Champ Cars 1970 Sears Point

[Indy]

Gurney vs. Andretti. Cool video.

X6VzOVn2hEs

[stroker]

Look at how green the countryside is. Looks like a dustbowl today, by comparison.

[nrc]

Needs more wheel2wheel eggzitement!

Wonderful footage. The key point is that was very much the kind of racing action you saw in Champ car right up until they started trying to "fix" everything.

And I'm not talking about just Tony and his boys. Champ car also tinkered trying to create more "action". The fact is that real racing has always been a sport with more subtlety and suspense than outright action. It's about being on the edge and not crossing it. That's something that simply doesn't play in today's short attention span entertainment market.

[opinionated ow]

And I'm not talking about just Tony and his boys. Champ car also tinkered trying to create more "action". The fact is that real racing has always been a sport with more subtlety and suspense than outright action. It's about being on the edge and not crossing it. That's something that simply doesn't play in today's short attention span entertainment market.

I don't agree. The problem is that people have tried to market sport as entertainment rather than letting sport be the entertainment. It's just a matter of how you put it out there. Test Cricket goes for 5 days and is entertaining, they don't have to mess with the format to get people to go and watch. Openwheel racing went wrong when they started chasing levels of overtaking, this gives the idea that the whole thing is staged and appears really artificial. It's a thing Formula One needs to realise also.

[Indy]

I agree, o-ow, but I think nrc has a point.

In this country the vast majority of people are moving as fast as possible just to get by. High technology was expected to do the work so that we could all take more time off and enjoy life, but I am afraid the opposite has happened. Even now I look back on having four days off for a race weekend and wonder how I did it so many times. We are on treadmill, and someone keeps turning up the speed.

[Ziggy]

Dick Wallen video, there is another from IRP

[Gnam]

Look at how green the countryside is. Looks like a dustbowl today, by comparison.

Looks like the race was held on April 4, 1970. The hills turn green with the winter rain and stay that way unitl about May. Then they turn brown until Dec/Jan.

Great to see the track being used as it was meant to be. :thumbup:

[Racing Truth]

Needs more wheel2wheel eggzitement!

Wonderful footage. The key point is that was very much the kind of racing action you saw in Champ car right up until they started trying to "fix" everything.

And I'm not talking about just Tony and his boys. Champ car also tinkered trying to create more "action". The fact is that real racing has always been a sport with more subtlety and suspense than outright action. It's about being on the edge and not crossing it. That's something that simply doesn't play in today's short attention span entertainment market.

There's something to this, but I think you ignore the giant elephant in the room. Speed/technology has made a place like Sears Point, or, better yet, Laguna,nearly unwatchable on television, with the lack of viable overtaking. If you think we shuldn't bow to the whims of television, well, welcome to the 21st century. It DOES matter and always will.

Where once cars would top out at, oh, 165-170 on straights, they now go 30-40+mph faster, thus turning medium-length straights into short ones. Time in the slipstream is reduced, and the number of hard braking zones is cut. In many ways, faster is NOT always better.

Which is why, with some reluctance, I'm OK with some P2P (though the rumored 100 hp for the '12 Dallara is ridiculous), the different tires and even, yes, double-file restarts. Gimmicky? Sure. But does it make a more compelling race? I think so.

Great vid, BTW.:thumbup: