8 replies to this topic

[Dennis David]

Just received this signing of my guest book!

Visitor: Nikolaus Eberan-Eberhorst
Reference: by chance
Location: Austria
WebSite:
Web Info:
Contact: XXXXXXXXXX
Date: Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 19:05:26 (EST)

Comments: since prof.eberan-eberhorst was my uncle and both my wife and I are classic car enthusiasts - yes.

To my newsletter.

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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/

[doohanOK]

Dennis,
silly question. Who is that bloke?

regards,
doohanOK.

[Don Capps]

DD, Wow! That is something.

Doohan, his uncle was the director of the Auto Union team.



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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

[Don Capps]

DD,

I just stumbled on this in your guestbook:

Visitor: bernard Cahier
Reference: ref: Dennis Thalmann
Location: France
WebSite: PHC'sFormulaOnePhotoGallery
Web Info:
Contact: jcahier@aol.com
Date: Sun, Dec 05, 1999 at 17:06:50 (EST)

HOLY TOLEDO!!! BERNARD CAHIER!!!! OMIGOD!!!!

He is one of my Great Scribes!!! That is too much!!! Wow!!!!


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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we’d have the solution already…

[Dennis David]

Word gets around! Now If I can just stay away from this BB long enough to update my website. ;-)

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

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[ghinzani]

Originally posted by Don Capps
DD,

I just stumbled on this in your guestbook:



HOLY TOLEDO!!! BERNARD CAHIER!!!! OMIGOD!!!!

He is one of my Great Scribes!!! That is too much!!! Wow!!!!


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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we’d have the solution already…

James Hunt used to report on how much he had managed to piss off Cahier in his weekly autosplat column, in his quest to get back the Prix Limon prize.

[Twin Window]

Do I detect a degree of over-reaction in an earlier post?

[Ray Bell]

It was a little bit like that in the earliest days of TNF...

By the middle of the next year it had matured considerably.

[HDonaldCapps]

Originally posted by Twin Window
Do I detect a degree of over-reaction in an earlier post?

With maybe a half-dozen people knowing that this forum even existed, no one having a clue what we were doing, few "notables" seeming to be internet users, and that anyone of some importance would deign to recognize even the existence of an enterprise such as Dennis', we generally over-reacted back then. As Ray says, things settled down not long after that once. It was so often the case that a new posting was a reason for celebration and more so to rejoyce if it was by someone new.

I sense that people really still do not understand that in the early days this forum really had few expectations for survival at best, and they were quite low at that. It was not until about somewhere along the line during the second year that it began to hit its stride. Prior to that, it was simply muddling along. In the early days, it was very much a closed universe, only a few participating in any of the discussions and fewer topics really to discuss. I kept tossing things out there for various reasons, some being blatant attempts to punch up our pathetically small number of posts and threads, anything to attract attention and new people.

During the early years, my attention was focused far more on the Rear View Mirror column than it was on TNF. The forum was a place that allowed us to post items and discuss topics that we really could not on the then Readers' Comments Forum. As time went on, however, it became apparent that TNF was becoming something quite interesting and even unique.

So, yes, what seems to be "over-reaction" in an earlier post can correctly be seen as that today. We never imagined what lay ahead. Nor did we have a sense of where, exactly, things would head, outside a broad azimuth.

I knew what I wanted and hoped, but that is, as I discovered, very different from what might actually happen.

One of the things that is quite apparent whenever one looks at these older threads is how we were searching for an identity, an niche, a place in the scheme of things at both Atlas and in the greater scheme of things. Whatever it may have been back then, I need to quote the late and much missed Tony Rudd, "It was fun!"

As I mentioned earlier, in my mind RVM and TNF were somewhat intertwined, each being separate in most ways, but very much bound together in other ways. Indeed, something I have often pondered of late is whether or not they would ever let me bring RVM back. It would certainly be one way of getting the backlog of projects out and off the queue.