Hope too many of y'all don't mind, but since I've just finished
playing with some stuff I shot back in 1973, I decided to take you youngin's back in time......
The Year: 1973
The Place: Watkins Glen, New York
The Event: The 1973 USGP...the last race of the '73 season...
Going into the event, JYS had already clinched his 3rd WDC.
This was my 2nd GP I had attended, and was Patty's first. The Glen offered 4 rows of seats on top of the pits ( $100per for all 3 days) and I saved up my nickles and dimes so that I could treat my wife...... we ended up sitting between the March (Jarier) and Tyrrell (JYS, Cevert, & Amon) pits. Since the tickets were expensive, you will notice that most of the pics are from the same angle...I had a bad case of cement legs.
Tragedy hit on Saturday morning....Cevert was killed going up the Esses...... JYS will retire Saturday evening. AS for the race..... Ronnie was on pole, Lole (Reutemann) was 2nd, Hunt was 3rd on the grid. Ronniw would win with Hunt and Lole swapping positions..... Also, that weekend would see the world change as the Yom Kippur war began with the Arab Oil Embargo to quickly follow.....
Anyway, here are pics of that weekend....... there are a lot of them...YOU HAVE been WARNED......
Ferrari: Little Art.....I can't find the pics I took of Art without his front and rear wings.....his rear wing fell off and the team then took of the front...
ISO Marlboro: Ickx had a 1-off with the team after driving for Ferrari and McLaren...... Howden Ganely in the other car
Tyrrell: JYS speaking to designer Derek Gardner.....Chris Amon drove a 3rd Tyrrell
March: Team car driven by "Jumper" Jarier....Lord Hesketh ran a private car for Hunt...... Mike Beutler also ran a private entry.
The BRM Team: Niki, Clay, & JP Beltoise
Team Surtees: Carlos Pace and Jochen Mass
McLaren: Back in these days, McLaren was a Yank favorite....raced in CanAm, Indy, and run by an American, Teddy Mayer...plus Yank Peter Revson drove for the team....
A 3 car team this weekend... Revson, Hulme (aka "Bear") and Jody (aka "The Baby Bear")
Revson and Mayer
The Bear and The Baby Bear
Brabham: Lole, Wilson Fittipaldi, and John Watson...the Watson pic was taken right after Cevert's death.....
The UOP Shadow:..Oliver and Follmer.....
Lotus: Emmo's last race with the team as he is heading off to McLaren......Ronnie won flag to flag....
Ronnie........
Last 2 pics...from the podium....... Besides James and Ronnie on the podium....Barbo (Ronnies wife), Lord Hesketh, and Colin Chapman.....
This little history lesson is over...class dismissed !!
ciao y'all
murph
Comments
Love James and Niki in particular; Niki had bought his way into that team and no-one gave him a hope ...
Revson was a good looking swine.
Fantastic pics, that JPS Lotus has never quite been matched in terms of livery, almost as legendary as the Marlboro McLaren
Don't you have any of Cevert in the pits on the Friday or of Ken Tyrrell/JYS/theTyrrell crew after the fatal accident?
Did you ever get to see the Tyrrell six wheeler?
Mate, your compilation is immpressive. A book? I think
it's a great idea. The ultimate coffee table book. Hard cover, full gloss colour.
Think about it...
Patrick Depaillier........
Ronnie Peterson...... Mosport Park, 1977 Canadian GP
manlio27
The pic of Stewart out of his car is immediately after the fatality.... I had taken no pics of Francois on Friday and early Saturday morning. The reason for this was pretty simple, back in those days you would only have 3 or 4 rolls of slides ( 36 exposures x 3 rolls = 108 "pics") and so I would make a list of "who to shoot and when"...... Cevert wasn't on my Friday list as I had some good pics of Francois in Canada in 1972 and I figured that I would get pics Saturday afternoon and during the race.......
ciao
murph
Dude, you are like OLD!,,, and stuff:P:P;)
...and
Great pics!
Happy New Year to you and the wife!
Our best to the grandkids!
(maybe you should write a book with lots of pictures... sell it and pay for the grandkids college fund)
A great set of pics always fires up the pleasure centres (of the brain), that is!
...and Bernie, you think Murph is old?
I remember when they invented wheels :)
Spin
yes, I am OLD............. and heading toward senility all to quickly....... but I still can remember a few things...... Teddy Roosevelt was more into saving College Footbal than motor racing, Eddie Rickenbacher was pretty quick not only at the Brickyard but on the tail of Folkers as well, and I still haven't gotten my 2005 SPA t-shirt yet from you........and I do believe Quig might be in the same boat.
