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Old rally pix

26K views 84 replies 26 participants last post by  rwgraves 
#1 ·
It's time to delurk (probably kinda like delicing or deicing or debunking or whatever).

While cleaning out old file cabinets during the last week, I fired up both the print and film/slide scanners and have been busily converting old rally stuff to electronic format for your enjoyment.

The goodies are here:

http://www.futurethru.com/itemlist.asp?sqltype=rally&pagestyle=default

if that wraps, go to www.futurethru.com, click on articles and then performance rally.

Stuff you'll find up there now includes part of the 1955 Canadian Winter rule book, pix of John & Vicki in the 911, Rod Millen's RX-7, Guy Light, Scott Harvey/Wayne Zitkus, Andrew Cowan, Doug Shepard, Jim Walker, etc. Most of these are from the mid-70s with a couple from the early '70s, and a few newer.

Stuff that's on the way: a scan of the 1955 routebook for the Great American Mountain Rally, which I believe to be the very first FIA sanctioned rally in the U.S. (and maybe North America? and it even had a works entry and was sponsored by the American Automobile Association of all things), some excepts from a 1950s-era Watkins Glen Tour and Trial (You'll love this, you didn't reset penality time at each control. If you were a minute behind at one control, you had to make that minute up before the next control), and more photos.

I found a bunch of old negatives and slides from Rideau Lakes, Canadian Winter, POR, Sunriser, Sno*Drift and others, but the problem now is that I'm starting to get into photos that I don't recognize or remember who they are.

As way of introduction, I did what I think was the first U.S./Canadian book about the sport entitled Performance Rallying, published back in 1975, wrote a bunch of magazine pieces along the way, was co-clerk of course for Sunriser for a year and codrove in Datsun 510 (didn't everyone?) and a Fiat 124.

If you find errors, omissions or things to add, let me know. Where possible, I tried to give a little description of that the photo was about for those who weren't around back then. Most of this stuff was assembled from sketchy notes and a faulty memory.

Enjoy.


Eric Anderson
 
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#2 ·
>While cleaning out old file cabinets during the last week, I
>fired up both the print and film/slide scanners and have
>been busily converting old rally stuff to electronic format
>for your enjoyment.


Cool! Just like unwrapping Christmas gifts a few days after the holiday.
:)
Thanks!
 
#3 ·
Thanks Eric, great memories, pics and comments. It takes me back. Keep 'em coming.

Kent Gardam
 
#4 ·
I'm delurking here myself.

Thank you for the great memories Eric. I will be seeing Eric Jones tonight. I can't wait to tease him a bit about the press he's receiving 29 years after the fact.;-) He is still at it. He & Harry Ward went to England to run LeJog this year in his newly purchased Cortina rally car.

The picture that you identify as Rod Millen getting help from spectators is actually John Woolf & Grant Whittaker. As I remember
that picture was taken on the Cooper Hollow stage of the 81 Sunriser at the spectator point. It was a downhill into an acute left. When John popped over the crest & hit the brakes a rotor broke causing the car to pitch to the right into the bushes. He would've been sunk if there hadn't been all those spectators to push & pull. He still managed to finish 3rd behind Millen & Woodner. The reason I know so much about this is that I am the large unit standing next to the course arrow burning up film in my Nikon.;-)

Here's a link to the 81 Sunriser press release. >> http://www.rallyracingnews.com/scca/rally/news1081.html

Eric when you get some more photos scanned in please post them. I really enjoy seeing stuff from the olden days.

Edit >> Eric that is a great photo. I now have to find mine so I can
try to see if I have a picture of you burning film.;-)

Thanks again.

Chuck Ashton
 
#7 ·
Me again. Guess I really have delurked.

The picture of Bruno looks like it was taken at Cooper Hollow on the 81 Sunriser also. It was taken looking back at the turn Woolf went off on. As I remember my heart rate went up a bit. Another great photo. I am the guy on the far right wearing a hat.;-)

Chuck Ashton
 
#10 ·
>I found a bunch of old negatives and slides from Rideau
>Lakes, Canadian Winter, POR, Sunriser, Sno*Drift and others,
>but the problem now is that I'm starting to get into photos
>that I don't recognize or remember who they are.

Eric:

Please post all of these even if you don't know who they are. Just number them and we can have a gigantic new year's rally quiz. I am sure all the old farts here will be able to help out with the identification.

BTW, the black and white photos certainly seem to convey what rallying was like then, more so than colour photos.

I have a bunch of photos that I should also post.

Thanks for your efforts.

Doug Woods
 
#11 ·
I love these old shots too! RealAutoSport.com has become a fair repository for such:

http://www.realautosport.com/Harvey/Weiman/Wienman/Image100.jpg

Check out:

http://www.realautosport.com/Harvey/harvey.html

and:

http://www.realautosport.com/pics/oldtimer.html

and even:

http://www.realautosport.com/Harvey/Weiman/Wienman/weinman.htm

Thanks to VirtualMovingTarget Racing's support of www.realautosport.com, we have room to host more pics and even videos of the old stuff if you have some but have no where to host them. OM me if this is of interest ...

