Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / History of the Canadian Grand Prix (Part 2)

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History of the Canadian Grand Prix (Part 2) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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BreakFix's History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part
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by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the
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Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of
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Commerce, and the Argettsinger family.
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My name is Tom Wiedemann, and I'm Executive Director at the
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Motor Racing Research Center.
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Today we're going to learn about the exciting 50 years of Formula One
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racing at the Canadian Grand Prix.
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In order of appearance, we're honored to be hearing from
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Lionel Birnbaum and Tim Meadow.
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Lionel is a self taught photojournalist of Ottawa, and he began attending
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motorsports events in the late 1950s.
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He was widely published in most major racing magazines and papers in Canada.
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Road and Track, Car and Driver, and Competition Press in the U.
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S., Autosport and Motorsport, and many other hardcover, softcover
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racing books, including both of Pete Lyon's Can Am books.
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He recently self published The Golden Years of Motorsports.
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In Eastern Canada and the USA, a photographic journey from
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the late 1950s to the 1980s.
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It contains more than 2, 100 photos.
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Thank you, George, for an excellent presentation.
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And I would like to thank Glenda Gephardt and Tom Wiedemann of the IMRRC for
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inviting me to be a panelist on this prestigious discussion group celebrating
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50 years of the Canadian Grand Prix.
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And I mentioned George's excellent presentation.
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As he indicated, many of the photos used in his discussion were photos
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taken by yours truly, and published in Jerry Donaldson's excellent
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book, The Grand Prix of Canada, that covers the years 1967 to 1983.
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In fact, I'm very proud that of the 162 photos in the book, 50 were mine.
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I became interested in cars in the mid 1950s.
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With the emphasis on sports cars and racing.
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Road Track, Car Driver, and Competition Press were the Bibles in those days.
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And I still have more than 50 years of each of Road Track and
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Car Driver, much to the chagrin of my wife, Melanie, in the audience.
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Born in Montreal, my developing passion in sports cars led me to the
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sports car clubs, and specifically the Montreal MG Car Club, as it was
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the most focused on organizing races.
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Not being able to afford to race, I quickly realized the next best thing to
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be in the thick of things was to become a racing journalist and photographer.
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It got me into the pits, as well as right up to the edge
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of the pavement of the track.
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Pure heaven, and I didn't have to pay for an entry ticket.
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After several years of writing letters to racing newspapers and
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magazines, a few editors began to say yes, and some of my photos and
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reports were eventually published.
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My career as a racing journalist and photographer was launched.
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However, this led to my next epiphany.
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That although I loved the sport, the cars, the people, and the travel involved
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in racing, the chances of earning a living from the sport were very slim.
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I therefore became a professional accountant, and
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it solved two problems at once.
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Namely, I could earn a steady, decent living, and also
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afford to indulge my passion.
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Born in Montreal and having lived there for 36 years, I was acutely
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aware of the constant rivalry between Montreal and Toronto, or, more broadly,
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the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
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Whether it was our NHL hockey teams, pro football teams, Major League
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Baseball teams, and of course, sports car racing and the tracks.
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Once they took to a sport, the French Canadians of the province of Quebec were
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very passionate about it, and the relevant excellent stars that they developed.
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This year we're marking the 50th anniversary of Formula 1 in Canada, and
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the first one having taken place in 1967.
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That year was also the 100th anniversary, or centennial, of the
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founding of Canada as a nation.
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The 1967 celebrations of that milestone included Expo 67, the World's Fair
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in Montreal that George mentioned many times, wall to wall festivals,
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parties, and unbridled joy and happiness throughout the city of Montreal.
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What a stark contrast to today's world.
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Mosport is located about 60 miles east of Toronto, and was built in 1961,
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quickly became the leading purpose built road racing track in Canada.
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In 64, it was Montreal's turn, and the construction of Le Circuit Mont
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Tremblant, situated amongst the beautiful ski hills in the Laurentian Mountains,
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was built 90 miles north of Montreal.
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The 67th Centennial, as it approached, the topic in the sports card clubs and
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CASC, the Canadian governing body of the sport, was to get on the calendar
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of the World Championship, or F1.
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What better time to have the first F1 in Canada than in its centennial year?
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The lobbying and politicking between Mosport and Mont Tremblant was
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fierce, and eventually the FIA granted the first ever Canadian Grand Prix
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for F1 cars to Mosport in 1967.
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Mont Tremblant would get the race the following year, and in theory
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the two tracks would hold the Grand Prix in alternate years.
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Reality and many factors soon set in, which George covered quite well.
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And unfortunately, Mont Tremblant and Mosport faded out of the picture.
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This was the beginning years of my career as a photojournalist for racing and cars.
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A good friend of mine in Montreal was a chap called Bob McGregor.
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If not the first, possibly one of the very first to have a network
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show that went right across the country in Canada on radio.
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It was 30 minutes of sports car racing and news and car road
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testing every Monday at about 6.
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30 Monday night.
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He would have correspondents from throughout Canada, the States, and
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Europe reporting on all the major events.
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Bob, he called up Rolls Royce in Montreal one day and said, I'd
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like to do a road test of your car.
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Can I get one?
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Somehow they foolishly agreed.
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And that particular weekend, much to the chagrin of Rolls Royce, they
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didn't realize the car would be going to Watkins Glen for its U.
