Description
By: Paul Parker .
Description
Though the 1970s started and finished with Porsche domination, the decade's sports car racing saw a wide range of cars and drivers take part in dramatic races on some of the world's greatest tracks. The atmosphere of sports car racing in this period is brilliantly captured in this diligently researched photographic book, which features nearly 300 colour images accompanied by a fascinating commentary.
The decade started with the fabulous Porsche 917 in control of endurance racing despite Ferrari's best efforts with the 512 and then the Fl-based 312PB. With a change of rules for 1972, however, Ferrari became omnipotent that season, but the Italian team lost the 1973 championship to Matra and withdrew permanently from endurance racing, followed by Matra's withdrawal as well at the end of 1974. Thereafter, with the 1973-74 energy crisis receding, Porsche became ever-present again in the major championship and nonFIA events, but surprising diversity came from a resurgent John Wver Gulf team, Autodelta Alfa Romeo and Alpine-Renault among others, together with an intriguing variety of purpose-built privateer racers, road-based GTs and highly developed touring cars.
During the second half of the decade the championship was briefly fragmented into Group 6 (World Sports Car Championship) and Group 5 (World Manufacturers' Championship) with mutually exclusive races. This situation lasted two years (1976 - 1977) before being abandoned, but Group 6 returned to join the other categories in 1979, remaining poorly supported.
Two of the great endurance classics, those at Sebring and Le Mans, fell foul of the official regime for differing reasons and were run as 'maverick' events outside the championship schedule, but this stopped neither event and Le Mans, indeed, often attracted the best and most varied fields. The Targa Florio and Spa-Francorchamps disappeared largely because of safety concerns, but the fearsome Nurburgring Nordschleife remained in use throughout the decade.
About The Author
This book has been compiled and written by Paul Parker, who has contributed to Autosport, Classic Cars, Forza!, Jaguar World Monthly, the Daily Telegraph and Octane, and has also track-tested and raced historic racing cars. He is the author of three sister volumes published by Haynes: Sports Car Racing in Camera 1960-69, Formula 1 in Camera 1960-69 and Formula 1 in Camera 1970-79.
