That Alfa a Romeo is still one of the best sounding engines I’ve ever heard. I saw it race in the Australian Grand Prix a couple of weeks after this event.
@@brandspro It was a bit of a faux Grand Prix really, though the Australian Grand Prix - F1 or not - is one of the oldest GPs in the world. In 1980, the vast majority of the field were mid-late 1970s Formula 5000 cars. Alan Jones was there with his Williams and Bruno Giacomelli with the Alfa. Didier Pironi was also there, competing in a locally built Elfin MR8. The circuit - Calder Park - was a bit Mickey Mouse and the F1s were so fast they lapped everyone else but the spectacle was highly addictive. Pironi in an F5000 was spectacular and ended up beating all the locals, including some _bona fide_ hotshoes, in a car he'd never driven before at a circuit he'd never seen before...
I’m blessed to have seen the last 4 F1 races at the Glen during college. This is the last one. I’ll never forget what it sounded like each year as I approached the circuit on Friday after class. Great camping experiences!
Thanks for the upload. Pity they missed or edited out every pass Alan Jones made. 14th to 2nd and only Piquet retired in front of him. Alan passed the rest of 'em. A champion's drive.
My first trip to the Glenn was in 1966, I think. Watched Jimmy Clark in action. My friends and I became accustomed to making the trip to the Glenn; when the weather turned into fall it just seemed like we needed to be making plans to go. We were there for the last race in 1980. F1 never should have left the Glenn!
I was fifteen years old when I attended this race. It was sad that this would be the last Formula One race to occur at this legendary track. Thank you for posting this video. It brought back many memories. I watched this race from the inside of the track at the end of the back straight, just before the chute. I echo of the engines coming thru the wooded section at the time was awesome. It would ring in my ears for days.
@@KRW628 You rolled your van? Wow, you crazy..lol Too many shots of that east side whiskey? Or still thinking about the race and imagining a Formula 1 World Van Grand Prix Championship! Haha
An F1 race on Mizlou TV Network. Shows the state of F1 in the US until the last 15 years or so. No live coverage except for races held in the states, some edited tape delay coverage of assorted other races. Mizlou (which no longer exists) is best known in the US for its coverage of minor college football bowl games and college basketball. If they got the contract to show this race, that means no one else was bidding for it. Not bad coverage, though.
So happy to find this race posted. This was my 3rd visit to this race with family. Great memories of the Glen..complete with the mud..the "bog" and of course the scenic views of the race itself. At that time, you could move about freely to catch the race at different parts of the track with the grandstand area being the exception. Oh and how can I forget the wonderful grapes we purchased at the roadside stands on the way home! Thank you for posting!
Great comment! Nice to have been there and then relive it again on RU-vid. Like the part about the grapes. Were those grapes in the form of wine or actual grapes?..lol
@@90daysinvegas53 Oh those grapes were the BEST! No wine though as I was just a kid at the time. I'll never forget my first GP. As soon as we crested the hill overlooking the track, James Hunt spun into a 360 and continued to drive off up the hill as though nothing had happened..lol. And I'll tell ya, the sound of those Ferraris were so distinctive you could close your eyes and tell whether or not one of them had just passed. Hard to describe really, it was like a shrieking, screaming sound...and the smell of the exhausts stuck with me all these years as well!
@Ethan Weeter because for F1 to race there, they would have to almost completely reconstruct the track, and it would be ruined. not only would the facility be less spectator-friendly, but the layout itself would be changed... ie- more chicanes, or plain re-configured.
@Bro Momento it's really a matter of money... it would take tens of millions of dollars to redo everything to FIA levels, then they would have to hope F1 keeps coming for years to cover the costs. in the meantime, no one else could afford to use the track (it's already like $27k per day to rent now), so it would have even less people to help the rest of the year.
This track belongs to real drivers, real cars and real skill to finish the race without crashing. Today's so called F1 can't offer any of that. Drivers like Verstappen would have died several times back then. F1 is a farce!
The wife and I were the lucky recipients of Free Season passes (all inclusive Inc pit roof seats and pit passes) for 1980. My wife watched as a country bumpkin was attempting to remove Emmo's wife from the pit roof during practice, she dressed in a full length mink. He was not there during the rest of the weekend. Great trading in the pits post race. Pit crews trading F1 items for US items and currency.
Bumpkin indeed! I think some of the local riffraff was enlisted to round out the security. I was harassed that year by one of them brandishing a six foot pole simply for wanting to walk along a path back to my camp site. Ah the good old days!
Bruno Giacomelli would have certainly had better results in his career if he had become an official McLaren driver or if the technical regulations for the following year in F1 had not changed just when Alfa Romeo became competitive.
