Last spring I got an email from Pat Yongue a fellow academic who also wrrites about women in racing, asking me if I’d like to be the keynote speaker at the International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC) at Watkins Glen NY in November 2017. Although I have been retired for a few years, I still follow auto racing and wrote a pretty good book about the first lady auto racer in the United States, Mad for Speed, the Racing Life of Joan Newton Cuneo. Her story is worth reading but she is largely unknown today because Joan Cuneo raced between 1905 and 1909. Evidently the folks at the IMRRC had read my book and thought Joan’s story would be an excellent keynote for their symposium.
Somewhat startled, I told Pat that I would talk it over with the senior Rambler and get back to her shortly. Truthfully I was flattered that they would invite me. We had never been to Watkins Glen or the Watkins Glen track or the International Motor Racing Research Center which sounded very interesting. We would have to fly there, of course, our road warrior days are long gone. Of course, I agreed to give the speech.
Soon it was November and my presentation was polished and loaded to a zip drive. We headed to Hartsfield for our early flight and hoped to get to Rochester around noon. We would then meet IMRRC member Don Capps and his wife, Lana at the airport. After a speedy and uneventful flight, we headed for the exit of the small but attractive Rochester NY International Airport. Of course, we walked right by our hosts whom we had never met, on our way out the door. Fortunately we retraced our steps and found them patiently waiting for us. Our flight was early and they hadn’t expected us so soon.
The weather in Rochester was sunny and cool; the last of the autumn leaves were grimly hanging on to their trees in a stiff breeze. Watkins Glen is over an hour’s drive from Rochester but after we got off the interstate the upstate New York scenery we enjoyed the drive, Highway 14 wended through an assortment of small and medium sized towns, many with impressive Federal style brick homes. We finally reached Geneva at the top of Lake Seneca and stopped for lunch. Watkins Glen is situated at the end of long, narrow Lake Seneca, one of the dozen Finger Lakes famous for wineries, breweries, distilleries, cheese and apples, plus beautiful scenery. We later learned that Seneca was the second largest and the deepest of the Finger Lakes with a depth of over 600 feet and that salt was once mined beneath its chilly waters.
As we followed the lake shore towards the Glen, Lana drove past a number of wineries, most perched on the shores of the very blue lake. She assured me that we would get chance to visit them later but our first stop was the IMRRC Library and Museum. There the Ramblers got to meet the friendly and welcoming people at the Center. All the time the Ramblers spent at the Center was both interesting and fun due to the hospitality of all the people we met there. It was great to meet Don and Lana Capps and Pat Yongue whom the Ramblers knew only through email. We soon felt like we had known them for a long time and enjoyed their company throughout our visit to the Glen.
Thanks also to Glenda Gephardt, Tom Weidemann, Jenny Ambrose, Bill Green, Duke Argetsinger, Kip Zeiter, Josh Ashby, Samantha Baker, and many others for making our time at the Center such an enjoyable one.
We arrived on Thursday afternoon , the Symposium, formally titled the Michael C. Argetsinger International Symposium of Motor Racing History would be begin on Thursday evening with full days on Friday and Saturday, Both Friday and Saturday, we would also have some free time to tour the area, Sunday was open to relax and recap and Monday afternoon we would head home.
Since the Georgia Rambler blog is about travel, not racing history, my focus is naturally on our visit to the Glen and the surrounding area as well as the Center and the Track. The International Motor Racing Research Center is certainly worth a visit if you have any interest in auto racing. In order to commemorate 50 years of racing at Watkins Glen, the racing enthusiasts of the area decided to create a special room for archives and research at the town library. Later as the idea caught fire, eventually the IMRRC was born. Part research library housing valuable archival and museum featuring racing memorabilia, it is open year round to visitors and researchers.
A month or two earlier, the Watkins Glen State Park for which Watkins Glen is famous would also have been a delightful place to visit, unfortunately winter comes fairly early to upstate New York. On the first day of the Symposium, we woke up to find snow on the ground.
It was a chilly 19 degrees Friday morning; the wind coming off the lake made it even colder. We had a choice of Burger King or Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast and opted for Burger King because it was closer. We did have to cross busy Highway 14 which bisected the Glen to get there. Because it was icy, we hovered at the curb until some nice folks stopped to let us cross. When you visit Watkins Glen, don’t eat breakfast at Burger King; it was food and we ate it. However the people who worked there were very friendly and their coffee is good. The next two days we breakfasted at Dunkin’ Donuts, and found they made a good egg bacon muffin. Donuts were just OK, but popular.
