Formula Expo 2012: My Personal Time Machine

The Austin Convention Center was home to a virtual time machine this past weekend. No, “Back To The Future” wasn’t showing. It became the two-day home of Formula Expo, an exhibition of past and present Formula One cars and photos. Stepping into Formula Expo 2012 on Saturday was like stepping into my own personal time machine.

Formula One technology has fascinated me since the days of my youth. At a time when most of my friends were wanting to become doctors and firefighters and professional hockey players, I wanted to become an automotive engineer. I wanted to design Formula One cars. Part of the beauty of F1 has always been the highest level of technology and rapid rate of design implementation. It attracts the worlds top aerospace engineers for exactly that reason. I filled many a sketch book with F1 designs that I had conjured up in my imagination.

Formula Expo provided the opportunity to view some current (or recent) F1 technology. On the floor of the Convention Center, I found a Williams, Lotus, and Red Bull. Many F1 designers have been known to remark over the years that if a car has an elegant, clean design and looks fast, then it almost always is. I was reminded of this when I caught a glimpse of one of Michael Schumacher’s world-championship-winning Ferraris. Bellissimo!

But then I stepped into my time machine and took a journey back to some vintage F1 machines of my youth. The first stop was 1974 and the bright orange March 741 driven by Hans Stuck. Loved it! Stuck would really throw that car around dramatically in a seemingly perpetual four wheel drift. Then onwards to 1979 and the world-championship-winning Lotus 79. Now that was an epic aerodynamic adventure. There was a time when all of my sketches looked similar to the Lotus 79 – how could you top that design? Then there was a stop in 1980 to see something that truly touched me – the Ferrari 312 T-5 driven by none other than Gilles Villeneuve. Now that took me back to some great memories.

I had the great fortune to have watched all of these amazing machines race at one time or another. Oh how the technology has changed since then!

There was also a photo exhibit documenting the history of F1. In it, I found a photo of Emerson Fittipaldi from the 1973 Canadian Grand Prix – my third grand prix and second year of Formula One. I remember it well. What stood out for me was that I remember being in the far background of the image – if you could see a couple hundred meters down the road in the misty and rainy conditions …

But it was the technology – and its evolution – that was the high point of Formula Expo. It certainly fueled more excitement for me to hear 18,000 rpm flying down to Turn 11 at the Circuit of the Americas in November. Such a sweet sound that is. It is hard to believe that I saw my first F1 race a full 40 years ago.

Many thanks go out to those involved in Formula Expo 2012. It was definitely a blast from the past – and a nod to what lies ahead!

Photo credits: abesselink