Audi Repair Shop News Doylestown The Last Turn – Photographic Forensics

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You can probably write this story as well as I can, even though I was there that day and you were likely not. There are a lot of clues.

1. There’s a lot of red clay at this track; esses in the background and a hard lefthander just behind the car: got to be just past Turn 5 at Road Atlanta, early days.

2. The 904 is a later version: the larger, more angular rear brake cooling intakes and the shorter door attest to that. The front air dam isn’t factory; maybe California fiberglass work.

3. This is an in-the-day shot: look at the film grain in the image and the American Mags and the treaded tires on the car. But it has been long enough since the car was produced that it is no longer the terror of the two-liter prototype class, and has dropped into private hands to continue in amateur racing.

4. “AP” on the door was an SCCA designation for A Production class, the playground of the big-bore Corvettes and Cobras and the uncomfortable venue to which the much smaller 904 was assigned, perhaps because of its successes on the tight and twisty courses west of the Mississippi.

5. The upper door reveals that the driver was Jim Cook; I can’t tell you much about him, but he was pretty well known at the time and a good driver, a Californian.

6. Because this is Road Atlanta, not very close to California and not inherently friendly to 904s running A Production, you might correctly suspect that this was shot at the ARRC—the American Road Race of Champions–and that Cook had earned his invitation through successes at tighter tracks in the west.

Finally, take a look at what Cook is doing here—I do believe that the green wedge at the far right is one of those big Corvettes that he is stuck to like glue, pushing the 904’s advantage gained through the twisties. Pretty aggressive, but hey, that’s what Porsches did and do.

I have no doubt missed some fine points here, and you might challenge me on some others—what do you see in this 1970 image?

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