48 replies to this topic

[Dennis David]

Spa 1966


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Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Fast One]

I'll repeat this over here since you posted the picture both places. (Interesting that in this area you didn't need to explain!).

The story goes that Dan Gurney stopped for a beer during the race in '66, en route to finishing 5 laps down. I wonder if this is the pub.

[Dennis David]

No wonder they call you "Fast One" - no explanations needed here. ;-) Having been to Belgium who knows - highest per capita beer drinkers in the world!

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Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Psychoman]

Didn't he stop to take a piss in a race once???

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"If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face."
-Zack de la Rocha

[Dennis David]

That's our Dan. Met him at the Historical Auto races at Lugana Seca. Very nice man, we were talking about his "champange drinking habits" and he mentioned that he had recently received the original bottle.

------------------
Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Don Capps]

That is Joakim Bonnier's Cooper-Maserati. You can see it briefly in the movie Grand Prix. BTW, that is a loooong way down....


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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

[Fast One]

I replayed the Spa section of "Grand Prix" today. There is a moment where the cars pass behind some buildings and you see a car spinning toward the hay bales. I THINK it might be Bonnier, but I couldn't be sure. Can anybody tell? My VCR gets blurry on freeze frame, so I was unable to itentify it for certain. I think it might be the pub he spins in front of. He probably saw Gurney with a pint in each hand...

[cjs f1]

Fast One,
I noticed that too in Grand Prix!
Though to me, it looked almost like a white car.
Also, you can very faintly hear the car spinning, if you listen very closely.

[Don Capps]

The Bonnier car was red with very prominent white stripes -- similar to the scheme used by the Cooper works cars, only using red instead of green.

JoBo was really lucky to dodge the bullet on this one. That is a road down there! And it easily 5-8 meters, if not more, to the ground at that point. It woulda smarted big time, especially with full fuel bags.

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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

[Dr.DeDion]

The 1966 Belgian GP started dry, but halfway around the first lap the cars ran into a torrential downpour.Surtees' Ferrari got there first and he skated through the Masta kinks somehow at 145mph.Eight of the following cars went off immediately, including Stewart, who sat trapped in the gasoline-filled tub of his BRM for 20 minutes.The pain must have been excruciating and it is said that this incident was the beginning of his campaign to increase GP safety.

There is a high mathematical possibility that the spinning car in the movie "Grand Prix" is Jochen Rindt's.He spun on 9 occassions in that race at speeds as high as 150 mph in his desperate effort to catch the Ferrari.For a while he led the race but as the road dried he couldn't hold off Surtees, who won.

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Still waiting for my SZ bearing...

[Martin]

Who was it said that they would almost brush someone's doorstep at Spa and that their biggest fear might be that one day someone would have just put the milk bottles out?

[Duane]

Is the photo taken at Stavelot?

[Don Capps]

Nope, that should be Burneville.

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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

[Duane]

Was Burneville the long, long right that went on for about half a mile?

[Don Capps]

This is a pre-war map of the circuit. Thanks to Leif Snellman http://www.kolumbus.fi/leif.snellman/ .

Ooops, forgot what I was going to say! Oh, The rain hit like a flood as they came up the hill and into Burnesville - complete chaos! This picture is from the area at the last part of Burnesville going into Malmedy. Those that survived Burnesville usually had a Special Moment on the Masta straight - that is where Rindt did his 1080 degree spin and barely lifted. If I recall, the Stewart accident was in the section just after Malmedy on the first part of Masta.

It is difficult to imagine going thru the Masta kink in those conditions - or any conditions for that matter - and not having a huge sigh of relief when you managed to not hit one of the houses.

The rain wasn't bad for just a lap or so, but it continued coming down in buckets for some time before it eased off to merely a hard rain. BTW, (1) the BRM of Graham Hill, which was in good working order, was parked since after he & Bob Bondurant finished taking care of Stewart, it was way too late to be classified as a finisher so he just drove back to the pits and dried off; (2) somehow, the camera car - driven by Phil Hill, managed to miss all the spinning cars, buildings, and other various opportunities to wreck and provided some amazing footage of the whole mess.

