Q: I finally had time to read the book The Indy Car Wars: The 30-Year Fight for Control of American Open-Wheel Racing by Sigur E. Whitaker. It was really entertaining and she seems to have most of the facts correct. Have you read it yet, or do you know someone else of racing authority that has? I would like to know if it is accurate. Secondly, I was a big fan of Randy Bernard and the ideas he was implementing for IndyCar. Have you talked to him since he was booted? I would really like to know his side of the story and the plans he had that were never to be. An interview with him would be great on a low racing news week.

Mark Suska, Lexington, OH

RM: That book should be filed in the fiction section, that’s all I’ll say. Just wait on Gordon Kirby’s book on the history of open wheel, that’s going to be the definitive and accurate story. I talk to Randy all the time and he’s managing Garth Brooks, so things are going quite well.

No need to worry about Randy. He’s doing just fine. Image by IndyCar

Q: I was a director of Anglia Cars back in the day and Roberto Guerrero drove an Argo F3 car for us for two years. He was, indeed, “one of the nicest guys on the planet” and quick.

I did not run Roberto, that was fellow director, Nick Jordan. I was running our team with a Belgian lad in the European F3 Championship on soft Goodyear G50 rubber and Nick was running Roberto in the British F3 Championship on harder Goodyear G54 rubber.

We had one round of the European Championship in the UK and we were testing together at Snetterton. Roberto was having some problems and I wandered over to give some advice. Roberto curtly told me to butt out as he and Nick had been working together all year and had things in hand. I did. About 4:30, I looked up and saw that they had started to pack up.  I wandered over and asked them if they were ‘finished’ for the day. They were, and still had the same issue. So, I asked them to humor me and try something. To their credit, they did and it worked. Afterwards, Roberto came up an apologized to me for his earlier comments, saying that he should have listened. A real class act!

John Peterson, Plymouth, MN

RM: That’s a good illustration of his personality, although I never saw him mad or short except once when somebody crashed him on the first lap at Miami. He had Indy won in 1987 after Mario broke down and then his clutch went out, but I never heard him complain about his bad luck in any circumstance.

Q: I know sports car racing isn’t your first love, but as you are well aware of lots of IndyCar drivers dabble in it quite a bit. Especially Sebring and Road Atlanta.

With that being said, are you gonna check out Ford vs Ferrari coming out soon? Looks like a good one. I believe 1966 was the year before Gurney and Foyt won. Anyway, hope you get to see it.

Doug Ferguson, Debary, FL

RM: If it was the 1967 race with The Big Eagle and A.J., absolutely, but I’ll probably wait until it hits HBO. But the cool news is that Alex Gurney got to drive in this new movie.

Q: So as racing movies go, Grand Prix is still the best. That’s when men were men, even though I’m not a big James Garner fan. Senna was also a great documentary; Rush was pretty good – actually saw Ron Howard on a train and complimented him on making a racing movie. But have you seen Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans narrated by his son Chad? Very good, and my new favorite number one, the history of Formula 1 safety. The in-car of Senna at Monaco one hand on the wheel and one on the shiftier going up Beau Rivage is amazing. But my real question is, how come no A.J. in the new movie Ford vs Ferrari? And when will they be making a movie about Mario’s life?

Tony, Mamaroneck, NY

RM: Super Tex made his one and only appearance at Le Mans in 1967 with Dan Gurney and their victory would seem to have made a better story to me, but this new movie is about 1966. And Winning with Paul Newman was a good racing movie, pretty damn accurate in every way. Haven’t seen that McQueen movie, just his original Le Mans and that was excellent. NBC did a great documentary on Mario and showed it last May, and it would be better than any movie.