ROAD ATLANTA

[Music] It's become a threec car race. That's McInness on the inside now trying to outbreak Fitzgerald as they go up under the bridge. It looks good. He's completed the move. McInness has taken the lead from Jim Fitzgerald. Logan Blackburn in third in the yellow car, but Fitzgerald is trying to retake the lead for McInness, but he fails. McInness holds on to the lead. Blackburn is third. We're just a few laps now from finding out who the 1977 national champion will be. McInness still leading Logan Blackburn in second now. [Music] [Music] [Music] This is Limerock, Connecticut. Today, a racing team is conducting the last preparation of their car before going to Atlanta, Georgia in their final race of the year, the Champion Spark Plug Road Racing Classic at Road Atlanta. In the quiet Connecticut countryside, the team can test their car against the stopwatch on an empty track, assessing in solitude the competitiveness of their car. All over the country, similar teams are testing their cars for the last time. Within a week, these teams will converge upon Atlanta to confront each other wheelto-heel. At this point in the season, very few teams would consider making major changes to their cars. It's too late. Instead, the teams will be fine-tuning the existing combination of car and driver. [Music] Road Atlanta is a racetrack set in the red clay and pinecovered hills of northern Georgia. Its name is synonymous with a very special event in the world of racing. The Sports Car Club of America's annual championship runoffs, an Olympic games of sports car racing. I'm Sam Posey and that is the start finish line at Road Atlanta. For the past 10 years, I've been making my living as a professional racing driver, driving in events like the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours of Lama, and a wide variety of other Grand Prix and sports car races. The tradition of the Road Atlanta runoffs is 14 years old, and with each year, the event has grown in size and importance. Competing here this November will be over 500 drivers driving a wide variety of cars. Most of these cars will be sports cars similar to those manufactured for ordinary street driving. Of these, some will have been so highly modified as to be barely recognizable. Others will remain almost as they come from the showroom with little more than numbers on the doors and a roll bar for safety. A few will be pure racing cars. Open wheel single seaters like this one built exclusively to be raced. [Music] Year-long competition nationwide has produced the best cars and drivers from the thousands who compete. These few will race here for the national championships. Now, the drivers come to this event from all over the country. Some are professionals, some are amateurs, but the one thing they have in common is that they come to Road Atlanta as winners. Road racing is the oldest form of automobile racing. In the beginning, in the early 1900s, they used to race on open country roads from one town to another. But as the events grew in popularity, spectators came out, lined the tracks four and five deep in places, and it soon became too dangerous for the spectators and for the drivers. So, special road courses were built. Many of these tracks were designed to incorporate features from the surrounding county highways. For example, behind me here, the S's are very like some of the turns that are right outside of the track on Route 53. Of course, on Route 53, you can run only the legal speed limit, whereas here you can do all you can do. In the S's, that would be about 100 miles an hour, maybe a little bit more. Over on the straightaway, 160. At speeds like that, mistakes can happen. spin out, crashes, maybe worse, because here at Road Atlanta, the challenge of road racing is greater than anywhere else. The Road Atlanta course is 2 and 1/2 miles long and has 12 turns. The first is a fast sweeping curve made difficult by the fact that halfway through it changes from going downhill to uphill which alters the way the car handles. You come onto the second turn having just crested a ride. The turn is invisible until you were right on top of it. Next a sequence of five turns called the S's. In the first part, the car is still gathering speed. Then suddenly the track pitches steeply downward, carrying the cars into a valley at over 100 mph. Abruptly, the track starts uphill again. And as the car rushes into the final turn of the S's, you must break and shift down. And the braking must be accomplished while the car is being turned. A tricky maneuver with the car already sided. [Music] After the S's is a short straight where the emphasis is not so much on the driver as on the acceleration of the car. The fastest cars will reach 150 mph here before breaking for that righthander ahead. Now we're coming to the hairpin which is the slowest part of the track just 50 mph. It's crucially important not so much because