GREAT - especially interesting to see, at 8.55, the leader Giacomelli nearly losing it at the esses at or just beside the spot where Cevert crashed fatally in 1973 - of course the barriers looked much better in 1980...
@bakinek Sorry, my fault. At 8.55 Giacomelli nearly crashes at the point where Cevert FIRST caught the barrier - on the right, (because Cevert's line wasn't quite right from his entry into the esses and he tried disastrously to power through the mistake). He then did, as you say, bounce across into the left hand barriers, not visible here, which split open, killing him. My point about the barriers looking better comes from what actually is visible here in 1980. If the barriers had been this solid in 1973, Cevert would possibly, perhaps almost certainly, have survived.
I was surprised at a speed of Bruno and AIFA. They were likely to get a pole to win. But Bruno seemed to drive a little more than hard, it may be cruel to Bruno.
Alan Jones era muy veloz, no por su motor o por su manera de conducir, sino porque en su contrato decìa que su compañero de equipo debìa dejarlo pasar. Esta carrera era para el Nº 28.
I remember getting the results via short wave radio.Late 60s through 70s. Very spotty and reading ROAD & TRACK and AUTOWEEK. I think Speedvision finally with Varsha and Bisignano began covering the series.Ruppert Murdoch got involved in some way, maybe buying out SPEEDVISION. He told the auto sports guys to develop it cause he knew nothing about racing. Some of these things are kind of vague.
Speedvision,Speed Channel were my favorites.My father used buy magazines which had articles about the F1 races,.It was about 1-2 months old news,but the best we had at that time.
At the time it was reported that Giacomelli wasn't his actual name. It was really Irish Jack O'mally, but he thought it sounded better as a race driver being Italian Glacomelli. Joke of course!!
First Beta tape I ever recorded, has the opening Toyota pro celebrity race, astronauts, penthouse playmates, actors, singers, Micheal Andretti, Paul Williams goes straight off the chicane, astronaut ( Pete Conrad) flips upsidedown out of last turn, hence all the marks & dust all around the track. Nice to view a race without screaming announcers, oh yeah, 70,000 spectators, guess the 35,000 more got in free? 🤔
Well Doug that's my scaffolding on the outside of turn 11 with the drawings of the the F-1 cars on white bedsheets hanging from it . We actually wound up partying down by your scaffolding Saturday night then the party moved down to our scaffolding. Sadly I needed to do the fireman carry for my best friend who passed out at your place . But I bet you didn't have the Penthouse Playmates on your scaffolding race day like we did for the whole race . Do you remember the "Ugly Brothers" from North Carolina ? They brought the WHITE LIGHTING every year !!
@@todd4866 The outside of Turn 1 was all wooded then. We actually went Tuesday night to put our scaffolding up. There was enough room in the trees to get a few vehicles in there to camp, so it was a really nice spot. The rules were way more relaxed back then. I can still remember most of the weekend.
Not bad, decent commentary and coverage, for the time. I wonder if the commentary was live or recorded afterwards, he seemed to know immediately who went off at the first corner.
His wording was awkward when Jones went off. He also failed to mention that other drivers went off in the same spot after Jones. Overall and throughout, I found his announcing skills to be quite poor.
Yes! He announced other races at that time, but memory's gearbox is stuck in neutral. Flyers, Riverside, penalty box.... Just so much better than today's announcers... 🤑🤢🤮
@@neillp3827 No, Ceverts crash was in 1973. His teammate, Jackie Stewart already had enough points to claim the World Championship at that race and immediately retired out of respect for Cevert and also to put his influence on improving track safety. His practice session was the last time he was in a Formula 1 car to compete in a race.
I seen all the coolest F1 cars driving and racing there till it closed Stewart hunt lauda Andretti 6 wheel first turbo cars everyone laughed at the Renault then they got it right changed f1 forever.
That's something we'll never see again - an F1 race sponsored by a car manufacturer that's NOT involved it F1. Also what's up with American broadcasters? Every single motorsport coverage I've seen from American broadcasters is very sponsor-friendly! You'll never see any other broadcaster going into detail about the car's sponsor....
Giacomelli was very bad lucky that day, when the race was just won, a mechanical failure ruined his victory. Never after he got chance to win a F1 race. What a pity.
@Flame Resistant Troll dear friend, someone said that Senna have some fear about M.A. speed, and - he supposed - his team was not so happy to help Us rookie
@Flame Resistant Troll sure Flame, I agree...remember that both f1 & CART were interested to develop fans in other countries. I suppose MA knew what kind of work he had to do in EU, probably he didn.t like so much f1 world....
@Flame Resistant Troll dear Flame, the marriage's "affaires" are always important!!! Yet, a good driver as MA is, cannot underestimate - imho - f1 troubles.... obviously, max respect for your opinion🏁🌈🖐😁
