Audio – The Chicane

Watch…No. Listen to this Porsche 917

This video of a Porsche 917 lapping is great in a way that most videos I’ve seen of 917s—or any other racing machine, really—usually aren’t. It’s because of what isn’t in it. There’s no damned royalty-free terrible music. There’s no barely understandable commentator over the barely audible track loudspeakers. There’s no clapping or “oohing” and “aahing” from a crowd. There is only that miraculous engine note.
It’s why Victory By Design was so great and why most AutoWeek segments aren’t. Cars—particularly racing cars—particularly Porsche 917s—are visceral things. They live in all of our senses. There is a sight, a smell, and my goodness there is a sound. We can feel the air move as they pass. When they pass by quickly, all is a blur. We can rarely capture it in our mind in perfect clarity. The lines of the bodywork are lost in the shake of a car under hard braking or acceleration or turning. We can just make out barely discernible graphic details as they blur by in an instant; often little more than a flash of color.
But that sound… That sound is crystal clear.

The Exciting Racing Sounds of Grand Prix

In preparation for his masterpiece 1966 film Grand Prix, John Frankenheimer undertook a series of audio recordings to help capture the spirit, mood, and excitement of the Formula 1 season. This LP is the glorious result of that research. Hosted by Phil Hill and featuring interviews with Graham Hill and Frankenheimer, this record takes us through the sounds of the Grand Prix season of 1966.
Grand Prix is the best racing movie ever made. Frankenheimer puts us in the cockpit, the pits, and in the stands. He developed camera mounting techniques that are still in use today.

Some people will tell you that McQueen’s film LeMans is the better racing movie — Those people are wrong.

But enough about the movie (I’m sure I’ll be writing much more on that in the future). This LP was something that I didn’t know about until recently. And over the next couple of weeks I’ll post up tracks from the album. This first bit cuts straight to the chase and puts us right on the start finish line of Monza. This, of course differs from the banked track of the movie — which stopped being used after the ’61 season (here’s a 2003 photo of the banking). We’ll hear the engine note of Jack Brabham’s Repco V8, Jim Clark’s Coventry-Climax, Ginther’s Honda V12, and Surtee’s Cooper Maserati. Then we’ll take a tour of the circuit aboard Michael Parkes’ Ferrari (Parkes sat on pole and ended up 2nd in the race that year).

Listen carefully and you can follow along on the track map.