Interesting race picture ?

[Rob M.]

Hi all,

I just bought a nice picture of a race action back in the sixties (1961) which I don't want hold back from you (it can also be found on the C1Registry home page between 1 of the 30 random original vintage pictures shown here).

On the back the picture is stamped:

C.V. Haschel&Son Photo
2167 North Temple Ave.
Indianapolis 18, Indiana

and written underneath:
46-61 of 16 april 1961
Sport Cars I.R.P. handpls (last word very bad readable)
in No 12 turn
Car 82 Corvette class BP-Charles Blanchard
Palas hill
Car 56 Elva mk 11 class GM
R. Irieschmann Northfield hill

Maybe someone can me explain the text written because I can not make much sense out of it...

greetings,
Rob.




The C1 Corvette Registry

[Mike McKown]

Re: Interesting race picture ?

Pictures 46 thru 61

April 16, 1961

Sports cars, Indianapolis Raceway Park

Car #82. B Production class

Driver- Charles Blanchard

Car #56 is an Elva Mk II

Class GM (??????)

Driver is R. Irieschmann

Best I can do

[John H.]

Re: Interesting race picture ?

Rob -

Appears to me to say that it's photo #46 of 61 he took on April 16th, and it was taken at turn #12 at Indianapolis Raceway Park, with the names and home towns of the drivers of the two cars.

[Duke W.]

Re: Interesting race picture ?

The Elva appears to be in class "CM" - C-modified. Maybe you can look at the picture with a magnifying glass and determine if the letter is "C" or "G".
SCCA "modified" classes were for one-off "specials" or small series produced racers, like the Elva, which were powered by a variety of engines. There were several "lower" modified classes, but I don't recall that they went to "G". Each modified class had a displacement limit and maybe a minimum weight. C-modified was "over two liters" (with no upper limit) and the lower displacement class upper limits were 2000, 1300 and 850cc as I recall.
C-modified was essentially a forerunner of what eventually became Can-Am cars, which was a professional rather than amateur series. I recall an interesting C-modified that I saw race at Kent circa '62-'63 - a TR4 with a Corvette engine, but it wasn't actually very competitive in the C-modified class against the light weight specials and serious race cars like V-12 Testa Rossas.

The amateur modified classes evolved into the ASR through DSR "sports racing" classes in the late sixties or early seventies, and several "amateurs" ran Can-AM cars in ASR. Jerry Hanson, a stockbroker from Minneapolis, was a regular ASR and AP competitor in the seventies and won a number of SCCA national championships in Can-Am cars and big block Corvettes.

Unless that Elva was having problems he would have blown off the BP Corvette immediately after exiting the corner.

Duke

[Howard Nardick]

thanks for sharing!! NM *NM*