1970 Watkins Glen Trans Am video on YT...

Found this and figured the Hive might like to see it.

That was good. I'm currently 2/3 the way through reading Mark's book; The Unfair Advantage.  Good stuff. 

Drooool 

Gawd I love every single car in that series. 

Thanks, I was there!  Great race, great cars, great drivers!  Edit:  just watched it, boy, what memories!  I was about 30 feet from Quick Vic during the post race interview and trophy presentation, great drive by a great driver - and my man Mark showed that he was much more than an engineer, many people never realized how motivated he was, and what a great driver.

Jim was the 35 car field all A-Sedans leaving a separate under 2.5?

Elford drove over the air hose when he changed from wets to dry tires... 

In reply to Rons :

All races in the 1970 Trans-Am were run with the U2 and O2 cars in separate races. The O2 cars had gained so much speed that SCCA decided not to run them together any longer.

It's a bit long but it lets you see our resident Datsun racer/writer; Mr. Brock and his awesome driver; Mr. Morton.  
 

Whaddya think would happen if somebody organized a race for 1968-1972 Trans Am cars but NOT a "historic" race...?  Basically update the safety rules but run the same hardware?  If I was the GM at Road America, I'd be on the phone with the GM at Mid-Ohio, VIR, etc. seeing if I could get three or four other venues to run a race.

stroker said:

Whaddya think would happen if somebody organized a race for 1968-1972 Trans Am cars but NOT a "historic" race...?  Basically update the safety rules but run the same hardware?  If I was the GM at Road America, I'd be on the phone with the GM at Mid-Ohio, VIR, etc. seeing if I could get three or four other venues to run a race.

Kind of like the races at Goodwood in the UK - people are driving vintage cars, but they're thrashing them hard.

stroker said:

Elford drove over the air hose when he changed from wets to dry tires... 

Not a big deal back then.  Rules and procedures were much looser.

Love that video.  Thanks for posting.  

That's the vibe I'm going for on my '69 Cougar-just updated with bigger wheels, 5 speed, bigger brakes, etc.  

wawazat said:

Love that video.  Thanks for posting.  

That's the vibe I'm going for on my '69 Cougar-just updated with bigger wheels, 5 speed, bigger brakes, etc.  

Keep us posted on that.  Sounds sexy.  :)

Lots of good books about that era. 

Unfair Advantage.  Mark Donahue. 

The Stainless Steel Carrot by Sylvia Wilkinson about Pete Brock and John Morton and the Datsuns. 

The Mudge Pond Express by Sam Posey. 

Sunday Driver by Brock Yates. 

I've got all of them and have read them more than once. 

Datsun310Guy said:

That was good. I'm currently 2/3 the way through reading Mark's book; The Unfair Advantage.  Good stuff. 

That is a great book and it surprises me how so many in this hobby have never heard of it.  I won't spoil it for you but I was taken aback at his telling of how poorly set up the 917/30 was from Porsche and that Penske's crew basically had to show them how to make it work.  But all you ever hear is about how those brilliant wizards from Stuttgart killed CanAm.  

My first big race I attended was the 67 Trans Am at Mid-Ohio, slept overnight on the ground, a great experience.  Unfortunately I was overseas when most of the classic great Tans Am races were held.   It shows what great racing can be with minimal rules and no speed adjustments.  Great video and I have most of the Trans Am books published and have read them numerous times.  Try to post more videos like these.

This video came across my youtube radar/feed the other day too.  I love it!  I got to work in TransAm in the '99/'00 seasons.  It wasn't the same as back in the early days (no pit stops, tube-frame chassis, etc) but I've had a love for the TransAm series for as long as I've been aware of it (...sometime back in the '80s).

A 401 CJ said:

Datsun310Guy said:

That was good. I'm currently 2/3 the way through reading Mark's book; The Unfair Advantage.  Good stuff. 

That is a great book and it surprises me how so many in this hobby have never heard of it.  I won't spoil it for you but I was taken aback at his telling of how poorly set up the 917/30 was from Porsche and that Penske's crew basically had to show them how to make it work.  But all you ever hear is about how those brilliant wizards from Stuttgart killed CanAm.  

I feel like it was a similar story when the 917 first hit the track before those monsters in CanAm. It had a reputation of some pretty sketchy handling followed by breaking in half when it was crashed so the drivers liked the 908 that came before it more. One of the teams got a hold of the car in testing adding bits of plywood and tape to the horror of the engineers from the factory but the car just kept getting better as the aero was sorted out. Then it won overall at Le Mans for Porsche after they had tried for so many years.

In reply to A 401 CJ :

I read it in the early 80's.  This is my 2nd go at it. 

For Mark Donohue fans there is a book by Michael Argetsinger titlted "Mark Donohue Technical  Excellence at Speed". It covers everything about him, his cars, etc. Also has a list of all his race results by year from 1960 on including his SCCA driving school. The foreword is by Roger Penske.