Bah! If it's got a motor it's not a sport; it's a commercial. Your intreped drivers are just machine operators.

I used to think that way until i got to drive my brothers brand new Lotus Europa on the Autobahn in 1970.

And was reminded recently of the kind of Condition,mentaly and physicaly a person has to be in when i hopped on my nephews Superbike .

While every instance to pilot an exotic vehicle left me warm and fuzzy all over,there was always that little brown spot in my shorts to remind me of my limits .

Alex
Enjoyed reading your thoughts, then went to your blog, and found myself even more captivated.
The Tilden outlet you worked at must have been that little modernist architectural jewel by Sharp, Thompson, Berwick and Pratt built about 1950 on Burrard at Alberni. Right? Long gone of course...just like Harry Rankin. I always thought it was such a functional masterpiece: concrete slab below with slab roof 'floating' above transparent walls. Of course it couldn't last at that address - I often wondered what actually working there would have been like - a kind of public fish-bowl existence...perfect for a photographer.

Thanks for the memories.

Nonsense. These guys metabolisms go through the same type of fluctuations as many an endurance athlete.

I might, however, accept "it's a skill."

This is my essential argument with golf. It's a skill, not a sport (which is not to suggest that phsyical conditioning DOESN'T offer advantages -- just that it's not the MAIN advantage...rather, technique is.

These days a similar locution could well apply: 'If it hasn't got a commercial, it's not a sport!'

i would love to see how many could hang on to a 600 lb 180 horsepower Superbike for a full race,without skill and conditioning,without the years of practice,i know i cannot do it and i have been riding since i was 15 years old and thats 32 years of experience on some pretty exotic machinery.

Just like baseball and other sports,there are always NATURALS and they make it look easy and it isn't.

didn;t have my coffe today,should be 42 years

or else it must be my vanity showing...

Man, you're ageing fast - there was no way you could have had some of the perspectives you've displayed around here and been just 47 years old my friend. Didn't someone say 50 was the 'new' 30?
That's my attitude anyway.

At 57,hanging onto a 180 horsepower Superbike i feel great for about an hour,it's when i get off and try walking i feel like 90.Those damn things are built for Jockeys squeezed up there,arse in the wind.

So reworking our numbers sounds good to me ,as long as i can still retire at 65,or i win the lottery BIGTIME and can buy some new bodyparts.

Then again,i like to be able to reminisce about seeing Stirling Moss race at Mossport in 1961 when i was 12,my brother and i were so high from the experience we couldnt stop talking about it for a month afterwards.HELL!We still,go through those old photo albums ,grinning,like FOOLS .

I used to go to Westwood when I was in college - small cheese compared with Mossport. Never meddled with bikes and managed to pile up the only sports car I ever owned, sigh! Fun while it lasted. I always enjoyed the Cortina races, and the minis. I'm actually working on a freedom 95 plan - what's that rework to?

me and a buddy used to live in PoCo and just before they closed Westwood we would sneak into there with dozens of other drivers and scream around til the police came and dragged our ass' out of there.

If you ever hear my name on the news,as known to police...THAT'S WHERE THEY KNOW ME FROM !

LOL

Speaking of cars. Your mention of your brother's Lotus brought to mind the friend I used to go to Westwood with, back in the day. I week or two before Christmas this year he got home from the office to find his son had bought a Lotus Super 7 replica and had it parked in the garage....some apples don't fall far from the tree.

With a little luck and a lot of heavy breathing, I manage maybe 13 k in an hour - sigh!

My friend used to repair Jags, he let me drive one on the upper levels, that V12 makes a noise like no other car engine of the time. Mind neither does the cursing of the mechanic trying to balance the 6 x SU carbs!! The British saved all their sexuality for their car designs, the jag body just flowed. Recently took a V8 powered MG for a spin, it’s a lot of engine in a little bit of car, but the steering is great!

Won some tickets to the Indy race here a few years ago. In between the main event they had locals racing on the track. It was great to see a Ford Anglia up on two wheels taking a Camero on the corner, now that is driving on the edge!!!!

You don’t realize just how fast these guys go till you see the car cams and I did read that a Grand prix drivers BP can shoot from 120 to past 180 while driving.

