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"Okay, you can read the race records of every GTO and you won&amp;#039;t find my name anywhere, but I did race a 250 GTO. It was at the 1978 Monterey Historic Automobile Races and its founder, Steve Earle, loaned me his GTO to do a story on the event for Road &amp;amp;amp; Track. Steve, you are still my hero.   Chuck Queener, who contributed so much to R&amp;amp;amp;T&amp;#039;s story this year, was my &amp;quot;crew chief.&amp;quot;   So what&amp;#039;s it like to race a GTO? Quite easy in many respects. Race cars in that era could be real brutes, with not a lot of simpatico between functions, some unknown combo of heavy clutch, light steering, whatever.       What, me nervous? Back then a&amp;amp;nbsp;250&amp;amp;nbsp;GTO&amp;amp;nbsp;was&amp;amp;nbsp;only worth about $150,000. Why be nervous? Not the GTO. Everything felt in balance and you could sense the great 250 Testa Rossa and SWB heritage that combined in this one machine. Power was linear - no carburetor stumbling - the brakes didn&amp;#039;t grab and what we now call &amp;quot;turn-in&amp;quot; was best described as confident. Gear shifting could be a hassle in a race car back then, but the GTO&amp;#039;s tall lever with the big ball atop it was, odd as this sounds, inviting.* I did have some trouble getting down in the 2nd in the last corner and felt badly about it until years later when Phil Hill mentioned that the synchros in that gear could be a bit troublesome. Thanks, Phil.         Being ever so careful with Steve Earle&amp;#039;s 250 GTO in the last corner at Laguna Seca. I would never pretend to be Phil Hill, of course, so I tucked in behind a Mustang GT 350 and we had a grand time racing...or what was close enough to racing for us. We had our comeuppance late in the event when a Corvette Grand Sport and a Cobra passed us with the sound and fury an ultralight pilot might feel when buzzed by a P51. It was magnificent. We returned the GTO to Steve unscathed and it was probably three months before I could wipe the smile off my face. In addition to my love of the car and my pride, I had another reason to return the GTO pristine. As I was about to go out to race, a young lady who worked for Steve sweetly asked me, &amp;quot;Now you aren&amp;#039;t going to hurt this car are you?&amp;quot;         Lamm talks with a legendary Road &amp;amp;amp; Track writer, the great Henry Manney III. &amp;quot;Of course not.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m serious, you aren&amp;#039;t going to put one dent in it, are you?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#039;t dream of it, I love this car.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Well so do I,&amp;quot; her voice lowered, &amp;quot;and if you put one tiny nick in it I&amp;#039;m going to ripe your #&amp;amp;amp;@*ing heart out.&amp;quot; Naturally I didn&amp;#039;t want to disappoint her. *NOTE: For all the thousands of miles in which GTOs competed, only one man ever died racing one. Henri Oreiller and Jo Schlesser were leading the 1962 Tour de France when the Oreiller crashed heavily at the Montlh\u00E9ry circuit near Paris and was impaled on the tall shifter. Despite his death, the pair was credited with a 2nd overall in the event. Quite the sportsman, Oreiller won two gold medals and one bronze in skiing in the 1948 Olympic games.    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a18026/on-the-track-ferrari-250-gto/>