There is something beautiful about an imageless audio recording such as this. I don’t know that I’d want to sacrifice the immediacy of the live video from the track, but there’s something about simply hearing the audio that is lost in the satellite feed. Maybe, by leaving something to the imagination, we’re a more active participant; taking the information we have, and filling in the gaps with our mind. I’m surprised that in the age of the podcast this type of field recording hasn’t made a resurgence.
As you know, I’m a huge fan of old racing film. Often they’re homemade 8mm film canisters with no accompanying audio. They’re lovely. Audio recordings such as this LP from the Sound Stories series are much the same. For me, these audio recordings are every bit as precious as the film canisters. Often, I think they communicate more than the film does.
But enough media philosophy—let’s get on with the 17th Monaco Grand Prix. In this first recording, it’s the run-up to the race, with recordings from the pits and brief interviews with the drivers. Stirling Moss tests and discusses the BRM. Von Tripps whips the new Porsche F1 effort around the bends. Phil Hill gives us his impressions of the track—amazing that 50+ years ago, there was still this notion of ‘only in Monaco’. It was already considered by some drivers an outdated racing course even then, but the romance of Monaco continues to win out half a century later.
Nevil Lloyd’s narration of the qualifying is excellent, noting the pieces of audio where we hear gear changes or hard braking. Listening along, it’s amazing how much easily you can imagine yourself sitting behind the giant steering wheel of a ’59 BRM.
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Ok then, let’s get down to business: it’s race day, and I won’t spoil the drama by telling you too much. Throw on your headphones and give a listen.
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Via Valve Bounce, where you can download the files as well.
It’s game time, friends. Can you guess the make and model of this famous racing car from her engine sound?
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Throw on your headphones and close your eyes. You’re about to be transported to 1964 to follow along with the highlights of the 24 Heures du Mans.
I can imagine the fun it would have been in the era before modern sports television coverage to lie down on the living room floor, throw this on the turntable and listen to Pedro Rodriguez, Graham Hill, and Dan Gurney turning the keys and pushing the start buttons of their Ferrari 330Ps, 275Ps, Porsche 904s, and Shelby Cobra Daytonas. This race was also the 24 Hours’ debut of the GT40.
I won’t spoil the fun of the audio here by telling you the race results. Enjoy.
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Whew. That’s a lot of supercharged horses getting ready for the 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Imagine the feeling of the vibration in the air standing this close to it.
It’s finally time for the final cut from the Exciting Racing Sounds of Grand Prix album. In this final track, Phil Hill visits Brands Hatch, and while I’d like to say that this final cut is the climax of the lp, it’s a bit more like ‘in with a bang, out with a whimper’. The visit to Brands is precious short on racing action, starting with audio from the Red Arrows fighter jet squadron flyover and finishing with the military band. It is nice to hear the podium celebration for Jack Brabham as the band plays “Waltzing Mathilda”. There you have it friends, your Exciting Racing Sounds of Grand Prix album is complete… now just flip back side A and enjoy.
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Let’s take another long-overdue listen to the fantastic Exciting Racing Sounds of Grand Prix album. This time our host, Phil Hill, takes us on an audio tour of the Spa circuit. You’ll remember that this album was created as part of the research process for John Frankenheimer’s 1966 film Grand Prix. Ah—magic.
This cut from the LP takes off where Monaco left off and demonstrates the contrasts between the tight, narrow street circuit of Monte Carlo and the open expanses of the high-speed Spa circuit. Phil points out that the drivers spend an awful lot of their time in Belgium in top gear. The engine screams in this cut seem to indicate the truth in that. We’ll hear massive whines from BRM, Cooper-Maserati, Ferrari, Brabham, and McLaren-Ford; and none of them sound like they’re just poking through the frequently-wet countryside.
We also take the Burnenville Corner with Jochen Rindt in his Cooper-Maserati. You’ll hear that there’s not a whole lot of shifting happening here as the corner is a sweeping high-speed expanse. Rindt finished 11th at Spa that year, but 4th in the Drivers’ Championship for the year. 1965 was also the year he won Le Mans as part of the N.A.R.T. team in a Ferrari 250LM.
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Hear the complete archive of cuts from this tremendous album.
I must admit to giving up a week of my life to Tom Yang’s Ferrari restoration journal. A wonderful story of a sound engineer who undertook the daunting task of restoring a Ferrari 330 America purchased in boxes. We often throw the term “basket case” around when discussing cars that require a huge amount of effort — but when the project literally comes in baskets; well, that’s something else.
