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Mike grew up around sportscar racing; introduced to the sport at an early age by his father, who joined the sporting ranks in an unusual way. Mike says, “My Father, Lars Jacobsen, was hit by a car in a crosswalk in at age 16 in 1932 and had his spleen removed. Because doctors gave him only a few years to live, my Grandfather bought him a Bugatti. He went on to race sprint cars, father me in 1942, and race sports cars throughout the 50s (he lived to be 79)”. Fantastic!

Mike went on to crew for his father’s racing efforts at the wheel of two MG N Magnettes. One of these was converted to a homebuilt racing special, which Mike continues to race to this day. Mike’s own experience as Professor of art history and student of archeology is the perfect crossroads for racing fans—after all, isn’t every great vintage racecar a mixture of art history and archeology?

Welcome aboard, Mike!

After months of work, we’re finally ready to debut the first pieces of a line of vintage racing inspired clothing. Chicane Trackwear will ultimately include a variety of garments and accessories inspired by our love of vintage racing: everything from our favorite racing models, marques, teams, races, and eras of auto racing history.

The first items are two t-shirts from two very different parts of our vintage racing heritage. The Riverside International Raceway t-shirt is inspired by the early races held at the track in 1957. There are a lot of tracks that we’d like to feature on t-shirt graphics. But for our first, we though it was important to celebrate one of America’s great Lost Tracks. It would be obvious to have a Green Hell shirt, or a Circuito Palermo (and I suspect we’ll have one of each eventually), but celebrating America’s sportscar racing heritage has always been an important part of The Chicane, and there’s not many tracks more missed than Riverside.

The Yamura Motors t-shirt is our way of showing appreciation for the fictional Formula 1 team at the heart of John Frankenheimer’s legendary film, Grand Prix. In a few frames of the movie, you can see the Yamura pit crews gathering around Pete Aron’s machine wearing coveralls with a graphic very like this one. Most people might not understand it; but when someone does, it’s magic.

Available exclusively from the newly launched—and soon to expand—Chicane Shop.

If you have a stockpile of videos or film cans to share, a youtube, vimeo or other source online video of yours to point out, or information on how to get your videos to us for publication (and stories of the events they capture!), drop an email to community@thechicaneblog.com or leave a message below in the comments.

We’ll be working out the inevitable kinks that come along with any major site launch, but by and large all is working.

How do you like that random header image? pretty neat, eh?
(hit refresh a few times to see a selection of the photos I’ve been shooting at vintage events)

Etceterini’s vast information on these small Italian sportscar manufacturers, as well as the fantastic archives of 1950s and 1960s SCCA race provide a wealth of history of American sportscar racing. Of course, Cliff’s own roots in sportscar racing dig quite deep, having grown up among his father, Jack Reuter’s, marvelous string of Bandinis, Ferraris and Maseratis. Cliff has built a fantastic collection of information drawn from his and his father’s archives of racing information. These deep treasure troves of information have been a constant reference point for The Chicane, and I’m very happy that Cliff will be lending his voice here as well.

Welcome to The Chicane, Cliff.