Alfa GTZ Racing In The U.S.A.

Vito Witting da Prato says in his mostly OK book Alfa Romeo TZ-TZ 2: Born To Win that the TZ was not raced in the United States (sidebar page, 77).  This is not correct.

The TZ was approved in 1964 for both the SCCA's USRRC U2L class and C Production.  The one in these pictures was the only TZ campaigned in the States in 1964 and 1965.  da Pratto is correct when he says that the TZ was expensive for its class (think: Lotus Elan).  Also, Alfa wanted to sell TZ's to competitors who had a good chance of advancing "brand image" in the States.  TZ's weren't available to someone who wanted to take a flyer at CP in the SCCA's amateur division.

Alfa leaned on, or finessed, the SCCA into approving the TZ as a production car (which was, at best, a reach).  The car featured in this post was sold at a "friendly" price to Chuck Stoddard, a driver with a winning record in Giuliettas in GP and DP, with the understanding that it would be campaigned in the USRRC manufacturer's championship in 1964.  In 1966 and later, a few TZ's (including this one) found their way into the CP class in the SCCA's amateur division.

Here is Stoddard's record with his TZ:

1964: 4th in SCCA Manufacturer's Championship (USRRC) and Central Division C Production Champion.

Sebring: 1st, GT 1600 class (13th overall), with Jim Kaser.  Chassis 750052 (factory car, entered by Scuderia Sant' Ambroeus).  FIA race.

Above: the Sebring class-winning chassis 750052, now in the Revs Institute/Collier Museum in Naples, FL.  It is my
understanding that this car went back into factory inventory in Italy after the race.  Below: Sebring sister car 750051
 at Thompson Raceway in CT for a Regional or National event.  It was DNS at Thompson and I know not what
happened to it after that.  It was not raced in the States in '64, at least not at the national level.  This picture is
from da Pratto's book; his source was George Fogg, who took it and had an association with the car.

SCCA National, Mid-Ohio: 2nd, C Production (I crewed for Stoddard at this race; won by a Porsche 904.  It was a shakedown for the USRRC events.)

USRRC Watkins Glen: 1st, GT 2 (6th overall)

Watkins Glen USRRC.  I crewed for Stoddard at this race.  His GTZ and Mike Gammino's Ferrari GTO (with race
with race number 23) made a fine-looking pair when they ran together, which they did because Gammino lapped
Stoddard at least twice, as did the factory Cobras, which looked squirrely as hell braking for the chicane.

USRRC Greenwood Raceway: (Indianola, IA): 3rd, GT 2 (15th overall)

Above and below: Stoddard's car at the USRRC at Greenwood, IA.  Note the three-eared knock-off hubs.  They were
typical of factory (Autodelta) run cars in Europe, but "never" seen on private-entrant cars (although available as an
option).  The Kaser/Stoddard Sebring car had two-eared hubs.  The car Stoddard raced in '64 and '65 had the three-
eared hubs seen here.  He was told that it was Sanesi's factory test mule, refreshed.  It arrived white; he repainted
it red.

USRRC Mid-Ohio: 3rd, GT2 (8th overall)

USRRC Meadowdale (IL): 1st, GT 2 (6th overall)

Meadowdale, 1964, I believe (this looks like "Serpentine").

USRRC Road America 500: 1st, GT 2, (8th overall, drove solo in the Road America 500)

Road America 500 (USRRC) 1964.  Stoddard also won his class at the Road America 500 in 1965, driving solo!
Although his TZ finished at the sharp end of the small-bore cars in '64, it was not easy to stay out of the way
of big-bore cars.  At this race, all cars ran together, including the big-bore modifieds like the Chaparrals.

Stoddard scored 35 points for Alfa Romeo to take 4th in the Manufacturers' Championship of the USRRC.  He towed to 5 races only in the midwest.  Shelby American's Cobras scored 72 points (contesting all races), Porsche scored 52 points in 7 races (with various 904's), and Ford of England scored 45 points in 9 races (with a two-car factory team of Lotus Cortinas, one of which was often driven by Sir John Whitmore).

Stoddard's bete noir in '64 was John Whitmore, in a Ford of Britain factory entry (one of two cars).  Later "Sir John,"
Whitmore passed away at the end of April, 2017.  "He raced me hard, but clean," Stoddard told me, "a good guy."
"They used to fly him over, with a fresh engine, for every race.  The Cortinas themselves stayed in the States."
This picture is one of the best I could find of a Lotus Cortina, at a recent Goodwood event.

1965: National Champion, Central Division, C Production

Sebring: DNF, accident (factory car, not the one pictured here).  FIA race.

Meadowdale (SCCA National): 2nd in C & D Production race

Road America June Sprints (SCCA National): 82.7 m.p.h. (no finishing position listed)

I don't know where this picture was taken; I just like it.  My note (pulled, like the pic, from the internet) says it was
Mid-Ohio.  But Bill Green does not place Stoddard and his TZ at Mid-Ohio in 1965.  I am sure that it was '65,
because Chuck didn't run the "Stoddard Racing Team" logo in 1964.  He is 6'-3" tall and the TZ was a tight fit.
He always drove "head down" in this car.  More chassis trivia: only "factory cars" had extractors for cockpit
ventilation, in the rear quarter windows.  Most TZ race cars had sliding panels in the side windows.  Some
factory cars had fixed plastic side windows, like the ones in Stoddard's car.  No configuration worked
well for driver comfort.  Stoddard raced with the vent wings held "full open" with rubber bands.