of the turn itself which you can see here but because it's the turn which comes immediately before the track's longest straightaway. And the driver who can get his car accelerating the soonest off the hairpin will have an advantage all the way up the straight. Although it is here on the straight that the cars will reach their highest speeds, which will be 180 mph and more for the fastest cars, to the driver, the straight offers a moment's rest from the constant struggle with the car in the turn. However, in the race, this piece of road can become a real battleground because it is here that passing is most likely to occur. If two cars have been racing neck and neck, it is at this point, the breaking area for the turn at the end, that the battle will reach its climax. The driver who can leave his braking to the latest, will lead into this turn under the bridge. Here's that turn under the bridge. Another place where a hill crest obscures most of the turn beyond. And after the bridge, there's this steep downhill plunge into this easy sweeper just before the finish line. We're using this modified road car to demonstrate some of what's involved in tuning the car and driver combination to the track. As I said earlier, one of the most important things that you have to start with is really warming the car up. Because until you've done that, the tires aren't hot. They don't stick to the road right. And of course, you can't you just can't rev the engine up until the oil has had a chance to thin out, run through the engine properly. Lastly, since so many of the cars these days have two-way radios fitted that go back to the pits, it's important to use this time to check out the radio. The radio isn't working. It isn't much good to you or to your crew chief. [Music] With the car warmed up and the driver satisfied with his line around the course, it's up to the driver and his mechanics to get the car's suspension adjusted for maximum road holding. This isn't so easy. Suspension theory is a very complicated part of racing. The objective is easily enough stated. It's to keep these wide, flat racing tires in contact with the track as much as possible, even if the track is bumpy or the car is leaning. But the solution is not so easily arrived at because there's literally a multitude of suspension components, all of which affect the outcome of the handling of the car. The shock absorbers, the spring rates, the tire inflation, the sway bars. The handling is even affected by the aerodynamic downforce of the car. With one combination of settings, the car might be stable in a fast bend, but very sluggish through a slow one. But with 5 minutes of changes, you can turn the whole thing around, make the car handle completely differently. It's Monday morning and practice has begun. There are only six days to go now before the races. The team that we saw practicing earlier at Limerock, Bob Sharp Racing from Connecticut, has a particularly difficult job. They have not one but two cars. Each runs in a different class and hence in a different race. Each presents its own special problems during practice. Friday was an eventful day with this car, a Dodson 200SX. They broke the track record and then blew their engine. They installed their spare engine over the weekend. Meanwhile, the team flew one of the men back to Connecticut to build up another engine just in case. >> The main responsibility for the cars rests with the crew chief, Jean Crowe. Crow, a grandfather, is hardly the hell raiser some people think of when you mention automobile racing. Instead, like so many of the other top men in the racing profession, he has worked many hard years at his craft. Bob Sharp is the team's owner. A brilliant driver and the winner of nine national championships. He retired two years ago after a bad crash. To drive his car, Sharp has chosen an accomplished young driver, Bruce McInness. A man who has yet to win a national championship, but who has a chance to win not just one, but two this weekend >> on the second day of practice. Any further tuning of the cars was thwarted by an abrupt change in the weather. It rained, making the track slow, slippery, and extremely dangerous. At less important races, most teams would have let their cars sit safely in the pits. But here at Road Atlanta, the racers took the chance of practicing on the dangerous pavement to get experience just in case it also rained on race day. At the end of practice, the emotions of the 500 teams ranged from despair in the case of teams who had crashed their cars to cautious optimism in the case of teams whose cars were fast and running reliably. The next step would be qualifying and the weather report forecast a return to good weather. >> These cars are about to qualify. Unlike Indianapolis where only one car is on the track at a time during qualification, in road racing, all the cars are on the track and all of their laps are timed. Now, only