Friday morning, the Symposium opened at the Watkins Glen International Speedway, a chilly and windy place that day. Although its Media Center, a special purpose and program building, was very nice, it was also very chilly. When we arrived the heat was on low,probably just enough to keep the plumbing from freezing. Fortunately excellent donuts and coffee were waiting for us, which made up for our sub-par breakfast and warmed us up. The Ramblers heartily recommend Tobey’s Donut Shop in Watkins Glen.
After a series of interesting talks on various racing topics, we were treated to a tour of the Watkins Glen road course. First we were driven around the current road course track, closed to street traffic, in a small bus; then we were treated to a ride on the original road course. After WWII, Watkins Glen was a real road course ; in its early years, races were held on local roads in and around the Glen.
A brief history of Road Racing at Watkins Glen is necessary at this point. Road Racing started at the Glen because of Cameron Argetsinger, who spent many summers at his family home on Seneca Lake and loved the area. in 1948, Argetsinger, a young sports car enthusiast and an early member of the SCCA(Sports Car Club of America), proposed to the Watkins Glen Chamber of Commerce that they hold an amateur road race, grandly named, “The Watkins Glen Grand Prix,” at the Glen.
The Chamber of Commerce readily agreed, as the golden years of auto racing in the United States were just unfolding; auto racing was very popular in the post war years. Argetsinger mapped out a 6.6 mile course on mostly paved roads with a short dirt and gravel stretch. Since the course crossed a NYC RR track, Argetsinger and the Chamber got permission to close both the RR track and the public roads for the race. Thus the SCCA then sanctioned racing on the track and the first race was held in October 1948.
However, as you might expect, this was a dangerous course and two years later, a driver was killed and three people were injured when another car left the road during a race. Thus changes were made as early as 1951, to improve the safety of the course. There would be 4 different road course configurations at the Glen; in 1956, a brand new road course was built as a permanent road course on 550 acres which overlapped a part of the first. The current track is owned by the International Speedway Corporation and hosts NASCAR, sports car and open wheel races as well as music concerts.
If you are interested in the program of the Symposium, you will find it on You Tube.
Another major attraction of Watkins Glen, in fact, it is right at the edge of town, is Watkins Glen State Park. We did not get to visit, although it is a place of outstanding natural beauty which has been open to the public since 1863. Watkins Glen State Park is the best known of the Finger Lakes State Parks, and has a reputation for leaving visitors spellbound. A few years ago, it came in third in a USA Today contest to select the most beautiful state park in the country.
Although it is not a particularly large park, the glen’s stream descends 400 feet between 200-foot cliffs through a deep gorge carved by water and wind, with 19 waterfalls along its course. A series of steps, approximately 800 of them, allow visitors to enjoy the beauties of the gorge.
The path winds over and under waterfalls and through the spray of Cavern Cascade, obviously this would not be fun on a frigid day. A series of trails along the rim, overlook the gorge. The park has other attractions for visitors in warmer weather. There is a large swimming pool, a campground and picnic sites for those who want to spend more time in a beautiful area .
Fortunately for the Ramblers who are not fond of steps anymore, New York State was doing some construction work on the trails, so a visit to the park was not an option, not to mention that it would have been miserably cold and icy. Actually the park is closed during the winter, and as its website posted, it will probably open in May, depending on clean-up of the debris from winter storms. For those of you who love waterfalls this is the place to be, on a nice day.
Besides enjoying the many speakers of the symposium on Friday and Saturday, the Ramblers got to visit an apple farm and several wineries during our time in the Glen.
New York State apples are famous throughout the Eastern United States so we had to try some.
The senior Rambler enjoyed the apple cider at Reisinger’s Apple House, as well as samples of juicy, crunchy apples and tasty apple cider donuts. These donuts are also highly recommended. To his surprise, since we visited on Veteran’s Day, the cheerful proprietress said he was entitled to a bag of apples, his choice, for his service to our country. We were going to pick one of the small bags but no, he was gifted with a 10 pound bag of very tasty apples.
Unfortunately, the Ramblers couldn’t figure out how to get the large bag of apples home on the airplane so we ate a few and gave the rest to Lana, our thoughtful driver and tour guide for the duration of our stay in the Glen. She assured us they would be put to good use.
