Page 150 - OVATION Magazine (Issue 1)

Borchetta’s Beauties
An impassioned collector runs us through a few of his cherished possessions.
“We are custodians of these things,” Scott Borchetta says. “They
will outlive us, so our job is to take care of them for the next person.”
As such, Borchetta has a big job as caretaker of one of the planet’s finest private collections of race cars and racing ephemera. The names he drops are not only icons, but often friends, so he approach- es his mission with both gravitas and love. And there’s plenty to love in Borchetta’s “bat cave.” A few highlights:
• Bobby Unser’s 1972 race car—badge 7201—was the first Indy car to eclipse 200 mph. It won five races that year, and its sister car
won six, breaking 11 track records. “If those cars finished, they won! They either won or they broke.” • Helmets from Michael Schumacher, Al Unser,
Al Unser Jr., and other legends. “We have a photo match of Al Unser from
the ’65 Indy 500. We have Dale Earnhardt’s open-face helmet from Daytona and a Richard Petty authen-
tic race-worn open-face helmet.”
• Suits from World Champion Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso, Juan Montoya’s Indy 500 win, and Alexander Rossi’s only year of Formula 1 racing. Jeff Gordon’s DuPont Rainbow Warrior suit was a gift from Borchetta’s wife
and Ray Evernham. “Ray wrote a note that makes
it very special,” Borchetta says. “He said, ‘You will notice on the left arm, there’s a piece of red duct tape that is covering up the Coca-Cola logo. We had just signed our Pepsi deal, and we didn’t have time to get new suits for Daytona.’ That red piece of duct tape
is still there.”
• Marty Robbins’s 1964 Belvedere that he drove at Nashville’s Fairgrounds Speedway in 1967. “He was a real driver and got all the way up in the highest series. This particular car, it was wrecked in Nash- ville, and there’s a photo from that night. Then what happened is what happens
all the time: A few decades have passed, Marty’s long gone, the crew chief’s passed away. The car is literally discovered with a tree growing through it. Ray finds the car through a couple contacts, restores it, and brings it over to Nash- ville to let me drive it for an episode of Americarana. It was mind-boggling.” —H.G.
156 | OVATION FALL 2019