Remembering Briggs Cunningham
By John Fitch
Monterey Historics, 1981: A beaming Mr. C poses with four of his drivers.
L-R: John Gordon Benett, Sherwood Johnston, Briggs, Fred Wacker, and John Fitch.
(David Woodhouse photo)
Briggs Cunningham, my boss, companion, mentor and, most of all, my friend, has passed on and, even though his last years were pretty much spent apart from all of us, the world seems just a bit emptier today. I don’t need to belabor his life and careers – those statistics of his various endeavors will be found elsewhere as the world pauses a moment to consider just who he was. I would rather think of our times together, stretching back to the very early days of postwar motor racing in this country, our great campaigns with the cars that bore his name so proudly, the long talks, the common pursuit of speed and all the other things that characterized our times together.
People don’t talk about the Cunningham racing efforts so much these days – there are only a couple of us left who were closely involved in those years and there has been a lot of great racing over the intervening years. However, it was Briggs Cunningham who wanted to bring America to the front of road racing and he wanted to do it in an American designed car, built and campaigned by American engineers and mechanics and driven by American drivers. That goal doesn’t seem to be so difficult looking back at the big efforts by Ford and Corvette but Briggs did this all before the American automotive giants had much interest in the sport and he did it pretty darned good.
I was part of that time, raced the big Cunninghams on a variety of circuits from Watkins Glen to Road America to Le Mans and enjoyed every moment of it all. Looking back, of course, it doesn’t seem quite so important now in the large scheme of things but, at the time, we were a dedicated bunch, marshaled together by a yes, loved leader, and we did put on a respectable show by any measure. Of course, that leader was, in so many ways, bigger than life and his stature in the sport was paralleled by only a few – mostly gone now. Briggs’ passing brings to a close a very special chapter in my life – driving for Briggs was the high point in our racing careers, and for many of us, the high point in our lives.
When I last visited Briggs, Alzheimers was taking its toll, but one thing he hadn’t lost; he was still the soul of kindness and consideration. This innate sensitivity came through when he actually apologized for his lack of memory.
Briggs was considerate first of his people but also of his cars, as though he felt a stewardship responsibility for them during his tenure as owner. He seemed to assume that his cars deserved to be preserved for the pleasure of owners and collectors who would treasure them in the future. In the huge number of races he drove, he never crashed or ever scratched a race car in anyone’s memory. This sense of a given car’s place in history is supported by his creation of one of the more magnificent auto museums in the world after his racing career was over. That collection represented the golden age of sports car racing that he personified.
Briggs’ interests and talents ranged widely, but one incident tells where his heart was.
He had just won the America’s Cup and was congratulated for taking sailing’s highest honor for America. His cars happened to be racing the same day and he replied, “Thank you very much. I just wish I could have been there.”
I have a vision of Briggs up somewhere in the clouds, where he and his old competitors meet each day to fire up the cars and race each other ad infinitum. Fangio and his calibre of genius are there and Enzo Ferrari, still behind the scenes, and now Briggs Cunningham.
Briggs has just been warming up with us mortals, eager for one more run against the class of the field, and I’ll put my money on the white cars with the blue stripes.
Give it your best, old friend, it’s the only way you ever knew how to do it!
John Fitch
Lime Rock, CT, July 9, 2003
~ The above article originally appeared in the September/October 2003 issue of Vintage Motorsport magazine
under the title “Remembering Briggs Cunningham.”
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