This small but fascinating collection of photos was sent to me by Randy Hernandez. Randy's images have appeared on this site before, most notably in the Perks Of The Job story.
Having read Perks Of The Job, you'll know that Randy's father was the great Fran Hernandez, manager for Fords racing programs during their titanic Total Performance era when they dived head-long into several high-profile arenas of the sport, most notably their GT40 and associated program in an effort to win Le Mans.
By 1970, Ford was cutting back on its racing budget. It'd scrapped the Le Mans project after achieving its goal in 1966 and '67. It'd also withdrawn from NASCAR, and drag racing, and slashed its Trans-Am budget by 75%.
The Trans-Am cut-backs were significant. Ford had had a presence in the series since its inception in 1966, and ran twin-pronged programs in 1967 and '69. The '67 program comprised multi-car teams of Ford Mustangs (run by Shelby racing team), and Mercury Cougars (run by Bud Moore Racing), while the '69 attack had both Shelby and Moore running Mustangs.
But although Ford missed out on the Manufacturers Championship in 1969 (there was no Drivers Championship at this stage), the Bud Moore cars regularly out-paced the Shelby cars, and when the budget cut-backs for 1970 required reverting back to a single team, it was Shelby who got the chop.
Of the 1970 Trans-Am series, the schoolbus yellow factory Mustangs, driven by Parnelli Jones and George Follmer, were the dominant force. In truth, they were really the only team to enjoy any real consistency, essentially carrying over from their 1969 campaign, with updated versions of the same basic cars. Everyone else, by contrast, was either new to the series, or were racing all-new models. And as such, the well-developed Bud Moore Mustangs won 6 of the 11 races.
That said, they were hard-pushed, particularly by the Penske team, and the very determined Mark Donohue, as they developed their new AMC Javelins, having switched from running Camaros the past three seasons.
The race depicted in these photos is Round 9 of the series, held at the challenging Watkins Glen circuit. As it transpired, this was one of the few races that got away from the factory Ford team. Parnelli Jones put his car on pole, with Donohue alongside, and it was this pairing who fought over the lead during the first 30 laps. But then it rained, and in the slippery conditions, Vic Elford, driving one of the two Chevrolet backed Chaparral Camaros, surged through to the front, and built a sizable lead. Eventually, the rain stopped, the track dried, and Donohue, who'd got past Jones, began closing in on Elford, but ran out of laps before he could run down the white Camaro. This was to be the only race victory in the Trans-Am series for the highly accomplished Jim Hall's team.
It was Randy Hernandez who snapped these images. At the time, he was on active duty in the Navy, aged 23, and stationed at Maryland. He chose to take a weekend trip to Watkins Glen, New York, to see his father, and catch the Trans-Am race. Being the son of the top man for Fords racing programs tends to get you places the general public can’t go, as you’ll see from a couple of the close-up shots of the Bud Moore machines. That said, the public had much greater freedom back then than they do now, with just a piece of rope skirting around the cars to give the mechanics space to work. But its neat to see such good close-up shots of both Bud Moore, and Fords two star drivers.
This was a very special period in US road racing. Enjoy these images.
The rest of this collection can be viewed here >>
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