More from Albert Ponno on his early Alfa Romeo S.p.A. and his first GTA Junior preparation...
in his own words:
"In those days I was working in Alfa Romeo Special Experience Service at Portello.
I was there from 1967 to 1973 and from 1969 I started some hillclimb racing with a GTA 1300 that my father had given me. I was obsessed with the idea of racing, and I had gone to work at Alfa Romeo, S.p.A with that idea... although my economic circumstances did not allow me to have the engine prepared in Autodelta.
So, my first engine was prepared with the important help of Giulio Sala, known as “Saletta”... at one time one of Fangio's mechanics who had raced with him the “Mille Miglia” in 1953 with the Alfa 3000 “Flying Saucer”.
I had begun to acquire theoretical motor skills working at SES, between the test rooms and the engine office. To put it briefly, this first engine was not great achievement, and I began to look around even outside of Alfa Romeo in search of someone who would make me a better engine without spending a fortune.
So I met Wainer, a well-known tuner who made Alfa Romeo-based F3 engines (for Vittorio Brambilla). I went to visit him. I think it was 1969 when we realized our engine developed an “honest” 135 hp, and as I had raced only in Hillclimbs the engine managed somehow to be competitive enough.
At the end of 1969 I perceived the intention of Autodelta to make a new engine with fuel injection for the 1300 GTA, which was already used for the GT Am. It used a new, redesigned cylinder head, known as a "Narrow Head", and was later destined to become a legend over the years.
This meant it became necessary to spend a lot of money on updating my car. There meant the engine had to be made from scratch, but sin addition to that...the car required new 13’’ wheels, general trim, brakes, fenders, lightening and everything else that involved the staging of a little monster that was to become the GTA 1300 in 1971.
At that point, despite my passion, I felt a bit lost. I didn't have enough money to buy everything I needed and even if I had managed to buy the material, I could never find a tuner to build the car and engine for me with my limited budget.
At that time, Mr. Banderali, a talented Autodelta technician, had come to work in Special Experience Service department, right in my office. I had an excellent relationship with him, and we often discussed my problems, my doubts, and the discouragement that sometimes assailed me for not having a sufficiently competitive car.
Our friendship would prove to be very important later.
In that moment, I used all my ability in persuading my father, a former driver, or better to say, a gentleman driver in the twenties, to finance my efforts. It was a difficult task and certainly not profitable for many reasons.
The 'reasons' included the strong opposition of my mother and the fact that already my whole salary and the salary of my wife ...also working at Alfa Romeo, S.p.A., was almost completely engaged for the car and racing.
I must say that my wife helped me a lot in attempts to realize my “racing” madness despite the “big deal” of the first wedding day, when I invested all of our available savings for the "enterprise" aiming to buy the most desiderable and expensive thing to have, the famous "Narrow Head".
Autodelta did not sell this special part to private drivers, especially the ones just a year after their racing debut. There were the official Autodelta team squad and then a few other big teams.
In short, despite having the money to buy it, Ing. Chiti did not intend to sell, to private individuals, particularly to individuals of my type, the "Narrow Head" or anything that was linked to the evolution of the new GTA 1300.
It was friendly intervention of Ing. Surace, another pillar of Alfa Romeo , who knew Ing.Chiti very well and who also worked in the SES department, who interceded for me. I should have gone to talk to the Autodelta 'Big Boss' Ing. Carlo Chiti personally to convince him.
Even just being received by him would have been a good result, though I was quite terrified with idea of that meeting, considering the fact that Chiti was not an easy conversationalist.
I was busy and absorbed gathering the necessary material to make my debut in 1971, and I looked around for a tuner capable of building the car and engine for me. Those were already the pinch and scrape days at our home, in an attempt to put aside every cent. But regardless of the sacrifices, for an Alfa employee... these were truly unattainable figures.
Speaking about that problem with Mr. Banderali and pointing out to him that I certainly could not have contacted Conrero, Monzeglio or Angelini, not even Wainer again, Banderali told me that he had a cousin who had an Alfa Romeo service point in Lodi. Athough not being a tuner, was a very good mechanic with a great passion and that, if I had enough trust in his skills, we could set up a good partnership.
I would provide the theoretical motor skills acquired over my years of study at the SES engine office, combined with Santino Balduzzi (that was his name).. his great skill, experience and knowledge of Alfa Romeo engines.
