David Love, one of the founders of the Classic Sports Racing Group (CSRG) and an early driving force behind the growth of vintage racing in the USA, who also had a hand in the establishment of the Monterey Historic Automobile Races, died October 4 at the age of 77.
Outside of CSRG, Love is probably best known for nearly 50 years of competing with his #9 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa (chassis 0754), a car that he salvaged from the graveyard of misuse and restored to proper specification and working order.
Love admitted that his love of and fascination with sports cars was the result of reading Ken Purdy’s book Kings of the Road in high school, and that journey took him through a trio of Porsches and a Morgan during his college days—as well as a couple of seasons racing a Formula Junior Merlyn—before he found his Ferrari in 1964.
Once it was revived he raced it successfully with the SCCA for several seasons until rule changes and the advance of technology made it uncompetitive. Because he didn’t want the story to end there, he began conspiring with several friends to establish a way for them to race their “old” cars.
In 1967, together with friends Gordon Mills, Michael Denny and Dave Burch, he created the Classic Sports Racing Group to promote the racing of historic cars. CSRG was founded on the belief that vintage racing is based upon participation, not victory, as it is a perfect stage upon which historic racing cars can be properly appreciated.
Several years later, in the process of selling a special Ferrari 412 for a friend, Love became acquainted with Steve Earle, and soon the idea for the Monterey Historics was germinated and quickly grew into reality. Love entered his Ferrari in the inaugural event in 1974, and continued to run the car every year thereafter—as well as in many other events at other circuits—until losing his long fight with Parkinson’s Disease in October. To his family and all of his many friends in and out of the sport, Vintage Racecar extends its sincerest sympathies.
