He adored traveling and never tired of enjoying local customs and people. One of his goals was to visit every important country in the world at least once. The Targa Florio in Sicily was one of his most favorite spots. On my first visit there with the Porsche team he invited me for a practice lap around the 72km course through the Sicilian mountains and villages made famous by the 'Godfather' movies. Going through Campofelice or Cerda at breakneck speed in a rental car (a mule) he gesticulated at the sights, telling me stories where Phil Hill had gone off the road and Dan Gurney had knocked over a bridge, all the while negotiating around donkey carts, peasants and sheep that were populating the road. Suddenly he veered off into a village perched high on a mountain and accessible only by hundreds of wide steps. He drove right over them while women and children streamed out of their primitive lodgings in their black dresses and babushkas, curious about the visitor. In the village square he stopped, jumped out of the car and the town folk rushed to embrace him offering him wine or coca-cola. "IL Barone e arrivato, IL Barone de corsa e arrivato". He introduced me, kissed the women, jumped back into the car, drove down the stairs and back to the race track.

The whole episode might have taken 15 minutes but it took me ten years to recover. We did a similar thing at the Monte Carlo Rally, only this time it took ten hours of driving at night on ice and snow through the Alpes Maritimes with motorcycle World Champion Walfried Winkler sitting in the back seat of our 911. Walfried was scared out of his mind and constantly whispered in my ear to tell Huschke to slow down. He was too chicken to do it himself. I was not too chicken, because I was completely desperate at this point, but Huschke was indifferent to my pleas. He was determined to arrive at the end of the Monte Carlo Rally ahead of Vic Elford, the eventual winner. When it was over and we drove into the courtyard of the Monaco castle to see Grace Kelly in a grey sable coat present the silver cup to Vic , I was a shadow of my former self. With a fatherly gesture he patted me on the head, telling me that now he had to catch a flight to the United States and that he was sure that I could handle the Monte aftermath in the right Porsche spirit.

And so it went, day in day out until I left for the United States to marry Dan Gurney in July 1969. Had Huschke not asked Dan to give me a ride to the city on that memorable summer evening before the Solitude Race in 1962, my life would have been radically different. I am so glad he did. I see him quite often now on 'Speedvision' on American TV. There he sits in the pits in Le Mans at 3 o'clock in the morning, stopwatch in hand, a lonely figure while all the beautiful people are back in the hotel to rest. His trademark checkered tweed cap sits just at the right angle on his head, his tie is in place, a gentleman doing his job in a business he loved and helped to make famous.

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