Research
#1
Posted 05 September 2000 - 06:29
We have a good many people on this thread who do serious research. Some so serious that I wouldn't even contemplate it (I find it difficult getting a lap chart of the 1965 Australian Grand Prix... anyone help?)!
We have Hans trying to fix loose ends from 1935, Felix and a few others chiming in on 1912, Barry and his Tony Gaze stuff, Don with details for a lad chasing his father from the sixties, Dennis hunting down ever more books, Karl with the reputation as an historic author, Marcor, and so many others I can't recall them right now (should do some research!), all doing research.
What about some snippets about how you do it, what you find, tangents that have taken you to interesting places?
This is the Research thread, ready for anything about research.
Please contribute...
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#2
Posted 05 September 2000 - 07:04
What has caused my site to develop is questions from people who have searched my site. They frequently use to find small bits of information in my Ceefax snippets, and then ask for more. So off I would go to find more information, hunting out books in the library or the cheap bookshops, and rather than let the newly searched out information gather dust, I would post it on my site. Then I would realise that there were some holes, or it needed more research to round it out, so off I would go again.
Then I decided (and I can't remember why now) to put summaries of all of the F1 driver careers on my website, which got me noticed by Felix and his crowd! That started me digging in deeper, as I was cross-checking his F1 results, and we had some interesting arguments at the time. That project never completed, so after a while I decided to complete it myself on my webpage, and once this was done, add in the non-championship results I had available. The non-championship results I had went back to 1946 rather than 1950, so why arbitrarily cut off there? So off I went back further and further in time.
But then earlier in time, some GPs included Sports Cars, so why restrict my race results to "Formula" cars, so I have started to research sportscar results, the early results of which are now on my website. Then I got asked about Indycar/CART results, as in response to an earlier question I had received I had posted a list of race winners. So I started to research this too. Then there is the uptodate championship results to maintain, so I am in a constant state of research! And I still get distracting questions, so periodically I go off on yet more tangents.
#3
Posted 05 September 2000 - 07:56
That sounds like a similar path my interests took! Originally I was mainly interested in GP racing from mid-1950s and ongoing. Then I started working backwards, bit by bit, to the early days (now right back to 1894). And I had similar reasons for spreading to sports cars, Indianapolis, and other forms of speedway racing. Eventually it broadened even to motorcycles and aircraft (even cycling) because so many racing drivers were - or had been involved in those areas.
And of course there was always Australian motor sport and motoring history, which evolved to the history of roads, of Australian explorers, bushrangers (because of their links to roads).
When I became involved in writing about general motoring it spread to high performance cars, then everyday cars, four-wheel drives, to the motor industry and its history, technical history of the car, as well as keeping abreast of current technical trends in racing and road cars... Now I am even back to the history of engines, steam engines, electricity, steering, suspension etc in the days before the car as we know it - and this goes back for hundreds of years.
I suspect that eventually you have to be locked away to protect you from yourself... or from an avalanche of books and magazines!
#4
Posted 05 September 2000 - 08:49
#5
Posted 05 September 2000 - 11:08
I've told the story of Clem Dwyer before, and of Ken McKinney... these people and their brethren are the tip of the iceberg, very visible and gradually disappearing.
Then there are the families, and those who have been in contact before I came along with my needs.
Tangents are plentiful, of course, some leading off into stories of their own. On more than one occasion I have written a story I have researched, then written a story about the research in the Historic Racing Newsletter I publish.
One very interesting occurrence was when I was writing about the Woody Point circuit in Brisbane, dating back to late 1936. I had written to the local paper asking if anyone had memories or photos, but to very little avail. Except that the ABC radio station rang me up and invited me to go on a session they have each morning.
At 5:45am they rang again ready to give me three minutes, and from that I got:
Movie of a 1948 Lowood meeting and the start of the 1949 Grand Prix at Leyburn.
A competitor in the Woody Point event, albeit a riding mechanic.
Movie of the Woody Point event.
A son of a competitor who led me to photos of the event, and pointed me in the direction of another competitor*
And I don't remember now who the fifth caller was.
* The other competitor would have heard me himself, but his radio didn't come on until 6:00am... but on that station.
#6
Posted 05 September 2000 - 22:26
Signed: seeker of the truth ;-)
#7
Posted 06 September 2000 - 05:21
#8
Posted 06 September 2000 - 09:12
#9
Posted 06 September 2000 - 10:16
I don't believe I have to take you with any of it!
Seekers of truth unite![p][Edited by Ray Bell on 09-06-2000]
#10
Posted 06 September 2000 - 10:34
Enough to spice up any soup.
There are different levels of researchers. If you are new in the game you probably start out just doing investigations. But as you go along acquiring a little library, a few rows of books and rags to feed your curiosity, you develop to become a researcher at one stage. It is something you grow into over a period of time. It is also a question of how much time you can devote to this crazy pastime of ours and how great a desire you have or how seriously obsessed you are to do this. I am doing all this as 'leisure-time' like most in this group but some do it professionally. If you take someone like Karl, for example, he would be the epitome of what we are talking about. Money plays a role, of course. I have acquired two overflowing bookcases of supportive materials and very little came as presents.
#11
Posted 06 September 2000 - 10:46
#12
Posted 06 September 2000 - 10:56
#13
Posted 06 September 2000 - 16:05
I looked at your profile and notice your number one interest is 1895-1949. While you've been seeking the truth on this era, I don't suppose you've ever come up with a first name for Mayade, the Panhard et Levassor workshop foreman/tester/racing driver? It's been bugging me for years that a man who did so much is never given a first name - probably because he was "only a worker".
I can't tell you how many French books I have bought hoping to find him in there - all to no avail.
#14
Posted 06 September 2000 - 16:08
#15
Posted 06 September 2000 - 16:12
#16
Posted 06 September 2000 - 16:14
Don't you two know it's almost 3.30 am?
#17
Posted 06 September 2000 - 16:25
#18
Posted 06 September 2000 - 17:12
Emile Mayade drove in only two races. In 1895 he came sixth in the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race with a 4 hp Panhard and the following year with an 8 hp Panhard he won Paris-Marseille-Paris.
#19
Posted 06 September 2000 - 17:17
Where do you get all this stuff? I mean, this is research, the kind we all want to know about, what path did you follow to get the name, if Barry has had no success over several years?
That's what this thread is all about.
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#20
Posted 06 September 2000 - 17:27
watched a race in F5000`s heyday. Just liked the look of
the cars . There were some pictures in the German Racing
magazines of the 70s. Then I wanted to know more. I got
the results of the early US/UK/Tasman F5000 from old
"Autosport" and "Autoweek" copies. I became quite addicted
to my research. I tried to get F5000 race programs, photos,
log sheets of the cars to learn everything about the long-gone F5000s. There is always something new to investigate.
http://www.people.fr....de/Formula5000
#21
Posted 06 September 2000 - 17:30
Poor chap, not seeing those magnificent animals run...
#22
Posted 06 September 2000 - 17:52
Originally posted by Ray Bell
Sounds like Barry will love you when he awakes and returns to the computer, Hans... and was your five and a half hour sleep refreshing?
Where do you get all this stuff? I mean, this is research, the kind we all want to know about, what path did you follow to get the name, if Barry has had no success over several years?
That's what this thread is all about.
I slept much less but will catch up with sleep the coming night.
My source is Das große Rennfahrerbuch by Erwin Tragatsch, publ. 1970 at Hallwag Verlag, Bern. As the title indicates, its all in German. At this time I don't know if there is another source to back up the first name and I would have to research this. Information of the early years is hard to find, but its there in the Libraries.
Off to work.
#23
Posted 07 September 2000 - 07:32
I enjoy doing research, especially when it involves motorsports. I find that local public libraries can be of some help but in the area of motorsports, usually they can't help you a great deal unless you need local newspaper articles. On occasion, local public libraries do have some good out-of-print books. Overall, I would sure love to have a library like the motorsports one they have in Watkins Glen, NY.
#24
Posted 07 September 2000 - 10:24
In each Capital City in Australia they have vast numbers of newspapers on micro-fiche, so you can go to the papers in the cities where events might have been held and look through the news and sporting pages if you have the dates.
But it's all too easy to miss things, and very easy to get caught up in tangential things that waste your time.
I found that anything I had to look for in the mid-thirties sent me off reading things about the Third Reich, and seeing how those events fitted into history in general... I did learn, by the way, that the 1940 Olympics were to have been staged at... Tokyo!
So they got them twenty years late!
Many of the items you find are sadly lacking, but they often do reveal things that make the picture just that little brighter.
#25
Posted 07 September 2000 - 22:30
#26
Posted 07 September 2000 - 23:01
And there's a condensation of that on the 'AGP in former days' thread AUSTRIA started back in March.
I've got some phone numbers if you want to talk to a competitor in the first one, two or three other pre-war competitors (including one pre-war winner, one post war winner) and a bit more... Barry has more than me. You're on easy street.
Try the history of the Australian Tourist Trophy some time...
#27
Posted 07 September 2000 - 23:24
This means I will never be a truth seeker for I simply do not having enough encyclopedic background material to check on my hunches. For the moment, knowing people who do is comforting enough for me.
As far as the pre-war era (including the post-war pre-championship period) is concerned I'm still at the level of investigating the ground rules - but learning fast. I'm fairly acquainted with the more modern years - also through memory - but I feel the need to do some more serious researching into the fifties and even sixties, all of which happened before my time, and were an unknown quantity to me just two years ago!
Being on this Forum gives me the strange sensation that whilst I'm a Mr. Know-it-all amidst my real-life motorsport-minded friends in Holland I'm a complete and utter rookie around here.;)
#28
Posted 08 September 2000 - 06:11
Anyway, this internet makes things a whole lot easier. Once you get to know the good sites and know how to use the search-engines, there's a whealth of information, probably coming from a combined archive of hundreds of bookcases. For example, to aquire the knowledge Leif has on his site, one would need what I think is over a hundred books, but since Leif is generous enough to share his knowledge on the golden age of grand prix racing, we have this readily available and even made much more accessible through the numerous links from for example resultsheets to driver bios.
#29
Posted 08 September 2000 - 07:28
Access to the contemporary magazines will lead to better original information for research, than can be found in many books published lately, with an emphasis on large pictures instead of detailed stories. Detailed accounts may be a personal preference of mine, but the trend nowadays seems to lead to condensed stories in magazines (MotorSport) and Books (Grand Prix de MONACO, 465 pages) to give but two examples.
As Marcel writes, the Internet makes matters a whole lot easier. I guess that's why we are all here. And the information comes at no charge!
#30
Posted 08 September 2000 - 08:39
A four page story might have two and a half pages of pictures or more... so the information levels are way down.
#31
Posted 08 September 2000 - 09:09
One can collect books actively (as Hans) or more passively as I do. The only MUST for me is Autocourse once a year and the latest edition of Grand Prix Who's Who. Almost everything else are "extras" that you often come by by chance. If you spend a little time in second hand shops and at sales you can create, if you just take your time, quite a collection, expecially about modern F1 racing. For example, a few weeks ago I happened to find a book about Häkkinen by Chris Hilton for 5 Fmk (less than 1 $) while it is still sold for 149 Fmk in the larger bookstores. (Surely that book will come to good use some day )
You can do some good research on local events with library microfilms. I for example have done some work collecting info about the pre-war Finnish GPs and the complete results, start lists and lap tables will be available for everyone in the world on my homepage once I get the time to put it all together.
Internet gives you the possibility to ask questions (as here on Atlas) but the most effective way to collect information is surprisingly to make your own homepage. I didn't start off as Marcel Schot guessed with the information from over a hundred books, it was FAR less and only five or six of them have been really expensive ones. Have you ever heard the story about the guy who made soup for a whole village on a nail? My homepage works the same way as it is Felix, Hans, Don and all the others who have made my page into what it is now. Of course I'm only a rank amateur compared to Mattijs, who has created the ultimate information trap with his homepage. He only needs to put a picture onto that page and thirty guys will spend lot of their spare time during the next month collecting everything that's worth knowing about that picture
and sending it to Mattijs for free. Scary!;)
#32
Posted 08 September 2000 - 09:52
RD's site is indeed the best infotrap around Maybe we should give Mattijs an award for that.
I must think up something for my own site...
#33
Posted 08 September 2000 - 10:12
An idea I had for a research article - since you know this stuff, and are well connected in historic racing, do you know any genuine ex-Formula One or ex-Tasman Cup cars that will be at the Lakeside Historic meet next weekend? I'd like to do a piece on one or more of them. Can you help? Tasman would be good - return to the old Tasman venue.
yours
Mark Jones
#34
Posted 08 September 2000 - 10:39
Originally posted by Leif Snellman
Of course I'm only a rank amateur compared to Mattijs, who has created the ultimate information trap with his homepage. He only needs to put a picture onto that page and thirty guys will spend lot of their spare time during the next month collecting everything that's worth knowing about that picture and sending it to Mattijs for free. Scary!;)
If only it were that simple! But yes, you're right Leif, it *is* the general idea behind it. "Information trap", I like that!
Although it must be said - just to prevent wrong impressions - that we (Felix, Rainer, you and me) do the researching ourselves as well, and that our own stories are written well in advance of most entries. The better ones usually arrive slam on the deadline, so they function more as a means to check whether we got our facts straight.
Usually we come up with some good stuff ourselves, which no-one else knew before, although I will readily admit that our best players are well capable of outsmarting us with their knowledge - which they regularly do. And when on occasion we feel the need to bow to their authority we will quickly adapt our own stories before publishing them... All for the general good of course.;)
And sometimes we still make huge mistakes, like over the McLaren/Brabham issue... Which goes to show that we should never trust our entrants at face value since a large majority also picked Bruce over Jack!
In the meantime, I'm just happy that a lot of kind and smart people are willing to invest lots of time and effort into someone who knows about one tenth of what they do but just happens to run a site on a subject they deeply care about. I guess the silent agreement is that you are provided with a platform for your knowledge and a community to share the fun with while Mattijs does all the dirty technical work and pretends to be an expert as well ;)
Anyway, thank you all for making the site as it is. You know who you are.
P.S. Let me also grab this opportunity to apologize to the players (and team members as well) for not being such a lively correspondent of late - but having a small boy with a huge sleeping problem poses a large restriction on my spare time. I just about manage to keep 8W alive these days. I believe Felix is suffering the same fate which means the entire 8W chief editing team is child-handicapped at the moment! Thank God for Leif and Rainer...
#35
Posted 08 September 2000 - 12:12
Do you have the means to research?
Of course, there is a lot of stuff on the http://www.sargent.com site, but it depends on what cars are there. If Mike Ryves is there, then his Brabham is the Bartlett car that Gardner and Kevin drove for Mildren, it competed in about three series in both countries, was the first car to lap Bathurst at over 100mph.
Ring Bill Westerman and find out what Group M Racing Cars are entered with 2.5-litre engines. That will narrow it down...
#36
Posted 08 September 2000 - 16:07
With Brian Reed coverring the historics, and press pass is pointless - I'm surplus to requirements - just going for the fun.
yours
Mark Jones
#37
Posted 08 September 2000 - 17:38
Sorry, I've been busy - and just spent all my spare time trying to catch up on the Technical Forum.
I only just saw your posting of Mayade's first name.
Would you believe I actually have Das Grosse Rennfahrerbuch? And that I have had it since 1976?
Maybe there's such a thing as having too many books. My excuse is I don't often refer to it because my German is not too extensive. Then again, my reasoning behind buying French, Italian and German books is they so often have things just like this that the English-language books don't have.
Ah well...
Thanks again for your help.
#38
Posted 09 September 2000 - 03:44
Don't feel alone with this sort of problem, because something like this can happen when you have too many books or you have books which you didn't use for a long time. I speak from experience. Worse is, when you are buying a book which you already have, which happened twice to me. But I learned from that.
I would like to have Emile Mayade's first name backed up by a second source because I have found a few 'first name' errors in Tragatsch's book already. Why his encyclopedic books were never translated into the most important language is beyond me.
Panhard back-up information is found in Automobile Quarterly Vol. 6, No.2, which also includes their racing successes. Another reference is Gerald Rose's 'A Record of Motor Racing' but his first name is not mentioned there.
#39
Posted 09 September 2000 - 05:01
Make no mistake that without the work of many like you there would be no skeleton or structure for me to cover.
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#40
Posted 09 September 2000 - 05:11
The Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. 2000
1896–1940, Italian Fascist leader and aviator. After serving in World War I, he joined the Fascist movement and in 1922 was one of the four top leaders of the March on Rome, which brought Mussolini to power. A general of the Fascist militia, he held several cabinet posts and was (1929–33) minister of aviation. He efficiently developed aviation in Italy and led mass flights, the most notable being Rome–Rio de Janeiro and Rome–Chicago (1933). As governor-general of Libya (1933–40) he attempted to gain Muslim support for Fascism. He was killed when his plane crashed at Tobruk, Libya, apparently shot down accidentally by Italian antiaircraft artillery.
#41
Posted 09 September 2000 - 20:16
#42
Posted 12 September 2000 - 22:45
After my initial excitement at your having found a first name for Mayade, I did begin to wonder where Tragatsch might have come across it - since it is not mentioned in even well-researched books nor books of the era, such as Rose's.
I, too, would like to have confirmation.
A motoring historian friend from Sydney has just gone to France for eight weeks and has promised to keep it in mind during research he is doing there.
His name is David Manson and his main interest is Australian motoring history prior to 1910. He recently came up with a fabulous story of steam carriages run on NSW roads in the 1860s.
I asked him, why pre-1910? He said because motoring in Australia from 1910 onwards is easier to research - they began keeping official records and registrations about that time. But pre-1910 is so difficult to research, he feels, if he doesn't do it, it migh never be done.