Are ya going to Indy this year? Ger is coming over with the family to spend some time in June and then he and Moi are heading to Indy. I had the $$$ saved up for Monaco for 2007 but it looks like I will put that off for 2008........ I really wish I could go back to Spa (that way I am ASSURED I will have a Spa T-shirt) and also Monza this year......'sigh
hope the New Year is another special year for you and the family....talk at ya later
ciao
[Edited on 10-1-07 by Murph]
I'm in the midst of planning our summer out. it looks like this year I am not making any races. We're going to do some family stuff. Perhaps Geettysburg for the 4th of July. Ian wants to see the reenactors adn tour some sites. Also another trip to DC and a Pentagon tour is in the works.
Got to spend some quaility time with my son before he grows up too fast. We're planning soem stuff for the Pgh Vintage Grand Prix but we'll see
Antietem is the place to go for re-enactors....... they do it in September.......... The most bloody day in American history up to the point in time....More American killed in that one day then all those killed in the Revolution, War of 1812, and the Mexican War combined.............. plus historic Harpers Ferry is just down the road..........
ciao
seen this one?
Hi Murph,I have a quick question for you: it concerns Lole Reutemann, and the circumstances of his retirement.
I know about the problems that there were inside the WIlliams team in 1981, with Lole disobeying the team orders in Interlagos and winning the GP ahead of Jones, and then the inconsistency of his results in the second half of the season, allowing Piquet to crunch down the gap until -1 before the last event in Las Vegas.
Then there was the typical Williams failure at Vegas, with Frankie and Patrick refusing to provide the best engine to Lole (who started from pole) and giving it to Jones instead. As a result of that and of gearbox problems, and also of an incredibly defensive race, Lole ended eighth leaving the title to Nelson.
Then Jones retired, so Reutemann stayed with the team, together with the half unknown Keke.
Lole was second in the 1982 season opener, then retired in Brazil and decided to leave F1. That season, marred by the death of Gilles at Zolder and the terrible crash by Pironi at Hockenheim, saw Ferrari and Renault dominating the practices, but not competing till the end for the title due to Ferrari's tragedies and Renault's unreliability and internal fights between Alain and Renè. So, the half unknown (and almost unpaid....) Rosberg found himself World Champion.
Considering his wylie fox style and his reliability, Reutemann could well have won that title. My question therefore is: can you recall what happened exactly between Reutemann and Williams? How's that Lole stayed with the team instead of leaving after Vegas'81, and how's that he decided to leave in 1982 after only two races?
I would be really grateful if you have an explanation, for long I've been looking for it on internet, but without finding a satisfying answer.
Ciaaaaooooo
Since my memory is failing fast in my dotage..... I looked up the 1980 and 1981 seasons in my collection of Grand Prix International magazines, read the short history of Williams in the 2 volume "The Great Encyclopedia of Formula One 1950-2000, and looked at the recent MOTOR SPORT magazine article on Lole.
No one knows for sure the EXACT reason for Lole calling it quits after the Brazil GP but there are 4 posibilities mentioned..... either individually or a combination of.......
(1) The "skirt cars" were bone shaking cars withtheir non-existent suspension that were murder on the spine. Alan Jones mentioned this as a major reason for his retirement at the end of 1980.
(2) That Lole was sick of the politics..... in 1980 the Williams was one of the few FOCA teams that ran legal cars...but in 1981 Williams became one of the cheaters in that they adopted the practice of adding balast with false water tanks. Lole came in 2nd in Argentina and Keke came in second to Piquet (Brabham) in Brazil....but both Brabham and Williams were caught with illegal cars in Brazil and the Renault of Prost was awarded the victory. The FOCA teams protested their getting caught and boycotted the San Marino GP.
(3) The Falklands War that was brewing between England and Argentina made it pretty uncomfortable for Lole to carry on in a English team..... those who favor this idea like to point out that the Argentine tennis star Guillermo Vilas withdrew from Wimbledon a couple of months later.
(4) Or it could just be that quiting after the South American races was Lole's way of paying back the Williams team for their lack of support in Lole's chance for the 1980 WDC.
I will add that according to the MOTOR SPORT article that Lole seems to have a pretty decent relationship with both Frank and Patrick.
Hope this helps a little
ciao
Murph