Of course, the whole enterprise was 'seasoned' with great passion but no money... eh eh eh.
This was the reason that perhaps made the adventure possible, and so, one evening after work, I drove with Banderali to Lodi to meet Mr. Santino Balduzzi.
You can just imagine the long, passionate talk that we had that night. The adventure seemed bigger than the both of us. Santino had no any significant racing engine experience and there was also a question of getting into and understanding the complicated FIA regulations.
Keep in mind that 1971 was the year in which there were the maximum possibilities of intervention on touring cars. In the end, that evening, we laid down the plans: I would bring the car to him, Banderali would have helped us in extricating ourselves with the relations with Autodelta.
I would have tried to have all the material readily available...not an easy task, and of course, I would have to provide the engine head injection.
The famous 'Narrow Head', as received from Autodelta was only partially machined and all of the intake ducts were rough. From that evening on, after my working day at Alfa was completed, I would to go to Lodi, to talk to Santino and instruct him in every detail concerning our engine. We had to organize ourselves and I had to carry the material with my car.
Talking with Santino about the engine, we touched upon the question of the test room and the acquisition of a test bench. I used to test engines in the test room at Alfa Romeo, and so, I convinced Santino that without it we would never have the real opportunity to make a racing engine.
In the meantime, it was necessary to purchase a test bench. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? I am not going to tell you how many trips I have made to Lodi since then, almost every evening. We paid for the test bench dviding the cost in half and then Santino built the test room with command and control panel on the outside of the room... not very sophisticated... made with hollow bricks in a corner of the workshop, but perfect for our purpose, with the exhaust tubes blowing in the open countryside.
After my "stormy" meeting with Chiti, (Editors note: This story of Ing. Chiti and Alberto Ponno is memorialized in the story section above.) "Oh, what you intend to do with this head !!?" followed by a harsh indictment in his tenor voice, against the reasons I came to his office in the first place, ended to my relief with a howl addressed to someone to take care of me and my requests.
So I walked out of his office, sweaty but happy.
I got the 'Narrow Head' and gradually all the rest of the necessary materials. Santino worked late in the evening, even on the car which was to be completely rebuilt and lightened. There was a body shop next to his workshop and the car was brought there to template and reinforce necessary parts.
Santino worked the head intake and exhaust passages, a very sensitive and difficult task because one had to be very careful not to destroy our 'Narrow Head' and all of our dreams with some clumsy milling.
At the end, he completed the engine, a complicated and sophisticated one that was absolutely new for him, the engine that also never existed before. That engine with fuel injection, even today represents a true nightmare for most modern preparers. I tried to be always there and help Santino as much as I could by doing the calculations I had learned in my work at SES and propel him while working.
It was during those hard working hours I heard him say for the first time a phrase in pure Lodi dialect, that over the years has accompanied me in other adventures:
“Men, this one here or you blow to hell, or you have already earn the Paradise” ("Cheschì, o tel maset o ta vet in Paradis"). Sorry but, as Colzani (well-known driver in the seventies) says, I am a "yokel" and that’s the way I can repeat it.
I don't remember how long that period lasted, certainly many months. I also remember that someone has stolen the Citroen DS that I used to tow the race car trailer and that I discovered t, going again to Santino’s workshop... in a ditch along the road, while riding in my makeshift transporter, a Renault R4.
The view hit me and later in the workshop the police told me that the thieves has tried it to escape with it, but they hadn't dealt properly with the heavy fog that night.
Finally in the end, I think it was January or February of 1971, we put the engine on the bench. Already during the running-in, the test room in hollow bricks served as an amplifier. What a sound it had produced! Then we began the fine-tuning phase. I held the bench throttle and Santino went inside to adjust the engine’s advance degree, and the pump with one eye on the scale, while the engine screamed at 7000, 8000, and then 8500 rpm! I remember that when Santino came out of that hell, he had ears pricked up and a twisted face eh eh eh.
Well, that was the first engine! For both of us, it was a masterpiece: 165 hp at 8500 rpm, neither more nor less than the official ones born at Autodelta workshop.
And in March we did our first race, La Pedavena Croce d'Aune. And we won it. Santino with his gruffy face adorned with a sidelong smile said to me in pure Lodi dialect that I wouldn’t even try to put on paper as I am not able to do it:
"In the last turn I thought that you fell asleep in the car!" eh eh eh.
Our big dream had begun."
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