OFFICIAL 1970-1989 RACING PHOTO THREAD

Great shots of the ADA Gp C2 at Silverstone, and a couple of FFs (Merlyn and Alexis?) on Bottom Straight at Brands........but I think the b/w with #33 on the grid is Crystal Palace (athletics floodlights visible behind pits).

More, please!

Paul M (who never went to the Palace when it was in use)

 

Good eyes Paul! Getting old here, definitely not Brands, this picture was sent to me after I mentioned P&M Racing where I worked late 60s. The FFs are of my old friend Russell Wood at Brands in 69 before we purchased a Palliser, then took over the works Royale. After that I went F3 with Tony Brise, F5000 Tony Dean, F2 Tom Pryce,......
The sports car is the Dome/Cosworth, 1982 at Silverstone 6 hours before we went to LeMans. Salazar and Chris Craft drove, we had no spares, wrecked in warm-up then ran until about 12:30 am. when my weld repairs broke!

B.

 

I could listen to you guy's reminisce for hour's on end, please dont stop!

 

When I went to the '76 USGP at Watkins Glen, it was raining cats and dogs the first night we were there.

We had a big tent. I had driven up in my 280Z, and parked it on the grass with a bunch of other Z owners.

By about midnight, the tent had its own little river of nasty rain water running right through the middle of it.

The bog was fired up, I do remember a volkswagen van getting torched at some point. The whole thing was a bit overwhelming for a kid who had only been to Pocono Raceway to this point in his life to see racing.

Much of the weekend is a blur, but I recall it raining all day Friday, HARD, and they got almost ZERO practice in. After that it gets hazy, but race day was very nice, other than the mud, my clothes all being soaked to the bone, and my feeling like I was tied in knots becuase I had finally decided the best place to sleep was in the car.

Damn, it was cold at night, too.

I have more negatives somewhere, I'm gonna have to dig 'em out and scan 'em.

DM

 

I leave to go to work for a few hours, come back only to find this thread is finally really cooking!!!

 

My home town of Dayton, Ohio, put me in the middle of a lot of racing. Within an overnight drive I could be in Mosport, Watkins Glen, Pocono, Road America, and even closer would be Indianapolis, Michigan Int'l, and MidOhio.

Dayton boasted having the world's fastest half mile oval. My first ever auto race in person was a USAC late model race with drivers named Paul Goldsmith and Bill Cheesbourg. The USAC sprint cars made their appearance, and to this day, I find this type of race car to be the most dangerous.

Dayton also had a large lake, actually a gravel pit, and having the Walther family as residents of Dayton, having a hydroplane race at that lake was a given. I remember coming home from MidOhio with a college friend, one of the Walthers, and we got near home I turned on the radio. We heard that news that his cousin Jeff Walther was killed in a hydroplane race.

Photos below are of the USAC sprints at the Dayton Speedway. Car #4 is Gary Bettenhausen. He had the doctors form the fingers of his crippled from a racing accident left hand in a manner that he could grip the steering wheel.

Also a hydroplane race in Dayton. I am not sure who is the pilot of the hydroplane, it may be the infamous Salt Walther, known for crossing the start finish line at the start of the Indy 500 upside down.
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76 was a cold wet year. One practice, AJ went out and didn't make it back around. I took another mech with me and we legged over to the far side of the track, the throttle had stuck open. We climbed over the fence and slid down the bank to the car, I washed down the slides with petrol, AJ continued with the rest of that session. Saturday morning was wet, only Ronnie went out, then someone else don't remember who. Ronnie spun the March, if he did that then it was too wet for us! I started to put in the race engine. John Surtees told me it might dry, but I went ahead, we had an early start that day at the Lodge!

B.

 

I was there.

 

It's good to remember old friends. Tony Brise in the Theodore Lola at the Riverside F5000 race, 1975. Sadly, only a few weeks after this photo was taken, Brise perished in the crash of Graham Hill's plane outside of London. Tom Pryce at Long Beach, 1976. Tom was killed in the horrendous crash in South Africa in 1977. To think what could have been.

Kurt O.
(photos copyright Kurt Oblinger)
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No, that's the Pay 'N Pak that won the national championship three years in a row, 1973 to 1975. The race in Dayton didn't start until '74 and George Henley won the race in this boat in both '74 and '75. The boat was then sold to Bill Muncey who raced it as Atlas Van Lines and won the Dayton race again in '76.

The Walther boats were always sponsored by Dayton-Walther (natch) and carried the number U-77 (same number as the Indy cars). They were generally named County Boy. Salt drove on-and-off from 1971 to 1976, never achieving much.

