Page 148 - OVATION Magazine (Issue 1)

A MAN AND HIS MACHINES
Borchetta outside his “bat cave” with his matte-black Ferrari 812 Superfast.
the stones were brought over from
Europe, laid exactingly to match the castle-like residence farther up the hill. That house, like the building we’re stand- ing inside, was transported from Europe, where it had stood for almost a century before being shipped to Nashville to be- come one of the city’s great estates.
Scott Borchetta—the founder, chair- man, and visionary leader of the Big Machine Label Group (BMLG)—poured his heart into his home, and he knew he needed something equally special for his cars. Simply throwing up a garage, no matter how well designed, wasn’t going to work. Not only would the structure need to be in keeping with the home, but it would also be tasked with housing one of the greatest privately held racing collec- tions in the United States.
There’s the 1967 Eagle Bobby Unser
drove to his first IndyCar win;Al Unser Sr.’s winning suit from the 1971 Indy 500; Paul Newman’s racing helmet; a very first–issue Camaro; one of only 500 Porsche RS 4.0 GT3s; matching Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Jr. racing suits; and one of country legend Marty Robbins’s first race cars, a 1964 Belvedere, recovered and restored to its original purple-and-yellow glory. Oh, and there are the five Ferraris, including a 1972 Dino, a 488 Spider, and a matte-black 812 Superfast.
Borchetta, of course, couldn’t leave the task of creating a home for these treasures to just anyone. Enter wife Sandi Spika Borchetta, BMLG’s creative director and longtime stylist to the stars. Recognizing the importance of the undertaking, she designed the entire structure, had the materials imported from Europe, and supervised the construction of what is
undoubtedly one of the world’s coolest car caves. “She’s amazing,” Borchetta en- thuses about his wife.“All the things that I get to do, she jumps right in.”
Borchetta knows all about digging in and making things happen. Growing up in Southern California, he started racing Motocross as a kid and did his first Quar- ter Midget car race “at 9 or 10” through Northridge’s Quarter Midget Association. In his late teens, he followed his record- promoter father to Nashville, toured with his band, and then got his record-biz start at MTM Records (owned by Mary Tyler Moore). He left after a couple of years to begin a groundbreaking indie radio pro- motions firm that worked with outliers who broke through, including Carlene Carter, the Mavericks, and the Kentucky Headhunters.
After stints driving the white-hot
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