Posted by Steve Silverstein in the TEAE Forum 5/9/2005
Skip Adrian is the driver racing the Alpine in the photo found just the other week . (No longer available) Here’s the story…
The car was owned by Tommy Elliot. Elliot owned a Chrysler/Dodge dealership in the 60’s and when Chrysler bought Rootes Elliot started to sell Alpines. Elliot, who had raced boats at one time, wanted to race the Alpine. He didn’t have an Alpine available so he got he car from another dealer in Sacramento. Then he had Bob Hagin prepare the car. (You may have heard of Hagin since he prepared Bud Rose’s Alpines which Steve Froines drove)
Elliot took the car to Vacaville to get his license and over the weekend had problems with the car. Adrian, then in college, offered to help out and kept the car running for the weekend. Elliot offered to let Adrian race the car while he was away in Europe. At one of the races at Laguna with Adrian ended up with the engine scattered all over – this while Tommy Elliot was still in Europe. This was one of the new 1725cc’s engines and they had oiling issues back then and they still do.
Adrian and Elliot opted to go back to the old 1592cc engine (three mains) and had much better results. Skip Adrian would race in the national events and Tommy Elliot would race in the divisional events. They actually ran one enduro at Sears Point.
The car started off life as a race car but was only really raced for one year maybe two years. It was then sold to James Hui who probably never raced the car.
So, that’s the story….