On a lack of historical sense

[Ed Lutz <edlutz@domain.elided>]

I must say, I really wasn't expecting much of a conversation from my
posting of those pictures. I really didn't know where the buildings in
place set in the history of Alfa as I'm not really a student of the
companies history (yet, I'm working on it). I want to thank John H. for
another of his wonderfully informative notes. This one answered a lot
of questions I had about what the site in question represented in
Alfas history.
Now my comments. Pertaining to mention that was made in another note
about engineers, race engineers in particular, not having much of a
sense of the historical significance of their creations. I know how it
feels having worked as a race engineer/mechanic myself and I can tell
you that I and the guys I worked with never felt anything we did would
be historically significant at all. We were only worried in the here
and now, the current need to shave off another half seconds lap time
or to get the stupid bike ready for the next event and why cant that
dump rider learn to pay attention to the redline we marked on the
tach! When a race vehicle is old, it was generally tossed in the
corner or sold to some lower level team that could only afford last
seasons technology (you dont want to know what I did with those two
old Ducati green frame 750s). It just wasn't the mind set of the guys
on the teams to think of their work in a historical sense, just as I
seriously doubt anyone at Ford thought there was anything too
historical about the first Mustang. Its only after the fact, years
after, when you realize that someone even gives a damn about what you
did way back then. This is why old race cars used to be such a
bargain, they were old uncompetitive race cars not worth much of
anything as they could no longer fulfill their only real reason for
existence which was winning races. Now though peoples attitudes have
changed. They have noticed that those old racers are worth big money
now so the teams and builders are much more careful with their
creations. Now it seems that everything is assumed to have historical
significance and the days of the cheap old race car seem to be over.
Looking back, I now wish I had bothered to take some more pictures and
write a few notes about the bikes I used to build. At least that way
when someone sends an e-mail asking questions I could help them a bit.
I still don't think any of those bikes are significant in any
historical sense though...

Ed

Loveland, CO.
1974 Spider with a 1750 under the hood

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