When I was probably 10, a friend and his Dad took me to NH raceway to see the formula 1s race. my friend's father was involved with the Trojan race car or company. I have no idea. All I can remember is it was so loud, I could not speak or talk. And I remember chain link fences. And a lot of trees. And the track was so freakin small. Looks a lot bigger on TV.
Do you mean New Hampshire Motor Speedway (would have been Bryar Motorsports Park?)
Never had a Formula One there, but plenty of IMSA And TransAm
Watkins Glen, perhaps?
If it was '76 or '77 you would indeed have witnessed Hunt and Lauda; although understandable if it didn't mean anything to a 10-year old or even most Americans at the time.
From the
usual source (my bolding and italics):
"
1975: saw a medium speed chicane added to the Esses to slow the cars down, but it did not ruin the flow of the track. The race however, was a politically charged event. Regazzoni held up Fittipaldi's second placed McLaren for six laps to try to help his teammate and leader of the race Niki Lauda get ahead; Fittipaldi eventually lapped the Swiss. However, Regazzoni was black flagged by Clerk of the Course Berdie Martin and this irked the ire of Ferrari team manager Luca di Montezemolo. The thin and wiry Montezemolo actually got into a bit of a scuffle with the large Martin; and Montezemolo withdrew Regazzoni in protest. It was not a complete disaster for Ferrari- Austrian and recently crowned Drivers' Champion Lauda went on to win from Fittipaldi.
1976 saw James Hunt win crucially in a McLaren while his closest championship contender Lauda finished third. At this point, Hunt was only three points behind Lauda for the final race at Fuji, Japan. The race also saw Jacky Ickx crash hugely at the Chute, the Belgian survived but was injured.
1977 saw rain throughout the race. Hunt won again on a very wet track as he held off home favorite Mario Andretti in a Lotus 78 to win by two seconds.
1978 saw the heavy-hearted circus arrive after the death of Ronnie Peterson at Monza two weeks before. Andretti had already accumulated enough points to win the Drivers' Championship before coming to Watkins Glen. Mechanical problems forced Andretti to retire early from the race, which was won by Carlos Reutemann in a Ferrari 312T3.
1979 saw Ferrari driver Gilles Villeneuve win a very wet race after Australian Alan Jones retired after dominating much of the race.
Starting in '75 Lauda's car would have been a
Ferrari 312T:
"The
312T series won 27 races, four Constructors' and three Drivers' Championships,
making it the most successful car in the history of F1"
(Of course a car's useless without a driver.)
"The car was powered by the powerful and ultra reliable flat-12 engine which gave around 510 bhp"
Of course they were un-muffled, even then Enzo Ferrari habitually complained about 'em not sounding good enough.
Being flat 12's with small cylinders they did sound a bit flatulent even at 10-12000rpm.
Yea that was
12,000 rpm.
:fox:
In the early '60's there were production sports cars that could beat Formula One Cars (Corvettes; Cobras; Trans Am entries) basically due to simply having great big V-8s' (a 327 is 5.4 liters, Trans Am was topped out 5 liters yielding the famous Mustang 5.0 or 305 displacement)
So from '66-86 ( an incredibly long time, actually), the F1 engine formulae were fixed at a choice of 3 liters normal or 1.5 liters turbocharged; beyond that anything went: cylinder/valve count, fuel injection or turbo,
no rev limits.
THAT's where the loud came from.
:friendly_wink:
And if I didn't mention it before,
why was he my first racing hero?:
"Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a 1975 title win and leading the 1976 championship battle,
Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns.[3]
However, he survived and
recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix.
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged.
He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified."
Even stone-hearted Enzo was impressed.
That lung damage btw was what finally caught up with him, requiring a lung transplant last year, and he'd already had a kidney transplant in '05, as his kidneys had also suffered damage from the toxic fumes that got into his lungs in the crash.
He died of kidney failure; apparently a complication of the transplant recovery.
He'd actually been active in management in Mercedes' F1 program for the last couple of seasons (much to my regret).
Go with God, Niki.
Grand Prix of Monaco's this weekend, there'll undoubtedly be some recognition of him.
6 AM Pacific time on ESPN; check their listings for practice and qualifying on Friday and Saturday.
:tranquillity: