I recently had the great pleasure of chatting with Sam about his colourful and varied life. He is 77 and has been battling Parkinson’s disease for 20 years and now uses a wheelchair. He was extremely enthusiastic, but at times struggled a little to get his words out which must be rather frustrating for a man once dubbed ‘Motormouth’ because of his fast talking, quick wit and telling it how it was. Indeed, back in 1971 Frank Matich, a fellow competitor in Formula 5000, stuck sticky tape over Sam’s mouth in the victory circle, all in fun, of course.
Sam was born into a privileged family, and he was raised and still lives next door to Lime Rock Race Circuit, Connecticut, which has played a major part in his life. However, it was not all a bed of roses. He says: “My mother was left a widow at the end of WW II when my dad was killed at Okinawa. I was just 10 months old. So, she brought me up on her own and took on a lot of masculine roles, although she was an extremely feminine lady. She remarried when I was 10 or 11 and had two boys and they are my best friends today. I went to boarding school in New York. It was one of those schools where you look around and everybody is someone significant’s son. In the first to eighth grades I did worse than terribly. I had
