Welcome to Multimedia Motor Sport
- 16 May 2013
I fell in love with Formula 1 back as a kid when I saw a photo of the 1975 Ferrari 312T for the first time and have been passionate about it ever since. My brother calls it an obsession but what does he know? The first race I ever attended was a F5000 race in 1978 at Oran Park and the second was the 1980 Australian Grand Prix at Calder.
Alan Jones in the Williams may have been the run-away winner but it was the sound Bruno Giacomelli’s V12 Alfa Romeo that really sealed my fate. This was also my debut as an (very) amateur photographer, taking some utterly awful shots that I thought were great at the time. Over the next few years my ability and equipment improved, and thankfully so did my photos until in 1987 both me and my camera went arse over tit into a river in Tasmania. Hence there are no photos from the Australian Grand Prix between 1988 and 1991.
A Lucky find in a porn shop got me an old (but good) Pentax with a very nice 300 ml zoom and my fetish began again late in 1991 at the Surfers Indycar race. As you would expect from a once a year amateur many of the pics from the first 10 years or so are pretty average but there are some good ones and some interesting rarities. Lauda, Rosberg, Piquet etc driving Formula Pacific Ralts for example. As the equipment got better so did the photos and by a few ago it started to occur to me that I wasn’t half bad at it.
My trip to the Good Revival meeting in 2000 was probably the end of my desire to continue to work at Telstra and after becoming a member of the Goodwood Road Racing Club in 2001 I haven’t missed a Revival meeting since. The size of the Goodwood photo galleries is testament to just how much more value there is there than at a European F1 Grand Prix event at the moment.
After my trip to England in 2003 I produced a Historic Racing calendar that included photos from Goodwood, the Oulton Park Gold Cup and the Donington round of the Thoroughbred Grand Prix series, which got a very nice review in Australian Classic Car magazine and has almost sold out. I am the co-author (I wrote the text) of a Marque Publication book on the Datsun Z-Cars, which will be on the shelves shortly and am currently writing the text for another marque Publications book on the Mazda Rotaries. On my return from England next month I will be producing another Historic Racing calendar for 2005.
Sam Snape