The watchmakers at Chopard sure were able to get some great footage last month thanks their sponsorship of the Monaco Grand Prix Historique. Visit their sponsorship site here. Fantastique!
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Author: Harlo
I made the trip down to the VSCDA’s Blackhawk Farms event this past weekend and had a wonderful time. This was, somehow, my first visit to the track and I enjoyed the laid-back environment and comfortable size of the place. This smaller track might be less suited to the big bangers than Road America, but as a spectator it is nice to be able to comfortably wander from corner to corner in the infield and easily take in a variety of vantage points. The adjoining airstrip was hosting a vintage event of their own on this particular weekend. Few things add to the atmosphere of a vintage race weekend than a steady flow of biplanes flying low overhead—it was our own miniature Goodwood!
Also fantastic about this particular weekend is the large numbers of vintage Formula Vees that arrive. Their numbers are such that they have their own grid, without the larger Formula Fords and Bs in the mix. Their event was the highlight of the action on-track of the weekend, with front runners Garrett Van Camp, Frank Newton, and Mike Kitsmiller trading positions at nearly every lap.
Making a return to competition was the H-Mod Crosley Special that we saw at the Intermarque car show in St. Paul, MN a few weeks back. It was an absolute treat to see her back on the track Saturday competing amongst the pre-war group after a very long dormancy.Even better, I was offered a ride in her for the Sunday touring sessions! Unfortunately it simply wasn’t meant to be; the rotor came apart and a replacement couldn’t be sourced in time to get her on the track on Sunday. C’est la vie.
Often the racing community focuses on the large races: the KIC at Road America, The Lime Rock Historic Festival, the Monterey Historics. The biggies certainly bring out the crowds. Their high profile draws the exotic machinery. Do yourself a favor and try to make it out to the smaller vintage events in your area. The atmosphere is more familial, the smaller crowds means you’ll have better opportunity to chat with the drivers, and the tracks themselves feel somehow cozier.
Woohoo! We racing and video game geeks have been jonesing for this one for much too long. Gran Turismo 5 has finally announced a firm release date: November 2, 2010. From the screenshots shared at E3 yesterday, it looks like we’ll be seeing more vintage machines than we have in recent episodes of the series as well. From vintage ground-pounders in what looks like a pretty well stocked Trans Am field; to early iterations of the Lamborghini LP400 Countach; and an Alpine—we’ll have some real vintage machinery to sink our virtual teeth into this winter.
From the looks of things, we’ll have some fantastic tracks to try them out on as well. The Nurburgring looks incredibly well detailed with changing surfaces and grafitti. We’ll also get to try our skills on the Top Gear test track! Oh how I’ve wanted to try and keep from lifting in the Follow Through bend. Their takes on some fictional tracks in Rome and Madrid also look spectacular. The Gran Turismo series has always pushed the envelope of what is possible with each generation of gaming platform and the 5th episode looks like it’ll be leveraging the Playstation’s hardware in ways we haven’t seen yet. Looks like it’s time for me to start saving for that steering wheel interface. And with technical direction from Adrian Newey, I imagine that GT5 will stick to the series long history of unparalleled on-track realism, including the long-overdue implementation of car damage on impacts.
I’ve always understood the car manufacturers that license their designs to video game developers have always been reticent to let their cars look all banged up at the end of the race; or become damaged in ways that might not represent the real-life safety systems in the cars. But GT5 has finally been able to sort the hesitation to bring added realism to the series. Hooray!
Pre-Order at Gran Turismo’s site.
Here’s another installment from the McClure archives. This time it’s the 6th running of the Torrey Pines Road Races held on October 22-23, 1955. Some wonderful footage from the pits starts off the clip with shots of a Siata 208 Coupe alongside a Paul Berry’s Arnolt-Bristol, Lotus IX, MGAs and Austin-Healeys, and is that Lance Reventlow climbing into the Mercedes 300 he shared with Bruce Kessler before crashing out in the 6 Hours? The LeMans-style running start of which is captured here as well.
A fantastic field for the race with cars such as Jack McAfee’s 550 Spyder, Pearce Woods’ C-Type Jag, The O’Shea/Hill Mercedes, and the Ives Cad-Allard.
An excellent race!
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24h Spa Francorchamps 1971
Marvelous footage of the ’71 24h Spa. Keep your eyes peeled for the winning #22 Dieter Glemser/Alex Soler-Roig Ford Capri RS 2600.
More photos at touringcarracing.net.
Do I have to choose?
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Hammond and Moss
This excerpt from a longer interview makes me REALLY want to see the full program which aired a few nights ago in the UK. There’s some additional details on Stirling’s site.
via
I love it when old ideas are re-examined alongside new innovation. After being banned in 1957, the dustbin fairing is returning to the contemporary motorcycle racing scene on the 2010 Agni E1 electric race bike.
Just look at this video. With the rider’s simple black racing suit you can almost make yourself believe you’re looking at 50’s footage—until you see the back half of the bike anyway.
Limited power? Limited range? Sounds like electric bikes will, somewhat unexpectedly, give the modern world a return to old-time racing.
Hell for Leather has the complete story.
“I feel that the Lotus is the best attempt yet to provide the enthusiast with a competition car at a price he can afford to pay. In essentials, it is just as sound an engineering job as the most expensive sports car, and the economy is only brought about by the clever adaptation of mass-produced components.”
Sounds to me like J. V. Bolster was on to something. This Lotus 6 looks every bit as desirable today as it did when Autosport wrote this glowing review in 1953.
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Kruse Loses Auction License. Now What?
Kruse International Auctions had their auction license pulled by the Indiana Auctioneering Commission last week for multiple complaints of non-payment to sellers. Yikes. I wonder how this might affect the auction community and whether this experience will create a mistrust of selling at auction that will spread to other houses. Does Kruse’s poor practices taint the wider collector car auction market? Will collectors treat this is an isolated incident unique to this auction house?
Interestingly, the Kruse homepage currently directs visitors to Auburn and Leake auction houses. I don’t know that I’d happily take Kruse’s endorsement right now.
Update: Sports Car Market reports that RM will be announcing that they have purchased Kruze…