Formerly the Pre-Historics

[Nine17]

I stopped by the track today to visit friends and family at the Event Formerly Known as the Pre-Historics. Beautiful weather, beautiful cars, no crowding...

-- David

[Nine17]

Here's a little on-track action. There will no doubt be more cars next weekend, but the quality has been getting pretty diluted. Plenty of good stuff today. Jerry Woods was chuffed to be back together with "his" Kremer K3; he just celebrated his 65th birthday by bicycling around the Bodensee. John Z, I'm using my new Fujinon 55-200 with OIS for the first time. Pretty slick!

-- David

[CD19]

Great pictures!! Thanks for sharing.....

[GeorgeJ]

The Pre-Historics (pre-reunion) are more like what the Historics were fifteen years ago. The last couple of years I have just registered to run in the pre as the main weekend has gotten so frenetic (and my wife's birthday is usually the weekend of the Historics. Missing it altogether this year so thanks for the photos.

[Nine17]

The saying at the old Brooklands circuit was, "The Right Crowd, and No Crowding."

-- David

[Chuck Miller]

GREAT pics David.........

Man, I remember watching Redman win the first Long Beach Grand Prix in Haas's BORAXO T-332.........

Also looks like John Morton scored a pretty nice 908 ride ............. BTW- Morton was another 332 in that first LBGP as well.....

[Nine17]

Yeah Chuck, the L&M Continental 5000 Championship was really entertaining. The Can-Am cars were amazing, but the racing was better in F5000. I can remember seeing future Formula 1 World Champions like Mario Andretti, James Hunt, and Jody Scheckter really hanging-it out in those cars back in the day at Laguna! Of course, Brian Redman was the class of the field in the Jim Hall-run Chaparral-Lolas. Sadly the SCCA was discouraged from having an open-wheel series competing with Formula 1 and Champ Cars and they put fenders on them. The Reunion run group is made up of Tasman Series visitors driven by Antipodeans learning Laguna for the first time (see below -- you don't want to apex Four too early!).

John Morton has been a hired shoe/lab rat for the Collier Collection/Revs Institute for the past decade or so -- the 908/3 is their car. Of course, John has a F5000 connection -- his life-partner Sylvia Wilkinson's book The Stainless Steel Carrot is the story of his efforts to join the L&M Championship circus in '72. About 10 years after that season my wife and I had the luck to spend a race weekend hanging-out with John and Sylvia. Two of the most intelligent, witty, and charming people we have ever met.

I'm doing my best to avoid the crowds this week, but I'll be dive-bombing a few of the events -- the raffle at Werks Reunion was too tempting to pass up!

-- David

[wsk]

Thanks for the great pics, David. If you come back please drop by the Retro Sport camp again- I'd love to meet you. I'm running the yellow 934. Not as original as Dener's car but it has a ton of history.

[Jim Garfield]

Thanks for the great pictures David. I'm going to have to try and make it out for the "Pre" one of these years. I don't have much interest in battling the crowds during the main event, but would love to see the cars without the hassle.

That's a great photo of John Morton in the 908/3, I always was a fan of his. I was at Lime Rock for the Friday GTP practice in '88 when he went airborne on the uphill and completely destroyed the new Nissan GTP car that had only done a few laps. I have what was left of the windshield and some carbon fiber under tray tunnel bits that were in the trash bin in the Nissan paddock. He's a very lucky guy to have gotten out of that with a few minor burns.