Oh, 1966 was the first year that there was a universal rule on what it took to be "classified" as a finisher (and points scorer) in a WDC round: 90% of the race distance. Prior to this each organizer ran things to his own tune - Monaco 50%, Italy 2/3's - which was becoming fairly universal by 1964/65, but usually you had to cross the line AFTER the winner to be considered a finisher: hence Graham Hill should have been 3rd at Spa in 1960, but coasted past the finish line prior to Brabham crossing it, hence a retirement and not a 3rd place finish.

Too many modern GP/F1 records folks try to put older results in the form of modern results: in the 1950's and until the mid-60's there was rarely anyone listed as "not classified" unless the organizers dreamed it up. Remember, this was a confederation of independent organizers we're dealing with not the F1Administration...

Remember, if you simply keep the old saying in mind: "Hey, logic has nothing to do with this, remember we're dealing with Maserati here..." and extend to the race organizers and the whole scene in general, you're in the corerect frame of mind.

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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps



[This message has been edited by Don Capps (edited 11-30-1999).]

[Ray Bell]

There was one story about a woman who lived on the edge of the circuit. I think it was Graham Hill who said she would wander across the circuit during each practice session and race...

[Keir]

Time to revive this topic!!
I always loved Spa, it's still the only circuit that even today, can truly be called a drivers' circuit.
Along with Watkins Glen, Spa holds the greatest memories for me, especially when it rained.
The one short coming of the game "Grand Prix Ledgends", is that there is no rain effect.
Now, that would be something!!!!

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"I Was Born Ready"

[karlcars]

Spa in '66 was the very first GP with the Eagle, then Climax-powered. Dan had bought various Climaxes from California people, including Webster. He was rather mortified that on that first lap Phil Hill blew him off in the camera car!

Yes, that was the race in which Dan stopped to take a leak. The throbbing Climax probably helped. He found a relatively deserted part of the course, made sure the car's wheel was chocked, climbed out and relieved his bladder. He'd tried to pee in his pants but he just couldn't do it!

Now there's a personal anecdote for you-all! More in my book on Dan out in May!!

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Karl Ludvigsen

[Ray Bell]

So what was the camera car?
Yes, poor old Dan was up against it with those 2.7 Climaxes, it must have been so frustrating waiting to find out how good Len Terry's chassis was with some real power.
Interesting that Phil Hill, in rating Longford 1965 as his best race, says it was his last openwheeler race - that's why I ask this question...

[John Nelson]

As a fan of the Grand Prix Legends racing sim, I took a screenshot of a stretch of the Spa course and then freeze framed my copy of "Grand Prix" at the same place, and noticed with awe that the house I was looking at in GPL was identical to the actual house shown in the movie right down to the number of windows and position of the doors and trim. To any of you who are fans of 1960's GP racing and don't have Grand Prix Legends, I highly advise it. You'll be blown away.

[Ray Bell]

I've tried GPL once - and it was fantastic. You need the gear to use it, I think, like the steering wheel and pedals and simulator seat, but I simply can't afford it.
I might well find the money, and I have the computer, but I would be spending 36 hours straight on it every second day. I can't afford it!

[Keir]

I find that a gamepad works well enough to get you in among the aces in GPL.
I had a great race for 5th place with McLarens' Eagle at Spa. Bruce just wouldn't back off an inch. I did manage to hold him off at the checker, however.
I'm only spending 7 or 8 hours a week on GPL,
so, I still have a life.

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"I Was Born Ready"

[Racer.Demon]

Ray: the camera car - another Eagle - was the car to film race action footage for the "Grand Prix" movie. Hill didn't actually compete for points but yet he was there during the race!

