Auto Racing Commentary

By Carlos De Paula By 1969, there were quite a few 2 liter sports cars around in Europe to warrant a separate championship. These cars normally competed in the World Championship of Makes, with no chance of outright victory, so competitors welcomed the chance of actually winning races, rather than classes. Read more about it here  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732674426

Born 8/5/1943, Tampere, Finland Starts:1 Points: 0 Wins:0 Poles:0 Fastest Laps:0 Curt Lincoln had been, until 1970, the only Finnish race driver of any international reputation. Curt did not go as far as Formula 1, after all, Finnish drivers were mostly known for their rally exploits. Leo Kinnunen made it to the upper echelons of motor racing in 1970, named Pedro Rodriguez’s partner at John Wyear Racing. He did well enough not to mess up the work of expert Rodriguez, and manage to manhandle the difficult Porsche 917 to four world championship victories. This was followed by three titles in the reasonably prestigious Interserie championship, supposedly the European equivalent of the Can Am series, from 1971 to 1973. For 1974, Kinnunen was to make the big move. The Finnish AAW Racing team decided to field their local hero in the F-1 championship, but the weapon of choice was anything but ideal: a Surtees TS16. Unfortunately for Kinnunen, his Formula 1 career comprised of 6 entr

The Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the Sun, hinting that new happenings are nothing more than revamped versions of yesterday's occurrences. For those who do not believe the Scriptures, consider the macroeconomic books, that suggest there are Economic cycles of prosperity and scarcity, caused by a number of external factors, such as supply and demand imbalances, climatic factors, extreme speculation. This tells us that continuous prosperity on a macro level is a fallacy. Let us talk about another book, Autocourse. I was reading an annual from the early 70s, and the writer forecast problems ahead for the world of racing; He simply said there are too many categories in European racing, and the market could not support it. In the late 60's,  there was F1, European F2, British, French and Italian F3, World Makes Championship and the European and British Touring Car Championships. Then, with the advent of commercial sponsorship, beginning of TV c

Let us be honest. The last two North American Formula 1 endeavors were resounding failures, to wit, the USF1 race team and Craig Pollock's PURE engine. I find that both projects were very naive from the onset, thus their failure. In USF1's case, I followed the project closely. I could tell it was ultimately doomed when the team announced its driver would be Argentine Jose Maria Lopez. Nothing against Argentines or Lopez, whom I rate highly. It seemed, though, that such a patriotically named team would only be successful with American sponsors and drivers. The fact it was turning to Argentine driver and funding augured poor for its future. So, I see the current purchase of HRT by American-Canadian Scorpion Racing concern with a pinch of salt. I understand that what they are really doing is buying a slot, no more no less. They are certainly not buying HRT's race car designs, at least I hope not. In the time HRT was in F1, it just got worse and worse, in spite of drivers`