John Oates is a good human. He likes cars. He reads Grassroots Motorsports. Oh, and he's also half of the most successful musical duo ever, ahead of Simon & Garfunkel, the Everly Brothers and the Carpenters.
This Saturday, John will host Oates Song Fest 7908, a streaming broadcast featuring fellow A-listers like Dave Grohl, Bob Weir and Sammy Hagar. The …
As a teenager in the '80's, Hall and Oates was huge to me. Loved their music and music videos. I vaguely remember a TV news magazine interviewing him back then at a race track, with the reporter even going for a lap or two around the track squeezed into the vestigial passenger seat in his sports racer.
I read his autobiography "Change of Seasons," and learned that his manager introduced him karting by giving him a race kart for Christmas (that seemed kind of random). Oates seemed naturally athletic and coordinated (highschool wrestler, avid skier, private pilot) and quickly took to racing the kart, successfully. Then he attended Bertil Roos race school to start racing Formula Fords in SCCA, then Sports 2000s (when he took the aforementioned reporter for a ride?), eventually to the point where he had a sponsored ride in an IMSA GTU Fiero. He crashed it spectacularly at Road America (in the Kink?) because of a failed differential. Lost consciousness long enough to remember waking up in the ambulance. That seemed to end his racing career.
He's pictured here with a 356 that I think Emory prepared for him. A throwback to the Speedster he bought in the '70's for $30K, and later sold at liquidation with the rest of his car collection when he was forced to downsize.
The only things missing from his book were stories of crazy '80's hard partying that I like to imagine he enjoyed.
And a bump for the weekend. See you in the (virtual) pit.
And here's the first song on his album. (See what I did there?)
20ish years ago I checked out a 2002 his brother-in-law was selling in Champaign, IL. It seemed like way too much money at the time - iirc $5-$7k for a complete car that sort of ran/drove but basically needed everything. He said his wife & John's wife were sisters.
And now that sounds like a fair price for an '02 in that condition.
Someone needs to do a saxquatch livery on a Porsche racecar.
Also, major props to John Oates for being comfortable and confident enough to be willing to have done this.
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