Cameron Argetsinger (March 1, 1921 in

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. At the 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area, whi ...

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– April 22, 2008) was a sports car enthusiast, lawyer and

auto racing Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

executive best known for creating the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in Watkins Glen, New York, and making it the home of the

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

United States Grand Prix from 1961 through 1980.

Biography

Early life

Argetsinger grew up in Youngstown, where his father, James Cameron Argetsinger, was general counsel and secretary of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. He spent the summers of his boyhood in Schuyler County, New York visiting his grandparents and, later, his family's summer home. He inherited a love of fast cars from his father and in 1947 bought a sports car so he could become a member of the nascent Sports Car Club of America.

Watkins Glen Sports Car Grand Prix

Before long, Argetsinger began to dream of organizing a sports car race in and around the town of Watkins Glen. "It's been said, and it's not entirely wrong, that I did it because I had an MG-TC and didn't have a place to race it," he told ''

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'' in 1998. From 1948 through 1952, the Watkins Glen Sports Car Grand Prix was held on a circuit that followed public roads through the village and around the nearby gorge. While the event was hugely popular, the deaths of drivers and spectators in crashes forced it to move off the public roads after eight years.

Home of the United States Grand Prix

In 1953, Argetsinger was named Executive Director of the new Watkins Glen Grand Prix Corporation. Three years later, the group purchased of land and built a 2.3-mile permanent racing facility, designed to imitate the winding country roads on which the race had originated. Soon the circuit was attracting some of the world's best road racers, including Stirling Moss,

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, Phil Hill and

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, for the

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races, which ran from 1958 through 1960. These events set the stage for Argetsinger's bid to host the ultimate American road racing event: the Formula One United States Grand Prix. His timing was perfect: the United States Grand Prix saw disappointing crowds at in its first two runnings at Sebring, Florida, and

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. The race found a home in upstate New York in 1961, and Watkins Glen became the focal point of American road racing for the next two decades. In 1969, Argetsinger attempted to purchase the raceway in order to improve its financial operations. When the Grand Prix Corporation refused to sell, he resigned as Executive Director and moved to Midland, Texas, where he went to work for

Chaparral Cars Chaparral Cars was a pioneering American automobile racing team and race car developer that engineered, built, and raced cars from 1963 through 1970. Founded in 1962 by American Formula One racers Hap Sharp and Jim Hall, it was named after the r ...

Auto racing executive

Argetsinger moved to Denver in 1972 to become the Director of Professional Racing and then Executive Director of the Sports Car Club of America. In 1977, he returned to his law practice in Schuyler County, New York. He became president of the International Motor Racing Research Center in Watkins Glen in 2002.

Career Award

Argetsinger was a member of the inaugural induction class of the Sports Car Club of America Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2005, Watkins Glen International renamed its trophy for the Indy Racing League race champion the "Cameron R. Argetsinger Trophy". Each year, the winner receives a sterling-silver replica and their name is added to the nameplate at the base of the sterling-silver cup.

Notes

First recipient of SCCA Woolf Barnato Trophy (1948) Recipient of Bob Akin Memorial Award (2007) from the Road Racing Driver's Club (RRDC)

References

* O'Malley, J.J. and Bill Green. Watkins Glen, From Griswold to Gordon: Fifty Years of Competition At the Home of American Road Racing. 1998. * Siano, Joseph. "The Hallowed Ground Of Sports Car Racing." The New York Times. 4 Sept. 1998. * Herzog, Brad
"Driving Force."

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Argetsinger, Cameron Auto racing executives Formula One people Sports Car Club of America 1921 births 2008 deaths American motorsport people Businesspeople from Youngstown, Ohio Cornell Law School alumni People from Watkins Glen, New York 20th-century American businesspeople