You were there...
A lovely selection here from Connecticut reader John Merriman. “Over a period of 20 or so years — starting in 1968 at Watkins Glen — I attended many Formula One , Can-Am and Trans-Am races in the US,” he says. “From 1980 to ’82, when I lived in London I had the pleasure of going to several international races and vintage races at Silverstone, Donington, Brands Hatch and Prescott.” John was keen enough to take a Van Dieman RF76 back to the US with him and has since raced many Formula Fords at more than 200 meetings. “My plans are to continue racing forever — my wife’s views on the subject notwithstanding!” While we realise we’ve had had a fair bit of Can-Am in Motor Sport of late we thought these were great, especially Bridgehampton, the AVS Shadow and Stewart in the Chaparral…
– Great shot of Chris Amon’s Ferrari at the 1968 United States GP
– Denny Hulme dwarfed by McLaren at St Jovite in 1971
– Winner Hulme chases Bruce McLaren in ’69 at Bridgehampton
– Jackie Stewart in Chaparral 2J at Watkins Glen ’70
– George Follmer races AVS Shadow, St Jovite ’71
– Watkins Glen 6 Hours, ’73. Carlos Reutemann failed to finish in Ferrari.
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The more esoterically-minded of us in the office (er, that’ll be all of us, then) were extremely excited to see some unusual shots of German racing from the early ’70’s fall onto our desk out of an envelope sent by former German motorcycle champion (yes, really) Walter Hoffmann. “My friend Peter Jäger and I went to all the races we could reach with our Kreidler and Hercules mopeds, especially Hockenheim which is just 30km from our hometown,” he says. “We were at the German GP at the Nürburgring and took some photos with our small camera, as we did at Hockenheim for the Interserie race, when we dug under the fence of the paddock to get in for free on practice days!” Walter now races a March 712 in historic Formula Two events. His photos are a neat mirror-image of those supplied from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean on the previous page, though sadly Interserie, despite this early participation from Derek Bell and Brian Redman, never matched Can-Am…
– Brian Redman in BRM P167. Check out Tony Southgate with the tie!
– Amon had a bad time in Matra at the 1971 German GP
– Super Vee at ’71 German GP; that’s Harald Ertl in the blue Kaimann
– Another M8E. This is Terry Pilette in Ecurie Bonnier car
– Derek Bell gets ready for action in McLaren M8E
– Steinmetz Tuning Opel Commodore at German GP meet