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S.
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Grand Prix.
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About 50 miles out of Montreal, Bob invited me along for the
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ride, and I said, sure, why not?
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Bob got tired of driving it.
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He said, this is a pile of crap.
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Lionel, why don't you take the wheel?
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Sure, thank you.
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And I drove the rest of the way to the Glen.
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And as we're coming down Highway 14 from Geneva, I pulled
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over the side of the road.
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I said, Bob, I want you to get into the back seat on the passenger side.
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No, Lionel, I'm not.
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Bob, do it.
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He listened to me.
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He didn't know what I was going to come up with, but it was going to be some fun.
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The Glenn Motor Court, as probably most of you know, is on the hill coming into
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town here in the Glenn and was one of the centers of F1 racing throughout the years.
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The teams would book it this year for next year, completely
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sold out a year in advance.
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I drove up in the driveway of the entrance to the Glenn Motor Court.
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Jumped out of the car of gorgeous, gorgeous burgundy with the tan leather
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interior and went around to the rear door, opened it for Bob to get out.
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For those of you that know it, there's a little bit of a driveway that comes in
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right at the front door of the office.
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And immediately next to it is a great big picture window of the office.
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Naturally this car got a bit of attention as we rolled up and my role
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of getting out and opening the door for Bob sort of enhanced it a bit.
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And he went into the office and said, I would like a room for tonight.
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Plain dumb that the Grand Prix was on that weekend.
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They fell over themselves apologizing that the place was full.
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They must have spent over an hour on the phone calling every
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available hotel, motel, B& B within a hundred miles of here.
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And eventually found a place for us.
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We then drove into town.
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Found a parking spot on Franklin Street, which was amazing.
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Parked the car, and Bob took his tape recorder out, standing beside the car,
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doing radio interviews, and for some reason, the only people interviewed were
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these very cute, young looking girls.
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Thank you, Rolls Royce.
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From there, this is the aerial view of Mosport in 1973 at the Can Am, and you can
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see basically the outline of the track.
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And this is the Mont Tremblant aerial view, the actual inaugural Can Am in 66.
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Now, there's an interesting story to this aerial view.
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The promoters hired a helicopter for the press to take them up and
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take aerial views of the track.
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The pilot tried to be very obliging and took off the
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passenger door of the helicopter.
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As we lifted off, I'd never been in a helicopter in my life, but
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I said, wow, this is fantastic.
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He went around the track a few times, and we were talking back and forth.
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He kept asking me where would I like to take the pictures from, where to
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shoot, how to position the helicopter.
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And he got to the end of the track, and just hovered at the hairpin at the
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end, and tilted the helicopter a good 30 degrees, so I could take my picture.
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I was holding on to the frame of the doorless opening with one
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hand, my two feet braced against the dead pedals, and clicking away
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with the camera with my free hand.
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I'm very fortunate, I don't have a fear of heights.
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This is Graham Hill, spun out in the wet, got out of the car, and started
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pushing it down the track, jumped in, and somehow got it restarted.
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An event in the rain that you'll never see today.
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The drivers in those days were very approachable.
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You could go up to the drivers, whether you're pressed or not.
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Nobody was a prima donna.
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This was an image right here in Watkins Glen at the old pits.
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Joe Bonnier on the left, Roy Salvadori on the right.
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And they were having a casual game of cards in between qualifying
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and practice and whatever.
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1960.
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61, the card game continues.
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You'd never see this today.
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John Surtees became one of my favorite people in motor racing.
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In 1965, John had a horrendous accident in a Lola T70, the pre Can Am car at Mosport.
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It was life threatening.
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Miraculously, he recovered before the Formula One season started in 1966.
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And the inaugural Can Am at Mont Tremblant was September of 66, a
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year after this horrendous accident.
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I was out, as usual, around the track shooting.
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My then wife was on top of the control tower at Mont Tremblant for VIP
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spectators and was standing next to another lady during this practice session
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and qualifying and she just said, not knowing who this person was, Isn't it
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wonderful to see John back in a car again?
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The other lady turned to her and said, Thank you.
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And my former wife didn't know what to take from that and said, what do you mean?
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Well, I'm Pat Surtees.
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The rest of the afternoon, they conversed back and forth.
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And at the end of the afternoon, when I got back from shooting on the
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track, I came back to the pit area.
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Met my former wife there.
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And she said, I want you to meet somebody.
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That somebody turned out to be John Surtees.
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He was the most humble man.
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The most ferocious man behind the wheel.
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And yet, he was a complete gentleman.
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And from that point on, every race that I went to that he was at, I made
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a point of going to say hello to him.
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Whether it was a Can Am, whether it was a Formula One, or anything else.
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Fast forward to 1987.
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My new wife, who's in the audience, And I decided we're
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taking a vacation trip to England.
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About a week or two weeks before that, it was one of these London
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show tours that you bought a week's package and everything was arranged.
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But we were gonna add on about ten days prior to that week of just
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touring around the countryside.
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I called up John.
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I said, You probably don't remember me.
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I'm sure you see hundreds, if not thousands, of press people
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and photographers over the year.
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But I was at Mont Tremblant, Mosport, and Watkins Glen.
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Spoke to you quite often.
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We're coming over to England for a vacation.
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If it's at all possible, I'd love to stop by, have a cup
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of tea with you and my wife.
