80th Birthday Of Peter Falk – Porsche Engineer And Race Manager
On November 27th Peter Falk celebrated his 80th Birthday. Falk worked for Porsche for over thirty years playing a key role in the development of many cars including the 911, 924 and 928. In 1982 as Head of Racing Development and Racing Director he was responsible for the formidable 956/962 endurance racers that achieved seven Le Mans overall victories and eleven world championships. I was privileged to watch him at work at the 1985 Le Mans.
The Voices In My Head
On November 25th the 2012 Formula One Championship concluded and with it the last of F1 broadcasts in the U.S. courtesy of Speed TV. Born on New year’s Day 1996 as Speedvision, the name morphed into Speed Channel and then Speed HD as new owners and technology appeared. As an early subscriber I couldn’t contain my excitement. Here was a 24 hour channel with in depth coverage of Formula One, Sports Car Endurance Racing, Moto GP, the WRC and Paris-Dakar.
Clearly there is a vast difference between attending a race or watching its mediated version. However since I was no longer photographing races first hand Speed’s broadcasts became a major resource. Because my motorsports viewing often occurs at unusual hours I began to wear headphones as a courtesy to a sleeping spouse. As a result, my race watching was a personal private activity and the commentators became the voices in my head. Speed’s principal F1 team of Bob Varsha, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett were great companions. In particular I enjoyed Matchett’s technical contributions and his fervent appreciation of Grand Prix racing. I also respected the revered Sam Posey’s poetic essays and was entertained by the current view from pit lane via the excitable Will Buxton and previously the F1 insider Peter Windsor.
Their collective insight, banter, humor and passion for Formula One will be missed.
Thanks for the company.
Bob Tilton And His 2013 Werk Crew Calendar
A couple of years ago ago I was researching Porsche info and I came across Bob Tilton’s blog: http://werkcrew.com. It was like discovering a new planet with a highly developed civilization. Ostensibly about early 911’s, Werk Crew is an amazing multi-layered personal journal filled with Bob’s great photographs, stories, opinion and humor that passionately document his life and the air-cooled Porsche culture. I bought a copy of his self-published book “Departure” which, along with Werk Crew, was instrumental in my decision to create a blog of my racing photographs. Bob was encouraging and offered valuable advice. A few weeks later I started Poetics of Speed and he was the first to include it on his blog roll.
It is the week of Thanksgiving here in the U.S. so it is appropriate to thank Bob and pass along the news about his latest project: the 2013 Werk Crew calendar: http://werkcrew.com/?p=4096
UPDATE: As of December 1 the calendars are ready:http://werkcrew.com/?page_id=4130
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