Historic Racing

[René]

Dec 14, 2017 19:43:45 GMT Carl said:

Dec 14, 2017 18:39:09 GMT René said:

Tyres are also often a bit wider.

As are, in some cases, the historic drivers    I remember when Nigel Mansell, fresh from CART success, couldn't easily fit into the Williams.

Nigel certainly enjoyed the American lifestyle!

[René]

Dec 14, 2017 22:07:47 GMT chrisb said:

Carl, didn't Mansell try to fit in the McLaren? wasn't that a union of interesting proportions?

That most certainly wasn't a match made in heaven, not even in Woking! 

[Carl]

Dec 14, 2017 22:07:47 GMT chrisb said:

Carl, didn't Mansell try to fit in the McLaren? wasn't that a union of interesting proportions?

Chris,
           I'm certain that you're right...and also very clever!

Cheers, Carl

[Carl]

Dec 8, 2017 21:39:26 GMT René said:

Carl, this is so fantastic I get emotional watching it. I see a common thread between your posts: dance.

Rene,

Trouble often follows me onto the dance floor because those I push off line in avoidable contact sometimes stop to glare at me with obvious jealousy, but I will eagerly dance with a beautiful woman who understands that I must move my hands quickly at times for course correction.   

Cheers, Carl

[charleselan]

Something that puzzled me in the film that Carl posted of Jim Pace driving the McLaren M6B was the footwork he employed. In this instance I refer to the application of the accelerator pedal. In the film footage he appears, does., quite literally slam the pedal into the bulkhead on every application coming out of a bend/corner.

Where was the delicate application of power applied with such great gobs of power available in a car that wouldn't have had phenomenal downforce, or adhesion? Maybe I am completely naive in such matters of driving such a brute as a Can Am car, and that is how they were driven back in the day.

[Carl]

John Charles,

This is the video that has the pedal sequences, but they appear right to me. The first two are on the short straight between Turn 1 and Turn 3 (Turn 2 is flat out) and the one between 7 and 8, and he plants his foot after each gear change.  Later (at the 3:45 mark), he settles the car with a stab of left foot braking, still at full throttle approaching Turn 5 at high speed.

The next pedal sequence (at 5:43) does show full throttle at the exit of Turn 3, but this is explained by the favorable camber and wide corner exit.    In the same sequence (at the 6:00 mark), he downshifts from high speed and feathers the throttle through the sharp Turn 5 until he has the McLaren pointed straight. A few seconds later he again uses partial throttle through Turn 6.

Also indicative are the engine sounds as he goes through the corners (excepting Turn 3), audibly reduced until he's pointed straight.  With the bold exception of the Chaparral 2E, Can-Am cars were driven delicately through most turns.

You and I would never have lifted until we'd passed the Shadow into the lead, but Jim Pace was not so bold.

Best regards, Carl

[Deleted]

Manfred von Brauchitsch's W25, turning in to Tabac in practice, Monaco 1935.

Futurist painting.

[Carl]

Apr 23, 2018 20:32:22 GMT @lucio said:

Manfred von Brauchitsch's W25, turning in to Tabac in practice, Monaco 1935.

Futurist painting.

Lucio,
           That is a cool work of art about which we may say the past is prologue to futurism.   At first I thought it was a photograph taken through a special lens.  I wonder whether our resident artist John Charles will have an opinion. 

Two views of Nuvolari at Tabac in 1932:            Attachment Deleted        Attachment Deleted

Cheers, Carl

[Deleted]

Carl,

it's a photograph, I meant it is so beautiful and evocative that it seems a futurist painting.

The silver of the car, almost hyperrealist, and the contrast with the shadows on the road, it very much depicts that low and dishonest decade, going full speed towards disaster.

That photo of Tazio is quite famous, on the day he won the GP>

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

September 1, 1939 - WH Auden

[charleselan]

A truly stunning photo by any measure, and very easy to mistake for a painting due no doubt to its incredibly atmospheric setting. Photo realism was a term used for paintings that became in vogue during the 1960's and this could have been a monochrome version of that genre. I studied this technique while at college and hence the style of my paintings, however mine like the early versions of this technique was done with brush and simplified ideas. However later artists began using airbrushes and the difference between the photo and the canvas became hard to distinguish, my how technology can ruin the art form of the human hand.

Going back to the photo in question it is also remarkable for the fact that the car and driver have been captured beautifully, something that is very difficult to achieve in racing photography with the subject going away from the photographer. Probably even more so as the photographer would have been using camera technology that pre dated SLR cameras. I wonder if it was the work of the great pre war photographer and film maker George Monkhouse. George produced a brilliant film on the pre war "Silver Arrows" which sadly cannot be found on such as YouTube in my searches.

Brilliant photo.

[Deleted]

Varzi after winning Monaco 1933.

[René]

Adrenaline!

[chrisb]

excellent coverage of the Historic GP at Monaco - Rene, they are about to go out in Niki's 1974 Ferrari, with Werner wearing Audi overalls is possible not the best. but great cars and wonderful scenes

[René]

May 12, 2018 14:23:17 GMT chrisb said:

excellent coverage of the Historic GP at Monaco - Rene, they are about to go out in Niki's 1974 Ferrari, with Werner wearing Audi overalls is possible not the best. but great cars and wonderful scenes

Chris did you watch the live stream?
That '74 Ferrari is gorgeous!

[Carl]

Apr 26, 2018 7:04:00 GMT @lucio said:

Carl,

it's a photograph, I meant it is so beautiful and evocative that it seems a futurist painting.

The silver of the car, almost hyperrealist, and the contrast with the shadows on the road, it very much depicts that low and dishonest decade, going full speed towards disaster.

That photo of Tazio is quite famous, on the day he won the GP>

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

September 1, 1939 - WH Auden

Lucio,
           I missed your reply until just now!  Our website has become crowded with wonderful posts and yours is top drawer!  I really enjoyed your description of a beautiful photograph so much like a painting and Auden's beautifully descriptive poem of an ominous time not dissimilar to our own.

Hopeful cheers, Carl