|
 13 Jul 2006, 03:52
|
To read more about the 22nd National Garden Railway Convention you
can view the article here.
|
Santa Clara was the site of the 2006 edition of the National Garden Railway Convention. The Bay Area Garden Railway Society would serve as its host. Santa Clara is in Silicon Valley which is just south of San Francisco and around 20 minutes from where I live. Though I don't currently have a garden railway and none is planned for the foreseeable future I couldn't let this opportunity pass. Because it was held the week of the 4th of July holiday and I would be returning from Las Vegas that weekend I had to limit my attendance to a single day. I chose Thursday because that would get me into the train show that was to be held at the end of the convention as well as allowing me the opportunity to visit several garden layouts that were holding open houses.
| | |
8 Jul 2006, 15:37
|
To read more about the Auto Union Type D you
can view the article here.
|
Auto Union started the new season under a cloud. Professor Ferdinand Porsche's contract was not renewed after the 1937 season in a strange case of economics and was snapped up by Mercedes who fed his company several lucrative contracts. Just after the beginning of the year they lost their greatest driver when Bernd Rosemeyer was killed during a speed attempt. While Robert Eberan von Eberhorst assumed most of Porsche's duties there could be no replacement of the beloved Rosemeyer.
| | |
7 Jul 2006, 17:59
|
To read more about the Auto Union Type C you can view
the article here.
|
The Fuhrer has spoken. The 1934 Grand Prix formula shall
and must be a measuring stick for German knowledge and
German ability. So one thing leads to the other: first the Fuhrer's
overpowering energy, then the formula, a great international
problem to which Europe's best devote themselves, and finally,
action in the design and construction of new racing cars.
Nothing exemplified German Technology more so than the Type C and Resemeyer was their hero.
| | |
5 Jul 2006, 05:18
|
To read more about the Mercedes W25 you can
view the article here.
|
As per their wont the Nazis set up an organization,
the NSKK to control all motoring activities. Headed by Obergruppenfüher Adolf
Huhnlein, the NSKK had authority over all German motorsport activity. Prior to
this the Transport Ministry announced that they would pay 450,000 Reichsmarks to
the firm that produced a Grand Car with bonus payments of 20,000, 10,000 and
5,000 for finishes 1st through 3rd.
Unfortunately for Daimler-Benz the party was
crashed by Auto Union and the stipend would have to be shared by the two firms.
Historically this was a third of the budget that Wilhelm Kissel, the Director at Daimler, had estimated and
only 10% of what was actually spent each year.
| | |
29 Jun 2006, 02:54
|
To read more about the Mercedes SSKL you can view the article here.
|
The chief threat to a Bentley victory at the Tourist Trophy in Ireland was Caracciola’s 7-litre supercharged Mercedes SSK. The race was run according to handicap, the Bentley of Birkin having 2 laps in hand over the Mercedes. Starting under the threat of rain, it now came down in torrents.
It seemed a long while since I had seen the Mercedes, but as I came into the straight I heard the moaning of its supercharger behind. I put my foot down for all I was worth, but it was to no avail. We raced towards the grandstand; I saw the white bonnet with its silver star, and then Caracciola himself, staring ahead in his peaked cap, so close in the Mercedes left-hand drive that I could almost have touched him. For a second we were level, and then he was past heading for the Mountjoy corner, his spray flying up around my eyes.
| | Sir Henry ("Tim") Birkin |
26 Jun 2006, 01:31
|
To read more about the Mercedes W196 you can
view the article here.
| I've now updated my article on the
Mercedes W196 with wheelbase and track information as well as a few additional images.
| |
... there began what at Mercedes might be classed as a panic,
with the solitary long-chassis streamliner's suspension being hastily
jacked-up while the racing department in Stuttgart feverishly built two
new long-chassis frames because all the experimentation had left them
with only one long chassis on the inventory. By the end of the second
official practice day at Monza the two new chassis were ready and they
were whisked down to Milan on Mercedes' fabulous high-speed transporter
which had been built for just such an emergency. This remarkable vehicle
was an open-platform truck, big enough to carry one car, powered by a
210-bhp sports car engine and capable of cruising at over 100 mph. |
| Stirling Moss in My Cars, My Career
|
19 Jun 2006, 05:54
|
To read more about the Lotus-Ford 49 you can view
the article here.
| I've now updated my article on the Lotus 49 with wheelbase and track information as well as a few additional images.