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And no photography, no story, no interviews, nothing.
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Just a personal chat.
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He said, by all means, give me a call when you land here and I'll
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tell you what's going on for my day.
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An overnight flight from Montreal.
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We landed about 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning, got our rental car.
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Fell asleep in a parking lot somewhere and about 9 o'clock woke up and I called John.
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We've arrived, we're here, we're at the airport.
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I'm tied up till 4 o'clock, he said, but please come by then
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and he gave me the directions.
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John lived on a spectacular estate just out of London.
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I believe it was about 90 acres in total.
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All kinds of ponds with swans in them.
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And just an incredible, incredible place.
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He welcomed us as a real gentleman.
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We had a lovely chat.
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He said, would you like to see some of my toys?
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Of course.
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And he took me over to one of the buildings beside his home
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that had, I don't know, about a dozen varieties of Ferrari.
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And I was just drooling all over every one of them.
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And then he said, oh, let's go to the next building, open the door, and here's
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all his world championship motorcycles.
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I was absolutely blown away that this man, this god in racing, would welcome
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me so openly and treat me so beautifully.
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We went back to the house, and he explained that the oldest part of the
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house was from the 13th century, and the newer wing was from the 15th century.
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He would love to have us stay overnight, but the guest suite is being renovated.
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But please come back when you're through your touring outside of London.
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Before you go to London, we'll invite you for dinner.
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I thanked him profusely.
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I said, absolutely, we would do that.
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And he said, by the way, I've arranged, since I couldn't put you folks up here
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tonight, there's an inn down the road, the Henry VIII Inn, a bed and breakfast.
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We got there, the place was amazing.
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Again, I thanked him profusely.
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We were ushered into the Anne Boleyn room, one of the eight wives, I guess.
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Everything was wall to wall red velvet.
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It was mind blowing.
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Went down for breakfast the next morning, had a lovely English breakfast.
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And we were ready to check out.
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I went down to the front desk.
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I said, I'd like to settle my bill.
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Oh, that's quite alright, Mr.
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Birnbaum.
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Mr.
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Sirtis has taken care of this.
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My jaw dropped to the floor.
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I just couldn't believe his hospitality.
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I don't claim or pretend to be a media star, but this was just overwhelming.
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We went and did our thing for the next 10 days, came back, called up John.
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I said, we're through touring and if you'd like we could come by.
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You suggested the possibility of dinner.
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He says, yes, we have it all arranged.
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Please come by.
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His formal dining room must have been 50 to 75 feet long without exaggeration.
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Longer, almost as long as the entire auditorium.
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And the table was the full length.
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He had set one place for himself and his new wife, Jane, who happened to be
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the nurse that nursed him through his recovery of the accident at Mosport.
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He was set up at the far end of the table and had Melanie and I
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set up at this end of the table.
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We all had a great laugh out of that.
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And then he moved the two play settings down and we had a wonderful dinner.
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Wonderful chat back and forth.
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I was just overwhelmed.
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And this is the kind of driver and superstar in motorsport
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that I don't think exists today.
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These were truly the golden years.
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He was amazing.
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As a professional accountant, I am acutely aware that at the end of the
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day, dollars and the economics greatly impact each and every endeavor, and
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eventually drive the direction of its development, no matter what it is.
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This fundamental concept was certainly true in our beloved sport
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a half century ago, and still today.
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Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm for Mosport and Mont Tremblant, as the
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years unfolded, it became apparent that neither of those tracks were financially
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viable, nor could they meet the rapidly escalating costs of a Grand Prix weekend.
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Fortunately for us all, the municipal, provincial, and federal politicians,
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Montreal, the province of Quebec, and the federal people in Canada,
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miraculously agreed on one thing and the Canadian Grand Prix found a
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permanent home in Montreal in 1978.
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It is still held there today and will be into the foreseeable future.
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It has been reported that well over a hundred thousand spectators pay to see
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the race on race day in Montreal and the week long activities that go on and the
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parties and all the closed streets events in downtown Montreal Generate some 90
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million dollars for the city's economy.
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Numbers that neither Mosport nor Mont Tremblant could ever match.
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So I'm getting into some of the drivers in Canada, the manufacturers, the teams.
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A gentleman in Montreal called Peter Broker, who sold and manufactured
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performance exhaust systems for sports cars and sedans in the late 50s, early
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60s, called the Stebro exhaust system.
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And he built a Formula Junior called the Stebro Formula Junior.
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In those days, the Formula Junior specs were very close to the F1 of that season.
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And he did whatever mods he had to do, entered it here at
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Watkins Glen, was accepted.
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So really, this is the first Canadian built Formula One car that ever raced.
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The next gentleman is Peter Ryan.
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His father had a hotel, a ski resort, in the Mont Tremblant area
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way before the track was built.
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His father was from Philadelphia, Joe Ryan, an American.
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Peter was born in the States, but grew up in the Mont Tremblant area.
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He was a downhill ski champion.
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And was incredibly fast, won many Canadian championships.
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And the year that the Olympics came up, there was a great controversy
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as to whether he could enter the Olympics as a Canadian or an American.
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Eventually he didn't race in the Olympics and he turned to cars, fortunately for us.
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So Peter, in the early 60s, he had a Porsche 550 RS as his
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first toy that he drove around the twisties in Mont Tremblant.
