More great photos from 1968-69 Champ Car races

Regular readers will recall that Ken Durham recently shared four photos he shot at the 1967-69 Champ Car races at Hanford Motor Speedway. 

Well, good news: Durham, a longtime motorsports journalist, has dug even deeper into his files and shared more than a dozen fantastic shots from the 1968-69 Hanford races, including several terrific portraits of Bobby Unser, Johnny Rutherford and Joe Leonard. 

I've included Ken's captions pretty much verbatim because he's provided nice detail that kinda puts you at the track and draws on his experience as a racing journalist. And remember, Durham was only a teen-ager when he snapped these images, setting the stage for a future career. 

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Hanford through the lens of a teenager

Lloyd Ruby, Jigger Sirous and George Follmer caught in a nice three-car battle during the 1969 Champ Car race at Hanford Motor Speedway.(Photo Copyright ©2011 Ken Durham, www.GearHeadPhotography.com)Reader Ken Durham shared some wonderful photos from the Champ Car races at Hanford Motor Speedway that he shot as a teenage fan. 

Art Pollard's beautiful Gerhardt Offy sits in the infields after retiring halfway through the 1969 Champ Car race at Hanford Motor Speedway. (Photo Copyright ©2011 Ken Durham, www.GearHeadPhotography.com)Durham recalls that he was 15 and 16 years old when he attended the four Champ Car races between November 1967 and April 1969. He had some great access and was able to snag some nice shots using a Yashica D camera.

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My chat with Bobby Unser

Bobby Unser leads Roger McCluskey during 1969 Champ Car race at Hanford Motor Speedway. The race was the last national event held at the track.Bobby Unser was a dominant force in his three races at Hanford Motor Speedway, with an average start of 3.2 and average finish of 4.0.

Those performances included a pole in the first 1968 race, and three other Top 5 starts, and finishes of 2nd, 5th, 2nd and 7th. He drove for Bob Wilke all four races, in an Eagle-Ford in 1967 but Eagle-Offys in 1968-69.

Bobby Unser was driving this Ford V8 Rislone Special for Bob Wilke's Leader Cards Racing in the 1967 race at Hanford"We had good races there but I distinctly remember sand when we raced there," Unser told me in a telephone interview from his home in New Mexico. "It was a "big slide for life" type of deal, that's what Hanford was."

Despite strong Hanford performances that included leading 98 laps in the first 1968 race  -- the year he won the national championship -- Unser kept referring to sand on the track.

"It wasn't a good place to race on," he said. "Lots of sand would blow on the track. It  wasn't a completed race track. It needed an infusion of "finish it up."

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