…When it does it itself.
Category: Video
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Maserati Presenta Silverstone 1948
Disappointingly short, I know.
How about if I throw in these images from the same race of Geoffrey Ansell and his ERA B-Type getting way too well acquainted with the hay bales on the 23rd lap?
With all the (deserved) talk of the dangers of early motor racing, it always surprises me to see images like this (and this) where, despite the terrors captured in the photograph, the driver was uninjured. Geoffrey walked away from this one nonetheless, thumbing his nose at the odds.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love when home movies of races make it out of the attic and onto the web.
Here’s a perfect example: 15 minutes of footage from Willow Springs, Torrey Pines, Santa Barbara, Pebble Beach, Chino, Paramount Ranch, Pomona, and Riverside. Throw in some bonus shots of ’64 Sebring and this is a fantastic taste of 10 of the best years in American sports car racing. Hallelujah!
Ready for more than a taste of these races? Check out the John McClure Archive.
Pretty amazing to see Beetles sharing a field with ’57 Chevys. I’m not turning up much information on the race featured in this latest clip from the George Kehler archives but seeing these big American sedans running a road circuit is something that we don’t see enough of. We’ve all seen clips of the big Jaguar Mark 2s working around Goodwood, but in the States the big cars are largely associated with NASCAR’s ovals. So seeing these big Chevys and Buicks and Fords hang the rear end out or spin in a corner is a real treat.
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Stirling’s Cooper
I started out looking for a photograph of the Cooper team in 1958 & 59. Not just the drivers, mind you, but the entire team.
It seems like the kind of thing that must exist but I haven’t managed to dig one up. You see, I was playing in my mind the notion of Ferrari’s dreaded garagistas that were making his life difficult and I had this mental image of a dozen or so chaps in a garage piecing the Championship winning Cooper together. I wanted some visual representation of that; of this handful of hot-rodders coming together to compete on the international stage; and figured that there must be a group photo of the team. I still haven’t found one.
But you know how Googling goes… One link leads to another which leads to another and I ended up on this video of Sir Stirling Moss taking us through the paces in a ’59 Cooper Climax at Donnington. That’s worth passing along, right?
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Just Park Her Anywhere
Check out the spectator parking on the outside of a turn at the ’73 Targa Florio. With safety standards like this, it’s little wonder that this was the last proper Targa.
Race winning Martini entry piloted by Herbert Müller/Gijs van Lennep wiggles around this parking lot in their 911RSR with little effort, but even this minor inconvenience in the Sicilian mountains would test my nerve.
Just look at the track’s edge in this clip from the Targa of the same year (and from the wheel of another 911RSR: #113).
Hat tip to That911 for the photo.
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Spa. 1958.
Let’s take a spin around Spa in her configuration for the 1958 Belgian Grand Prix, shall we?
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Race #1
The 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The first Formula 1 world championship race.
Man, those Talbot-Lagos are pretty.
Edit: Ugh. Video is gone. Thanks, Bernie.
Edit 2: Found another video and replaced the original embed.
If the Ferraris in Justin Lapriore’s “Past Glory” don’t make you want to clear your calendar for next year’s Amelia Island Concours, I don’t know what will.
Love that these jewels are being driven. Can you imagine this crew passing you on a country road?
April 23, 1962’s non-championship Glover Trophy race should have been a minor blip on Stirling Moss’ calendar. But when his car had troubles and fell behind he redoubled his efforts and fought hard to climb back up the field. Only to have it all come down again when, after taking the fastest lap, his car careened off the track and crashed into an embankment.
It was an hour before he was extracted from the car. More than a month that he was in a coma; five months to fight off the paralysis that afflicted half his body.
I was among those saddened when Sir Stirling announced his second retirement from racing recently and would no longer be among the vintage racers in the pits at Goodwood and the Monterey Historics and others. That he was around to take part in vintage racing at all is a marvelous bit of good fortune. He’s a tough one.
More at Motorsport Musings, and a hat tip to Scuderiadank.