“I grew up in Detroit, and got a job at a gas station on Woodward Avenue at 12 Mile Road and hey, it was the ’50s - we all were crazy about cars,” the Centerville resident explained. “I started a car club, and when I wasn’t working on cars, I was cruising Woodward with my buddies, looking for a drag race. We were lucky we didn’t hurt ourselves, because street racing was pretty stupid,” he added.
Lots of life happened next; college, the Navy, marriage and landing in Dayton in 1965. In his 30’s he raced motocross, but a few too many spills and some broken vertebrae made him hang up that helmet. His PR firm, ICON, was going well, and then in 1983 he took a trip to Mid Ohio Sports Car Course to see some vintage sports car racing. The love of going fast was rekindled.
“It just hit me: This is really neat, and I can do that,” he said. “Next thing I know, I own a 1950 MG TD and I went to the Skip Barber Racing School and then I started racing. The TD wasn’t real fast. It had a roll bar and seatbelts, and then I got a racing engine for it, and I was having a ball. I don’t know much about the suspension on that car, but it turned right better than left, so it was great for road racing.”
After wearing the MG TD No. 50 out, Colaizzi bought an Alfa Romeo Giulietta No. 55 and raced it for seven seasons.
“That was a fabulous car, handled like a dream, nothing like the MG,” he said. The Giulietta was replaced with an Alfa Romeo Duetto No. 62.
“For a few years, that was my favorite car, then I sold it and started driving for another guy, Richard Scott, who owned an Elva Mk. II, a purpose-built racecar,” Colaizzi said. “We had a lot of fun. Then he bought an Elva Mk. V, which was faster, and then eventually a rear engine Elva Mk. VII. I was 70 by then, and he told me he thought I might get hurt in the rear engine car, so we parted ways.”
Colaizzi again became a car owner.
“This brings us to my Lotus Super 7 No. 71, the most fun car I’ve had since the MG TD. Engine builder Jim Steck, who is responsible for any success I’ve had over the years, reminded me that the Super 7 is very fast,” he said. “It weighs 1,100 pounds, has a 170-horsepower engine and sits about 3 inches off the ground,” he added. “ I won a lot of races with it, but I did have a big crash, and sold the car after seven seasons.”
But he got the itch again, and last year purchased an Alfa Romeo GT Jr No. 79 from another local vintage racer, Denny Freyvogel, and recently raced it at the Mid Ohio Vintage Grand Prix.
All of the racecar numbers are Colaizzi’s age when he first got that particular car.
When Colaizzi isn’t behind the wheel of a vintage sports car, he can be seen tooling around town in his other ride, a ’32 Ford roadster with a four-cam Alfa Romeo V8 under the hood.
In his own words, “I just like to go fast.”
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