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And the skiing helped him to feel whatever was under him that
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was on the edge of adhesion.
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and developed his control and his talent of the car enormously
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from that skiing exercise.
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He had the Porsche RS, then he got an RS60.
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He had a tremendous dice with Roger Penske at Lime Rock.
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Roger then had a Birdcage Maserati, and they had a
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tremendous dice the entire race.
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Roger won it, Peter was second.
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Roger invited Peter into the car for the flag victory lap.
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The sportsmanship was fantastic in those days.
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Peter then got a Lotus 19, came to Mosport before there was a Formula One, but
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they called it the Canadian Grand Prix.
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Sterling Moss was there in a similar Lotus 19.
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I believe the first year they called it a Lotus Monte Carlo.
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Pedro Rodriguez had a three liter Ferrari, a V12, and there was a
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number of other international stars.
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Peter won the race, beating Moss, put on an enormous show.
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His talent was fantastic.
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Colin Chapman heard about it, and signed him up to have a season in Europe
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in the Formula Junior Lotus Series.
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That was just the developing stages for Formula One.
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Things went awry, and long story short, in one of the races at Reims in
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France, Peter was killed in that car.
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He would have been one of the first Canadian superstars, without a doubt,
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but we lost him before we had a chance.
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The other people that have competed or been in Formula One, Bill Brack
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in the high back wing car, I believe it was the Lotus, competed three
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times in the Canadian Grand Prix, and they were all rent a rides.
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Epi Weets was a rent a ride in one of the years, and under
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the auspices of Team Canada.
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Al Pease, that George mentioned, had a ride in Formula One,
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and didn't show too well.
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George Eaton, he bought a ride with BRM, and he didn't show
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too much in his various years.
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Phil Villeneuve's brother, Jacques, not his son, and he tried on, I think
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it was two occasions, in the Arrows, to qualify for the F1 in Montreal,
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and he just wasn't fast enough.
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But he did try.
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The last race at Mosport in 1977, and George mentioned this, Jody
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Schechter won it in the Wolf.
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Walter Wolf, who was originally from Austria, made a fortune with oil
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drilling equipment before he moved to Montreal, became a car enthusiast
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that went on to building his own car.
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He bought up 60 percent of the Williams team that year, and the team that
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James Hunt was involved with was going out of business, so he bought
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up the assets of that, and that became the basis of the Wolf team.
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Here we are in Montreal, Jill in the Ferrari and the wolf behind, and I believe
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that's Kiki Rosberg, whose son, Nico, won the World Championship last year.
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Jill Villeneuve in his younger days, very personable, very down to earth individual.
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He started his career on snowmobiles and snowmobile racing.
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And like Peter Ryan, he felt the edge of adhesion and control.
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On ice and snow, and that brought him into four wheels.
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He started with a Formula Ford, and he immediately began winning races.
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Moved up to Formula Atlantic.
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He was fearless.
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Nobody would push him off the track.
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Nobody would gain an inch on him if he could avoid it.
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And he went on to bigger and better things and eventually Formula One.
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Jody and Joe were teammates for Ferrari.
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They were the best of friends.
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Jody referred to him at his funeral in the eulogy as one of the fastest racing
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driver in the history of motorsport.
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He was absolutely adored in Quebec.
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He grew up in Montreal, or just east of Montreal, in Bircherville.
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The next year in Montreal, Alan Jones won the race, and they had a fantastic race.
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There was no trying to push anybody off the track.
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Good, clean racing, wheel to wheel racing.
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Alan won it, and he wanted to hold Jill's hand up to say he deserves
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a lot of the applause as well.
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Great friendship, great sportsmanship.
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Gilles never gave up, never quit.
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He would just keep going, he'd beat the hell out of a car, he'd extract
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the absolute best you could ever get out of a car, and this is what
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made him such an amazing driver.
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And young Jacques, his son, that later got into Formula One and
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actually won the World Championship.
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Of the 40, 000 images I have in my historic collection, this, without
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a doubt, is my absolute favorite.
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Gilles winning, his hands up, the flag, the banner.
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The crowd behind and I must admit that I had a bit of a, an input into
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how the picture was put together.
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I went to the flag marshal about five or ten laps from the end and it looked like
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Joe was pretty certainly going to win it.
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I said, look, don't start waving the flag when he's a half mile down the track.
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I want you to time it so that you just about hit him over the
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head with the checkered flag as he crosses the finish line.
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I went down about a couple of hundred feet from the finish line, got right
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up at the guardrail, pushed people out of the way, I didn't give a damn.
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I was gonna get this picture.
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It's my absolute favorite, it's been on magazine covers, it's in my book.
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It just tells the whole story.
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And now we'll go to just some wrap up pictures.
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A very early portrait of Jim Clark.
26:02
Phenomenal racer.
26:04
You could see the difference in the helmets, the face goggles.
26:07
The so called driving suit.
26:09
I don't even know if it was fireproof in those days.
26:12
This is about 1960 or 61.
26:14
Here is Bruce McLaren in one of his early races.
26:18
This is an overhead of Jackie Stewart in the BRM.
26:23
And this was technically called an H 16, I believe was the designation.
26:29
A 16 cylinder motor.
26:31
This was a race at Mont Tremblant, one of the double winged, split
26:35
in the middle and flexible, and that's the smaller front wing.
