This (no sound) 8 m.m. move film of the Laguna Seca race is worth a watch if you liked these cars. I certainly did. And still do: two of the area racers I'm a big fan of drive Alfa GTA/GTV's, and the VSCDA often has a good turn-out of Datsun 510's.
https://www.facebook.com/csrgracing/videos/10153796626955549/?theater
I was so impressed with the BRE 510's that I went right out and bought one. Drove it for 8 years and loved it. But it was not, as the saying had it at the time, "a poor man's BMW 2002." I nearly spun mine chasing a 2002 through some twisties--could not keep up. The stock 510 needed considerable rearrangement of its suspension geometry, both front and rear, to approach the handling of the BRE cars.
We remember things as we wish, not as they were. The BRE 510's were dominant at the Mid-Ohio race I watched. Horst Kwech's Alfa was nowhere. And that was the way I remembered the championship fight. Not so. As the video poster's comment makes clear, the championship came down to the last race at Laguna Seca. Which, itself, involved trading paint, Kwech punting John Morton off-course and, finally, being disqualified.
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| Above: John Morton and his restored 1971 Championship-winning car, photographed years later. Both were fast. Below: Pilote's 510, with amateur copy-cat hardware store tape graphics. Both were slow. |
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