Clyde Berryman was born in New York City to an American father and a French mother. He grew up in Sumatra, Indonesia and Tripoli, Libya where he listened to longtime Italian residents of Libya talk about the glory days of the pre-war Tripoli Grand Prix held at the Mellaha circuit. A race-happy uncle took him to see a Formula 2 race at Albi, France in 1969 and the next year, he went with his parents to the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort. It was a race marred by tragedy as British driver Piers Courage was killed in a fiery crash not far below where they were sitting among the infield dunes.
Over the next four decades, he attended over twenty F1 Grand Prix races at Monaco, Monza, Brands Hatch, Montreal, Magny Cours, Paul Ricard, Jerez, Estoril, Imola, Indianapolis, and Spa Francorchamps. As a freelance photo-journalist, he covered F.1 test sessions at Catalunya, interviewed the marketing manager of the Minardi F.1 team during a visit of their factory in Faenza, Italy. He covered the launch of the 2000 Ferrari F1 at Maranello and (a dream come true) dined at Il Cavallino Restaurant where ‘Il Commendatore’ Enzo Ferrari took his meals for many years! Clyde enjoys attending vintage historic racing events and exploring defunct circuits from the past. Throughout this grand adventure, his artist-wife Gulay was often a fellow-traveler and experienced it all with grace and good-humor, from the glamour of Monaco and party-town Montreal to the torrents of rain at Spa and the ‘tifosi’ stampede at Monza!
Clyde is a graduate of the University of Alabama and the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne). He worked briefly in shipping in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia before embarking on a career as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer with overseas postings in Turkey, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Senegal, Mauritius and Italy. Clyde and Gulay settled in Williamsburg, Virginia. Their home has an art studio and a ‘mini-museum’ of 1,000 racing car models, ship models and over twenty motor racing and naval dioramas. They have a married daughter and both she and her husband currently live and work in New York City.
|
|