USRRC Road America 500: 1st, GT 2 (15th overall)

Road America 500, 1965.

Indianapolis Raceway Park (SCCA National): 2nd, C Production

Daytona Beach (SCCA Runoffs): 4th, C Production  (This was the first year of the Runoffs; it was possible to be one of several National Champions, by Region, as it had been in previous years.  In later years, a driver's finishing position in the Runoffs determined his national class championship rank.)


NOTE: Many thanks to Bill Green of the International Motor Racing Research Library in Watkins Glen, NY, for compiling Stoddard's racing record for me in 2007.  Bill's sources were periodicals from the 1950's and 1960's, principally the SCCA's magazine Sport Car.

Alfa Romeo GTZ's at Sebring, 1964-1966

I backed into this post partly because of my amusement (with the distance of years) at Chuck Stoddard's reversal of fortunes at Sebring, and partly because I hadn't realized that Alfa TZ 2's raced at Sebring in 1966.  Three class wins in three years: not bad.

In 1964, three cars were entered by the (Italian team) Scuderia Sant Ambroseus, but were, in fact, the factory team.  For the drivers of one car, Alfa chose three Italian mainstays including Consalvo Sanesi, its long-time race and go-to test driver.  The other two cars were offered to American drivers with successful SCCA records in Giulietta Veloces.

Chuck Stoddard behind the wheel of the class-winning '64 car here.  His co-driver was Jim Kaser.  The primary
competition at Sebring in '64 was the factory Lotus-Cortina team, led by Jim Clark, which failed to last the
distance.  Knock-off wheels on GTZ's were seen almost exclusively on factory-entered cars, although
they were a customer purchase option.  Cockpit ventilation was almost nonexistent in TZ's and the
extractor vents in the rear quarter windows didn't help.  Stoddard raced his own TZ in the States in
'64 and '65 with the vent windows held "full open" by rubber bands.

The American-driven sister car in 1964, by Bill Wuesthoff and Chuck Dietrich, who, like Stoddard, had stellar careers in
small-bore cars in the SCCA.  The exhaust shown here was the factory 4-2-1 race system, with a flattened final pipe,
exiting in front of the rear wheel.  Note the "New Jersey Manufacturer" plate.  This car was DNF, gearbox. 

The third car in '64 was driven by Alfa's factory driver European "regulars," Consalvo Sanesi, Roberto Bussinello, and
Giampiero Biscaldi.  Sanesi was driving a wounded, lightless, car slowly past the pits when hit by Bob Johnson's
Cobra, which was going a ton.  Sanesi might have been broiled alive but for the heroic effort of a driver
standing in the pits, Jocko Maggiocomo (an American).  He was painfully but not seriously burned.
Sanesi was by now a  middle-aged guy; unsurprisingly,  he ended his racing career after this shunt.

Alfa upped the ante in 1965 with four GTZ's, now entered by an undisguised factory team, Autodelta. This was the famous "gullywasher" Sebring rain race--the one of the iconic motorboating pictures, although, surprisingly, rain did not hamper Alfa's 1-2-3 class-winning results: Rolland/Consten (both French), Bussinello/de Adamich (Italian), and Deserti/Zeccoli (also Italian; Zeccoli was another regular FIA European driver).  In a role reversal from 1964, the only American drivers, Gaston Andrey/Chuck Stoddard were DNF.

Above and below: minor inconveniences for Roberto Bussinello and Andrea de Adamich (who went on to a career in
big-bore sports cars and Formula One) on their way to 2nd in the GT 1600 class in 1965's "gullywasher" race.

The Rolland/Costen GTZ follows the Maglioli/Baghetti Ferrari 275 P through the Hairpin en-route to a trouble-free
class win in GT 1600.  GTZ's typically ran with their Ferrari GTO-like supplementary radiator nose vents fully or
partially open, even in moderate ambient temperatures, except at high-speed circuits like LeMans and Monza. 

Above: the Reed/Gerber Cobra, already with nose damage, on its way to a three car DNF.  Below: the remains of the
Riley/Cone Volvo P-1800 after the three-car accident.  I've not found a picture of the Andrey/Stoddard GTZ.  The
Volvo blew it's engine in the Webster Turns and spun in its own oil.  The Cobra punted it, bigtime, into the infield
of the circuit and spun to the outside (the Cobra is barely visible in the picture below).  Chuck Stoddard in his
GTZ hit the oil, collected the wreckage, and was out.  From Hero ('64) to Zero ('65) in the Alfa team.

In 1966, Alfa again entered 4 cars, with consecutive race numbers, although one car was allegedly a private entry, driven by Americans Sam Posey and Teddy Theodoracopulos.  The factory cars were driven by Russo/Andrey, Ziccoli/Russo, and Bianchi/Casten.

Unlike other homologation specials of this era, the TZ 2 was actually a true "evolution:" a lower, wider, lighter, fiberglass-bodied version of the TZ on the same frame.  But time had passed it by.  Nobody was doing front engine, rear drive GT cars with tubular space frames any more, even in the small-bore classes.

As in 1964, but unlike the sweep in 1965, Alfa won the GT 1600 class (Russo/Andrey)--with the last car standing.  The other three cars were pfffffftt.  One blew its engine at 16 laps.  Another retired with an "oil leak" 6 laps later.  Let's call that a blown engine as well.  The last non-finisher ate its gearbox before quarter distance.

Above: the 1966 Russo/Andrey class-winner.  Below: remember suspension?  Body roll?  Theoretically streetable GT
cars?  The # 61 car was out early with an "oil leak" probably caused by a rod through the block.