from memories and reference books etc it seems that my present viewership of f1 began with the last few races of 1981, and then for some reason only the last few races of 1982 - but constantly since then (though i do remember prost crashing late in monaco in 1982 just as murray walker said he was going to win - i thought "that'll be in the bbc spoty blooper reel in december" - and it was).
it is more than 40 years ago I suppose.
so some queries from the time;
1 - an italian gp at monza (1981 or 1982 i think) where an unfancied (italian?) driver went from about 6th to 1st place straight off the grid into the lead - but there was quickly a big accident (there usually is on lap 1 at monza of course) - only for him to do exactly the same thing again on the restart! (he was soon passed by some cars though) - it was not riccardo patrese in the 1978 race (he never actually led from either start if you remember) though it might have been him in another year - has anyone got more details about that?
2 - (i think long beach 1981) where williams bought along a hand controlled version of their car, so that clay regazzoni (paralysed at long beach 1980 in a williams) could drive some parade laps on an empty track - long beach was early in the 1981 season though.
3 - the first canadian gp in montreal where that "salut gilles" painted sign appeared on the pole position and has been there ever since (it could've been 1982 or 1983 or 1984 etc - it was in the early 1980's but it was after he had been killed in may 1982).
4 - again i think monza 1981 - roger moore was still james bond and the for your eyes only movie had just come out that summer - with the title song sung by sheena easton (remember her?) - they were both driven around in a road car on the parade lap behind the f1 cars and even stopped behind them on the grid with the doctor's car etc - is that a correct memory? that sort of thing doesn't happen now of course.
5 - when derek warwick at toleman secretly fuelled light as a stunt to please the crowd at the 1982 british gp and temporarily went from 16th to 2nd (i don't remember the race) did that give gordon murray at brabham the idea to actually design a car with a half size fuel tank (designed to pit and refuel halfway through) for the austrian gp a few races later (i do remember that race) or did he already have the overall idea that became today's "pit stop strategy"?
6 - speaking of which - (in an era when the cars often looked very different from each other unlike now) i seem to remember at the time that instead of developing the same car throughout the year, many leading teams generally introduced completely different cars from scratch for the second half of the season - which therefore could better copy any car that was turning out to a successful other team's idea or car that had been revealed earlier in the season - that is a correct memory from 1981 and 1982 etc - yes?
(maybe i'm not ready for the dementia clinic yet - as i wait for the punchline from texas gate)
--- SBBSecho 3.06-Win32
* Origin: SportNet Gateway Site (24:150/2)