racing audio – The Chicane

The upcoming online auction at l’Arte et l’Automobile offers some fantastic opportunities to do some armchair racing at 33rpm. The auto racing album is a bit of an anomaly, at once so antiquated and of-the-moment. These audio recordings put us right in the racing seat while at the same time putting in the head of a 12 year old racing fan appreciating these recordings again and again. They’re a simple reminder of the days before HD television put races live in our living rooms and we could only absorb the international sportscar scene by reading the race reports, attending a Grand Prix when it happened to be near enough, and staying up late into the night in a darkened bedroom flipping this record over again and again to imagine yourself behind the wheel.
Bidding starts on June 17, with the gavel falling on July 15.

Looks like there’s plenty here worth a bid.

More Exciting Racing Sounds of Grand Prix: Spa

Let’s take another long-overdue listen to the fantastic Exciting Racing Sounds of Grand Prix album. This time our host, Phil Hill, takes us on an audio tour of the Spa circuit. You’ll remember that this album was created as part of the research process for John Frankenheimer’s 1966 film Grand Prix. Ah—magic.

This cut from the LP takes off where Monaco left off and demonstrates the contrasts between the tight, narrow street circuit of Monte Carlo and the open expanses of the high-speed Spa circuit. Phil points out that the drivers spend an awful lot of their time in Belgium in top gear. The engine screams in this cut seem to indicate the truth in that. We’ll hear massive whines from BRM, Cooper-Maserati, Ferrari, Brabham, and McLaren-Ford; and none of them sound like they’re just poking through the frequently-wet countryside.

We also take the Burnenville Corner with Jochen Rindt in his Cooper-Maserati. You’ll hear that there’s not a whole lot of shifting happening here as the corner is a sweeping high-speed expanse. Rindt finished 11th at Spa that year, but 4th in the Drivers’ Championship for the year. 1965 was also the year he won Le Mans as part of the N.A.R.T. team in a Ferrari 250LM.

Hear the complete archive of cuts from this tremendous album.