The Life & Times of American Sports Car Racing Entrepreneur John Edgar, Part 2

In Part One of this story we saw my father, John Campbell Edgar, grow into a man living at the very core of American sports car racing’s Fabulous Fifties. His own austere father had driven him to escape the tedium of small-town Ohio and move to California where, first as a salesman and later as a photographer, John ultimately found his true passion to be the emerging world of sports car racing. With a generous inheritance, he began buying imports in the early 1950s and campaigning them with driving talent Bill Pollack and Jack McAfee. By 1952, Edgar’s modified MG number “88” had become a giant killer with McAfee at the wheel, and Edgar bought his first Ferrari, a 340 America, which Jack raced to victory in the main at Palm Springs in 1953. Next year, John purchased the Ferrari that had just won Le Mans. In the hands of McAfee and co-driver Ford Robinson, this Edgar entry was favored to win the 1954 Carrera Panamericana, but on the first leg of the five-day race its rear end locked, plunging the Ferrari off the road and killing Robinson.

The tragedy devastated my father. He went into a prolonged bender of alcohol and depression, and for a while it looked like he was through with racing. Then, in September 1955, he returned—this time with one of the new Porsche 550s for McAfee to drive. Sweet and fast, the little silver car seemed pure tonic. Getting into the sport again re-energized my father, and he soon bought another Ferrari, an older model 857 S. When the 3.5-liter car finished 2nd to Tony Parravano’s 410 S in the hands of Texas sensation Carroll Shelby, John Edgar realized the newer 4.9 Ferrari, together with Shelby driving, could write a whole new chapter in his sports car racing life.