Interestingly this Lotus is more famous for its engine than any innovation with it's chassis. For maybe the first and last time in his life Chapman thought simple is better. Knowing that he was operating in a very short window as Ford had only promised him a one year exclusivity on the DFV may have colored his thinking. |
13 Jun 2006, 23:56
|
From races cars to steam locomotives each will get you where you want to go. Only one allows you to appreciate the scenery though ...
|
To see more pictures from a recent visit to the
Deutsche Bahn Museum in Nurnburg, Germany go here.
|
10 Jun 2006, 15:08
|
Besides motorsports, books, slot cars, trains and toy soldies I also collect stamps. What does the fastest sport in the world have to do with the slowest hobby? Nothing except when stamps are used to depict cars or famous drivers.
|
|
To see more stamps go here.
|
7 Jun 2006, 04:40
|
5 Jun 2006, 23:35
|
With all eyes on Jenson Button at this year’s British Grand Prix, the Honda Racing F1 team, supplied a Formula One car to help send pulses racing in London, where Keeley was unveiled as the new female face of FORMULA ONE 2006 for both PlayStation 2 and for PSP® (PlayStation Portable).
|
|
It won't be her face that I'm staring at ...
|
31 May 2006, 02:26
|
To read more about Peter Helck you can view
the article here.
| I've now updated all my Artist Gallery articles and hope to add a couple more in the near future. Most have just been cleaned up but I added some more images by Peter Helck. Helck was there during the days of Louis Wagner and the Locomobile up until the rear-engined Formula 1 days. A length of time that will probably never be equaled.
If you're interested in connections here was a man that you could connect from the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup to the Can Am races and who was there to paint them both. Helck himself has estimated that he created more than 600 racing sketches, drawings, and paintings that are owned by both private individuals and museums. |
30 May 2006, 16:35
|
To read more about Rob Roy you can view
the article here.
| I've just updated my article on my own favorite automotive artist, Rob Roy.
I'm sure few of you have heard of this French Artist. I hadn't until I came across a book on Le Mans that featured his watercolors. They were like none I had seen before and with the included writing they gave the impression of dispatches from the actual race rather than some sterile work done in a studio. I believe these images exactly relate the feeling that I am trying to communicate through my Grand Prix History website.
|
29 May 2006, 20:15
|
To read more about F. Gordon Crosby you can view
the article here.
| I've just updated my article on F. Gordon Crosby. I'll be adding captions shortly.
F. Gordon Crosby along with Peter Helck are considered the greatest of automotive artists. Crosby's most cherished paintings went beyond the mere recording of events. Within their borders the careful viewer could experience what it actually meant to fight for control of these monstrous machines in the early days of the automobile, their long, high bonnets masking the threat of power lying just beneath a thin skin of metal.
|
27 May 2006, 18:23
|
|
"We wouldn't do that sort of thing on purpose. Michael clearly had a very good lap, and he was on another lap with low fuel, so it was not a deliberate act... Not the Michael I know."
| |
Ross Brawn commenting on Schumacher's qualifying incident
|
He must know a different Michael ...
|
27 May 2006, 00:19
|
Boracchini / Bignami driving the Alfa-Romeo 8C 2300.
To read the rest of the article go here.
|
The latest addition to the Grand Prix History website is the just completed story of the 1932 Mille Miglia. The hoped for increase in foreign entrants as a result of Caracciola's triumph the previous year did not materialize. In fact the numbers of total entrants continued to decrease and it was left to Alfa Romeo to provide 40% of the cars that did take part. Caracciola himself would be racing an Alfa Romeo this year as Mercedes had quit racing both officially and unofficially.
|
26 May 2006, 06:08
|
To read more about the 1931 Mille Miglia you can
view the article here.
| I've just finished my short article on the 1931 running of the Mille Miglia.
Soon after we had moved into our hotel, the Albergo Brescia, we had our first conference ...With a map of Italy spread out in front of me I felt like Napoleon before the battle of Waterloo, till I thought of Alfa Romeo's ninety mechanics and seventeen repair trucks and went hot and cold all over.
Alfred Neubauer in Männer, Frauen und Moteren
|
|
0 guest(s)
0 member(s)
0 anonymous member(s)
|