I like his thinking.
David only recently bought a computer and is still struggling with e-mail and attachments. It might be a while before I get him on to this forum. But he will be a valuable addition when he does.
Some of the stories he comes up with are absolutely amazing.
#43
Posted 12 September 2000 - 22:51
DennisOriginally posted by Dennis David
I am just as interested in the hotel the teams stayed at as I am about the course that they raced upon.
I remember sitting on an old wooden chair at an old wooden table in the old grandstand hotel at the Nurburgring, wondering what famous drivers might have sat in that same chair 30, 40 or 50 years earlier.
I couldn't believe it when they bulldozed that old hotel to build a new grandstand and hotel. I am so happy I got to see it before it went.
#44
Posted 13 September 2000 - 00:02
Besides confirming Emile Mayade's first name I will also look for complete names of the following winning drivers, showing also the years they raced in the ultimate racing class:
- Ct. de Chasloup-Laubat 1896-1899;
- Antony 1898-1901;
- Jamin 1897-1900;
- G. Leys 1897-1901;
- M. Loysel 1998;
- "Deo" 1921-1924;
- Goury 1925.
#45
Posted 19 September 2000 - 10:20
"Deo" is Deo Chiribiri, builder of the Chiribiri light car (Italian). Nuvolari also raced a Chiribiri.
I think that the correct spelling for the following is:
Comte (Count) de Chasseloup-Laubat.
Alessandro Silva
#46
Posted 19 September 2000 - 11:04
#47
Posted 19 September 2000 - 15:05
Jamin is Paul Jamin. Like Mayade, he was a mystery to me for a long time, then in recent years I learned he was a native of Le Mans and was involved in some way with the 24 Hour Race until recent times. There was a profile on him in the Le Mans Yearbook for 1997.
And I believe Alessandro's spelling for le Comte de Chasseloup-Laubat is correct. I am not sure that I had his first name before, either.
#48
Posted 21 September 2000 - 09:00
The misspelling of de Chasseloup-Laubat is unforgiving since I knew better. The same goes for "Deo" where I found a reference to Chiribiri in my drivers’ list already. This leaves just four winners where the first name is still unknown.
- Antony 1898-1901;
- G. Leys 1897-1901;
- M. Loysel 1998;
- Goury 1925.
#49
Posted 27 September 2000 - 07:02
You wrote some time ago,
I remember vividly the 'Mercedes-Benz W163' thread not too long ago. It should qualify as an example, showing mainly fascinating contributions by the various researchers at The Nostalgia Forum right here:Give us some real examples of your experiences, please... you must have had some serious chases in your researching!
http://www.atlasf1.com/bb/showthread.php?threadid=7273
Chucks, this does not work! Therefore click the search menue on top of the page and type W163 into the search field, and the 'Mercedes-Benz W163' thread should come up with other threads.
[p][Edited by Hans Etzrodt on 09-27-2000]
#50
Posted 07 February 2001 - 03:16
Just after this thread went to sleep I paid a visit to Ken McKinney, the sole survivor to this day of the 1928 AGP. I found him through his daughter... don't ask!... and spent time with her first. Among the things she showed me was a photo of her father sitting on a bare chassis of an Austin 7, just wheels, engine radiator and an aluminium seat out of a tiger Moth...
Later, talking to the old man, he got to telling me about one Jack Sidebottom, who worked for him... "He would not give up if he had an idea that something would work, a good man to have around, but not a good man to have working for you..."
A land developer asked the car club to run a hillclimb on a new bit of roadway they had built, the purpose of it all being to publicise their subdivision and help them sell the land...
Entering his Austin 7 and expecting to clean up, Ken was unhappy to find that the supercharged 7 of Cyril Dickason was also entered and became despondent that he wouldn't win... Jack encouraged him.
"Well, he's got 56 hp and you've got about 35, so if we take off the body and make it as light as possible..." hence the photograph.
The first run saw Dickason a second quicker, then the second Ken caught up to within two tenths... and on the third run: "I don't know what I did, I think I must have revved it harder in first gear, and it was flying, much quicker than the other runs. Then, thirty yards from the finish line it just died..."
They had forgotten to pick up the magneto they were borrowing, so ran the standard distributor.. "I've never seen it before or since, but the points stuck open..." he told me.
Now, the point is, had I not seen the photo and heard the story, who would have known about it?
Sure, the photo would survive, but his daughter never knew he had raced until quite recently. Yes, true, Ken had given up all connection with the sport in 1934 and taken up hunting foxes. His daughter was born after the war.
She took up racing go-karts without knowing...