So that's why he is right to claim Longford '65 was his last *race*.



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[Falcadore]

The camera car at Spa was a somewhat special arrangement with the organisers, IIRC, Hill started at the back of the grid and was only supposed to do one lap before stopping in the pits. But as racers do the red mist descended and Hill went around again.

You can take the driver out of the racer, but you can't take the racer out of the driver.

A new sig could be there in that statement...

The Belgian GP organisers must have had a liking for film camera cars, as Phil Hill's Eagle was the second such vehicle at Spa. The first was a Maserati (probly 250F but might be A6) and was driven by Toulo de Graffenried for the Kirk Douglas vehicle (that's an awful pun) "The Racers". And people complain about "Grand Prix"'s dialogue. Go watch "The Racers" sometime. That having been said there is still some quality film in there, so long as you bear in mind it's the 1950's.

[Elio]

You can see the camera car (Grand Prix film) at Eau Rouge on page 66 of the book Ferrari Formula 1, Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

[This message has been edited by Elio (edited 02-23-2000).]

[buddyt]

If memory serves me correct in John Young Stewart's (Jackie) book "FASTER" he talks about the crash at Masta in 1966, breaking a shoulder and cracking a rib. It made him a safety advocate because other drivers had to borrow tools from local people to get him out of the car.

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"Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go?"

[Dennis David]

Yes it was a life altering experience for him. The fact that he was a safety advocate yet contiued to drive at such a high level is realy amazing. While he was driving i often rooted for other drivers but looking back I would have to put him right up there with Clark.

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Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Barry Lake]

Spa, to me, is like a magnet.
I have been there 10 times - but only twice for races. Once for a GP and once for a sports car race. But any time I am in the area (within say a few hundred kilometres or a couple of countries) and I have the time, I head for Spa and the Nurburgring.
Just driving around the old circuit at the speed limit, you are in awe of the drivers from the old days - before artificial circuits.
I have to admit that the abbreviated version of Spa is still one of the best circuits in use today.
Now they have bulldozed the humps at Le Mans because the cars can't handle them!
Soon they will have all flat tracks, with geometric corners and gravel traps so large you'll need binoculars to see the cars.
By then we will be able to dispense with the drivers; the engineers could race them from consoles in the pits!

[Falcadore]

As soon as I realised the details of the Nuts competition, the first word that came to mind was Spa. The second, third and fifth words were also Spa. The fourth word will probably be removed by censorship software if a typed it here. But it sounds like something used to transport goods long distance by road.

I want to be able to complete the trifecta, the three modern racers circuits in the same calendar year, Spa-Francorchamps, Nurburgring Nordschlieffe and Mount Panorama. One is easy for me but the other two are a major expedition. Hopefully in the not to distant future I may have the contacts and occupational flexibility to achieve that dream, until then, Barry L, and others with those three distinct belt notches, I HATE YOU!!!!

In the meantime, I'll watch "Le Mans" again and regret not being older.....

[Roger Clark]

Acouple of postings to this thread have said that the camera car at Spa in 66 was an Eagle. In fact it was a McLaren, the M3 space frame single seater powered by a 4.7litre Ford V8. It was known by the McLaren team as the Wizz-bang special because that's how Bruce described it: "take the M1 sports racer, add a single seater body and wizz-bang you've got a racer" I beleive that three were made, the others for hill climbs and accoassional Formula Libre races.
Gurney didn't have a second Eagle until the Italian GP when the V12 Weslake engine appeared. Phil Hill practiced but did not race the Climax engined car there.

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[Psychoman]

Falc--you're lucky,at least you're near one of them

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"Hey there, all you middle men
Throw away your fancy clothes
And while you're out there sittin' on a fence
So get off your ass and come down here
'Cause rock 'n' roll ain't no riddle man
To me it makes good, good sense"
-Brian Johnson

[Dennis David]

Psycho,

Sometimes things seem farther than they really are. But if you get to Europe you could comfortably visit Spa and the Nurburgring. I've taken that route a number of times. You head east and after Spa south as you skirt between France and Germany a great region for food by the way until you hit Tier and then east along the Moselle , all the while looking for a sign to the Nurburgring.

