You’ll Want To Watch Aboard This Classic Long Beach Grand Prix Train
This weekend marks the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in Southern California. It’s a great weekend of racing that you really want to see if you can. Racing has a long and storied past, hosting a wide range of sports cars and open wheels over the decades. Back in 1978, the track was on the Formula One calendar, and it was a real bike of an event. The over-tired cars are designed by engineers with only a passive understanding of a new technology called aerodynamics designed to create a wild oversized tire spin, a bit like riding. an angry bull.
Today’s obsession is this onboard video, an incredibly clean and beautifully shot, considering it’s the late 1970s. Here’s this guy, a Frenchie, Patrick Depailler, running around his Gitanes-sponsored Tyrrell 008 car he was trying to win, but after a weekend of practice, qualifying and racing he was only relegated, finishing third to Ferrari by Carlos Reuteman and Ford of America / Mario Andretti driving the Lotus.
I simply cannot imagine driving anything like this at any speed even getting this close. Depailler is a truly talented racer, taking advantage of every inch of the car and the track. The sight of it all! Sound! The simplicity of the cockpit! It’s all about aesthetics and engineering the right for a race car. I would really love F1 if we could go back to a simpler and more cost-effective formula that requires the driver to really get on the wheel in order to go fast.
He has never won a championship and has hit only two Grands Prix in the 95 starts of his career, despite winning nineteen podiums. Just two years after this video, he will die of a head injury after being suspended from testing at the Hockenheimring. Modern cars may not be fun to drive or admire, but the safety advancements achieved cannot be overstated.