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PostPosted: Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:28 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:16 pm
Posts: 1180
Location: Ansonia, CT
I just watched (via Amazon Prime) one of the best racing movie documentaries ever. The movie titled "1" covers the evolution of Formula One racing and the men that drove these rockets on wheels. This is a "must watch" film for anyone that has an interest in motor racing who has not yet seen it.

Many of the best drivers in the world paid the ultimate price doing what they loved to do. Drivers like Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda campaigned hard for changes to made in the sport to improve driver safety.

WARNING: some gut wrenching footage is shown in this movie.

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John Kish
1971 240Z - original owner


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:35 pm 
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Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2014 9:21 am
Posts: 973
Location: Somers CT
Thanks for the heads up on that John I am a prime member and a long time F1 fan. :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:

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W.Karl Walton
Somers CT



75' - 280Z - HLS30203249 - #304 Gold Metallic (stockish)
96' - 300zx TT - JN1CZ24d3TX960293 - Black on Black (enhanced)


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:08 am 
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Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:53 pm
Posts: 14778
Location: CT
Wow.

When I was growing up, the adult son of my parents' best friends ran a movie rental house. I consider it the forerunner to the movie rental industry today.

Fred Kolbe rented an actual 2-story woodframe Edwardian residential house in a commercial downtown block with every interior foot covered by shelves of great old reel-to-reel B&W films. Every room and even the hallways were covered with floor-to-ceiling racks of neatly categorized film canisters. Rent a movie-in-a-can and he gave you a projector to take home and show it with. You had 4 days to bring everything back.

He had a full upstairs "bedroom" full of nothing but old B&W silent racing films from the teens, '20s '30s and '50s. These weren't Hollywood production movies, they were trackside footage by cameramen hand-cranking their boxes as the cars drifted past them almost within an arm's length. Ten-foot-tall "race cars" with 10 liter engines, riding mechanics and skinny tires flipped and crashed silently on my bedroom wall almost every weekend. Wilbur Shaw flew his car off the Indianapolis track banked turn during the 500 mile race right before my eyes. Written signs described where the races were and what highlights I was watching. I was determined to watch each and every one of them in turn. I was such a constant customer (and family friend) that Fred often let me keep the projector at home and just come back to rent more films.

That's where I learned of the old pre-war German Silver Arrow cars and their world-famous drivers; of the oldest racing marque Alfa Romeo and the great Tazio Nuvolari; of Cobb's incredible land speed record attempts caught on film and of the post-war rush to own and race sports cars and "supersports cars", which by that time were less than a decade old and in color with sound. I thrilled to films of a 23 year old Stirling Moss trying vainly to catch the 44 year old World Champion El Maestro Juan Manuel Fangio thru the mid-'50s, while Fangio took the championship year after year after year.

I rented from Fred every weekend I could afford a race film and bus fare to his shop and back home, carrying a 30lb projector and one or two film cans and a takeup reel. It weighed about half what I did back in 1959. My parents chided me for spending perfectly good Saturdays buried in my darkened room, playing these races over and over. Seemed to me what Saturdays were made for, and Mr. Kolbe had to call our house for overdue movies several times.

Fire claimed the Kolbe film studio in the early '60s. All that cellulose took the fire department nearly two days to extinguish; the blaze made front page news photos two days in a row. The residential bldg collapsed into its foundation and burned like a roman candle, thus ending a landmark icon of my youth and a wealth of racing education. Over a period of four years, I nearly got to watch the whole roomful of race films.

I would love to see "1".

Frank

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2017 2:38 pm 
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Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2014 9:21 am
Posts: 973
Location: Somers CT
I went to "The Glen" every year for 4-5 years in a row in October. I was there in 74' when Jackie practiced for his last GP. I think that was the year the bus got burned in "The Bog" :mrgreen: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:

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W.Karl Walton
Somers CT



75' - 280Z - HLS30203249 - #304 Gold Metallic (stockish)
96' - 300zx TT - JN1CZ24d3TX960293 - Black on Black (enhanced)


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:08 am 
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Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:53 pm
Posts: 14778
Location: CT
I was at The Glen on the first Sunday of (almost) every October throughout the 1960s for the US Formula-1 Grand Prix and other weekends for the SCCA sportscar races. That's where I saw my first 1963 Sting Ray (two words) getting eaten alive by the first 260 Cobras, and both of them being eaten alive by the amazing "screaming Banshee" 250GTO Ferrari. I slept on the grass on the infield and nearly froZe to death in the October nights but didn't care at all. I met and got autographs from all the big names and shook hands with my hero Graham Hill there twice. Met Jim Clark, Lorenzo Bandini, Ritchie Ginther, Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Jo Bonnier, Jackie Stewart, Jack Brabham and many others. I also became aware of a young Bob Sharp there, racing Datsun sedans against a fleet of BMWs and puling a second away from them every lap.

Gawd Karl, how could we have ever let those wonderful days slip past us? :oops:

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PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:40 am 
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Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:16 pm
Posts: 1180
Location: Ansonia, CT
Good memories for me as well. I went to the GP event at the Glen in '67 with a former HS teacher (the guy that owned the Abarth). We had tickets for the "meet the drivers" dinner where I met and saw many of those same drivers. Graham Hill was also my idol. Also got to meet Carol Shelby :shock: who was everyone's hero after his success at LeMans. Yes, very fond memories indeed.

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John Kish
1971 240Z - original owner


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 10:05 am 
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Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:53 pm
Posts: 14778
Location: CT
I bet if we all scrounged thru the attic, basement and garage, we could assemble quite the auto racing museum!! :lol:

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