Memorial Day Weekend, 1977. I was a couple weeks into Tiger ownership,
still trying to sort out all of the hardware that came in the boxes with
my partly assembled Tiger. But we were off to Lime Rock for the IMSA
races. My friends knew one of the racers, Carson Baird, and we had
planned to look him up.
Walking through he parking lot, we suddenly saw this beautiful red Tiger
coming toward us. "Wow! I just bought one of these!", I yelled at the
driver. He was having none of that, but expressed his great displeasure
with the directions to the paddock entrance that he had been given. We
set him straight, and he was off.
A while later, we came across the Carson Baird pits, and guess what was
parked there next to the race car. Yes, the same red Tiger. Wally
Swift properly introduced himself, told me a bit about TE/AE. He
answered a lot of my dumb questions and let me photograph all the nooks
and crannies of his car. His info and the photos were a great aid in
putting mine together.
1989: On the road to SUNI 1. A friend and I were driving west from the
Denver airport to Snowmass on Sunday before it started. We were just
getting to the uphill bits, when we noticed a group of cars stopped at
the side of the road. Sunbeams! So we pulled the renter over and
walked back to visit. The car at the front of the group? The very same
red Tiger I'd first encountered at Lime Rock, this time with several
concerned folks looking at the water pump. Wally missed this drama,
being an hour or so away towing his Alpine.
United 2000, Portland, Maine. We had planned to present a "Prince of
Darkness" hard luck award to the fellow who had the most problems
getting his car to our United. Once this story made the rounds, there
was no question about the identity of the winner. It seems that someone
drove into the rear of Wally's Tiger on an Interstate, shortly after
they left for the United, on a clear, sunny morning. He arrived at the
United day late, and I had the honor(?) of presenting the hard luck
award to Wally at the banquet. While I'm sure he was heartbroken over
the damage to his very original Tiger, he accepted the award with class
and humor. That wasn't his only award that day. Though he didn't win,
he did manage to embarrass a lot of theoretically faster machinery with
his Alpine at the autocross.
I'll always remember Wally as a true gentleman, always willing to help,
or share a story or a joke. Those like him are few and far between.
Stu Brennan
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