The 1999 League - 1967 Revisited

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The 1999 League
the Sixty-Seven Sunday Club · eleven rounds · twelve drivers

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Twelve of us race the 1967 calendar over the Internet, one Sunday night every two or three weeks from March to October. We start at 8 o'clock Eastern, which is 9 for Bluenose up in Nova Scotia and supper time for Copse out in Oregon. Copse has heard every joke about his supper there is.

We met on rec.autos.simulators, the racing newsgroup, last winter. Nobody had heard of anybody. Now we know each other's kids' names, and two of us drove up to the Glen together in September for the vintage weekend.

The rules, such as they are:

Races are about a third of the real 1967 distance. Most of them run about an hour. At the Nürburgring, a third of the distance is five laps, and that takes most of an hour all by itself.
Full damage. If you hit the wall, you live with it.
No more than two drivers in any one make of car.
Points the way they were given out in 1967: 9, 6, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for the top six.
If you put somebody off, you wait for him. Gentlemen's racing. These were gentlemen's cars.

The Drivers

Handle	Car, and a word
ToolRoom	Lotus. That's me. Clark's car, and I'm not giving it up.
Tarzan	Lotus. The other Lotus, so I suppose he's Graham Hill. A schoolteacher in Ohio and the smoothest driver in the league.
Karussell	Brabham. Leading the championship, and he knows it. Engineer at a paper mill in Wisconsin.
HeelToe	Brabham. Won Monaco, just like Hulme did. Hasn't stopped mentioning it.
Parabolica	Ferrari. A retired airline mechanic in New Jersey. Saw the 1967 race at the Glen too, from the other side of the track. We figured that out in April.
Woodcote	Ferrari. The youngest of us, twenty-three, and fearless the way you can only be at twenty-three.
EauRouge	Eagle. Took the Eagle because Gurney won Spa in one, and then went and won Spa in it himself.
Stavelot	Eagle. Fast in practice, unlucky on Sunday.
Wingless	BRM. Loves the sound of the H16. Won Mosport, the BRM's only win in our league so far.
Brakeman	BRM. A railroad man from Pennsylvania, which is where the handle comes from. Not because he brakes early. He does brake early.
Bluenose	Cooper. Hosts our races on his cable connection in Nova Scotia, so we'd forgive him anything.
Copse	Honda. The only one of us who wanted the Honda, and he's made it work. Oregon.

Schedule and Results

Round	Winner, and how I did
1. Kyalami March 7	Karussell. I was 6th. My first league race, my first point, and I was happier than a grown man has any right to be.
2. Monaco March 21	HeelToe. I didn't finish. Into the barrier at Ste. Devote on the third lap, in front of everybody.
3. Zandvoort April 11	Tarzan, winning at the track with his corner on it. I was 4th, close enough to see him the whole way.
4. Spa April 25	EauRouge, in the Eagle, same as Gurney. I was 5th. Spa is the fastest, most frightening thing I've ever done sitting down.
5. Rouen May 16	Karussell. I was 3rd, my first podium, after Parabolica and HeelToe tangled at the hairpin. I'll take it.
6. Silverstone June 13	Parabolica. I was 2nd, a second and a half behind him at the flag. My best race. I didn't sleep that night.
7. Nürburgring July 11	Karussell, of course. I was 7th, after spinning at the Karussell itself, which Karussell will be mentioning until I die.
8. Mosport August 1	Wingless, in the BRM. I was 4th.
9. Monza September 12	Tarzan, by a car length, out of a pack of five that ran together in the draft the whole race. I was 5th in the same pack. No chicanes in 1967, so it's flat out nearly all the way around.
10. Watkins Glen Sunday, October 3	Coming up. Two days after the anniversary. The whole league knows what this one means to me, and they've promised not to let me win it. See my setup notes for the Glen.
11. Mexico City Sunday, October 17	The finale. The championship will probably come down to this one.

Standings After Nine Rounds

Pos.	Driver	Pts.
1	Karussell (Brabham)	53
2	Tarzan (Lotus)	45
3	Parabolica (Ferrari)	34
4	EauRouge (Eagle)	22
5	ToolRoom (Lotus)	21
6	Wingless (BRM)	16
7	HeelToe (Brabham)	15
8	Woodcote (Ferrari)	10
9	Brakeman (BRM)	4
10	Bluenose (Cooper)	3
11	Stavelot (Eagle)	1
11	Copse (Honda)	1

Karussell leads Tarzan by eight with eighteen points still on the table. If Tarzan wins both, Karussell has to finish second in both to hold him off. It's going to be a long two Sundays.

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Last updated September 20, 1999