Very early in/on car camera
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Hasbeen

Original Poster:

2,073 posts

250 months

Wednesday 30th May 2012
quotequote all
I found this photo a few days ago, having lost it & assumed it was destroyed 30 years ago. The damage is due to it being stuck to another print all this time, after an 8 year cruise of the Pacific Islands with me, on my yacht.

<a href="http://s1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj627/hasbeen1/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_0015.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj627/hasbeen1/IMG_0015.jpg" border="0" alt="GT B Ferrari Surfers Paradice 1968, Note camera. Possible first attempt at in race photography."></a>it,

It was taken at the 1968 Surfers Paradice 12 hour sports car race, & I thought it might be of interest to some here.

We had a 3 car Ferrari team, entered by the Oz Ferrari distributor. A P4 Prototype Sports Ex Le Mans, on loan from Ferrari, An ex Le Mans LM250, that we had been racing for a few years, & this GT B production car.

The camera was mounted to the number plate bracket, with it's on/off switch wired to an existing toggle switch, [the fog light switch I think], to the passenger side of the dash.

As the camera only had 3 minutes film the idea was that I would flick the car sideways to get the other Ferraris, or major contenders, in the sight, then turn the camera on for a 10 second or so burst of filming, then off again quickly.

Any of you who have experience of these particular Ferraris will know that they are rather evil handling cars at higher cornering speeds, with bags of understeer, followed to a sharp switch to rear end breakaway. Nice controllable over steer is just not in their vocabulary.

Having nearly written off the car, or killed myself a number of times, with all this sideways motoring, one handed while playing with the switch, I was more than a little annoyed when we found a rock had gone through the lens after just 15 seconds of filming.

Still It does represent some motor racing history. Oh & for history's sake, the old LM 250 won the race outright, & the GT B won the production class, in both instances because they went the distance, & some quicker things didn't.

PS Sorry, I guess I'm just too old for this modern technology, I'm damned if I can get that photo out of photo bucket. Can any one here do it for me?

Edited by Hasbeen on Wednesday 30th May 04:44


Edited by Hasbeen on Wednesday 30th May 04:46

Jayyylo

986 posts

176 months

Wednesday 30th May 2012
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That's a great picture. I'm sure someone on here could touch up all the patches and bring it back to its former glory.

Hasbeen

Original Poster:

2,073 posts

250 months

Wednesday 30th May 2012
quotequote all
Thanks Jayyylo.