Video: A Tour of the Can-Am Paddock at Road Atlanta, 1972

Posted on by

LM-PorscheREVISED AND UPDATED – This short film provides a priceless, close-up look at the Can-Am scene in 1972. Don’t miss this, vintage racing fans. 

 

 

This awesome little film-to-video,  produced by motorsports photographer Gordon Jolley, reportedly on 8mm home movie stock in its original form, is a tour of the paddock area at the Road Atlanta Can-Am event on the weekend of July 9, 1972. It’s only four minutes long, but in that four minutes we see quite a bit:

+   Detail shots of the UOP Shadow, Penske Porsche, Gulf McLaren, Otto Zipper Alfa Romeo T33/4, and others. And some amazing sights, including the McKee-Hodges Can-Am racer of Jerry Hodges, equipped with a GMC 6-71 blower (at around 3:33.)

+   Up-close and personal glimpses of the drivers, including Denny Hulme, Peter Revson, George Follmer, and Francois Cevert.  Check out the great bit with Revson and Cevert meeting the ladies.

All in all, the film is a rare snapshot of a golden time in motorsports, the likes of which we will never see again. Please enjoy the video. (An earlier version of this piece appeared at Mac’s Motor City Garage on Dec. 19, 2013.) 

 

6 thoughts on “Video: A Tour of the Can-Am Paddock at Road Atlanta, 1972”

    • The audience has multiplied in a fairly short time and we feel there’s some good stuff folks may have missed. Thanks for coming along!

    • Lots of familiar old friends and faces here, sadly some of them long gone. My favorite is the very brief appearance of Ruth Nixon in the Shadow area right near the start. Don and Ruth Nixon were two world class timing and scoring people who were part of the Shadow operation from the very beginning. Ranked right there with Judy Stropus, Sylvia Wilkinson, and Chris Syfert as the great secret sources of info for the real working press.

  2. Excellent video. I never got to see the Cam Am run at Road Atlanta but starting in 1980 I have seen some amazing races there.

  3. What is the car #25 with the blower and zoomies? About 3 38 in. Comes in in a cloud of smoke.
    It amazes me these days all those big engines with no airfilters. A bit of dust may not hurt much but the shower of stones being sucked down those big ram tubes must have!

  4. Stumbled on your site googling about smokey’s reverse rotation special…found a brilliantly written article on that subject -took the time to subscribe to your site- glad i did you guys are badasses

Comments are closed.