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Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Falcadore]

I'm not that close. In 6 visits (12 drives) I've completed the drive same day only 5 times. It's about 1000-1100 klicks from Brisbane. Most trips have involved some heavy drama somewhere. October 1997 I was very ill prior to the race, but after missing 1996 & 1995 at the last minute because respectively car mechanical problems and work leave being cancelled I was determined to get there. My Doctor recommended me a surgeon who only had suspicions of what was wrong with me. I was booked in for an exploratory on me return from the hill though.

Stopped in Dubbo on Wednesday night, sick as a dog. I even wrote down the number of the nearest base hospital, just in case.

But Thursday morning felt better-ish and drove down to Bathurst. Driving up over the crest from the town with the circuit laid out before me, with Mount Panorama spelt out in the white rocks before, plus the pain I was enduring, I was overcome with 'emotion' and did a bit of a Hakkinen sans-balaclava. Finally I am here! Adrenalin took over for the next week.

Thursday after the race the surgeon cuts me open and digs out an appendix so septic it was partially disintegrated. If it had burst somewhere on the drive, particularly in the no mobile phone coverage area just south of Goondiwindi then I might not be here today.

After the operation I then spent three days in bed taking some fairly powerful pain killers. I could walk on the fourth, eat solid food on the fifth and on the seventh I was in a Landcruiser on my way back to Bathurst for the second race.

Never a dull moment involved with Mount Panorama I can tell you

[Ray Bell]

Nothing like it was in the old days.
For the South Australian Centenary Grand Prix of 1936 (known in history as the 1937 Australian Grand Prix), some competitors arrived as part of a car trial that had starting points in the other capital cities - Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. The roads were less than accommodating back then, but the various ones arrived. Those more circumspect had their cars shipped from Melbourne (that was the shortest drive of the three!).
The car Frank Kleinig drove, the McIntyre Hudson, was based on a Hudson 8 chassis and had more money lavished on its construction than three new Rolls Royces would have cost. It was actually built to compete in an event - a race - from Algiers to Durban or somesuch that never came off.
Bill McIntyre, son of owner Gus McIntyre (owner of several cinemas round Sydney) rode with Kleinig for the trip. The ever-intrepid motorist and aviator, Les Burrows, also drove over in an 8-cylinder Hudson. Both then competed in the race in those cars.
One day I'll post the story of how Alf Barrett came to build his Morris Cowley Special, in which he competed in this event.
But the point is that we've got it easy today. Or is it that there's no adventure left in life?
Like when Eldred Norman got bogged on the side of a road in South Western New South Wales on his way home from the wet 1951 Bathurst. Unable to flag down passing motorists (one disinterested farmer was all that went by in several hours), he cut a fence and rounded up a cow. Attaching the cow to the front of his car with surplus fence wire, he tried to coax it into moving.
It wouldn't, so he got some more fencing wire (pity the farmer trying to fix this lot up!) and wrapped one end round the cow's horns. The other end went into a spark plug lead.
The cow then bolted, dragged the car out of the bog and got stuck between two trees. That gave Eldred after-dinner talk material for several years!

[Psychoman]

DD--I knew that; keep in mind, Germany's about as big as Wisconsin

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"Hey there, all you middle men
Throw away your fancy clothes
And while you're out there sittin' on a fence
So get off your ass and come down here
'Cause rock 'n' roll ain't no riddle man
To me it makes good, good sense"
-Brian Johnson

[f li]

In case anyone misses it - the Nurburgring - old and new with recommended "lines."
http://cbsgi1.bu.edu/bmw/nurbcgi.html

The new course is naturally a pimple on the old one.

