Championship in Life.(Column)

Byline: KEVIN A. WILSON

Back in 1992 and '93, AutoWeek conducted the Vintage Motor Racing Challenge (VMRC) series for '60s and '70s Can-Am cars. Organizing it was my job and, in retrospect, one I didn't do especially well. If only I'd known then what I know now . . .

Most entrants were smart, wonderful people and good drivers I remember fondly. One such was the '93 VMRC champ, Mac Archer. His reward was a Ken Dallison painting of his 1970 McLaren M8C, reproduced on the cover of the magazine. Mac added the original to a full trophy case. Long before the VMRC, he'd been a pro motorcycle racer and campaigned a vintage Cobra 427 for many years. His full name was Shreve McLaren Archer III, hence his choice of cars to enter in the VMRC.

When we first met, he reacted with childish glee to the cap I wore, from his favorite Big Sur restaurant, Nepenthe. He called home to tell his wife, Kim, about it. We got to be friends, but I messed that up. He called with a story idea about ethanol. I knew his great-grandfather was a founder of Archer Daniels Midland, a major agricultural processor, and I got my objective-journalist nose out of joint. I saw Mac a few ...