A good friend that is a veteran in these forums (while I'm mostly a timid lurker) suggested that I should share this here, so I will, hope you TNF regulars find it interesting.
Today I got lucky.
I started following motorsports, and especially Formula 1 about 42 years ago. I remember the champion being dead (that would be Rindt), my father still talking about a certain Jim Clark (also dead), and my first idol became the guy I saw winning and be praised as "very good" by my older brother: Jackie Stewart.
The yearly rallying "fix", provided by the very international TAP Rally de Portugal, one that usually finished with a slalom display at the Autodromo do Estoril, gave me my first glimpse of sideways driving and the blue armada of the Alpine-Renault cars is the first image I remember about Rallying.
I was 6 and that was 1971.
The year after was also very exciting, as a brazilian won the title (I remember hearing the TV commentator almost in tears saying that the world champion had the same native language we had). Even then, there's no love like the first one and I was still a Tyrrel/Stewart man through and through.
In rallying, the mighty Alpines were defeated in Portugal by a lonely BMW 2002, driven by a guy with a name I remember to find very funny and hard to say. Achim. Warmbold. I still loved the Alpines though
I was 7 and that was 1972.
Then came 1973. I was 8 already and I remember being shown to my parents' friends as a kid that knew more than all of them combined about Formula 1 cars and drivers. Only my older brother knew more than me
It was a hard year, first time I saw images of a person dying (to be more precise, images that meant a death - Roger Williamson's - was happening), during the Netherlands GP. And it was, of course, the year when my idol left Formula 1, and the year his buddy Cevert, also a favorite of mine because he drove for Tyrrell, died. It's hard to imagine nowadays something like this happening without big fuss or headlines in mainstream media, but in those times that was just the way it was, it went almost unnoticed to the general public. From time to time a Formula 1 driver would get killed, their deaths were in a way part of what Formula 1 was and even a (terrible) part of its appeal.
In Rallying, les bleus (Alpine Renault) won again in Portugal and that made me happy. I was 8 and this was 1973.
(Litle did I know that the next year I would be watching at Estoril - with my mouth open in disbelief - the might and beauty of the Alitalia Stratos, driven to victory by its most legendary driver, Sandro "Il Drago" Munari.)
So, I got lucky today. Why? Because I entered an old book shop, that sells old-used books, and I noticed a book about the year 1973 in motorsports. And I'll leave you with pics from it. We all know old pictures, they are everywhere on the internet. But to hold a real book from the era, see those pictures and read about those races as if they had just happened is something else.
I'll add a few comments here and there:
Overview of the book
The champion in the cover
It's got to be an old magazine. Cigarettes when you open it ...
... and spirits just before you close it! :cheers:
Now a few pics I found inside
1 - Fittipaldi and Cévert, two stars of 1973.
2 - Centerfold Star. The unforgettable Ronnie.
3 - Midfielders in 1973. Ferrari (Ickx), Mclaren (Revson), Brabham (Reutemann, Shadow (Follmer)
4 - Le Mans 1973, a Matra victory, courtesy of a certain Monsieur Pescarolo
5 - Said Monsieur Henri P. and below, Matra's nemesis, the Ferrari 312PB (Reutemann in the picture)
6 - A mix of classic sportscars goodness
7 - The crazyness of those days. I looked in the book and there's no mention of danger regarding this picture :crazy:
8 - both in F2 (with March chassis) and in Touring cars, BMW ruled 1973.
9 - Meanwhile the European GT championship was apparently a Porsche 911 festival
10 - In Rallying, as in F1 and Le Mans, we had also blue cars winning.
11 - I didn't know him at the time, and only today by handling this book I knew he drove a Volvo in his early years, but here you have my all-time greatest Rallying hero, Mr. Markku Alen.
12 - Is there a racing discipline where we don't find the Porsche 911 at a top level??? Here a flying finnish I never heard of ... Leo Kinnunen
13 - Well, there's much more inside, from stats to in-depth articles about the racing, the racers and the teams, to technical analysis, to all results from all major international championships, etc etc. And many, many more pictures, of course. But for now, time for a drink and a close on the book and this post. Hope you enjoyed it. I enjoyed sharing! :cheers:
