Edit: Feeds are down. I’m leaving these links here on the off chance that the Goodwood team archives the all-day feeds at these address. Dear Goodwood team, please archive the raw film dumps at these addresses.
Thanks again to Goodwood Revival and Forty One Six for bringing this to us this year.
Update: Archived for your viewing pleasure.
The live stream may be done for the day, but we can still enjoy some of the on-track action at this year’s running of the mighty Goodwood Revival. Let’s ride along with Kenny Brack in what looks to be a quite slippery session with and entire field of Ford GT40s. This is what a whole lot of power with not a whole lot of grip looks like. Kenny has fast hands.
Brave.
Thanks, Goodwood.
The Vintage Sports Car Drivers Association always has a fantastic grid for their Formula Vee group. With 20 or more racers, it has to be one of the most densely packed Formula Vee grids in the States. Last weekend’s Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival, though, brought even more out to the track to celebrate Formula Vee’s 50th anniversary together with a FV-only feature race. (Edit: Paul just wrote in to tell me that the event drew 34 Formula Vees for the weekend. Yowza!)
What I like most about Jeffrey Tschiltsch’s onboard footage here is that it really showcases one of my favorite aspects of the group: they manage to run really tight. Even towards the end of this video, there’s still five or six cars within a few seconds of each other; never more than a turn apart. Keeping together as a pack and drafting one another in the long straights at Road America makes these little 1200cc powered racers an exercise in true racecraft. After all, there’s not a lot of horsepower to rely on when you make even the smallest mistakes. Sure, taking advantage of every newton of momemtum and using every aerodynamic advantage to try and win is true for every race group, but this particular formula really manages to deliver on similar performance and racing characteristics across a variety of builders. It’s just such a joy to watch.
I have to also give kudos to Jeffrey for actually using YouTube’s usually annoying commenting tools to give some honest commentary for the video, pointing out some hairier moments, some near misses, and even his own mistakes to give us some insight into the on-track thoughts and analysis of the moments that defined the race for him. Thanks for sharing these, Jeffery.
Man, I love Road America.
Welp, my weekend just filled up. For the first time, Goodwood will be live streaming the Revival all weekend long. Now you’ll be well-placed to take in all the events at a level of breadth that the highlight shows simply can’t cover. I’m particularly looking forward to the Whitsun Trophy race featuring an entire field of GT40s. I am so so, so, so very excited for this.
Here it is, the best reason you’ll see today for having quality speakers attached to your computer. This… This is why you don’t put a soundtrack over racing car footage. Just listen to that Maserati hum.
Over on Motorsport in the 60’s, Kent has dug up a marvelous series of photos of the 1964 running of the Rest & Be Thankful hillclimb.
I’m happy for Kent for this post that he had one of a blogger’s favorite experiences: Peter Garnet commented on his post identifying himself in one of the photos as a young driver on his way to beating the track record. That’s him in the red and yellow crash helmet. I’ve had a few of those moments of connection here on The Chicane and it’s absolutely invaluable.
Head on over to Motorsport in the 60’s for the rest of the photos.
I love the idea of these driving resorts, and I hope that Bilster Berg is a huge success. There’s a lot of love in this video of racing drivers’ reactions to their initial experiences on the track. Directed by GT Racer’s Alexander Davidis, there’ll be some familiar faces here for fans of the series. But there’s also some tremendous vintage racing machinery in the form of E-Type Lightweights, 911s, Austin-Healeys.
One thing in particular stood out as drivers describe the difficulty in learning the track and the learning curve in coming to terms with its compact complexity. One driver says it requires many, many laps before you start to get it right; another driver says a couple of hundred laps would be necessary to learn it properly. That sounds about right for a track that has been described as a mini-Nürburgring.
Did you catch what Derek Bell said, though? “To come back on my own without other cars, just sort of do five or six laps to get it all together”.
A couple hundred laps vs. Five or six laps. That right there is the difference between even a highly skilled racing driver and Derek Bell.
For a different kind of retro racing: let’s just take a moment to appreciate this animation by designer and illustrator Fraser Davidson. This makes me want to go find an arcade at lunch today.
More work on Fraser’s Dribbble.
Thanks for pointing this one out, Tr4inspotter.
After yesterday’s Lola T260 illustration post, KABay was kind enough to point us to this treasure trove of Werner Bührer’s illustrations of racing cars for Powerslide Magazine (and republished by Road & Track) ed: Thanks, M Needforspeed. Once I saw it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to let it just sit there in the comments: This is front-page material!
Thanks again, KABay
Be careful trying to take in all the details of this glorious Werner Bührer illustration of the iconic L&M liveried Lola T260. You might just get lost in it. Pro tip: click that image to make it large enough to really take in.
What magnificent work on display here. I’m a fan of what Road & Track has been doing with their redesign and relaunch, but I hope that they don’t forget to also look to the past. It’s a shame we don’t have these kinds of gatefold spreads in car magazines today and I can only envy those that could spread this October ’71 issue out on the living room floor and lose themselves in it for an hour or so.