Interview: Tony DeLorenzo

Editors note: This interview was originally published on our sister site, Sports Car Digest, in 2013. We are republishing it here for our members to enjoy.

Tony DeLorenzo’s father, Anthony G., was a newspaperman, a reporter for UPI who then went to work for the

Kudner Agency where one of the clients was GM’s Buick Division. There he was “discovered” and hired away by GM president Harlow Curtis. This ultimately led young Tony into the world of motorsports, where he raced an A Sedan Corvair in 1965 and ’66 before spending most of the rest of his career driving Corvettes, highlighted by a couple of seasons where he and teammate Jerry Thompson won 22 consecutive races, often finishing 1st and 2nd. His exploits with Corvettes has earned DeLorenzo enshrinement in both the Corvette Hall of Fame in Bowling Green, Kentucky (2009), and the Great Hall at Bloomington Gold in Illinois (2011). These days he’s racing vintage cars and is a regular participant in various tributes celebrating the Corvette’s 60th birthday. VR Associate Editor John Zimmermann recently spoke with Tony about his career and his accomplishments.

How did you first get involved in racing?

DeLorenzo: My uncle Chuck was vice president of sales at Peter Hand Brewery, which made Meister Brau beer and had the Meister Brauser racing team. He took me to Meadowdale one day; I think I was 16 or 18. They had been racing the Scarabs, and they had the follow-on car to the Scarab, the Chaparral Mark 1—both built by Troutman and Barnes. I was about 20 feet away from this Chaparral on jack stands when the crew chief started it. That was a 389-inch Chevy with Hilborn injection, probably a roller cam, and who knows what else. You can imagine the sound it made. I was once and forever hooked. That’s what gave me the fever I still have.[pullquote]“Hitting the light pole was an act of god, because had I not hit it, I’m afraid I would have hurt a lot of people.”[/pullquote]

When and where did you first race?

DeLorenzo: I started early experiments on the street, and I had been going to races, too, back at Meadowdale and a place called Lynndale Farms outside of Milwaukee. I wanted to go road racing because that’s what I was introduced to, so I checked with the Sports Car Club of America and found out you had to be 21 years old. Juxtapose that with what goes on today, and it just blows your mind. I figured out that I needed to join the SCCA, and I talked with my brother Peter—he was always the logical one—who said, “How are you going to go to drivers school, you don’t have a car?” We decided to ask Dad if he could get a Corvette for a company car, and we could take it to drivers school. I don’t know exactly how we talked him into it, but he made a couple of critical mistakes. First he agreed to get the Corvette. Then he let us order it. We got the order blank, and it’s a ’64, fuel-injected, heavy-duty 4-speed, heavy-duty rear axle and heavy-duty brakes. I was 20, and had a job at Chevrolet in sales promotion. I’m sitting there and the phone rings, and it’s Zora Duntov. He says, “Tony, your father has ordered a heavy-duty Corvette. Who’s going to drive it?” I said, “Um, he is?” A moment of silence and he says, “Who’s going to drive it?” And I said, “I am.” He said, “What are you going to do with it?” And I said “I’m going to take it to drivers school at Watkins Glen.” He said, “That’s all I needed to know,” and hung up.