Re: more less-is-more, plus various-

[George Graves <gmgraves@domain.elided>]

on 5/11/02 7:36 PM, alfa-digest at owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided wrote:

> Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 22:39:29 -0400
> From: "John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>
> Subject: more less-is-more, plus various-

> George Graves and I continued a partially off-digest dialogue on the Ferrari
> 156 business; of course he knew about the Ferrari 156, and was just mixing
> contexts from different threads, which can happen easily enough. He did not
> know of a 156 V-12, which I don't either. Email exchanges unfortunately do not
> always encourage a contemplative approach. It is the most frustrating thing to
> me about the digest; it would often be nice to take an extra day, or week, to
> reread prior contributions, check facts, and sort out thoughts before
> committing a response to paper, but that world seems to be gone.

I agree, and thanks for the clarification.
> 
> Nick is also correct that he "may have eras and models muddled" in remembering
> Bandini's fatal crash at Monaco as having been in a sharknose. Bandini joined
> the Ferrari team in 1962, drove a flat 12 to second at Monaco in '65, then a
> 2.5 liter V-6 Ferrari to second place in '66, and died in a 3 liter V12 in
> 1967.

Having seen that fatal accident with my own eyes, I can tell you its an
image that I will take with me to my grave. One thing about the accident
that I have never seen discussed is the part that ABC's "Wide World of
Sports" played in Bandini's death. Here's what I saw. Bandini's car had hit
the retaining wall, and bounced back to the middle of the track where it was
burning, slightly. Bandini was obviously injured, but I saw him move, so I
know that he was still alive. Several safety workers had made their way to
the car and were tying to extract the hapless driver from the wreck.
Suddenly an ABC camera helicopter appeared overhead and came down low so
that the cameraman could get a good overhead shot of the proceedings. I
could see the effects of the prop-wash from the 'copter blades blow the
track-worker's hair and fan the flames of Bandini's car around. Inspired by
the rush of air from the helicopter blades, the flames leapt from the rear
engine bay of the Ferrari engulfing the whole car. The track workers, who
had Bandini about half-way out of his cockpit by now, were forced by the
heat, to drop him back into his seat, and an instant later the car was
engulfed in flame and Bandini couldn't be seen any more. I've thought about
this often during the ensuing years and it is my firm conviction that if the
helicopter hadn't been there, they would have been able to get Bandini out
before the car was engulfed. Of course I have no way of knowing the extent
of the man's injuries, he might have died in hospital later, anyway. But he
didn't get the chance to die (or not) of his injuries. He was killed by the
fire, a fire fanned into a conflagration by an ABC camera helicopter.

> Road & Track used to be one of the few consumer magazines which
> published an annual index, which they did from 1959 to 1990; they are neither
> consistent nor as well organized as they might be, but they can be fairly
> useful, and I photocopied all of them for looseleaf notebooks and a later
> database. Perhaps a google search would have matched the dates and cars of
> Bandini's career even more quickly, but then I would have missed the context
> of what the magazine, the cars, drivers, events, and writers of the period
> were; nothing takes the place of Henry Manney, or of any of the rest of it,
> for me. If that makes me obsolete as a hardcopy person in a cyberworld, so be
> it.

I agree with you here. Both Road & Track and Car & Driver were GREAT
magazines in those days. R & T had Henry Manny and Dick O'Kane (not to
mention Bob Cumberford - remember Commendatore Piero Martini and his
fabulous Cyclops?) and Car & Driver had good writers too. The magazines,
today, are a mere shadow of what they were. To find magazines as interesting
as those were in the '60's one has to buy British these days.
> 
> Four of the core books in my non-Alfa car library are the two volumes of
> Laurence Pomeroy's "The Grand Prix Car", L.J.K.Setright's "The Grand Prix Car
> 1954-1966" which is a serious and useful attempt to pick up where Pomeroy left
> off, and Griffith Borgeson's "The Golden Age of the American Racing Car." They
> are now joined by two others: Karl Ludvigssen has written "Classic Grand Prix
> Cars: the Front-Engined Formula 1 Era 1906-1960" and "Classic Racing Engines",
> each a bit over 200 pages and each with a very respectable index; the 'Cars'
> volume has a brief but useful bibliography, the 'Engines' volume has a
> glossary which a dedicated gearhead might consider superficial, but which
> should be useful for many others. The 'Engines' volume treats fifty engines
> one engine at a time, in chronological (and technological) sequence, and
> includes the Alfa tipo B, 159, and 3-liter flat 12, along with Jano's Lancia
> D-50, the Porsche-designed Cisitalia 1.5 flat 12, three Maseratis and six
> Ferraris. The 'Cars' volume has a necessarily more open structure. Neither
> book will be completely beyond criticism, but they both go a long way in
> placing our favorite Alfa (and other Italian) topics in an international and
> historic context. It is relatively easy to know a great deal about Alfa, or
> Ferrari, or Porsche, or any other topic, without having a clue about the
> contexts. If you are not already familiar with them these two may be worth a
> look.
> 
> Enjoy,
> 
> John H.
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided