The American team of North American Amateur Drivers President Joe Faraldo, Yonkers Club President Alan Schwartz and NAADA member Mike Strada recently returned home after they represented the United States of America in a three-country international event in Italy. The trio came home empty handed.
“We finished third and the Swedes were second best, as the home-town Italians once again drove on to victory,” Faraldo said. “It was great fun and our hosts couldn’t have been more congenial. We kept up with them in all aspects and maybe even outdid them in food and wine consumption, but they prevailed on the racetracks.”
“We spent two beautiful days at the seashore in Alassio to prepare for this event, prior to any racing. The weather was co-operative and of course, we cannot speak highly enough of the food and wine that the Italian contingency forced us to partake in,” noted USA team member Alan Schwartz.
“We raced in two places in Northern Italy. On April 10 we were at Albenga, a beautiful Mediterranean town with a five-eighth’s mile track that looked like a picture postcard. It was opening day and we (the Friendship Competition) were the main event on the card. We placed in both races, but the Italians won that round.
“The next day we went on to Torino, to the Hippodrome at Vinovo, where our race was very prominent on the card. That was also the day of the Gran Premio Citta’ Di Torino which went for $99,000 Euros,” Schwartz continued. “The top driver in Sweden, Kilhstrom Orjan, was flown in for that race and did exactly what the Swedes anticipated he would do and he won the event. It was quite exciting, even though somewhat anti-climatic after the amateur events that we were in.”
Host Enrico Columbino, president of the Italian Amateur Club, prepared a memorable program for his guests all of whom enjoyed themselves tremendously and before the U.S. contingent headed from home plans were made that NAADA would again host the Italians, perhaps later this year.
“It will be awfully hard to match their hospitality and certainly we don’t have the history that northern Italy does, but when they visited us last year they had a wonderful time, too,” Faraldo said. “And I’m giving them fair warning that when they come here next time we’ll be ‘loaded for bear’ and they will chase us on the race tracks like we chased them in Italy.”
(NAADA)