IN THIS FEATURE The Brooklands of California When I won it Changing times

What I like to do when I take a car to Pebble Beach is bring it out on the field, where it sits tidy at 100 points for the judging. Then I go out and I drive it down to about 30 points. Then I restore it all over again. It's the whole fun of it.

In the past, I've taken quite a few cars to Pebble Beach. This year I was there with my 1916 Crane-Simplex. It was built as the American version of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. Mine was made for the New York Auto Show and has a boat-style body. I was very pleased. It took best in class.

As I said when I won, Pebble Beach is a chance for simple millionaires to go against billionaires and win! All these rich guys show up and most of them have no connection with the car at all, other than owning it. Most don't know the first thing about classic cars.

Concours showgoers crowd around the winners in the paddock

If I ran the Concours, I'd institute a written test. If I knew a guy had just paid a million bucks for an eight-litre Bentley, I'd sit him down, bring the Bentley over and say, "How many races did this WO win? Please write me an essay about the car."

I remember this one guy showing up to the Concours with an Auburn Cord. The judges come around, look the car up and down, and one of them says, "The clock's not working." So they leave and give him a few minutes to fix it.

The guy is frantic. He's under the dash having a feel. He can't find any wires. And he can't get hold of the restorer. So the judges come back and deduct three points.

When the owner finds the restorer a bit later, he's screaming at him, asking him where the clock's wires have got to. "Wires?" the restorer says. "Did you wind it?"

"Wind it?" says the owner.

"Yes. It's not supposed to have wires. The car was built in 1936."