Long Beach

   I have art directed this photo essay to reflect the distance of time.
   Mike's photos are presented here completely unaltered from their original scans of years back. In the coming weeks we hope to be adding to this catalogue as he locates more.
   I am grateful to Mike for finding these, as I was at these races, and didn't bring the Nikon!
   The great thing about these is it captures the casual character of F1 at the time. As well as showing what a dump Long Beach was when the races started.

   Let's start with something that no one today could conceive of: All the teams shared the same garage! Which in this case was the old Long Beach Convention Center in the center of the track.
   As you can see from this shot of the Ligier Matra garage area each team's service area was surrounded by little faux picket fencing. The spectators could all, as seen here, walk right up to watch the teams at work. When the driver's came in, like Jacques Laffite who was racing no. 26, they'd stand and talk to the crowd and sign programs.
   I have to say here, that the Matra V12 was the most incredible sounding engine there. Echoing between the crap old buildings;' surrounding the circuit, it was actually mystical. The finest sounding F1 engine one could imagine.
Each side of the photos is live to move forward or back.