the fastest laps by each car counts for the starting position for that car. When the lineup is made, the fastest cars are placed at the front and the fastest of all is put on the pole position. Qualifying is always important for prestige. But in the case of a short halfhour championship event like this, qualifying at the front becomes a tactical necessity. >> In spite of the pressure, there's a great beauty to qualifying that some drivers savor even beyond the excitement of the race. This is the one moment in the whole racing weekend where pure speed is the only objective. The idea is to put together one perfect lap. If you find yourself bunched up with the other cars, drop back and get a clear track. It's only your best lap that counts. The pit crew keeps you informed of your times and the times of your closest opposition. The driver swings onto the track for the warm-up laps. And by now the layout of the track, the shift points, the breaking points are all second nature. [Applause] He holds the vision of the entire lap in his mind as if it is a poem he's about to recite. He knows where he can float a front wheel across a curb and save a tenth of a second and where he can break a yard deeper and get away with it. tenths of a second, hundreds, microscopic fragments of time. The essence of making a dozen critical decisions every second. It's totally up to the driver. The effort to drive absolutely on the limit produces inevitably mistakes. Some are so small that only fractions of a second are lost as the driver slides too wide or accelerates a moment too late. Other mistakes are more costly, leading to spins or crashes. In recent years, technological advances within the sport have made racing safer, and it is no longer as dangerous as some people suppose. In fact, in all of the crashes during the Road Atlanta week, not one driver was seriously hurt. [Music] [Applause] [Music] So the spect Spectators who come to sports car events like this come much more for the excitement of the races than to witness a dangerous spectacle. Often whole families attend, coming in a camper and spending the weekend. To the spectator, Road Atlanta offers the special attraction of two full days of racing. While other race events might feature just one or two races, at Road Atlanta, 23 national championships will be decided. Each race being a half hour long. Sports cars come in such different sizes and degrees of sophistication that all these classes are needed to ensure that cars differing widely in performance will not have to compete against each other. For example, in the first race in which Bruce McInness will compete, his Dodson 200SX will be pitted against a similar adoption of Dave Brelson, the yellow and black car here, and other makes of cars of similar speed and cost. For this race, McGinness has taken pole position, but only by the smallest margin. Felson looms as a solid threat. As they pull out on the warm-up lap, McInness is in the number 33 car here. He weaves his car back and forth to warm up the tires. >> They're headed along the back straight. Now just seconds to go before the start. The months of planning all boiling down now to what will happen in the next 30 minutes. McInness's car seems to have stalled. >> Here comes the field down under the bridge. McInness is missing. You can see that gap on the left side of the front row. And they're off. Frozen wars into the lead >> back and forth a couple of times. >> Did it just die when you were running along? >> What's he trying? Flip all the switches on and off. >> Did you try flipping the ignition switch, too? >> Got fuel pressure. He's got Just stop. Can't believe it. >> How in the hell could it die? Who knows? I don't know. >> For some, Saturday has been a day of triumph. For others, like Bruce McInness, Saturday was a disaster. And for the members of the Bob Sharp team, a long night is anticipated as they scrutinize every nut and bolt in the car, which offers them their last remaining chance to win a championship. >> Sorry, Mie. Know what I can say to you? Got another one to go. Yeah, you bet you. You bet you. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] With dawn on Sunday comes new confidence for the team. Their Datson 280Z has been checked and rechecked and Jean Crow and the other mechanics are certain it is ready for the tense showdown that everyone participants and spectators expect this race to be. The qualification times have been extraordinarily close. McInness is on the pole, but second fastest is the man many believe has turned more laps at Road Atlanta than anyone, the veteran Jim Fitzgerald. And third on the grid is Logan Blackburn, a former national champion from Indianapolis. [Music] Here [Applause] [Music] are the top three contenders coming down through the S's. Directly behind the white pace car is McInness. To the right is the white and red car of Jim Fitzgerald. To the left, the