Monthly Archives: January 2011

Corvette Racing The GT1 Years

6 Replies

Buy This Book!

Since bursting on to the endurance scene in 1999, the Pratt & Miller built Chevrolet Corvettes have been an integral part of GT Racing both in North America and Europe. They have seen off challenges from ORECA Vipers and ProDrive’s 550 Maranello and DBR9 projects to earn the title of GT1 World Champions. The only car that might have contested this situation was the Maserati MC12, however as the Italian was ineligible to compete at Le Mans (too wide) the Heavyweight title fight never took place.

To back up the achievements of the factory, the C5R and C6R were also campaigned with great success by private teams winning several titles and 24 hour races.

The end of the line for the factory cars came at Le Mans in 2009 but the customer cars can still compete till their homologation runs out at the end of this year. So they still rumble on the FIA GT1 World Championship.

Time perhaps to reflect and celebrate the achievements of this American Iconic Racer.

Hold the Back Page

Step forward Nigel S Dobbie who is the author of this mighty tome “Corvette Racing The GT1 Years”

333 pages sounds a lot and yet considering just how much information there is contained between the covers, the book could be twice as thick. The story of the programme is traced year by year with commentary on each of the significant races that the Corvettes took part in . There are whole chapters dedicated to profiling the factory drivers, comparing the various liveries, tabling the results and recording the history of each chassis. I cannot imagine that there is a question about the Corvette GT1 projects that is not answered somewhere in this book. It is surely the standard reference book on the GT1 Corvette and is a work of considerable scholarship.

Oooh Look at the pictures………….

OK, time to declare my interest.

Nigel showed great wisdom and taste in contacting me to supply images from the early years. I was lucky enough to be at the first public test during the run up to the Daytona 24 Hours in 1999 and pounded the ALMS beat for the first few years. So perhaps there was some logic to that. However the majority of the photography in this well illustrated book is that of the author and it is of a highly professional standard.

In conclusion, if GT1 Racing or Corvettes floats your boat, you will want to buy this book. At £59.99 it is not cheap but for what you actually get it represents extremely good value.

Nigel has set up a website HERE where you can see other reviews and more importantly order a copy.

Go on you know you want to.

John Brooks, January 2011

Sixth Sense

Leave a Reply

Another site that I visit daily is www.ultimatecarpage.com

It is a cornucopia of motoring goodness, if there are no new posts there is always something in the archive to lucky dip to.

This week saw a piece on the Tyrrell P34 partly saluting the car, partly as an obituary to the late Derek Gardner. I commend it to you all. HERE

John Brooks, January 2011

Moby Dick

1 Reply

Today’s offering dates back nearly 30 years to October 1982. One of my first media passes at an endurance event was for the 1000kms of Brands Hatch, part of the World Endurance Championship for Drivers.

935 at Druids

John Fitzpatrick (driving) and David Hobbs took third place overall in this Kremer copy of the legendary Porsche 935-78.

Of course the titanic struggle at the front between Rothmans Porsche and Martini Lancia overshadowed this fine effort.

No matter, the 935 in this final evolution still looks the dog’s bollocks, even allowing for the passage of time.

John Brooks, January 2011

In the Interest of Balance…………

Leave a Reply

Yea Right.

In fact there is no such interest but having plugged one great post at GrandPrix.com, it seems only fair to salute the other F1 site that I read regularly.

Mike Lawrence’s contributions to www.PitPass.com are also on the required reading list. Thoughtful, erudite and provoking, the posts are never dull. His latest musings on the coming change of engine regulations in Formula One gives background and depth not usually seen in these days of short attention spans.

Do yourself a favour, open something red and full bodied, settle down and feast at this table.

John Brooks, January 2011

À la recherche du temps perdu

Leave a Reply

We all have websites that we visit frequently, favourites if you like. Some are new to the digital era, some continue on the analogue world that preceeded the world of screen and keyboards.

For those with an interest in Formula One the site http://www.GrandPrix.com and the sister blog http://joesaward.wordpress.com/ are required reading. Any place that has the combined talents of Joe Saward, David Tremayne and Maurice Hamilton should be top of the list, if F1 is your bag.

