Email from Dick Irish to etceterini.com about his 1952 Sebring race:  The Siata "adventure" was really fun.  We ran two 12 hour races in a week and I don't think we ever saw 100 mph.  As I mentioned, we had head gasket problems at Vero Beach.  Tony Pompeo even brought us yet another head gasket in his suitcase for Sebring, but to say it arrived "rumpled" would be an understatement.  We therefore borrowed a page from our midget experience and made a headgasket from annealed aluminum sheet.  Tony also brought the shop manual which basically said one should torque the head, let it set over night to let the studs stretch, the re-torque it again, before running.  The Siata Gran Sport would out handle most of the competitors though and I was able to run a whole stint with the ex-Bill Spear 2 liter 166 Barchetta driven by Dick Cicurel and Bob O'Brian.  I'd pass them going into the first turn, lead them through the hairpin and down warehouse straight, the Ferrari would pass me on the airport runway straights, I'd catch them on the last turns and follow them past the pits, to repeat the pass.  After the driver switch, I went down to their pits to tell them that I didn't mind following a Ferrari, but I hated following one with mufflers!  It REALLY pissed them off!  At our last pit stop, we lost time when the engine wouldn't fire for some reason.  When it did fire, we'd dropped to third place behind an XK-120 Jag.  We ended up 45 seconds behind it while gaining 19 seconds a lap.  The kicker was the next morning the car threw the rod on the way back into town and we had to fit a tow bar and tow the car back to Cleveland.  We had driven it down to break it in, as I had also driven it from New York to Cleveland.  The dealer I worked for, who owned the car, hadn't a clue and repainted the car a different color before putting it on the showroom floor with the trophies!