yellow car of Logan Blackburn. These three cars are nearly identical Dodson 280Z's. If there's any difference between them at all, it's microscopic. We're looking for a race that's going to be decided more by the drivers involved than their machines. They're bunching up now behind the pace car, working their brakes to warm them up. Only half a lap to go now. McGinness told the press before the race he was going to try to make a break for it on the first lap. Get a clear lead. [Applause] McGinness is on the inside there. Fitzgerald on the outside in the car with the red hood and top. Just seconds to go now before the start. They're jockeying for position. They're coming down through the last turn. The green flag and they're off. McInness has taken the lead. Jim Fitzgerald is second. Bruce McInness there leading. Fitzgerald second. Logan Blackburn in the yellow car third. They start down into the S's. McInness has made good his plan to take an early lead. Let's see now whether he can pull away. Fitzgerald right behind him as they come up into the hairpin. McInness looks a little slow off the hairpin. Yes, Fitzgerald has passed him on the straight. Fitzgerald's really flying, but with slides like that, he may overheat his tires. It's Fitzgerald holding off McInness on the straight with two laps gone. Fitzgerald still leads into the S's. No sign of his letting up to save his tires or himself. Logan Barturn seems to be falling back. The two leaders are breaking away. Fitzgerald and McInness are at the hairpin now. McInness is powering up alongside him as they go into the breaking area. They're neck and neck under the bridge. Fitzgerald's too wide to block. They're side by side, but Fitzgerald retains the lead. Look at how close they are now in the intensity of their battle. The two leaders are blocking each other. And now Blackburn in the yellow car is closing in. He's perceptively closer. As they exit the hairpin, he's really pouring it on. Breaking at the end of the straight. He's the closest yet. This is a threecar race. But Blackford seemed to be holding back at the first. He isn't now. With Blackburn so close, McInness may now be forced to try to pass Fitzgerald or fall the third. The ramifications of a threecar race are of course much more complex than with just two cars. Fitzgerald leading there. McInness right behind him. Fitzgerald seems slow off that turn. Yes, McInness is now trying to make a bid on the inside. He is on the inside. Fitzgerald on the outside. McInness looking good as they come under the bridge. He's taken the lead. Bruce McInness has taken the lead. Retaken the lead. He led earlier in the race and Fitzgerald is trying to repass him again and fails. Blackburn moving up. Blackburn has moved into second as Fitzgerald's bid to retake the lead failed. McGinness is leading now as he was on the first lap, but this time with a different pursuer. He's been smooth all along, but his inability to pull away has been surprising to me. Here they come down through the S's. He may be deciding now that he's got to try to pull away. This strategy of dicing with the others is very dangerous. He's going through the hair pin. He's looking good. No, he's slow off that turn. Blackburn had to pull out almost to pass him right there. Fitzgerald is in third. They're very close. Blackburn leading now. McInness has dropped way back. Something may be wrong with McInness. Blackburn leading. Fitzgerald right behind. And McInness is going toward the pit. >> The gearbox is broken. He's coming in. This is incredible. Breaking down for the second time in two days. Bruce McInness coasting into the pit. Something wrong with the car? [Applause] >> Good. I don't know what happened. >> Well, something broke in the gearbox. Never done it before. >> Hey, Mie, that's racing. Come on. We were going after something that we won all of them. It wouldn't be racing. >> Just I know. Hey, >> you know, everything was working. >> Logan Blackburn is leading now. Since the start, every move he's made has been right. Logan Blackburn, driving the course expertly, is outdistancing Fitzgerald. Just two turns to go now. It's all Logan Blackburn in that beautiful yellow car. And he takes the checkered flag. [Applause] >> Logan Blackburn, the 1977 winner. This year it was yours. >> Yeah. This year everything went our way. So it was a the car was perfect. This ran tremendous the whole race. >> Well, in the early going there while Bruce and Fitzy were kind of battling it out. It looked like you might be laying back or maybe not. We're not sure. But uh once Bruce went out, you got back up front there. It was your race. >> It's a lot of work to do that. I'm I'm happy where I'm at right now. Well, a fine job. We congratulate you, Logan. We look forward to seeing you back here next year. >> Thank you very much, Paul. Hey, Logan. >> Ed, back up to you. Sorry. Thank you very much. Yeah. [Music] Heat. [Music]