“Will the Land Speed Record ever be broken again? In my lifetime, I doubt it”
ANDREW FRANKEL
Hi,”saidthesmartlydressed lady in the hospitality unit at the seventh annual Rennsport Reunion held at Laguna Seca at the end of September, “but can you remind me which French film star you look like?” It would have been an interesting approach out of the blue from anyone, but I’d already noticed this particular person – to whom I’d never said one word in my life – because up until this moment she’d been sat with George Follmer.
“Jean Reno,” I replied. “Everyone seems to think I look like Jean Reno.”
“That’s the guy!” she exclaimed before going on to tell me she’d spent her entire life convincing people she wasn’t actually Doris Day which I can quite believe. So she called me Jean, I called her Doris, we never discovered each other’s real names and we got along famously. Without that, I’m not sure I’d have ever plucked up the courage to talk to her famously curmudgeonly other half, sat on his own at the table not six feet away but somehow managing to look bored while simultaneously scowling. I looked at him, and I looked at Doris positively fizzing away in front of me and something did not compute. So I asked her if she thought George would mind if we had a chat. “Mind?” she said. “He’d love it!”