[Ray Bell]

While we're talking Nurburgring, who has the details of the driver who scored fastest practice lap taking a shortcut that eliminated the corners up to and out of the Karussell?
This thread being up the top again might also attract the attention of some new members who might have some knowledge of a circuit that they can share... apart from which Dennis' lead photo turns me on.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[This message has been edited by Ray Bell (edited 04-10-2000).]

[mat1]

Originally posted by Ray Bell:
While we're talking Nurburgring, who has the details of the driver who scored fastest practice lap taking a shortcut that eliminated the corners up to and out of the Karussell?

I was told this was done by Hans Stuck Sr, in the 30s, driving, I think, an Auto Union.

According to the story, he asked someone to open the gate at the beginning of the so-called Steilstrecke (steep road). This way he didn't need to take two hairpins (one being the Karussell). At the training, Stuck saw the gate was open, and took the Steilstrecke. While doing this, he realized he didn't know whether the gate at the top of the Steilstrecke (at Hohe Acht) was opened too. If not, he was going to smash into it. But luckily, the guy he asked had opened the second gate as well.

Mat

[Ray Bell]

Sounds like a stunt that would suit a hillclimber, thanks Mat1...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Eric McLoughlin]

Although not a "classic" circuit, I'd nominate Goodwood, mainly because its been restored more or less as it was when closed in 1966. Not an inch of Armco anywhere.

I'm doing a track day there on 1 May so I'll let you know how it is from the driver's pont of view afterwards.

[Ray Bell]

Great, Eric, let's bridge that gap back to the sixties - your car does that nicely. Very nicely, modern powerplant, hasn't it? That's fixed the main problems with that sort of thing in the sixties.
Just watch the chicane, Jean has already shown that needs some care...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[404KF2]

Wegburg (D) was a cool circuit.

[Eric McLoughlin]

My Seven has a 1600cc Ford Crossflow engine with twin Weber DCOE40 carbs. Good for about 100bhp. Although the engine was new (in 1996) when I bought the car (in fact, it came from one of the last production batches from South Africa), the Crossflow dates back to the mid sixties, originally appearing in Cortina GT's and Escort Mk1 Mexico's. So, even the engine has a 60's link.

Luckilly for the modern generation of Goodwood drivers, Lord March has had the good sense to replace the original brick chicane with an expanded polystyrene replica.
It looks just right but if anybody clouts it, its the chicane that will come off worse. Amazingly, no-one has touched it in the first two meetings held there since the track re-opened, even though loads of cars have spun, and even collided, in the chicane itself. What are the chances of no contact three years running?

I think the chicane wall is only erected in September for the race meeting and I won't have to contend with it in a few weeks time, so I don't think I shall be emulating Jean Behra.

[SteveB2]

While browsing through the link that had the Amon car, found this picture of Phil Hill:



Lists the car as a McLaren Ford M3A. Someone referred to a picture on the first page. Is this it?

[This message has been edited by SteveB2 (edited 04-26-2000).]

[Ray Bell]

I can't get this picture to open.... tried everything, anyone got any ideas?

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Dennis David]

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Regards,

Dennis David
Grand Prix History

Life is racing, the rest is waiting


[This message has been edited by Dennis David (edited 04-27-2000).]

[Ray Bell]

even went to the website and got a 'not available' for it... Is this the camera car?

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Roger Clark]

THe picture is fine for me. THe car is the M3A, which McLaren eferred to as Bruce's "woosh-bang" special. It was a space-frame car, based on the M1 series of sports-racers. Apparantly the boss said "take the sports car, narrow the chassis, fit a narrow body, and whoosh-bang you've got a racing car". They had an American V8, presumably the 4.5litre Oldsmobile. About three were built, most were sold to amateurs for hill climbs, and one to MGM for filming.

[Ray Bell]

Hey, it's there now... cool... they must have had a lot of confidence in him to put the camera right out there...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...