This was a hot afternoon in Caracas, Venezuela in 1957 . . . when Marcos Perez Jiminez, in the twilight of his dictatorial career, was staging a 1000 kilometer sports car race. An American team with three Corvettes was practicing when Tiger Tom Pistone, the relief driver for Decatur's John Kilborn, slammed into a statue and scattered Corvette parts around the square. Pistone's teammates huffed and puffed and gasped and wheezed for a quarter of a mile as they ran from the pits to the scene of the crackup. They found the Corvette sorely wounded. Pistone was unhurt. Kilborn, looking sadly at the car he was supposed to drive the next day, hardly noticed the quiet little man who squeezed through the crowd to his side. Then he felt a nudge and turned. The little man smiled happily and said: "Motor racing, she is fun, no, Senor?" Kilborn has never forgotten the little man in Caracas, v "He said all there was to say about the whole crazy sport of motor racing," said Kilborn. "It has been many things to me, but more than anything it had to be fun to keep in it." And now the fun is over. Last Saturday night in Chicago Kilborn was awarded the Sportsmanship Trophy for 1964 at the annual U.S. Auto Club stock car division dinner. When he accepted it he announced publicly for the first time that he was retiring from racing. "It's about the hardest thing I ever did in my life," he said. "Racing is a disease and it's hard to get over it." Kilborn's racing started with bill climbs and time trials back in 1952 in a little MG. It ended last fall on a track in California as the USAC racing season closed. In between were triumphs and frustrations as Kilborn raced a succession of high-powered sports cars across the nation, in Cuba and in Venezula, against the world's greatest drivers. Kilborn first raced Jaguars in the days when events were held at Chanute Field, then owned four Ferraris. He was on the first factory Corvette team to race at Sebring and he drove one of the famous Scarabs a couple of times. And then he raced a Dodge the past two years in USAC events. "I guess the biggest thrill was winning the six-hour race at Elkhart Lake in 1956 in my first Ferrari, the big 4.9. It was too big and too long, to high off the ground and too slow, but we won. Anytime you win a big race you must have some luck and good breaks. We had them that day," Kilborn said. Disappointments always far outnumber victories in motor racing and Kilborn had his full share. One of the sharpest in memory was the national championship race at Milwaukee.