In the span of one minute, you’ll get an amazing appreciation for the fan experience at the 1964 US Nationals. While there are many fans who cruise to races these days with their motorhomes and spend the weekend living the good life in the pits, a motorhome was basically foreign to large swaths of the country in 1964. If you were going to head off on a long trip and sleep somewhere back then, chances are it was the trunk or the passenger seat of the car you rode there in. In fact, he first section of this video shows the sleeping condition of many race fans (and late night partiers by the looks of it!) snuggled up in their cars and literally in trunks. Others are laid out on the ground. Those people either drew the short straw or were drunkest of the bunch. You’ll see one guy get up and then his two buddies lay a sheet over the raised trunk lid so the guy can get changed in there. Oh, we think “in there” is literally the trunk of a Pontiac GTO!
Over the course of the minute we see two race cars. One is a street roadster style of machine and the other is the S&S racing team’s rendition of a 1933 Willys, we think. There were a bunch of S&S cars back in the day and KS Pittman was one of their drivers along with guys like Dave Hales and others. In the case of both race cars show in the film, they rule. Being able to give some historical perspective about what these races were like away from the spectator’s side is pretty awesome. Like the racers, the fans themselves were committed to the event.
It is pretty interesting that someone took the time to wake up early and capture what the world around them looked like at Indy in ’64. It had to have made such an impression on them that they had the now common thought “I need to get video of this!”. We smiled the whole way through the short film because it shows a couple of things, the first of which is that as much as things have changed they have stayed the same. Of course today people are sprawled out in motorhomes and stuff rather the back seat of their car but the recovery period in the morning after a night of fun is still part of the process at the Big Go, right?
This is a look at a great moment in time. The calm before the day begins at the most prestigious drag race in the world.
PRESS PLAY BELOW FOR AN AWESOME (AND QUICK) LOOK AT THE 1964 US NATIONALS
