Artist Fabian Oefner creates the illusion of beautifully exploding machines using a combination of modelmaking, sketching, photography, and digital manipulation. They’re almost balletic in how delicately they’re presented.
The results are still arrestingly beautiful, but part of me was disappointed to see that these are more Photoshop than sculptural. How fantastic would that exploded P4 look on your mantle as a physical object in the vein of a small scale version of Jonathan Schipper’s “Slow Inevitable Death of American Muscle”? Time to break out the Testors.
via Top Gear.
24 minutes of Fangio footage… No clever title nor caption needed.
Stance Works photographers visited the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the results are magnificent. Somehow I think that photographers Mike Burroughs and Andrew Ritter made the slightly gloomy weather work to their advantage. Beautiful images. Click on over to Stance Works for the complete gallery.
This past weekend was the CSRG Charity Challenge race and was by all accounts a resounding success. With near record participation and incredible all-time record attendance by spectators, the event increased their charitable donation to Sonoma Chapter of the Speedway Childrens Charities by more than 40% over last year. Congratulations, CSRG!
Unfortunately, the weekend’s successes coincided with the passing of founding CSRG member David Love. His 1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa has been a mainstay of west coast events for decades. The Charity Challenge was no exception. David always believed that the race weekends were about the cars, with the drivers taking a back seat. In a way, it’s beautiful that the car was there. There’s something haunting, though, about this image of the car paddocked for the weekend. It’s as though the car is serving as her own eulogy.
It really says something about David’s commitment to vintage racing that arrangements were made for the car to be a part of the event even though he could not. David’s remarkable spirit that he brought to vintage racing carries on.
More photos from the event below. I’m glad that CSRG’s communications of the event remain celebratory for the fantastic race weekend.
I’m continuing to wade through the box of slides and prints that Gary Mason sent in chronicling his lifelong love of photographing sportscar and formula racing (particularly Maseratis). In addition to these gorgeous images of the paddocks of the 1957 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, there is a large pile of shots that a then teenaged Gary was able to capture from the race itself (they’re coming, I promise). These particular shots of the Ferrari and Maserati paddocks really jump out at me though and are worth sharing on their own.
It’s been well covered here and elsewhere what a shame it is that spectators are all but barred from the paddocks of contemporary Formula 1. But it’s not just the level of access that strikes me about these photos. It isn’t just that Jean Behra’s Maserati 250F or Peter Collins Lancia Ferrari 801 is just sitting right there, a hair’s breadth away; begging you to casually extend a pinkie and touch it and prove to yourself that it’s real. What catches my eye is what surrounds these magnificent machines or, rather, what doesn’t. This isn’t just access to the paddock; it’s access to a nearly empty paddock. Empty of security to be sure, but also eerily empty of other spectators. Plenty of room to stand back and frame up a photo. Nearly impossible today even at club races.
Bonus Denis Jenkinson on the left there gathering notes and photos on the Ferraris for Motor Sport, no doubt. A nearly embarrassing charge of excitement leapt through me when this image slowly revealed itself line by line as the scanner worked its way through the slide: “Hey, that’s Jenks!”
As Gary pointed out in a comment on this similar photo taken a few years later, note the jump from garage 12 to garage 14. Can’t be too careful when you’re looking for luck on the track that day! No unlucky #13 garage for me, thank you.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Track photos of the main event and support races for the ’57 Italian GP to come as soon as I can get the images properly indexed and identified.
See more of the Gary Mason Archive.
It’s not just because it’s beautiful. Which it is. It’s not just because of it’s relationship with Ascari. Which it has. For me, part of its allure is because of what it represents as a nod to a time when racing teams wouldn’t let themselves be pushed around.
When the Formula 1 rulebook got too restrictive, constructors embraced Formula 2 as a means to really showcase their engineering prowess. Every few years, this notion pops up again: that Formula 1 is holding constructors back and so begins the threatening and posturing that the series will be abandoned and that constructors will start their own series. Every single time, part of me hopes that they will. This Ferrari 500 proves that racing teams can do just that… and do it brilliantly.
The card box is open. Grab your set of Topps World on Wheels cards and let’s trade.
Enzo Ferrari, once a racing driver himself, decided he wanted a car exactly to his own design. He hired an engineer to translate his ideas into facts, and the famous Ferrari racing car was the result. Ferraris have chalked up an amazing record of wins on almost every track in Europe. In addition to this car, Ferrari also makes the most advanced unsupercharged sports car in the world today.
From the card’s reverse:
More cards from the World on Wheels series in the archives.
Magnificent shot that Bertocchi uploaded to a thread at Ferrari Chat. Prepare to lose the rest of your afternoon.
Update: Back on the FChat thread, Andrea points out that I’m inaccurate on this post’s title. The #14 car being unloaded is the Ferrari 500 of Louis Rosier’s “Ecurie Rosier”, not the factory team. Thanks, Andrea.
Rosier qualified 9th but retired on the 17th lap with engine troubles.
If the trailer is anything to go on, Ron Howard has taken his look at the rivalry between Hunt and Lauda very seriously. Even better, there are darn few obvious uses of CGI racing in these clips. I don’t know why Hollywood can make perfectly realistic dinosaurs or Gollum, but every instance of CGI auto chases plows straight into uncanny valley and looks like crap.