26:39
And this was the only split wing in the rear, I believe.
26:44
The strut went right down to the suspension member on both
26:48
sides, whereas the other ones would go straight to the frame.
26:52
And what that did, as the rear suspension on one side moved, half of the rear
26:57
wing could move in the same direction.
27:00
The double wing cars and the high wings were gone the next year,
27:03
but for the techies, I guess they love that kind of picture.
27:07
Jackie Stewart in his earlier days, in his famous cap.
27:11
Jackie Ickx winning the event at Mont Tremblant.
27:15
Denny Youn.
27:16
This was the start of one of the races at Mosport.
27:20
I forgot to mention that with Jill.
27:22
I happen to be up in the press room.
27:25
and was watching as they came around this almost 90 degree
27:28
turn onto the pit straight.
27:30
Joe was in a Formula Atlantic pre F1 days, and he lost it.
27:34
And as Sterling Moss said, you don't know if you're going fast enough until
27:39
you lose control of the car, and then you'd know you've gone over the line.
27:43
Joe would test that just about every race, every day.
27:47
He lost it coming around onto the pit straight.
27:50
This was not a wall at that time.
27:52
It was just a barrier dividing the track from what was the pit just behind it.
27:57
And I looked down at the track, and Joe came around, did a complete 360,
28:02
and was backing into the barrier, dividing the track from the pits.
28:07
And I was looking down at him, and I saw his hand grab the shift leader.
28:10
Before he stopped rolling backwards, he had it in first gear, he glanced
28:14
down the track to see if anybody was coming, let the clutch out,
28:18
and went screaming down the track.
28:20
I don't think that entire episode lasted two to three seconds, but it's
28:25
been burned in my memory ever since.
28:27
What he could have done, and the timing, was just phenomenal.
28:31
Colin Chapman on the left, and Ken Tyrell chatting in the pits very casually.
28:37
Two superstars, very well known people.
28:40
Roger Penske and Mark Donnie.
28:42
What an amazing pair that just had the most incredible marriage in terms of
28:48
the driver, the car, the team owner, and what they could do together.
28:53
Then we have the first and only six wheel car ever to race, the Tyrrell.
28:58
I believe that was Patrick Depay at Mosport.
29:01
He's just coming into the pit lane.
29:03
James Hunt, I was experimenting with some very tight close up shots as they whizzed
29:09
by, and panning with the camera, even with the good speeds of the lens in those days.
29:14
Sometimes I was on with the focus, and sometimes I wasn't, more often than not.
29:19
But this time I was on and it's a beautiful picture.
29:22
Nicky Lauda in the Ferrari.
29:25
Alan Jones in the Williams.
29:28
But that's one of the enormous sculptures that was on the
29:31
site in Montreal at Expo 67.
29:33
And was there for a long time.
29:35
I'm not sure if it's still there or not.
29:37
79 in Montreal.
29:40
Alan Jones won the race.
29:42
And went on the victory lap with the flag.
29:45
This is a picture I enjoy, not because he wrecked the car, but Rene Arnoux and the
29:50
Renault Elf stuffed it into the guardrail, got out and started walking away, and I
29:56
just caught that expression on his face.
29:58
Oh my goodness, what have I done?
30:00
My French is lousy.
30:02
Unfortunately, this picture doesn't show everything, except the drag strip
30:07
that's going down pit lane at Mont Tremblant, and it says, Happy Motoring.
30:12
And that is my presentation.
30:14
Thank you.
30:14
Applause
30:20
And now, I'll introduce Tim, and it's his turn.
30:23
Okay, turning to Tim.
30:25
Tim was a pit and paddock marshal as well as a flagger for four years of mass sport.
30:30
He then worked as a flagger at every station in Montreal
30:34
until his last race in 2012.
30:36
Overall, he has worked at 65 Formula One races in Canada or the United
30:41
States, including the first United States Grand Prix at Austin in 2012.
30:46
Since I came back from Germany in 1967, I've flagged for the
30:52
first Canadian Grand Prix.
30:54
I went up intentionally just as a spectator because I'd only got back into
30:58
the United States the Friday before.
31:01
So, I missed the U.
31:02
S.
31:02
Grand Prix that year because I was mustering out at Fort Dix.
31:08
I got up to Canada and bumped into the paddock marshals.
31:13
The one in charge knew me from Europe and invited me to be a
31:17
paddock marshal for the weekend.
31:19
Sure, why not?
31:20
At that time, they were called Perry's Merry Men, and I got to look after
31:25
the Ferrari team for the weekend.
31:27
Good start.
31:28
Didn't know anything about that part of racing.
31:31
At that time, I was...
31:32
I'd driven race go karts when I was a kid, and did a lot of
31:36
high speed stuff in Germany.
31:38
But I had the opportunity to get involved.
31:42
The following year, they'd gone to St.
31:44
Gervais, did Perry's Merry Men for that one again.
31:47
But in the meantime, I'd become a flagger in the U.
31:50
S.
31:51
I did two years as a paddock marshal, and then I flagged all
31:56
the rest of the races at Mosport.
31:58
I actually flagged every station at Mosport, too, in different categories.
32:04
In F1, I worked Station 2, the day the Ernie Strong and
32:09
James Hunt thing happened.
32:12
And Station 2 3 is where it happened.
