Category: Motor Sports

Snapshot Sunday: King of the Mountain

Peter Brock at an F1 support race in Adelaide.
The late Peter Brock’s Holden Commodore on the Adelaide circuit.

Today the day of the Bathurst 1000 motor race an iconic race for Australian motor sport fans.

David and I used to watch the race on TV every year. He loved it, probably as much for the history of it as the actual racing. As time went on I didn’t watch the whole race as it goes on for several hours but would just stop every now and then to get an update.

Since he’s been gone I’ve put the TV on in the morning for the start and watched a bit. This year for the first time I didn’t do that. I haven’t been watching the series all year and many of the drivers are unfamiliar to me. It feels a little weird as it’s been such a long-standing tradition but in truth I don’t feel the same about it any more.

My photos today are two old ones, not taken at Bathurst but at the Adelaide Formula 1 Grand Prix where the V8 Supercars were a major support event. Pictured is Peter Brock who won Bathurst 9 times;  more than any other driver.

 

Snapshot Sunday: King of the Mountain

Peter Brock – Adelaide

Today I’m going retro with this old photo I had scanned onto the computer. Australia’s most famous motor race the Bathurst 1000 is being run today. In years gone by David and I would often spend the whole day watching the race on television. He loved it. As time passed I tended more to watch the start with him and pop in and out to check on the progress of the race while doing other things. That’s what I am doing today so in honour of Bathurst, 9 times winner Peter Brock and David here is Peter Brock in his famous 05 Commodore. This was not taken at Bathurst which we never visited but at a support race for the Australian F1 Grand Prix in Adelaide. The photo was most likely taken with my old Pentax MG .

Snapshot Sunday – Memories of Formula One

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Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) winner of the 2017 Australian Grand Prix

By Sven Mandel – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Today the Australian Grand Prix was held in Melbourne, won by Sebastian Vettel for Ferrari. It was the opening race of the season and quite an enjoyable race to watch despite the retirement of our Australian driver, Daniel Ricciardo, and the constant complaining of Lewis Hamilton on the radio to his engineers. It was a popular win with the commentators and especially with the “Tifosi” the Ferrari fans. I hope we will see a variety of winners this year as the racing is more interesting when you can’t be sure who will win and that has not been the case for many years.

I have posted these photos before, they were taken long ago in Adelaide when the race was held there. I still have many photos from the years between 1985-1995 but so far these are the only ones I have scanned. Although safety was not as  good in those days I did love F1 then as it was exciting to watch the likes of Senna and Mansell, Piquet and Prost battling for the championship.

Pit Straight Adelaide c1989. The Start / Finish line was about where the building on the left is.
Formula one car chassis’ circa 1988-89
Bennetton F1 car circa 1988-89
Autograph Time

Snapshot Sunday – Happy Bathurst Day

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By Mr Bungle – Original Uploader was Mr Bungle (talk) at 04:00, 27. Jan. 2007., Public Domain, Link

Today’s photo is not mine as I have never been to Australia’s greatest motor racing event the Bathurst 1,000 km race.  However, I’ve seen it on television many times. David loved to watch Bathurst every year and although I did not always spend the whole day watching it with him we always watched the start together even last year when he was in hospital. We had a lot of fun watching motor sports together over the years so it seemed only natural to tune in again today.

Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge -2015 – Week #20

Which Way to the Grand Prix ?

This Sunday the Formula One Grand Prix of Monaco will be held at Monte Carlo. Before the Australian Grand Prix was held in Melbourne it was held on a street circuit in Adelaide where Hubby and I used to live. We attended every year and took hundreds of photos, most of which I still need to scan. The circuit ran on public roads in the parklands within a few minutes walk of the CBD. It was a fabulous event. I’m sure we had much more fun with it in our smaller city than the Melbournians who have lots of big sporting events. Of course security was less of an issue in those days too.

As the event was held in public parklands anyone could walk around the track once the roads were closed a few days before the event. We even had a Dogs Grand Prix the week before the race. There was often an off circuit event too where one of the Formula One teams would take a race car to do demonstration runs on a public road so everyone could see it. My favourite one was held near a suburban shopping mall where the car was to be displayed afterwards. When the event was over the driver just drove it to the shops. It was hilarious to see a formula one car at the traffic lights.

I’ve written more about the Adelaide race in my post Reflections of a Revhead.

The late Peter Brock’s Holden Commodore on the Adelaide circuit.
A popular support race was the V8 Supercars. This was from the late 1980s.
Pit Straight Adelaide c1989. The Start / Finish line was about where the building on the left is.
Brabham F1 car at a support event. Photo by D Jensen
Autograph Time
The Dogs Grand Prix.

Photo Thursday – Dick Johnson Ford Sierra Cosworth

This week I heard that Ford plans to pull out of V8 Supercar racing in Australia. For many Aussie motor sport fans the V8’s are about just one thing. Ford versus Holden.

I especially can’t imagine the Bathurst 1,000 km race without this famous rivalry from the two major manufacturers. I suppose there will still be Fords being raced in the future but not a factory team so it won’t be quite the same.

Here is one of Dick Johnson’s Ford racing cars, his Ford  Sierra Cosworth from 1987, which I saw displayed at the National Automobile Museum of Tasmania in Launceston.
Dick Johnson Ford

Daniel Ricciardo Wins Again

Daniel Ricciardo, United States Grand Prix, Austin 2012
Daniel Ricciardo by Gussisaurio.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADaniel_Ricciardo%2C_United_States_Grand_Prix%2C_Austin_2012.jpg

Hubby and I sat up last night watching the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix. I must say that I’m enjoying this season more than any I’ve watched for a few years, not the least because Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo is doing so well. He won the race after starting fifth on the grid behind the two Mercedes drivers, Hamilton and Rosberg, his teammate Vettel and Ferrari driver Alonso.

It was an exciting race with drivers battling for positions although marred by the collision between the Mercedes drivers. Whatever the outcome of that incident I hope it won’t mean going back to the days of team orders and processional racing which is very boring to watch. I’ve admired Mercedes for letting Hamilton and Rosberg race each other and I think it would be a shame if they now picked one of them and favoured him for the rest of the season. It always annoys me when teams do that, Ferrari have always been shocking for it and certain drivers in the past have seemed to expect it “Get out of my way.I’m the team leader.” has seemed to be their attitude. This is one of the reasons I like to see our “little Aussie battler” outperforming his teammate nearly every race.

I find it more fun to watch Formula 1 when I have a favourite driver to support either from my home country or just one that I like.  However I do like to see close racing and it is a bit boring to see the same driver win race after race so this year has been much more interesting than the past few seasons have been.  Now that we’re into the serious end of the season it will be interesting to see how the rest of the championship unfolds. It is almost certain that a Mercedes driver will be World Champion this year but which one?  I do have a preference which I won’t reveal for the time being. I’d love to see Daniel Ricciardo win it of course but although he’s in third place he’s still a long way behind them. However you never know what the next few races might bring.