In case you needed more inspiration to load up the new Vaca Valley racing simulator track.
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Category: Video
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A Kind of Passion
I like this approach of video-as-snapshot that this piece from Squadra Sutge: little moments, brief glimpses, peeks into the Jarama Classic Moto race weekend. I also like that it focuses on the pits. The temptation is always to capture the track, but time spent in the paddock is time well spent. The pleasure of just hanging out with the vintage racing community is the unexpected treat of camaraderie that every vintage racer discovers at their first race meeting.
Beautifully shot and assembled. The Johnny Cash doesn’t hurt either.
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Congratulations, Eric.
Friend of the blog, Eric Dean sent me some video from last weekend’s VSCDA Spring Brake at Gingerman raceway; where he took his first-ever victory in the Formula Ford class at the wheel of his ’72 Merlyn 20A.
Even better: It was a ‘worst to first’ situation where he had to start from the back of the grid. Unfortunately, the rush to make the race meant that he didn’t start his video camera for the winning run. This footage, however, gives us the general equation—string a few good corners together, then a few good laps, then a race.
Congratulations again, Eric, on a well-deserved victory!
Got some onboard footage you’re particularly proud of? Send it along to tips@thechicane.com.
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How Fast Will it Go?
Boys of Bonneville is making the film festival rounds, playing the Newport Beach Film Festival next week. Incredible archival footage (remarkably well preserved or perfectly restored) here of Ab & Marv Jenkins and the various incarnations of the Mormon Meteor. Even all this time later, shots of Ab taking notes while making Bonneville runs make my jaw drop.
via Hemmings
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GT Racer’s Origins
With the release of the Algarve Special DVD following last fall’s successful Kickstarter campaign, it seems a good time to look back at the roots of Alexander Davidis’ much loved TV series.
Alexander headed out to the inaugural LeMans Classic in 2002 with some period film cameras to take in the action and this short film was the result. It’s not hard to see how this led to the Classic Astons at Spa special and, ultimately, GT Racer. While I’m a fan of the HD footage that GT Racer so beautifully captures, I love the look that these old 1950s era Bolex cameras give to the 16mm footage. Were it not for the contemporary clothing in the pits you could be forgiven for taking this as historic 50s and 60s films.
This short of Alexander’s and the Dikayl Rimmasch film of Lime Rock we looked at last year sure make me want to start digging around antique shops for the old movie cameras that imbue the footage with such atmosphere—of course then it’ll be just the small detail of learning to use them as well as Alexander and Dikayl.
The marvelous California racing scene of the 1950s is storied, was a fantastic proving ground for American racing talent, and its popularity has been to our benefit. It was so highly-regarded and well-documented that there’s still plenty of information and photos and film canisters left for us to enjoy today. In fact, I think we probably over-glorify the era simply because it’s easier to find race results, images and footage to write about. The racing communities of other parts of the Americas weren’t as lucky to enjoy such a bounty of media, and an email from a reader recently reminded me that I should be working harder on representing other more forgotten racing communities.
Thankfully, George Kehler emailed me at the perfect time with the perfect solution. George has sourced this fantastic document of an under-represented racing community in Central America and sent a series of films from El Salvador, of which this footage from the April 20, 1958 running of the Santa Ana Sports and Grand Touring Races is the first example. It’s a glorious film shot by Dr. Carlos Alvarez of the Circuito Santa Ana set up on city streets near the capitol city of San Salvador.
As far as I can see, the Salvadoran racing community has all of the ingredients that make us look back so fondly on the California racing scene.
Sound unlikely? The crowd of 100,000 strong lining the streets, craning their heads out farther and farther in to the racing surface speaks to it’s popularity, but was it able to serve as a proving ground for young racers? Well, look for yourself. That Porsche 550 Spyder with the striped bonnet has Ricardo Rodriguez behind the wheel (Ricardo sat on pole and took the race’s fastest lap, but DNFed the race). The white Porsche Speedster is piloted by Pedro (at 18 years old).
It’s that Speedster, entered in the race by Roberto A. Reyes, that is the reason we’re all able to enjoy this footage now. George Kehler is the owner of that car today, and this footage is from his collection of artifacts on the car’s history. Can you imagine a better document of your car’s racing heritage than footage like this of the car winning her class with Pedro Rodriguez at the wheel?
There will be more El Salvador race footage in the coming weeks, hopefully we can help put an end to the dearth of racing footage from Central America. More on the April ’58 race at Racing Sports Cars.
If you’re familiar with El Salvador racing in this era, get in touch. George has identified the major details, but I’d love to find finishing order, programs, photographs, or other items to help document the era.
Love this 1937 film explaining the basics of differentials.
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Making Promises
The BBC gets it. They know why people still love Formula 1. They know the importance of the heritage of the sport. They’ve demonstrated it perfectly in this clip that served as the introduction to the 2011 season.
I wonder why Formula 1 doesn’t know it themselves.
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Granddad’s Sebring
Many times you’ve heard me say, virtually each time I show a photo that features a photographer perched perilously close to the track, that I long to see the photos taken by that photographer. It’s usually the result of me imagining what it might be like to see the race through that person’s eyes. It’s easy to forget that on the other side of every great motorsport photo was a photographer standing, waiting for the perfect moment to freeze in time. When I see images of those photographers standing trackside, I’m reminded of that.
Yesterday I got an email that captures something of that desire. Automotive photographer Jonny Shears emailed me to let me know that I’d recently posted a photo of his grandfather hunched over the bonnet of an OSCA competing at the 1960 Sebring. That’s him there in the black shirt peeking into the #63 OSCA of John Gordon & John Bentley. Amazing to think of Jonny sitting down to his computer and unexpectedly coming across a photo of his grandfather. Even better, Jonny had recently edited together some footage that his granddad had shot at that very race and at LeMans of the same year—the year he was managing the OSCA racing team—and wondered if I’d like to see it.
Would I like to see it? Of course!
Thanks for sending this along, Jonny. It’s stories like this that make the vintage sportscar community so endlessly fascinating.
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F1 #1. Silverstone 1950
Marvelous short film of the first race of the newly-created World Driver’s Championship.