A good rainy day watch!

Riverside circa 1957. (no sound)

Riverside Sports Car Road Races - Sept. 1957 on Vimeo

Watkins Glen circa (mostly) 1963 (with sound)

A Look At Sports Car Racing on Vimeo

Scott

 

Wow, just got done watching the entire 57 video. Some amazing vintage hardware in that vid. If you could have snuck just several of those cars into a time capsule somewhere you'd be a multi-millionair if you were to sneak them out today, lol.

Amazing how much more limited car-tech was at the time too, thank god tires and brakes have come a long way since then.

Safety rules too, look at all those open top cars with no roll bars or any other kind of driver protection either. When that one car flips after the wreck I'm not suprised to see them hauling off the driver in the ambulance, or is it the coroner's van?

When I have some time I will definantly be checking out the watkins vid when I get a chance to.

Thanks for the entertaining find Scott.

 

When racing was dangerous and sex was safe. You know it just proves what a bunch of Sally asses we've become. I mean look at all the people complaining about the ers track. When it was safe if you kept your mind about driving.

I know Coming from rally a hard obstacle at the end of a braking zone or on the outside of a turn is just par of life.

That's why it's on old rally saying, "friends don't let friends turn in early"

 

Or my favorite opening (from the lazlow show)
-in an angry Irish accent.

"It's a show by MEN, men who remember freedom. Before seatbelts, and helmets, and condoms. When you could drive drunk, and feel up young girls, and sing along to rock power balads, and smoke in bars, and get in fights, and wake up in a pile of your own vomit with your eyebrows shaved off"

 

Thats some great stuff! I love those old european sportscars. Stunning designs. Most beautiful cars ever built in my opinion. Wonder how those old exotic cars would fair against a modern, but commonplace sports car from today, say like a plain C6 corvette. Would be interesting to see.

 

Find a track that hasn't changed much in years. Watkins glen maybe? and compare historic lap times to those from today. what I've noticed is tire technology as made most of the improvements in lap time possible if not directly responsible for them. they (some historic racing show/series on speed) had some historic cars on modern rubber a few years back. and the cars were still in the same race trim, and some of their original drivers were behind the wheels. the lap times were much lower, and the drivers kept mentioning how the brakes were wearing out so much faster as they could actually use them now when 30 years ago they would lock the tires if used too much. but the power and acceleration was still brutal, that was the same.

 

A C6 will destroy most older cars - it's amazing what 25 years in suspension progress and 400 horses will get you.

Now if you want to compare a modern race car that's built to a class and a Porsche 917, 935 or 962 - then yes it will be a better fight (mainly because the Porsche 917, 935 or 962 were not built to restrictions.

 

YouTube - 1973-74 IROC season

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