Posts tagged with ‘Laguna Seca’

The Corkscrew: perhaps the most famous turn in all of racing. For years, I’ve been attending races at the famed Laguna Seca circuit, and I’ve hiked the track’s perimeter more times than I can count. I’ve hunted for photographer’s nooks and crannies, having been met with both resounding success and utter failure. Time and time again, though, I return to the hill and settle in: it just can’t be beat.

While standing trackside, with camera in hand, I often find myself musing on races of the past.

In 1979, a Kremer Porsche 935 K3 sat atop the podium at LeMans, and its success led to a growing interest in 1980. Kremer sold a number of cars to customers and packaged up kits to update old cars with an updated prowess. Of those new cars, Dick Barbour took delivery of a brand new 1980 Porsche 935 K3, chassis number 00023, just before the 1980 LeMans was scheduled to begin.

Trans-Am race cars have a menacing look to them that draws me in every time I come across them. I’m not often a muscle car guy, but the low-slung physique mated with aggressive air dams and meaty tires tucked into the deep wells are just undeniably cool in every sense of the word. In between races, I took a moment to photograph some of the cool details found throughout the 1971 AMC Penske Javelin that Mark Donohue campaigned to an SCCA Trans-Am Championship win in 1971.

I distinctly remember saying to myself, sometime in high school, that I’d never understand how anyone could like the Fox Body Mustang. Both its predecessors and successors seemed to have something to offer, but how anyone could choose the boxy fox as their favorite was comletely beyond me. Somehow though, many years later, the Fox has inexplicably earned a special place in my heart – truly and wholly – as one of my favorites, period.