Truly astounding thread, impossible to overstate the scope of experience routinely conveyed on this website. Unbelievable. Thank you FChat, and OP.
Good time to resurrect hread Arthur! I worked with 'Standby' Vic McCarthy at Kraco back in 84. 'Blind PEW'! Good ol Pete, he didn't get a lot of respect from the lads at Lotus LOL! OT, saw that Joe Siffert's garage building was demolished at least they've named the street for him supposedly.
Since I am moving out of the country, I have going through all of my possessions to determine what little I take with me. I found slides and prints from the early 1970's. Including photos of Revson sunbathing in the Glen Paddock, Stiling Moss coming out of a PortaJohn (after which he proceded to chase me in jovial way....I think he was kidding) Graham Hill, Senna at Detroit and Monaco. Likely it will later in the summer before I have a chance to scan and put on this thread.
I finally managed to dig out the photos I shot at the first race of any kind that I attended -- the U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen in 1975. It was a good year to be a tifoso, as Niki Lauda had clinched Ferrari's first title in over a decade, and would go on to win both the pole and the race, thus becoming the first Ferrari driver to win a U.S. G.P. And while the weather was typically October-cold, it did not rain, which I would find out in subsequent years to be rare. Unfortunately, I was saddled with a wretched camera, a 110-format device by GAF that touted an "electronic shutter" and "automatic exposure". But the lens was fixed at f/8, so that with ISO 100 film (the only option back then) the shutter speeds were simply too slow to give a sharp hand-held image. Maybe that's why, as small as the camera was, it had a tripod socket! So the photos are lousy, but they are not totally without merit, and I think you can figure out what I was trying to shoot. Naturally, as bad as the camera was at shooting still images, when it came to the racing? Fuhgeddaboudit! This set includes some of the vintage cars that ran in a support race on Saturday. Never having seen a Morgan three-wheeler, I found it totally fascinating! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I was lucky enough to catch Niki Lauda taking his bag out of the trunk of a yellow GT4. He cordially signed my program, but unfortunately his autograph has faded into invisibility. The third photo deserves an explanantion. I'm standing outside the garage and off to my right I hear the sound of shattering glass. Turns out the Ferrari mechanic had slammed the hatch on the station wagon without noticing that the window was up, and as you can see, a tire was already occupying the space! So he is sheepishly picking the remaining shards of glass out of the edge of the window opening; you can see more broken glass on the car's roof. A nice bit of comic relief..... Old-timers will recognize Rob Walker, who was covering the race for "Road & Track", in the fourth photo; in the last one, in the corral of the short-lived Goodyear Motorsports Club, Niki Lauda is picking the winner of the grand prize, which was a wooden plaque with one of his F1 steering wheels mounted on it. Of course, back then, steering wheels were expendable, since they only did one thing -- steer the car. (Okay, maybe they had a single ignition kill switch, but that was about it.) I doubt if F1 teams give today's steering wheels away that readily. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I have a few more shots from '75 that I will post later in the week. I posted some photos from '76 earlier in this thread -- look at page 5 -- and you'll see that I had junked the GAF in favor of a Canon SLR. Can't fool me more than once....
One of the time-honored traditions from the days when the garages weren't adjacent to the pits -- at some venues in Europe, they weren't even at the track, but in the nearby town! -- was the parade of cars, drivers and crews taking the cars from the garage to the pits on Sunday morning. This set includes the rarely-raced (but divinely-sounding) Shadow-Matra, which even at this race was the backup car. And in the second pic, even the lousiness of the photo can't hide the familiar visage of future champion James Hunt. The third shot is the closest I came to a decent action pic. The race has just started, and Hunt had a flyer in his last race for Hesketh; from the 15th spot on the grid, he is already passing the 5th row starters, Mass and Scheckter! It would be a good race for all three, as they all finished in the points. The next shot is a horrendous photo of Lauda crossing the finish line to win the race. (When I saw these photos I was just about ready to punch Henry Fonda -- GAF's pitch-man in those days -- in the face!) The last two shots, after the race, show Emerson Fittipaldi, smiling for the press as usual, being interviewed after finishing second in his last race for McLaren. (Earlier in the race he was much less cordial, shaking his fist at the blocking Ferrari of Clay Regazzoni, which allowed Lauda to pull away for the win.) And finally, the winning Ferrari wearing the laurel wreath which was still given to winners in those quaint old days. (BTW, there was no 3-place podium back then -- to the winner went all the spoils!) Ah, what a simpler time -- about the only similarity to today is that Ferrari and McLaren were leading contenders, and Luca di Montezemolo was involved, back then as team manager. It would at least be nice to be able to get that close to the cars again. I guess in the case of Ferrari, we just have to wait for owners of older F1 cars to gather at Corse Clienti events. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
In that photo of Emerson, he is talking to one of the best liked F1 journalists of all time. I believe that is Bernard Cahier, I hope I hve his name correct. Thanks for posting.
Thank yourself too. Being a tad bit too young to remember this era I really appreciate the contributions you and the others have made to this thread of revitalizing the good ole days. Your skill with a camera is also quite spectacular and makes one feel like they are in the action. Thanks again to all the contributors.
Thanks for that, Ron; I didn't realize that was Cahier. You made me glad that I finally posted the pics!
I don't think that's Cahier, I think it's the other well-known (outside France) French journo, 'Jabby' Crombac. Paul M
You might be correct, my memory is failing. All I remember from the times I was in the press room is the guy is French, and incredibly well respected by all in F1 at the time.
tifosiron - thank you so much for starting one of the best threads EVER and contributing your great photos and wonderful anecdotes!!! Here are a few shots from my very first F1 race, Brands Hatch 1974. Taken from the grandstands just down from Paddock Hill Bend. Shot ~16 rolls of mixed color slides and Tri-X b/w and had an awesome time. These are all scans from the originals done on a fairly cheap film scanner. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thanks "the stig" for our words and especially for your photos. And dmaxx, I often wonder the same. Maybe some of the race photos you saw in mags like On Track, Autoweek, etc, might have been mine.
Nice shots! I was at that race as well. My dad and I, along with a business associate of his, were sitting in the grandstand at the top of Paddock Bend. Lauda dominated the race in the fantastic Ferrari 312 B3, then picked up a slow puncture toward the end. He finally dove into the pits one or two laps from the finish, but couldn't get back out because of poor crowd control in the pits. Ferrari appealed to the FIA and was awarded (I think) 6th place several days later. For some reason, I can't find any photos from the race.
Nobody else from that era with photos? Just bought a new slide scanner, as soon as I figure it our without the help of someone under 10 years old, I will post new photos.
I've been looking for a good, cheap slide and negative scanner, what did you buy? The last time I looked at them was quite awhile ago, I think the Nikkor was like $600-800, too much for me...
The Epson Perfection V500 was on sale at Office Max in January for $129. It will be more labor initensive than the Nikkor but the specs are wonderful, has ICE, so for now, it will do the job I need. I hope to get to it this month.
I used the best from Nikon and it cost me an arm and a leg and it was unreliable like hell. Needed constant manual coaxing and being sent back to Nikon for repairs after a few thousand slides. It took about a year to finally scan in all my 13k slides, but I'm glad I did it. Just as it took me about a year to digitize my entire VHS collection. Oh well.