The Rambler always enjoys tasting wine wherever she travels, and tastings at several Finger Lake wineries we visited were a lot of fun. There were so many to choose from, I deferred to Lana and Pat who had been to the Glen before, as to where to stop.
They did not steer me wrong. The Finger Lakes region is noted for its wines, especially white and sparking wines. The Ramblers had driven right past the Finger Lakes on several road trips years ago, and now were were sorry we had missed them.
When you visit Watkins Glen, first take a drive around long, narrow Lake Seneca. You will see literally dozens of wineries on both sides from the Glen at the bottom to Geneva at the top. Maps of the Seneca Lake Wine trail are readily available and you might want to check their descriptions before you visit your favorite wineries. Friday we had a fairly long break and Pat, Lana and us Ramblers had an excellent lunch at the Red Newt Winery.
Needless to say, many of the restaurants were closing for the winter but the Newt was open. Although the large dining room was almost empty, we sat near a glowing fire and had delicious burgers. The burgers were made with a combination of beef and pork, a local specialty, and were particularly tasty.
Not all was fun and games, both Pat Yongue and I had work to do. She was tasked with introducing the presenters on Saturday, and then she and I would be part of a panel discussion on Women in Auto Racing. We didn’t have far to go as Saturday’s events were held right across the parking lot from the IMRRC at the Watkins Glen school which is blessed with a neat little auditorium. Its only drawback was that the seats were made for schoolchildren not adults and did not have much wiggle room. However, the acoustics were good and it had internet. Josh Ashby, who was in charge of the technical side, did a great job on the technical side.
I thought my talk went reasonably well, and it was the proper length. One of the most annoying things that you encounter at a conference is an over-long presentation which eats into the next presenter’s time and forces everyone else to scramble. My Power Point presentation also went off without a hitch. With a sigh of relief, I relaxed back in my tiny seat and was enjoying the next presentation when the power went out. It really went out as it was pitch dark in the auditorium. We later learned that all of Watkins Glen was without power, and the outage lasted over 3 hours. Fortunately the school had an generator; the lights flickered to life and we gamely soldiered on. Although we could no longer use any visuals, our audience enjoyed the presentation that followed and the panel discussion that followed.
We were to have a wine tasting back at the Center, several local wineries are sponsors of the IMRRC, before dinner at the Upper Deck Grill and Light’s Out Lounge at the Watkins Glen Elks Lodge. Unfortunately it was black as pitch both outside and inside and we learned that the chefs at the lodge couldn’t start our dinner until the power came back on. The lack of electricity didn’t stop us from tasting wine by flashlight and the candle app on a cell phone; somehow the darkness made it even more fun. After an hour or so, the group was about to head to an Italian steak house in nearby Montour, which had power, when the lights came back on. The chefs started cooking at the Lodge and we headed to the Upper Deck Grill for a convivial farewell dinner. As it turned out, the lights really were out for a while in the Light’s Out Grill! A good time was had by all, as we had an opportunity to talk about the symposium with new friends and old over a relaxing dinner.
Sunday was our last day in the Glen and Lana had invited Pat and the Ramblers to a fall tasting party at Ravines Winery in Geneva. We got to enjoy the lake scenery again and Geneva is an interesting old town. The winery tasting room was in a huge old barn, set up for many tasting stations that afternoon.
It was a very popular place and we mingled with a happy group out to enjoy some good wine on a sunny but cool day. On our way to the Glen we passed a Wegmans supermarket and had to stop. For those of you who enjoy checking out grocery stores, Wegmans consistently is ranked as one of the top supermarkets in the country. Since the senior Rambler was outvoted by three women in the car, we decided to check it out. Lana had one near her home in Virginia but Pat and I had never shopped at one since there are non in Texas or Georgia. It made a fun break, we got some snacks and fruit for breakfast the next day and enjoyed a quiet evening after a very busy day. We said good-by to the folks at the center that evening and Pat who had an earlier flight to Houston.
Lana had airport duty that morning and she again made the trip interesting by stopping at a waterfall in village along the way to Rochester.
Although our flight was in the afternoon, we were fine with getting dropped off early at the airport as Pat and Don were driving back to Virginia that afternoon. Because Rochester International is small and not very busy, check-in was a breeze and we had plenty of time to choose a restaurant for lunch. Don’t remember the name of the place, but it was a local chain and the food was good, We then watched an assortment of planes take off and land until it was time to board our Delta flight. Again it was uneventful and early. It is always good to get home but our long week-end in Watkins Glen certainly lived up to expectations and then some.