32:15
James Hunt was upset because he had been punted off.
32:19
He didn't go off on his own, he was helped.
32:22
And James wanted to punch out the helper.
32:27
And that's when Ernie Strong tried to grab him and prevent him from doing that.
32:31
James just came around and knocked Ernie down and I kind of just chuckled.
32:36
I said, Ernie, you weren't paying attention.
32:39
Ha, ha, ha.
32:40
That turn is a blind, hellish turn.
32:43
You go through two and drop down.
32:46
You go into no man's land.
32:48
And in six hour racing up there, there had been a few fatal accidents where
32:54
somebody went over the hump, went all the way out to the guardrail, which was almost
33:01
150 yards away, and still got killed.
33:05
I've been involved in an awful lot of that type of thing in my years.
33:10
In the early era of racing that we're talking about the most
33:14
part, we were losing two drivers and two flaggers every year.
33:19
And that was basically all of the late, late 60s, early 70s, all the way
33:26
through almost to the end of the 70s.
33:28
That ratio was keeping up throughout the world, you know,
33:31
I mean, it was a dangerous game.
33:34
But I still loved it.
33:35
Maybe I'm not all here, but taking risks, doing that type of danger, is the
33:42
only reason I wanted to work Formula 1.
33:44
And it's the only reason I've done 65 Formula 1 Grands Prix as a flagger.
33:50
Two is a paddock marshal.
33:51
One is an intelligent observer.
33:54
Somebody that's helping corporate.
33:57
That wasn't in Canada.
33:59
After Mosport, we went to Montreal.
34:02
I don't remember when these bibs started, but I have 10, 11, 12, and I
34:09
know I've got a lot more, but they're not stored in any particular order.
34:14
All the ones I brought, these are Canadian.
34:16
The reason we got these, those numbers, the TV camera can pick them up.
34:22
Very easily.
34:23
So if you do something bad, you're never coming back.
34:26
And you might even be fined or kicked out of Canada.
34:30
We had one flagger that picked up a piece of a car at an accident scene.
34:36
Wasn't a valuable piece.
34:37
Wasn't worth anything.
34:39
But he was asked to leave Canada and never come back.
34:42
Heh heh heh.
34:43
These bibs serve a purpose.
34:45
And it's not what you'd think.
34:47
You know, Sitting here, I realized, Even though this is an aerated
34:51
fabric, it looks, They're hot!
34:53
Now that I think about it, I remember that from wearing them.
34:56
No matter how good your, uh, Flag suit was, and, Of course I flagged
35:01
with full Nomex, That's hot.
35:04
But you put this on and it's even hotter.
35:06
I did every race in Montreal up through 2013, except for the one
35:16
year that the two Canadian governing bodies couldn't get along, and they
35:22
decided that they were going to hire flaggers of them off the street in
35:27
Montreal, and all of us real flaggers.
35:31
Got a free grandstand seat at the grandstands that had just
35:35
been built inside the hairpin.
35:38
Those grandstands are now, you know, people have to order the tickets a
35:43
year in advance or more to get them.
35:45
Because that's a very valuable seat.
35:47
The ones around the outside, they're valuable, but nothing
35:50
like the one on the inside.
35:51
The only people in that set of the grandstands were QRFA flaggers.
35:56
The people that normally would have been flagging.
35:58
The Formula One drivers.
36:00
were well aware of the situation, so they would only rely on the
36:06
blue flagging that was being done from the grandstands in that turn.
36:11
The rest of the track, they just took it easy that year.
36:14
They weren't going to make any mistakes, they weren't going to do anything that
36:18
would risk getting hurt, because they knew there was nobody looking after them.
36:23
D.
36:24
D.
36:24
Perroni was still the head of the GPDA at that time.
36:27
And he stopped in the morning warm up and got out of his car and
36:33
came over and stood and waved to the flaggers in the grandstands.
36:37
Because he knew that's where we were.
36:40
He just wanted us to know that he knew we were there and he was
36:44
going to pay attention to us.
36:45
It was a good feeling.
36:47
Formula One drivers are far and away the most observant to work with.
36:52
These bibs, some of them are chief deputy post or chief post.
36:57
But this is blue flag marshal.
36:59
That's actually the most important flagger in the business.
37:03
The chief post is important because he's running the station.
37:07
But the blue flagger is the one who saves the driver's life.
37:10
He's the first one to go to a crash.
37:13
We see it coming, developing, we know it's gonna happen right there.
37:17
Because...
37:18
We're the ones looking into the driver's eyes as they're coming into our turn.
37:22
Where most everybody else in the turn is panning, watching traffic go by.
37:27
We're concentrating on the eyes of the cars coming at
37:30
us, and the cars behind them.
37:33
And we're listening, so we know where every car is.
37:36
A good blue flagger knows where every car is on a racetrack all the time.
37:41
There are a lot of blind turns, especially at Montreal.
37:44
4A, 5, 6, 7 complex.
37:47
Coming down at the back straight, it's where, uh, there's been
37:51
several accidents over the years.
37:53
You will only get to see the car that you're gonna blue flag for 4.
37:58
3 seconds.
37:59
In that amount of time, you have to know where the car is that just came out of 4,
38:05
or is by 4A, that's enough faster to where he's going to lap this guy coming into 6.
38:12
So you don't have much time to do this.
