Raymond N. "Ray" Martinelli

Passed away at age 70, on October 7, 2010, in Coquille, Oregon, near the community of Myrtle Point where he and his wife Kerry moved after retiring in 2004. He handled his short lived bout with cancer with characteristic humor and stoicism around friends and family. Born April 10, 1940, in Sanitarium, CA, to Raymond Andrew and Lucile Forsyth Martinelli, Ray grew up in Sebastopol, graduating from Analy High in 1958. After serving in the U.S. Army and National Guard, he soon took up his true passion, automotive mechanics, and developed it into his career and business. Ray became one of Sonoma County's leading foreign and European race car mechanics. His first venture was with Bill Manly at Foreign Auto Repair in Santa Rosa, CA. His second and perhaps best known endeavor was Autohaus Foreign and Race Car Repair with friend Bob Haley, located for much of its time on Santa Rosa Ave, where he developed a shop known for its quality, fastidiousness in detail, and problem solving, with an ambiance and unique character that attracted the who's who of Sonoma County and the North Bay's foreign car owners, racers and aficionados. Ray's third undertaking was as co-owner of Intermotor on Montgomery Dr, which would later also become known as Autohaus. Friends and co-workers remember Ray as one who served as an automotive mentor to all who worked for and knew him. A longtime friend and one of the last surviving members of the Autohaus Racing Team, Austin Walther, recalled Ray as "an ace auto mechanic who also raced in and won several enduros, in SCCA venues such as Laguna Seca, Riverside, Sears Point, Portland, Vacaville and Cotati Raceways, and in 1965, won the West Coast Championship in Formula Car Racing." He took the checkered flag in many other races in the heyday sixties racing scene, establishing lifelong professional friendships with other owner/drivers, racing in cars ranging from the iconic Mini Coopers, Formula cars, and in the sport racing group with such marques as Austin Healy, MG, Brabham, Lotus, and Porsche. Ray's own Austin Healy, a winner in both its incarnations, was a familiar sight with its polo red paint with black and red racing stripe down the center. Ray eventually left his own automotive business and in 1990 went to work as the senior maintenance mechanic for the Sonoma County Water Agency until his retirement. Ray's interests and passions covered more than cars and mechanics. He was a fisherman, carpenter, and collector. He loved his guns, his dogs, country music, good friends, a spot of tea or a cold beer, and most of all his Ford trucks, believing in his later years that, "If it's not a Ford, it just not worth having!" Many long-time friends and especially friend and former co-worker, Bob McCarter, recalled him as "an avid storyteller, all true stories, from an era that is now past, when there was thunder on the road, in the pits and on the track. He enjoyed the good hearty laugh and the biting tease and banter that made up that world. He could give and receive the joking as well as any one of them, because he knew of what he spoke, intimately, professionally, and honestly. Ray was preceded in death by both his father and mother. Survived by wife of 25 years, Kerry Martinelli of Myrtle Point, OR; stepson Ken Griffin of Corte Madera, CA; brother in-law Tim McCarthy and wife Candy of Salinas, CA; first wife Sarah Marie Hawkes; and countless friends. Most of all, he will be profoundly missed by his only child, son Raymond "Mike" Martinelli and fiancé Karla Byman of Santa Rosa, CA. No services were held, at his own request.