 

I stayed in Horseheads that year and drove up to the track the two days I was there. Saturday was wet and miserable all day (I think that's the day you remember), and fortunately I found a place to park on Wedgewood Road not far from the Kendall Garage. I spent the whole day going back and forth between my car (to turn on the heater and dry off!) and the garage. No one ventured out all morning; in the afternoon, Ronnie Peterson eventually became brave enough to try it, but he spun off on his first lap, and after they towed him back in, that was it for the day, and the grid was set based on Friday's times. I guess I coulda stayed in my motel room!

Sunday was cloudy and cool but dry (as you can see from my photos above). The race became a shootout between Hunt's McLaren and Scheckter's Tyrrell six-wheeler, but eventually Hunt pulled away to win and get ever closer to Lauda's once unassailable points lead. Niki persevered to finish third, but was nearly a minute behind.

 

Thanks for remembering. I think Walther's boat was the CounTRY Boy, named after a hang out in Dayton. Does this bring back old memories or what. We went to those boat races every year, I had pit, dock?, passes from the Walthers as I was friends with one of the cousins. The one that admitted he was embarrassed to be related to Salt.

At Indy, during races that I was not working as a photog, I got to baby sit the bimbos that Salt and his buddy brought along. If he only knew how "friendly" they were and thankful that I was with them. Now that I think about it, I have never been thanked like that since.

 

Yeah, Ron, I meant to type "Country Boy" but I guess my proofreading was faulty. I try to make one hydro race every few years or so -- usually in Seattle, but sometimes in Madison, IN -- and I always volunteer to conduct pit tours, which has allowed me to meet drivers and owners over the years. I just wish someone would bring back the Merlin engine, though.

 

Thanks!

 

Photos of some Porsches.

Peter Gregg at Road America in Wisconsin. What I remember about Road America is that they sell the best corn on the cob I have ever tasted. Peter Gregg was exceptional, never understood the monsters he was dealing with inside.

The B&W is of the Martini Porsche at Watkins Glen. I do not know who was driving, anybody out there know? I can't find the original photo, but it was shot through a filter and this graphic image was printed on metal that went on some award plaque.

The final shot is of a gaggle of Porsches at Lime Rock. I do remember that they had to stop the race because a car ran into a deer. This is the first race I watched a new driver, P.L. Newman, in a Ford Escort (British-not the crap we got here in the USA) putting on a pretty good show for his Connecticut neighbors. Also, I believe, they could not race on Sunday.
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Actually County Boy was a joke for us, because Salt spent so much time in the county jail.

 

The undisputed King of NASCAR, Richard Petty. He knows who butters his toast, so he was always available for the fans. Constantly going to the fence to sign autographs. Great sense of humor.

My Petty story is I was at DisneyWorld's MGM Studios in Orlando with my youngest daughter. It just happened to be Richard Petty day at the park. There is this little Italian restaurant within the park, so I needed to use the bathroom. I often ran into Petty while covering NASCAR races, so my face was familiar to him. I am standing at a urinal, when he goes to one next to me, says how ya doin, and then his son Kyle is standing at the urinal on my other side. Guess you had to be there, but I made some crass comment and we all started laughing, me pissing on my shoes.

First photo I took in the garage area of Atlanta International. Second photo in the pits at Michigan International. The Dodge actually resembles a real Dodge Charger, the good old days. All NASCAR had to do was increase roll cage construction, reduce the engine size, and let the cars look like real cars, not the lead sleds of today.

Petty:
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That's why I like to think that he is 'The King' in many more way's than just in NASCAR win's. He is truelly a MAN among men.

 

Copyrighted Photo.


Had this color corrected since orignal post. Gilles at Long Beach:
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New pic looks lots better, the red was too bright before and now its just right.

 

Is that your own picture? Terrific shot--you can see his eyes. I'd love a copy if it's yours.

 

Jack, all the photos I have posted in this thread are of my own blood, sweat, and tears, a few years of lugging around 80 pounds of equipment for no money but the love of the sport. Climbing fences, hanging stupidly over guard rails, waiting to get kicked out of someone's garage or pit, making friends with pit crew members, befriending drivers that would not be at the next race. These are the shots I managed to keep, I wish I had the shots I turned over to "the company".

 

Here's another photo I previously posted that was color corrected. One of my favorite that I shot, Mark Donohue winning the first IROC championship in Porsches at Daytona in 1974:
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That is a great, great picture!

 

Fantastic photos,really brings back memories,especially of my favorite driver Mark Donahue,he always had ''an unfair advantage''!
Many thanks again,
Bill