You lucky bastard! I have had the chance to drive a Europa but I am a touch too tall to take it outside a parking lot. I have driven an Elan, but the Europa was one of my favourite cars as a kid.

WESTWOOD

I have been driving Westwood in the Grand Prix Legends driving sim. It isn't 100% accurate yet but it is close enough to make it fun.

G West.

It is interesting that you remember that Yves Montand and Eva Marie Saint were in the 1966 movie Grand Prix. On the latter memory I aprove. Eva Marie Saint in North by Nortwest was superb even if Hitchcock meant to use Grace Kelly.

But the fact is that I remember the movie for another reason as it had in it (some were credited, others not) Jim Clark, Richie Ginther (Graham Hill's BRM teammate in the 1964 Mexican Grand Prix), Jack Brabham, Lorenzo Bandini, Phil Hill, Graham Hill and Bruce McClaren.

Alexwh

And I forgot to mention that also in Grand Prix: Part of the cast or as drivers you had:

Juan Manuel Fangio, Jo Siffert, Peter Revson, Chris Amon, Joachim Bonner, Dennis Hulme, Jochen Rindt, Nino Farina and Caroll Shelby as a technical advisor. George Lucas was listed as an additional camera operator.

Alexwh

alexwh

Right on Alex, I knew about the list of stellar drivers involved in making the film. It was, in my opinion, the best racing movie ever made. The plot and the cast, Eva Marie Saint notwithstanding, never got in the way of the track and the action - at least not for long. She was very good in NxNW too and she had to do a bit of acting in that one.

Dunno if you saw my other query, about your career as a clerk for Tilden. Really enjoyed all your posted photos - especially, I think, the one of Rankin. Nobody on the civic scene these days to compare with him, alas.

Cheers, and thanks.

G West

Alas I was too late to work in the Thompson, Berwick and Pratt building. I was in a building a block North very close to Oil Can Harry's. But you can find more on Thompson, Berwick and Pratt here:

Pratt

Thx Alex, link is dead but I'll figure it out.
Chrs.

Been a while since I've lived in Vancouver - I should have known when you mentioned the old Ritz Hotel that it wasn't the Tilden building I was thinking about where you'd worked. Must say that that building, the BC Electric building (featured in the link you posted) and the (old) new Vancouver Library, also on Burrard I think, and which I’m sure was designed by a different firm, were fine unabashedly modern buildings ... in many ways all three looked better at night with light streaming out of those transparent walls.
Thanks for the memories, vroom vroom.

I've met and drew the portraits of both Moss and Jim Clark. Great guys both. Jim was killed soon after.

I was out reporting and photographing at Westwood when Moss had a photo op with Bobby McLean in Bob's Lotus, plus Phil Gaglardi and George Stern in his Morgan.

Poor Bobby was also killed at Sebring. I saw him driving the Ford GT at Westwood, but somehow, I never thought he fitted into it. Unfortunately, I was right. He was also a great guy.

For me, it was long distance rally cars. I organized and captained the Nissan team in the 1966,67 and 68 Shell 4000 Car rallies, won the Manufacturer's Team prize in 67 at Expo.

Ed Deak, Big Lake

Good Lord the Ritz hotel, I worked there briefly as hotel security, looking after the hotel, lounge, bar and discotheque. It was certainly an educational period for me, wasn’t worth risking my life for the money they were paying. This was in the days when the higher class girls worked Georgia St, roughly 1979?

The Tilden Office I was talking about was long gone by 1979, Colin.

Tilden Drive Yourself Office
745 Burrard Street, Vancouver
Sharp & Thompson, Berwick, Pratt 1950; demolished 1972

You can find details in the UBC Archives, Thompson, Berwick, Pratt and Partners -
File List 1 - Box # 42 files /37,/38,/39

http://www.shell-4000-rally.org/1967/1967image/pages/1967_164-02.htm

I hope the link works: it is Ed on the podium in 1967, unless the photo is mislabelled

No, it is Paul Manson with the glasses and Karl Schultz. In the small photo at the bottom right I'm second from the left in the back row, next to my driver Don Lamont, with the glasses. I did the 66 and 67 rallies with Don and 68 with John Horton. I was a navigator, now called co-driver, making thousands of calculations with the car going 100 mph on logging roads.

