Velocity Group

    Up at 4:30. Out the door at quarter to six. Pulling into Media parking at nine. It was an early morning Friday.
    I knew it would be when John Ewert, Communications Director at Road America, emailed the Credentials for this early summer vintage event. Vintage here is a relative term. Having just finished the Ferrari book, that ends in 1966, I wanted to harvest a group of photos that expressed the dynamic transition of engineering and aero of the late Sixties and through the Seventies, with a peek into current tech.
    I knew this event at Road America would present the perfect venue for this visual study. Here would be a group of cars showing the delicately nimble 1960s F1 suspension, shared by period Formula 5000 cars, as it transformed into the robust internally levered composite systems shared by F1 and prototype LeMans comp prototypes. With this complex reconfiguring of suspension elements was the evolution from the economical compound stress structure of the space frame into the unified carbon fiber tub. While all of these internal structural elements, though some being quite external, were taking place, there was the apparent study of aero going on. From the ancillary attachment of front and rear wings to progressively complex aero configurations that became integral, once again, with the greater whole of the engineering. And of course there are the primary colors intense graphics that defined the era.
   All mixed together with the engrained sentimentality of enthusiasm for the sport, with its larger than life personalities, from design staff to drivers.

   There are three ways to navigate this 120 page gallery.
   First is to click any cropped image on the Gallery Gateway to view the full size photograph on its Gallery page. To return to the Gallery Gateway click the square above the image and return to the bookmarked image on the gallery gateway.

   The second is while on any given Gallery page you have two squares on either side of the photo. Select the right to proceed to the next page, left to revisit the previous page.

   Questions? Or just want to chat about what is here? Just click the email link below.

    The former technical considerations consumed my thinking for the days prior, and the hours spent on the road.
    The latter sentimental considerations came immediately alive in one great and startlingly familiar second as I walked to the front deck of Road America's race control building in the deep blue morning shadows. Out of the distance reaches of the close-by front straight one of the John Player Specials screamed into view. The decibel roar of its Cosworth engine peaking right in front of me, then, vanishing into memory as it blended into the whisper of the summer breeze moving through the surrounding trees.
    After what has seemed an eternity of Covid isolation, this intense Doppler event, here explained by its formula,

(fo = observer frequency of sound, V = speed of sound waves, Vo = observer velocity, Vs = source velocity, ,fs = actual frequency of sound waves ) was as if to awake from that deep van Winkle sleep. No coffee required.

I have formatted the art direction here to bring you along on this photo shoot investigation. They are presented in the sequence shot. Of the 375 exposures taken, 110 are presented here over two galleries.

Take your time on this walk through the paddock at Road America. I did.