The little ones with the big enthusiasm
10/02/2014
It still exists, the fun old uncomplicated paddock atmosphere from days gone by. The monoposto field at the DTM race in Zandvoort last weekend clearly showed what motorsport was like decades ago. There was screwing, sleeping, or even admiring.
The field of vehicles consisted of anything with four wheels and a (weak) engine. Back then, the cars were supposed to be simple and cheap to enable young people to get into motorsport.
Even today, these small racing cars are probably the cheapest way to drive a real monoposto, whether they were called Formula Vee, Formula Ford, Formula Renault, Formula Junior or whatever.
The races were always a great spectacle, with many retirements and winners whose names were often seen again later.
You will almost certainly never meet the drivers of these cars again, but they had a lot of fun. The races with the historic single-seaters had to be stopped prematurely after just a few laps because too much scrap was produced.
But the fathers were just as enthusiastic as the spectators. Even the DTM media center watched the races on TV. There was much laughter and amusement at the inexhaustible enthusiasm of the drivers.
In fact, the battle continued even when the engine was already emitting all the smoke signals, all the flags were waved, the oil was already flooding the track and all the direct opponents had sunk their cars in the gravel.
Even the variety of shapes of the cars made some people smile, especially the pocket-sized Lotus 72.
