We seem to hear more and more these days about the sorry state of the media. I’d say I have to agree, after a formerly reputable automotive radio talk show, Drivers Talk Radio, recently asked me to be a guest. Jeez, how low will these people sink for material?
The host of the show is a journalist and former racecar driver by the name of Rick Titus. If that name seems familiar to you, I’m glad, as his father was editor of Sports Car Graphic and one of the first Trans-Am champions. I speak, of course, of Jerry Titus. But we’ll come back to that in a minute.
So, the Saturday morning of the show comes and Rick and I settle into a light banter, back and forth, on the state of historic racing and other current events of earth-shattering importance. Rick then graciously segues into talking about the magazine, and like the gentleman he is, is embarrassingly effusive in his praise. But after a tear-inspiring vamp on how VR is the best magazine he’s ever seen, he pauses for effect, and then says, “However, I do have to say that in all the years I’ve been reading it, I’ve never seen my father listed in the Time Capsule section once.” Doh!
To Rick’s good credit, he said it tongue in cheek, but my mind immediately started churning through the past 120 issues (as if I can remember every tidbit from every issue!), desperately trying to come up with an example to put this scurrilous claim to bed. I think my brilliant response was, “Uh…that can’t be true.…”
Deep in my heart I knew it couldn’t be true because Jerry Titus was such an important figure from the ’60s. Born in Bridgehampton, New York, in 1928, Titus began his racing career in 1960, driving a Formula Junior. Titus worked as a technical writer and, interestingly, a Julliard-trained jazz musician, before moving out to California, in 1961. Once in Southern California, he continued his racing; most notably, Titus debuted the ferocious Cheetah-Chevrolet at a Cal Club event at Riverside Raceway in 1964. Titus led the opening lap before a water hose came loose, dumping the radiator’s contents under the car. The result was the Cheetah went straight off at Turn 1 and shot right up and over the guardrail, virtually destroying the car.
Whether due to his heroics in the Cheetah or not, Carroll Shelby was understandably impressed by Titus’s combination of technical knowledge and driving prowess and so signed him up to campaign the new Shelby GT350R, which Titus drove to the 1965 Pacific Coast B-production Championship. During this same period, Titus took on the position of editor for Sports Car Graphic and in 1966 drove the Shelby in B-production and drove a Porsche 911 to the SCCA’s D-production championship.
In 1967, Titus raced a Shelby-prepared Mustang in the new Trans-Am Sedan championship, winning the championship with four victories. Near the end of the 1968 season—where he won the Trans-Am class at the 24 Hours of Daytona—Titus left Shelby to seize the opportunity to form his own team with Canadian Terry Godsall, building and racing Pontiac Firebirds for the Trans-Am. That same year, Titus even found time to make an unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the Indy 500.
In 1969, Titus and co-driver Jon Ward entered their Firebird in the 24 Hours of Daytona, and not only won their class, but finished a stunning 3rd overall. With this solid performance under their belts, the team’s prospects looked good until July 19, 1970, when Titus heavily crashed his Firebird into a bridge abutment, while practicing for that year’s Road America Trans-Am event. Jerry Titus, journalist, musician, champion, and father, passed away several weeks later, as a result of his injuries.
For the next couple of days, after the interview with Rick, the question continued to gnaw at me, “Could we really have overlooked him all these years?” Finally, I got in touch with Mike Stucker, the gentleman who somehow combs reams upon reams of data to collect the dates and kernels of trivia that you’ll find each month in our Time Capsule column. Fortunately, he put my mind at ease when he relayed that we had, in fact, referenced Titus a number of times over our 10-plus-year history. Whew!
Like I said earlier, what has the media come to when it has to resort to these types of unsubstantiated, sensationalistic sound bites? Now that my conscience is clear, I feel better about asking Rick if I can come on the show again!