Halley ...
http://www.realautosport.com
 
#12 ·
I've added some more stuff and fixed some things as folks have provided more info.

http://www.futurethru.com/itemlist.asp?sqltype=rally&pagestyle=default

I've set the software so the documents page will always be first, with the newest additions at the top of the list.

The first page of routebook for the 1954 Great American Mountain Rally is now up. It's on the historical documents page. Did you know that Walter Cronkite ran the 1953 event? I'll bet not. I dug out some details about the event as well. There's also an excerpt of the 1955 Watkins Glen Tour.

I also added a copy of the cover of Performance Rallying, and typed in part of Gene Henderson's stage tour.

I've pretty well ended with the Sunriser photos, and am working through the Canadian Winter stuff.

Chuck Ashton commented on the effect that Bruno's oversteer on spectators, so I dug out the second picture of the sequence. In the first photo, there's spectators, in the second photo, none.

Two questions:

Is there any interest in the time schedule from the 1974 POR? I found both the '73 and '74 route books.

If I set it up so that anyone else could easily add photos and stories without having to know HTML or anything like that, would there be any interest?

Enjoy.
 
#13 ·
Eric:

I particularly like the "essence of rallying" photo from the Canadian Winter Rally. It is worth remembering that the rally was essentially 1500 miles of roads exactly like that shown in the photo.

Notice that several cars have gone off the road at the corner and that the snow banks are very low. Some years, the snow banks were six feet high and bouncing the car off the bank on the exit of a corner was an accepted cornering technique. As I recall, our Toyota Corolla would finish the event with the rear quarter panels well "modified".

Keep posting the photos!

Doug Woods

P.S. The Walker/Palmer photo is from the POR (notice to Total sponsorship on the door number).
 
#15 ·
Great photos.

I really like the 'essence of rallying' with the divits in the snow banks.

How do I get to page 2 and on. I'm computor illiterate and have a web tv. I tried adding a 2 to the url but got nothing.

I also have a bunch of slides from the early 70s.
'73 Thunderbird Gordini's Randy Black 510 MORE Opels 911's 96's RX 3's

and alot from NW Rallys
and some from Olympus

Thanx for the memories.
Dick Fuhrman
 
#18 ·
>I've added some more stuff and fixed some things as folks
>have provided more info.

Excellent! Thanks again.

RE: The Fort Worth Rabbit Team. An F-Square Rally Team Rabbit was the subject for one of the posters produced and sold by the folks at Rallye Magazine (dashing through the snow, of all things for Tejas-based rally cars to be doing) back in the 70s. I've recently gotten back in touch with John Powers (the guy driving the Rallye Magazine Chevette on one of my vintage pics pages) and he tells me he still owns the original artwork used for those posters. If there were enough interest to make a printing run worthwhile we could generate another batch of them. A Stratos, Porsche 911, a Rabbit and ... uhhhh ... what was the other one?

And speaking of the late Dick Fitzgerald, he was solely responsible for THE most memorable moment of my then-fiance's first trip to a stage rally. Mary Jane and I were sitting at a small second-floor table at The Library finishing off a pizza and a pitcher in 1985 when this furry face appeared and planted a wet one square on my lips! MJ quickly said, "And who is THIS?" ;-) Dick was a piece of work, that's for sure!

>Enjoy.

Done deal! Thanks!!!

Halley ...
http://www.realautosport.com
 
#22 ·
Eric that sounds great! I'd love to be able to see those old POR route books. The great American mountain rally holds much interest for me as well.

I would be more than happy to contribute old rally photos to your sight. I know zip about HTML so the offer to set it up for us digitally challenged would be great. Is there a specific size the photo's would need to be?

Eric Jones & Mark Hardymon said to say hello to you. I saw them both
on new years eve. Eric said he has been trying to track you down. He said he lost track of you in Piqua. If you would like to you can e-mail me your phone number so that I can give it to Eric so he can talk with you. My e-mail is in my profile.

Very nice photos that you've added to your site. The one from the Canadian winter rally really tells the story.

The one of Eric Jones at the 81 Sunriser was also at Cooper Hollow. That was a great place to spectate. Tawn is quite a good photographer.

Thanks again.

Chuck Ashton
 
#24 ·
>There are 10 more images up on the site, mostly from
>Canadian Winter. Doug is even in three of them.

Eric:

Keep the photos coming!

In the photo from the Rideau Lakes with John Buffum in his Escort, I am not with Walter. The co-driver was Stuart Gray from England (they won the rally). I was the Rallymaster and was long gone in the course opening car when this photo was taken!

Doug Woods
 
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