Mr. Hamilton’s recent post cost me an hour or two of my life transporting me back the early 70’s, like a motorsport edition of The Sweeney. He commended a film shot in 1973 of the Grand Prix circus by Columbia Pictures. Of course not only is the story spellbinding, the quality of the Hollywood production values are amazing. Be warned once you start to watch, you will be reluctant to stop, so clear a window in your diary for something really important.

The film can be seen here

John Brooks, January 2011


http://vimeo.com/17632646

The Star’s a Car

Leave a Reply

The 2011 Dubai 24 Hours saw a trio of Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3 entries and very impressive they were in the flesh. They are the real deal and will give Porsche, Audi and BMW a right hard time at this year’s Nurburgring 24 Hours.

So as a salute to this batch of Silver Arrows they feature as the first Blink of An Eye post. Who knows it might even become a daily thing?

Wheel of Fortune

Click to enlarge.

John Brooks, January 2011

Rollin’ and Tumblin’

2 Replies

It is said that one of the definitions of insanity is to repeat an action over and over again expecting a different result, sounds familiar. Some of us never learn.

I was at this blogging lark back in ’95 and ’96 before the term was coined, posting on the net what I thought passed for wisdom about the BPR Series. All that got me was banned from the final race in 1996 by Jürgen Barth. He had a point, don’t crap in your nest and I had a point, don’t bullshit those who can tell the direction of the wind. We are still on speaking terms.

Work In Progress?

The next net adventure was to get involved with the group that became DailySportsCar, then I got uninvolved.

Kerry Morse and I had the bright idea of setting up our own stall, SportsCarPros and due to the kindness of a real gentleman, Harald Mergard, we managed to blunder our way through for six years. An unlikely result given the chaotic manner that Kerry and I conduct ourselves. However we hit the target more often than we missed. Outraged of Weissach and Unhappy of Volusia were evidence that our aim was true.

The SCP mission statement, if it can be graced with that tag, went like this:

What the World needs now is……..another website about
sportscars……….Nah!

You can see why good ole Burt Bacharach rejected that line……showing the good
taste and judgement that bought him a string of classics and even showed him
the way to San Jose.

If such a musical titan rejected this plot line then why are Morse, the Cottons and I
plunging headlong down that particular ravine?

Because it’s there? Well, yes actually.
Sportscars and their competitive antics attracts the usual cast of obsessive,
compulsives who also chase locomotive engines and the life and times of Black
Sabbath……….so too their websites are a reflection of this.

What are we going to do that’s different?

Hmmm, it is probably easier to say what we are not going to do.

No race reports as events unfold, no forums, no competitions, no minute by
minute breaking news of events that rarely mean much, no endless photo
galleries of the same shot, badly taken…………

You get the picture, there is a broad canvas out there and we are going to splatter
our oils on it when we have something to say and not before then.

The site is unusual in that the main suspects are all working in the sport already
not peering from the outside trying to find a magic key to gain admittance and a
free media pass for lunch. We know the resource that we all have the greatest
shortage of, even more than money, is time……..so just this once we intend to use
this fact to govern our course……….we won’t say much but what we do say will be
worth listening to.

Viewed coldly there are only two things in the sportscar area of any worth……….Le
Mans and the people who labour away in the business……….saints, criminals,
lunatics, fantasists, good blokes, complete shits and people who make me laugh.
This procession of heroes and villains is the world that I now inhabit some 25-30
times a year.

There are worse places to be.

Our aims……. To stimulate mainly, to entertain usually and to annoy
occasionally………climb in for the ride

Of course the effort of keeping our cyber rooms tidy was too much for Morse and I after a few years, plus there was a bag of gold on offer from another blog. So for the recent past I have been toiling away trying to keep the faithful entertained but that too seems to have run its course, so I am back on the streets again.

The Start of a Beautiful Friendship

Ah yes the streets………….in fact I have been back to the tracks as well and will bring a few thoughts from the Dubai 24 Hours that took place last weekend.

The other good news for the readers is that I will have guest blogs from a wide variety of collaborators during the course of the year. Things will take a bit of time to get established, so please have some patience till the flavour of the blog gets set. Those of you who are familiar with my style will know what to expect, the rest of you have been warned.

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride…………….

John Brooks, January 2011.