Category: Video

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Video

1959 Santa Barbara and Riverside Road Races

I was at a concert last night and invariably as the artist takes the stage, people’s phones come out and they start filming. My first thought is, “You’re never going to watch this poorly recorded video with poorly captured audio. Put your phone away and dance!”
But then I think of things like this 8mm film of the 1959 runnings of the spring and summer sessions of the Santa Barbara Road Races and Riverside… I’m sure at the time, people standing around this person thought they’d never watch the films. Other spectators were thinking that instead of enjoying the day of racing, our filmer here was lost in the camera’s eyepiece. And for what? Grainy film with no audio… Fifty hears later, however, I think of this document as absolute treasure and the person that recorded it as a hero.
Maybe I should lay off the people holding their phones over their heads filming all the time.

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Video

A Collection of Mid-50s California Racing Film

Great stuff here from the 1956 running of the Santa Barbara Road Races, Torrey Pines, and Pebble Beach.

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Video

Goodwood Revival 2015’s Greatest Hits

While we wait for the complete video archive of the weekend to make it’s way online (hopefully—fingers crossed!) let’s enjoy this playlist that the Goodwood media team has assembled of some of the races, incidents, and atmosphere of the world’s greatest vintage race meeting.

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Event Video

Goodwood! Goodwood! Goodwood!


The Revival is live streaming again this year—Hooray! I’ll update links as live video streams go down and archives go up. I love what Goodwood’s media team is doing with these events. I hope more of the big vintage weekends at other venues follow suit.

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Lost Track Video

A Treasure Trove of Reader Footage of 1950s & 60s Races

Rudi Markl wrote in with this wonderful film compiling his old 8mm film cans chronicling visits to venerable races across the Eastern half of the country between 1957 and 1967. Spectacular stuff.
Represented among this film is footage from a variety of East Coast races, including:
1957 & 1958 Kentucky State Fairgrounds (Louisville)
1964 Watkins Glen U.S. Grand Prix
1964 Vineland, NJ
1964 Lime Rock, CT
1965 Bridgehampton, NY
1966 Lime Rock
1967 Bridgehampton
Plus bonus footage from the 1968 Dutch Grand Prix!
Cobra fans be sure to check out the segment of the 1964 Vineland race. Fantastic moments in the pits with those smart looking Cobra team jackets.
Like all great collection of racing footage, this one also comes with a mystery. Rudi asks: “I’d love to know about the quick dark blue car in the Vineland, NJ races at 10:00, 10:36 and 11:52 (ed: I believe he’s referring to car #44 with those trumpets sticking out the bonnet). No hood, stubby rear and wide front fenders that slope inward (unlike any car I know of). Last year I spent a couple hours online trying to find it on old films. I did find some history and old racing footage from the Vineland track (which I only went to that one time), but none of that car. It must be a ‘special.’ Someone out there must know who built and drove it. I’m 79, but if I knew where it is now I’d be interested in buying it.”
Anyone know anything about this car, who built her, or where she might be today? Let’s hear about it in the comments!

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Video

A Glimpse at The Quail’s Best

As usual, I’m up to my eyeballs combing through all of the photography and video that has come out of car week. This year more than ever, I’m asking myself why I haven’t made it out to The Quail yet. Even just this taste—and there’s so much more—has me convinced it is the best stateside vintage sports and racing showcase. When else do you get to see an Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale in person? Just this moment of seeing it drive across the stage to collect it’s trophy has me short of breath.

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Video

In the Can-Am Pits: Road Atlanta 1972

Let’s walk among the trumpets and crazy wide slicks of the 1972 Can-Am paddock at Road Atlanta. Maybe I over-romanticize the history of motor racing—okay, definitely—but wandering among the teams here looks much more like any amateur vintage race happening this weekend than the velvet-rope, VIP charade of top-shelf racing in the modern era. You can argue safety and engineering advances, but you’ll never make me believe that fan access is better now.
More at Mac’s Motor City Garage.

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Video

1963 Highlands Rally

We frequently bemoan the fact that the modern reinterpretations of classic road races have reduced these once thrilling spectacles to timed rallies. But the timed rally has its own rich history as demonstrated here by this remarkable document of the 1963 Atlantic Sports Car Club Rally. If you prescribe to the theory that sports car clubs fundamentally transformed from casual social clubs that had fairly inclusive low-key timed events and gymkhanas, to racing clubs that focused solely on competition; then that return to the more social events is perhaps a welcome return to the roots of sports cars clubs. If those events look a lot more like this Nova Scotian rally, I’m for it.

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Video

Justin Lapriore’s 2015 Amelia Island

This spring the Amelia Island Concourse d’Elegance celebrated its 20th year. For the past three of them Justin Lapriore’s videos have become a bit of a tradition for the Florida island community as well.
It’s wonderful to see that in much the same way that the Amelia Island event has grown into one of the premier concours in the States, Justin’s videos have followed a similar trajectory. I look forward to them each year, and although a few months have past since the event, post-production—just like a concours level restoration—takes time.
(Thanks for the editing eye, Craig.)

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Video

Bruno Dorigo’s Abarth Obsession

This is what passion looks like. It’s not uncommon to know someone that has a few old cars and a bit of memorabilia locked away in a garage. But when someone opens their garage up as a museum; starts a club to share their passion with the world; and gets their cars out and seen as much as possible—that’s the kind of passion and sense of community that I have a deep respect for. Bruno Dorigo’s Abarth collection is impressive, but it’s his passion that is truly enviable.