I was an avid follower from the mid-50’s until about the mid-70’s and then the magic just seemed to go out of it.
F1, Can-Am, Trans-Am, NasCar, Indy, you name it, and it was pretty much over for me.
But, those were the days.
Stirling Moss, Fireball Roberts, Yunick, Jones, the chicken farmer, to name a few.
You have a point. Back in that time the cars had some styling and beauty to them, now they look like the critters in Starship Troopers.
Stock cars used to be modified production models, now they are full race cars without a bit of “stock car” in them.
NHRA has gone full-computer. Gone are the manual throttles. The garage mechanic has no hope of competing with the $$$$ teams.
Gary Scelzi told me that each run of a top fuel dragster costs $7,000 in the long run, $5,000 if you didn’t want to win.
IMO the most beautiful cars ever built were the sports racers of the 1960's. I was born a few years too late to see them in their prime, but I never get tired of looking at cars like the Cobra coupe, Lola T70, Chaparral 2C and 2D, and (oh God that's too sexy a car to really exist) the Ferrari 330P4.
That documentary, “One” was great about early F1.
The only horrible thing was the annual carnage where so many great drivers lost their lives.
I also recommend “Gull Wing at Twilight” that is usually shown on some PBS stations from time to time which features the life of driver John Fitch as he prepared to run a modified MB Gull-Wing at the salt flats at 84 years old.
“Yunick”
Smokey was a hoot! I was a big fan of his trickery!