WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Cameron Argetsinger, who started the road-racing tradition at Watkins Glen 60 years ago and helped lure Formula 1 to race there for two decades, has died. He was 87.
Argetsinger, a local lawyer who also served as president of the International Motor Racing Research Center for five years, died Tuesday at his Seneca Lake home in Burdett, N.Y., said Glenda Gephart, director of communications at the research center.
Inspired by his love of fast automobiles and the natural beauty of the Finger Lakes, Argetsinger, an early member of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), proposed an amateur road race called the Watkins Glen Grand Prix to the local chamber of commerce in 1948.
“As soon as I was able to drive, I just naturally felt the place to drive a sports car was Watkins Glen,” Argetsinger, a law student at Cornell University at the time, told the Associated Press in a 2005 interview.
The chamber liked the idea, and Argetsinger selected a 6.6-mile course using mostly paved roads with a short dirt and gravel stretch, and obtained SCCA sanction for the inaugural event. In that first race, he drove his MG-TC to a ninth-place finish and remained active as a driver through 1960.
Argetsinger, a native of Youngstown, Ohio, brought full international races to Watkins Glen in 1958 and in 1961 the inaugural U.S. Grand Prix was run.
The course is now a regular stop on NASCAR’s top circuit.
A strong voice for international and professional road racing during a period in the 1950s and early 1960s, Argetsinger received the Grand Prix Drivers Association award for the best-organized Grand Prix in the world in an era when promoters negotiated with each team and handled all details of transportation and movement of cars, equipment and personnel. He had the complete trust and confidence of all the European teams and drivers and settled everything with a handshake.
After leaving Watkins Glen in 1970, he was executive vice president of Chaparral Cars and served as director of professional racing and executive director for SCCA from 1971-77. He also served as commissioner of the International Motor Sport Association from 1986-92.
“Nothing that Cameron did was ordinary,” said Bill Milliken, who served as head of competition for SCCA at the early Watkins Glen races and as steward of the Formula 1 events. “He had the capability of dreaming pretty big dreams, and then he had the fortitude and strength of character to realize them.”
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