Vintage Trans-Am Footage 1969

[matt911]

I stumbled across this beautiful video from the 69' Trans-Am season. Watch for some 911's. (Click on the high quality option)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0OOSQPXT8

[Chuck Miller]

Matt,

Cool video.....

By the looks of it, it was probably Watkins Glen August 10, '69

Donohue won the $2500 pruse

The 911's were:
Gregg
Bailey
Jennings
Atchinson
Hochreuter
911 DNF's were:
Meany
Norburn
and Bienvenue

Facts out of Dave Friedman's TRANS-AM the poney car wars 1966-1972

Cheers and thanks

[Jim Garfield]

Chuck, it's not Watkins Glen, the pits are on the wrong side. My guess would be the old Donnybrooke course at Brainerd, MN or possibly Loudon, NH - but I don't see any footage of the uphill and downhill turns.

Those shots of the 4 wheel drifts through the turns are great, and what can I say about the groovy music???

[Paul Schooley]

Ain't Watkins Glen, but sure is a cool piece of video footage.

[72targa]

Race #1 - Michigan International Speedway - Irish Hills, MI
Race #2 - Lime Rock Park - Lime Rock, CT
Race #3 - Mid-Ohio - Lexington, OH
Race #4 - Bridgehampton - Bridgehampton, NY
Race #5 - Donnybrooke - Brainerd, MN
Race #6 - Bryar Motorsport Park - Loudon, NH
Race #7 - Le Circuit Mt. Tremblant - St. Jovite, Quebec, CAN
Race #8 - Watkins Glen - Watkins Glen, NY
Race #9 - Laguna Seca - Monterey, CA
Race #10 - Seattle International Raceway - Kent, WA
Race #11 - Sears Point - Sonoma, CA
Race #12 - Riverside International Raceway - Riverside, CA

[Vintage Racer]

I think that race was the Kent 300 at Seattle Int'l Raceway in Kent, WA.

Peter Gregg did win the U (Under) class while the Camaro edged the Mustang of Panelli Jones by one second.

[Mudi]

Brainerd, no doubt in me mind.. The slide under the entrance bridge, now long gone..

[rennwagen]

Donohue's #6 Z28 is still sporting the vinyl top to hide the wrinkles from the acid dipping. Later in the year, the SCCA outlawed the vinyl tops because they thought it was a speed enhancement

[Vintage Racer]

Brainerd, no doubt in me mind.. The slide under the entrance bridge, now long gone..

That has to be correct. It was the JUly 6,1969 race at Donnybrooke. I went back to the video and identified each of the 19 cars that started the race and compared them to the final results.

You can clearly see Peter Gregg's familiar #59 car. This was four years after he bought Brumos Porsche after the death of the owner, Hubert Brundage. He won the SCCA's SE Division championship in 1967 in two classes and won at Daytona and Sebring. In 1968, he entered competition in the SCCA's Under-2-Litre section of the Trans-Am Series. He won six Trans-Ams and the title in 1969 and also took the SCCA's B Sedan National Championship.

In 1971, he actually raced a Bud Moore Mustang in Trans-Am. Ford had pulled their sponsorship for the series and Moore was going to pull out until Gregg came to him with sponsors. A friend just bought this car (known as the Peter Gregg Mustang) at auction just last month. He paid $407K for the car (RM Auctions, lot #87).

Peter won the Trans-Am Series in 1973 and 1974 in a Brumos Porsche (RIP, Peter).

Donohue's #6 Z28 is still sporting the vinyl top to hide the wrinkles from the acid dipping. Later in the year, the SCCA outlawed the vinyl tops because they thought it was a speed enhancement.

Donnybrooke was the track that the SCCA tech guys said they would not pass the cars until the vinyl tops were removed. Penske pulled some strings and a few phone calls were made to postpone the ruling. In the next race at Bryar Motorsport Park, the vinyl was gone and the tops were replaced with new tops (its easy to weld a top on a pony car).

These were the days when a road race would have more paying fans than a Nascar race.

[72targa]

This is a fun related read, too...

http://www.historictransam.com/results/1969.pdf