My friend Marcel Chichak of Edmonton, has an excellent website on the Shell 4000 on google, with a lot of my material and photos. In 1964 and 65 I was driving the official photo car for Shell with photographer Bob Ragsdale. We were the only ones permitted into the closed sections to take photos.

Ed Deak.

Good article and pics, Alex!

Boy what memories. I love it when the Tyee fanatics unwind and talk about Some Other Damn Thing. For me I guess it stirs the memories of my favourite driver, the shy and fast Ronnie Peterson, being wiped out by that prick Riccardo Patrese in '78.

No question that drivers are athletes. Most sports involve technology of some kind, whether it is Formula 1 or carbon-fibre hockey sticks or drag-reducing swimsuits. I dirt-biked for years and that was much harder on my body than judo or hapkido.

Ron

The Shell 4000 was an amazing event, consigned to the history books and the memories of the participants and spectators. I was looking through some of the results and noticed Pedro Rodriguez drove a Studebaker Commander in 1965! Oh for an era when drivers were free of contractual bondage and drove a wide variety of events.

Has anybody else here read Denis Jenkinson's piece about navigating Moss on the Mille Miglia? I have a hard copy from an old Motorsport somewhere but would love to find it online.

We were following Pedro with the photo car in 65.

They lost a piston from the V8 Chev engine of the Studebaker the first night out of Montreal, and it was blowing oil. They were traveling in a cloud of smoke from there on for 6 days and had a trunkful of oilcans to keep on refilling the engine.

Anybody would have quit, but not Pedro and his navigator Bill Leatham. They carried on against incredible odds and hardships. We were ordered to follow them and take photos when the car blew up, but, luckily, it didn't . The closest I could keep behind them was about a quarter of a mile, as the smoke was choking us. They drove with all the windows open, the car still filled with smoke. It was a superhuman feat.

Of course, Don Lamont and I drove 8 days in 67 with a trunkful of gas sloshing around in the 1300 Datsun, also with the windows wide open. Our tank was dumping gas into the trunk every time we went around a righthand curve fast. Lousy preparation. Never could figure out why that car didn't blow up. Then we lost the throwout bearing of the clutch at Sudbury, Ont. then our alternator burned out at the same place, so we drove by shifting without a clutch, changing batteries twice a day, with 1 single working headlight and no tail lights for almost 2000 miles, but we made it to Expo 67.

Pedro was very low key, modest, soft talking guy. I made an audio tape interview with him, and gave it to Marcel Chichak, but I don't think he could make it work.

The funniest part was when we went into a cafe at Wainwright Alberta, after the closed, racing section across the military area. Pedro asked for some comsomme and the poor ladies didn't have an idea what he was talking about?

On the other hand, the famous US stock racing driver Dave Pearson, hit the ditch a couple of times on the first night out and quit with "Ah ain't busting mah keester in this heah thing no moah".

Too bad, Pedro was also killed soon after that in a race. He and Bill should have received the Sportsmanship Award, but it couldn't be given to factory drivers.

Those 5 years will certainly remain with me as some of the most pleasantly memorable experiences.

Ed Deak.

Thanks Ed, that is an interesting story. It would make a great addition to any biography of Rodriguez. He was legendary for not giving up, he won the 1970 BOAC 1000K by 5 laps in the rain in spite of a stop & go penalty for "over-driving."

Yeh, Ed, thanks, and you too Gerhardius, and Alex of course for setting out the appetizers.

yes ,that was my favourite car until my brother one upped me with his Fiat Dino coupe six months later

he doesn't like talking about the Dino or how he fell asleep and wrapped it around a telephone/power pole ,on his way to Montreal to catch a baseball game

lifes a real bitch somtimes

Yes,i seem to remember my brother trying to teach his fiance' how to drive that Lotus and the clutches he replaced,b'cuz,she just couldn't synchronize those simple hand/foot co-ordinations needed to shift.Landed up selling the Lotus and buying a Mustang Mach 1, AUTOMATIC,which,if I remember correctly,she releived him of in a nasty divorce a year later...

yes,life can be a real BITCH(what was her name thomas ?) some times ...