The Day I Met Carroll Shelby
I met him because of our Karmann Ghia and “the need for speed”
Who would have thought I would meet legendary racer and race car designer Carroll Shelby at an abandoned airport on the high plains of Texas?
During World War II the United States Army Air Forces built scores of airfields for training pilots and crews in Texas and Florida. Nobody expected an invasion in West Texas, but it was perfect for airfields.
Towns were few and far between, no mountains required leveling, and there wasn’t much to run into but cotton fields and cows. And a few oil fields. Other than the rare blizzard in 1957 and an occasional tornado, there wasn’t much to worry about weather-wise.
In the 1950s, our family lived in the panhandle of Texas where we bought our first Karmann Ghia Volkswagen. The little town of Plainview is about 40 miles NE of Lubbock. Coincidentally, an abandoned airfield was located a mile SSW of town.
Those airfields made great racetracks.
As an example, Sebring International Raceway started life as one of those WWII airfields. By the end of the war, 65 airfields had been constructed across the state of Texas.
