Role Reversal

I pulled my Alfa over into a little layby, off the twisty road that climbs from the Pacific Ocean, up to the top of Southern California’s Palos Verdes hillside. It’s a solid 2,000-foot climb that snakes its way up to the tallest point along the Los Angeles coastline. It’s also an idyllic, ocean-adjacent place to do a little canyon carving, assuming you can avoid the ever-vigilant local constabulary. A young man walked over from the pickup truck I had been following a little too closely, all the way up the hill and sticks his head over my windshield.

“That was pretty good,” he said, gazing up mid-sentence to squint into the sun. “But, next time I need you to get right up underneath my bumper.” I smile, assure him that I can stay right under his bumper all the way up the hill, if that is what he really wants, as he turns around and climbs back into the bed of the pickup truck. After we let two cars and a leather-clad Ducatti rider go by, we merge back out onto the twisty road, as the sandy-haired man ducks down in the truck bed and re-emerges with a camera in his hand. This will be easily the 10th time we’ve run up and down this road. In many ways this is familiar territory—driving a classic behind a camera car–but in more ways these are unchartered waters for me…terra ignota. The man in the back of the pickup truck isn’t shooting stills, he’s shooting video. And I’m not calling the shots on this shoot because, for reasons completely beyond my comprehension, a really classy web site called Petrolicious.com has asked if they can do a little “mini-documentary” on my Alfa and I. That’s no way to build web traffic.[pullquote]