Something that should be applauded.
Having brought myself up to date on Tom’s site — and the remarkably victorious restoration of his beautiful, driven, Ferrari 330 — i dug a bit deeper into his site and came upon Tom’s collection of audio conversations with other vintage Ferrari owners telling their own rescue stories. I love stories like this, and even if these were videos, they wouldn’t capture the twinkle in the eyes of these proud rescuers any better than hearing them tell their stories does.
One story stood out in particular, of a very early rescue. Admiral Robert Phillips was a humble Lieutenant in 1960 when a series of happy circumstances brought him in contact with a broken down and neglected Ferrari 500 Mondial racer. In an era when people paid cash for their cars, he took out a loan of most of a years’ salary to purchase the wreck, and slowly brought it back to life on his own. No workshop manual, no reliable parts supplies, no local aluminum body shop.
If you’ve been following our series on this wonderful album of audio recorded during research for John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix, you know what a joy it is to hear Phil Hill lead us through some of the stops of the ’66 season. This time, it’s Monaco.
We start with 30 seconds or so of the the full grid of 16 drivers revving in preparation for the start of the GP. This could have well been the inspiration for the marvelous opening credits/overture sequence at the start of the film. Then we take a spin around the track with Graham Hill. A thrilling drive indeed.
It’s also interesting to hear Phil describe the technical details of the engine and transmissions of Formula 1 cars, followed by audio of drivers really pushing their engines and transmissions hard in several portions: hard on the brakes through Gasometre Hairpin and head up towards the pits, through the tunnel towards the chicane, and as heard by the spectators. As always, fantastic audio.
Follow along with this track map, pulled from the back of the record jacket.
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We started our series celebrating this wonderful LP made during Frankenheimer’s filming of the epic Grand Prix by taking a tour of Monza. Let’s take a step back and get the basics with our host, Phil Hill. John Frankenheimer gives a wonderful description of the basics of F1 of the 60′s. Then Phil talks to Graham Hill about the differences between Grand Prix racing and sportscars. Hearing these voices speak with passion about their sport makes me wish for these attitudes to come back to the international motor racing community.
I particularly like the segment with Frankenheimer where he describes some of the motivations for making the movie. Later, Graham Hill describes the differences between Grand Prix driving and competing in the Indianapolis 500. Outstanding.
Have a listen.
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In preparation for his masterpiece 1966 film Grand Prix, John Frankenheimer undertook a series of audio recordings to help capture the spirit, mood, and excitement of the Formula 1 season. This LP is the glorious result of that research. Hosted by Phil Hill and featuring interviews with Graham Hill and Frankenheimer, this record takes us through the sounds of the Grand Prix season of 1966.
Grand Prix is the best racing movie ever made. Frankenheimer puts us in the cockpit, the pits, and in the stands. He developed camera mounting techniques that are still in use today. Some people will tell you that McQueen’s film LeMans is the better racing movie — Those people are wrong.
But enough about the movie (I’m sure I’ll be writing much more on that in the future). This LP was something that I didn’t know about until recently. And over the next couple of weeks I’ll post up tracks from the album. This first bit cuts straight to the chase and puts us right on the start finish line of Monza. This, of course differs from the banked track of the movie — which stopped being used after the ’61 season (here’s a 2003 photo of the banking). We’ll hear the engine note of Jack Brabham’s Repco V8, Jim Clark’s Coventry-Climax, Ginther’s Honda V12, and Surtee’s Cooper Maserati. Then we’ll take a tour of the circuit aboard Michael Parkes’ Ferrari (Parkes sat on pole and ended up 2nd in the race that year).
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Listen carefully and you can follow along on the track map.
There is something beautiful about an imageless audio recording such as this. I don’t know that I’d want to sacrifice the immediacy of the live video from the track, but there’s something about simply hearing the audio that is lost in the satellite feed. Maybe, by leaving something to the imagination, we’re a more active participant; taking the information we have, and filling in the gaps with our mind. I’m surprised that in the age of the podcast this type of field recording hasn’t made a resurgence.
If you’ve been following our series on this wonderful album of audio recorded during research for John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix, you know what a joy it is to hear Phil Hill lead us through some of the stops of the ’66 season. This time, it’s Monaco.
