Quote:
Originally Posted by motorhead
No, it's a bunch of rich guys that go out and put around a track and be very careful because of the fact the cars they are driving aren't replaceable. That's not racing. The guys that drove those very cars back in the day were the real men and they weren't worried about smashing them up. Sorry but there are too many prudes these days for my liking in the car world. I comment this gentleman for enjoying his car as intended. If he was such a danger then why didn't the instructor pull him in earlier? Why wasn't the supposed professional Porsche driver kicked off too? He should have know better, but he was driving the same way. If you are going to mess with speed you could die. That's why you sign your life away when you do these events.
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Hi. I want to mention something about 'back in the day'. Those guys were very aware of and concerned about the possibility of a crash. Back then, the money wasn't like it is now and even sponsorship was different; Esso might provide fuel gratis, and then suddenly around '68 or '69, the teams had to pay. Budgets were smaller, and I don't mean owing to the value of a dollar. True the drivers were probably, by necessity, a little braver as they accepted more risk in general but they did not often have extra cars or engines at the race. Take F1 for example. A high percentage- some put it around 40%- of the drivers died while competing in some kind of race. The Rodriguez brothers. Jimmy Clark. Bandini, von Tripps, Siffert, Rindt, Courage, Bristow, Stacey...long list goes on.
Still on F1, there were not even seatbelts until Jimmy Clark was killed in 1968. The teams and drivers stuck their heads in the sand and hoped. Guys like Chris Amon thought their team-mates were killed when they were flung out of tumbling aluminum wreckage filled with avgas. But this photo is interesting:
That's Jackie Stewart at the wheel of a BRM, possibly 1967 or 1968. Note the wrenches taped to his steering wheel. That is in response to his heavy crash at Spa in 1966, in which he was trapped for considerable time in his car, soaking in avgas, becasue the steering wheel was jammed into him and could not be removed. Stewart championed safety in F1 for years. there were bad or misisng run-off barriers. No emergency services on call, no doctors, no nothing except response form the pits and help from spectators. I doubt anyone would argue that Sir Jackie Stewart was a timid racer or that he was not a brave man. However he- and his colleagues- were very, very concerned about smashing up cars- becasue that meant the drivers got smashed up too. Google 'Lorenzo Bandini crash Monaco', film footage used to be on youtube. The crispy, blackened, stiff mannequin they pull out of the car is Bandini. He lived for another three days. All the drivers knew. It was something they pushed out of their minds, but they knew all too well what a crash in a thinly skinned aluminum tub with rubber bladders full of high octane racing fuel surrounding them would mean, especially when that fuel hit the exhaust, which was a yard behind their heads.
That said, pro drivers, successful ones at least- like Stewart were extremely smooth and calculating and patient. Hurting the car meant losing, you had to finish to win. And the cars were fragile then. Stewart could never have been World Driving Champion three times if he had raced hellbent for leather all the time. He could of course, but his gameplan was smooth means fast, and he was right. It has been commented that his driving made the flow of electrons look rough by comparison.
Edit- I want Stewart's gloves from that photo