Epilogue
Before closing this installment, let's look ahead.
American and European interests in racing differed. A Barney Oldfield, for example, had no interest in driving cars around a twisty course full of corners; he wanted to go as fast as possible. Most European drivers thought (mistakenly) that there was no challenge in racing on ovals. The right kind of man, however, might be sufficiently open-minded and creative to find ways of fitting together pieces of both worlds.
In the next part of the story, we follow American racing as it branches out, and we also follow the career of one man in particular, Mike Caruso: born in Italy, raised in Brooklyn, and by choice a resident of Hicksville.
Mike Caruso in the car he built in 1929 for American sprint races,
utilizing a British Riley engine
www.carusomidgetracing.com/racing-photos.html
"Exotic car" purists would cringe if they looked back to the beginning of this article, and saw driver Johnny Duncan in Mike Caruso's midget #6. To make this car, Mike did something truly impressive (and perhaps to some, sacrilegious): he sliced the block of an 8-cylinder Bugatti engine in half, and rebuilt it into a 4-cylinder racing engine.
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