Many fans say the late ’60s was a high point for road racing in America. Watch this great footage from the Trans-Am series in 1969 and you’ll get some feel for what they’re talking about.
Since there’s no narration in this artistically crafted film segment, we’ll note here that the winner of the Trans-Am race at Donnybrooke Speedway in Minnesota (now known as Brainerd International) on July 6, 1969 was none other than Parnelli Jones driving a Bud Moore-prepared Mustang. It would be the final triumph for Jones that year, as Mark Donohue and his Penske Camaro claimed six of the next seven races. The Mustang vs. Camaro matchup in the original Trans-Am series was one of the great manufacturer battles in racing history.
While the five-minute clip is light on facts or commentary, it does a wonderful job of capturing the atmosphere of American road racing in the late 1960s, with great on-track action and plenty of people watching. (Warning: The photographer employs a degree of lechery that would never fly today.) The road course scene in those days attracted a smart, young crowd that liked to have fun, as you will see. Please enjoy the film.
The first race I attended was Trans-Am in 1970. The one thing this film doesn’t touch on was the incredible array of cars in the parking lot, from Panteras to Pangras.
The late ’60s was special because you could still believe the car on the track was just a rubbed-on version of what you were driving. In my opinion, racing as a whole peaked in the early Nineties with CART, IMSA GTP and Winston Cup. If I knew where it all went wrong I could make millions setting it right. Certainly, being ostracized because you looked at the girls in their hot pants is one of them.
great video but yeah, the camera man would go to the ER
Great clip! Like Andy said, one of the greatest things about this period of racing was that you could really imagine yourself competing. Of course there were factory teams and pros like Penske and Parnelli but you also had independents in the mix; guys who worked on their own cars to run a few races a year. They weren’t at the front of the pack but they had the excitement of mixing it up with the big boys.
So true. Trans-Am cars then were based on real production cars and floor pans, which gave them real showroom character. The closest thing today might be SCCA American Sedan. Hmm, would make a good story.
SCCA still has many of the things that originally drew me to racing, mainly cars that can be built in the backyard and also are reasonably close to a production car. They’ve tanked since “sports cars” went away in the late ’70s and didn’t capitalize on the “hot hatch” trend in the ’90s. Either they have worse management than even Indycar or they just weren’t interested in having factories come in and push the amateurs out as happened in the Sixties. Sorry, but I need the big names in addition to the independents. I don’t know why.
I saw an announcement yesterday that Trans-Am has signed a multi-year with CBS Sports and was initially excited. Then I saw those huge wings and custom nosepieces and decided that I wasn’t interested. I want to see production car racing again. I don’t care if the race is about staying in front wwith only a ten gallon fuel load, I have to be able to buy a car very similar to what’s on the track. The manufacturer that understands this is Mazda and the MX-5 Cup is thriving but they need to have someone to compete against.