers attached to your computer. This… This is why you don’t put a soundtrack over racing car footage. Just listen to that Maserati hum.