38:14
You don't really see the cars.
38:17
You have to hear them.
38:18
You have to know who's who.
38:20
And when they start pit cycle, you have to pick up on all the pit cycles.
38:25
Luckily, now, they do give the Blue Flagger, uh, radio.
38:31
When they first started giving Blue Flagger's information,
38:34
they would say, Blue Flag 18.
38:37
We don't know car numbers, you can't see car numbers on the Formula One cars
38:41
up until two years ago, they finally put numbers on the front of the car, to
38:46
where you can actually see the number.
38:49
We just know the helmets and the car.
38:51
We get a cheat sheet, which has a picture of every car and every helmet.
38:56
And we memorize that.
38:58
Because there's only 22 cars.
39:00
We can handle 22.
39:01
Alright, the Gerrier race that Villeneuve won, that was fairly a dry race.
39:08
The next year was an awfully wet race.
39:12
And Gerrier was driving for Ligier.
39:15
and ran away and hid.
39:16
We were still running on the original, the first track, before they
39:21
changed and put the, uh, casino in.
39:24
When they put the casino in, two turns changed drastically.
39:29
There was a chicane at the beginning of it, the elevation changed up to where the
39:34
casino was, and then the drop down and the right hand turn after that were gone.
39:40
They were really the two nicest turns on the track.
39:44
Artful turn, going up a hill, down, and they were gone because of the casino.
39:50
Jerry A.
39:51
did that race, the whole race, in a pouring rainstorm.
39:55
It was still September, October, so it was cold, like 43 degrees.
40:01
It was really neat because I was working that station, which at that
40:05
time was, the hook at the bottom was station 3, because the old start
40:10
finish used to be where 12 is now.
40:13
They had one year where they had an endurance race.
40:16
I've never gone up for the NASCAR ones they ran there, but they were in the wet.
40:21
You know, watching it on TV, they were great races.
40:24
Because NASCAR doesn't race in the rain, and they proved they could.
40:28
But, I've worked every station at Montreal.
40:32
As you go through most of those turns, it's a chicane to a straightaway,
40:35
chicane to a straightaway, chicane to a straightaway.
40:40
The speeds coming into the last turn before start finish, if you watch it on
40:46
TV, what the car is doing when he makes up his mind to go in the pits or stay on the
40:52
race course, they're at 182 miles an hour.
40:56
They make that chicane at 65.
41:00
If they want to go in the pits, they can go straight into the pits at 98.
41:05
Until they get past the speed drop point, where they have to be down to
41:09
75, which is race day speed in the pits.
41:12
Earlier, on Friday and Saturday, pit speed is like 35 or 40,
41:18
depends on how they set it.
41:20
They program the car so the driver just pushes a button
41:24
that he's going into the pit.
41:26
When he pushes that button, it almost turns the engine backwards to stop it.
41:32
The driver doesn't have to use much brakes.
41:34
It just stops itself.
41:36
The fuel filler comes up when they were doing fueling.
41:39
Soon as he hit that button, down the car goes, and up comes the door.
41:45
Now, of course, they're back to real racing where they run the
41:48
full race on 57 gallons of gas.
41:51
As opposed to when they were refueling, they never carried
41:55
more than 35 at the most.
41:57
You know, that's extra weight.
41:59
But you think about them today.
42:01
They start the race with 57 gallons of fuel.
42:05
57 times 8.
42:07
By the end of the race, that car has lost 300 pounds.
42:11
So that's why the fastest laps are always set.
42:14
Right near the end, and who's gonna do it?
42:16
Kimi Raikkonen always does it.
42:18
He's the best at waiting till the car is light to get the maximum out of it.
42:24
But he almost always sets the fastest lap of a race.
42:27
He doesn't win any races because he's not allowed to.
42:30
He's the number two man on the team.
42:32
And that's Formula 1.
42:34
Let's see, what else do we know about Mossport?
42:37
I've been there for several bad accidents.
42:39
You don't like to think about, but it comes up every once in a while.
42:44
Somebody wants to talk about an accident that happened at the start.
42:48
I'm well versed in it.
42:50
Didier Perroni was the bullsetter.
42:53
And Riccardo Pellevi was the unfortunate who was dead last on the grid.
42:59
And couldn't see the waved hands from Peroni.
43:02
Blew his clutch on the start, and he's waving his hand.
43:05
Everybody else could see it, but the person way at the back tried to follow.
43:10
That shut us down for an hour and a half.
43:12
Those type of things happen in racing.
43:15
But anymore, it's, you know, it's been a long time.
43:18
The day that...
43:19
Senna was killed.
43:20
I was working one of the last nationals at Bridgehampton.
43:24
We had, I think, four last nationals at Bridgehampton before it finally stopped.
43:30
That was Formula One's last real fatal until two years ago, when
43:35
the guy ran into the cherry picker that was out moving a vehicle.
43:40
And they were under a full course caution when he did it.
43:43
He obviously forgot where he was or what was going on.
43:46
And it's too bad, we lost a good young man.
43:49
We have to be there within 12 seconds.
43:52
If the car's on fire, you've only got 12 seconds to save his life.
43:56
That fire suit is only good for 12 seconds in a 57 gallon fuel tank.
44:02
Gasoline burns pretty hot.
44:04
At least we can see it.
44:05
Unlike Indy cars, where you can't see the flame, there you can only look for
44:10
white driver suits that turn brown.
