This story begins with a death.

In 1999, Press-Telegram motorsports columnist Allen Wolfe was playing golf when an unexpected heart attack took his life.  He was 51.  He had covered every Long Beach Grand Prix since it began in 1975, and died one week before he was to cover the 25th.  The service was held the day before the race.

In three decades as an eloquent and graceful writer, Wolfe had developed a reputation as one of the nation’s racing experts.  An article of his is featured in the program of the first ever Long Beach Grand Prix in 1975. Wolfe owned two original copies of that program, both of which now reside in a cardboard box next to my bookcase.

I moved next door to Allen’s parents three years ago.  The first time I met his mother, Helen, she sent me back to my house with a cardboard box stuffed with ten pounds of newspaper articles that Allen had accumulated in his quarter-century of motorsports coverage.  It was a gold mine.  I studied his analysis, chartered his progression from one year to the next, took notes on the angles his stories took.  A few weeks later, I covered the Long Beach Grand Prix for the staging-live.lbpost.com for the first time, and returned the box to Helen.

She was one of the most joyful women I’ve ever known.  Helen took me into her home, showed me pictures of Allen and her other children, told stories about old keepsakes, introduced me to her husband, Alex.  They’d met during World War II, when she was a secretary and he a private in the Navy.  They settled in Long Beach and raised their children.  Allen attended Long Beach City College and then Long Beach State, where Helen worked in the journalism department – of which she had great knowledge and pride, and always asked me about my experience there. 

I saw Helen mostly when she watered her bushes or raked leaves or took out the trash. I always offered to help and she always refused; she liked to be outdoors and be active.  She would go on and on about Allen and his passion for his profession, a passion that she said was visible in my eyes when I talked about interviewing Bobby Rahal or attending my first Indy 500.  She ended every conversation with, “Boy, your parents must be so proud.”

I almost cried when Helen told me that Alex was dying.  He had been taken to the hospital just a few days earlier and she had been by his side since.  She had only come home to gather a few things and, of course, rake the leaves.  I told her to let me know if there was anything I could do to help, she thanked me and said she was at peace because so was he, and then she made a joke and asked me about work.  We said goodbye and Helen went back to raking. Alex died shortly after that day.

A few months ago, my mom came over to visit. As we left to go to lunch we noticed the garage sale next door and I insisted we poke around.  Helen came out to greet us and squeezed my mom when I introduced them, beaming about me and how proud my mother must be of her son.  She explained that the house was too big for her by herself, and she was moving.  We chatted for about 20 minutes, wished each other good luck and said our goodbyes.  Then, Helen’s eyes brightened and she hurried inside, emerging with a cardboard box filled with books.  She shoved it into my arms and insisted I take it.  Filled to the brim were massive racing books from the ‘70s and ‘80s, with a few old Long Beach Grand Prix programs mixed in.  Among those, two original copies from the inaugural race in 1975. 

I couldn’t explain to her what that gesture meant to me, but I also knew that I didn’t have to.  If anyone could understand, it was her.  She saw Allen in me – she told me it more than once – so it made sense that she pass along his words and his memory to me.  “I’ve read those so many times,” she justified. “They’ll just collect dust if I keep them.”

I thanked her and we hugged, and she moved less than a week later.

Last weekend, I pulled out the one program copy that I allow to be opened – the other is never touched – and flipped through it.  The reader is greeted with an ad for a 1975 Datsun truck and a letter from Long Beach Mayor Thomas J. Clark.  A newly-elected crusader named Eunice N. Sato is pictured among the City Councilmembers.  Allen Wolfe penned an article that begins on page 12 titled …How It Began!  In it, he writes:

The only element that remains unknown is the question that exploded in the mind of Chris Pook two years ago: what kind of impact will the race have on the community?

Today will serve as a barometer.

It was the first article of hundreds in his 24-year love affair with the Long Beach Grand Prix.  The Press-Telegram honors Wolfe’s memory every year by administering the Allen Wolfe Spirit of the Grand Prix Award to a motorsports writer whose work exudes the passion and commitment that the award’s namesake once did.  It’s a classy gesture to recognize a man who embodied not only coverage of the race but the race itself. 

Every year about this time, I prep for the Grand Prix by researching drivers and statistics, engine types and car aerodynamics.  But no amount of research is as important as a raw love and passion for being out on the track and smelling the rubber and hearing the roar.  That’s what inspires, and creates (hopefully) quality coverage and (hopefully) quality writing that you (hopefully) enjoy.  I know this works because it’s how Allen Wolfe did it, and when I stand at the Start/Finish line and wince as the noise from the Indycars pierces my eardrums I’ll smile because this is the way that Allen must have done it.