44:12
Or you look for the heat wave.
44:14
Then you know things are bad.
44:16
But, as Sterling Moss said over here one year when we had the legend speak,
44:21
he said, racing is too safe today.
44:24
People don't realize how dangerous it really is.
44:28
And as someone who's been very close to the danger all these years and picked up
44:33
too many pieces, I still love the sport, and I love it the way it is meant to be.
44:43
And I'm sure some of you have some questions.
44:47
I'm trying to remember the year in Montreal that Bobby Rahal drove and it had
44:51
an incident on Friday and damaged his car.
44:55
The team had a car that was an older car on display downtown in a shopping mall or
45:00
a hotel lobby, and they had to go get it.
45:03
And he raced that car.
45:04
They worked all night.
45:05
I didn't have to go bail him out, so it wasn't my problem.
45:09
I was probably there.
45:11
I think I've heard the story now that you mention it, but I
45:14
have no idea what was behind it.
45:16
Did he race twice there or just once?
45:19
Maybe it's 79.
45:20
Definitely once.
45:21
Yeah.
45:22
Again, I'm hazy on the...
45:24
It was with Walter Wolf.
45:25
78, because the results I showed...
45:27
Yeah.
45:29
10 on the field there.
45:30
Yeah, it was one of those two years, but the car was damaged heavily, and
45:34
they had a display car in, uh, I think it was a hotel lobby, and they had
45:38
to go get it, and truck it out to the track, and change the motor, and put
45:41
a transmission in it, and they worked all night to get him to qualify.
45:45
It was on display at the museum, 80 miles up the river.
45:48
So they had to run to the museum and grab it.
45:50
What do you think of the updates?
45:52
Mossport, last couple years.
45:54
Guardrails, moving the meeting center over the wall.
45:57
You know, the other side of the track.
45:58
The extension of the pit lane, moving the victory lane circle.
46:01
As you mentioned, the control tower is now on the outside of the last turn.
46:05
The presentations are way off at the end of the paddock near turn one.
46:10
Turn two.
46:11
That goes down and drops off Camber and continues up the hill if you get through
46:17
that part of it has a huge runoff now.
46:19
The S is coming into the final 90 degree onto the pit straight has
46:24
been opened up tremendously for people that don't survive the S.
46:30
There have been a number of...
46:31
Paul came around the S's, and it's a left hander before you do the
46:36
right hander onto the pit straight.
46:38
His back end came around, and he was 90 degrees faced to the guardrail,
46:43
right where the tunnel was.
46:45
And I have a picture, it was way out of focus, but I have this
46:49
little tiny image going straight up in the air as it was launching.
46:52
The car went over the guardrail and landed upside down.
46:57
He survived with, I think, a broken arm.
46:59
But that tunnel is now widened to two cars wide.
47:03
It used to be one, and there was one way traffic at that time.
47:07
My comment, for the first part of your question, the new ownership built
47:10
new buildings on the outfield side.
47:14
It's primarily for hospitality.
47:16
Decided that they would make one of the rooms function as a media room.
47:20
And I know this is inside baseball, but for you and I, it's a disaster.
47:24
You can't see anything, hardly at all.
47:26
The PA people are there, they can't see anything.
47:28
If you're going to report on the race other than just off the television
47:32
screens, you have to get across the little bridge, over into the paddock.
47:35
The podium is another half mile away.
47:38
It's just a disaster.
47:40
I'll not give it any other adjective.
47:42
I think as a hospitality thing, probably good.
47:44
But whoever designed that didn't have a clue when it came to dealing with MIDI.
47:48
But that's inside baseball.
47:49
That's you and me.
47:50
I listened to my answer about where the car came from.
47:54
when Ray Hall had the practice crash.
47:56
I think I'm mistaken.
47:58
It wouldn't have been a wolf car in Villanova's museum.
48:01
I'll get back to you.
48:03
Did any of you either have, uh, conversations at all with
48:06
Mark Donahue through the years?
48:08
Many times.
48:09
Mark used to teach driver's school for us up here with the Glenn Region SCCA.
48:15
He was our open wheel instructor.
48:18
And so I had a lot of talk with him at various times.
48:21
I had talk with him at Seneca Lodge over breakfast a couple of times.
48:26
He was a very knowledgeable, nice engineer.
48:30
He didn't understand my theory of full cantilever suspension when I
48:35
told Tim Mayer how to do it, and he built a car and put Mark in it, and
48:40
Mark says, Oh, that's too complicated.
48:42
We don't have time to figure that out.
48:44
And that was Mark's only drive for McLaren at Mossport.
48:48
71.
48:49
Yeah, but he didn't understand the full cantilever suspension,
48:54
so he put back on the old...
48:56
There were a lot of people who were confused about the
48:58
developments of the suspension.
48:59
The Lola was a disaster, which was also because of its suspension.
49:03
But, I'm the one who gave it to Tim Mayer.
49:06
It sounds like we could really go on for hours, and we're going to, but let me...
49:10
Thank these wonderful gentlemen for a terrific presentation.
49:13
Thank you.
49:16
And invite you all to join us back over at the research center where our staff
49:19
member, Sam Baker, has prepared some refreshments for you and these guys
49:23
will be available for more questions.
49:24
Thanks very much.
49:28
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