Before Catch Fences – Memories of Races in Europe

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. I think someone already used that as an opening, but it really does apply to my time in Germany from April 1967 to July 1968. I was a young Second Lieutenant in the Army assigned to the 97^thEngineer Battalion in Pirmasens, Germany. Before the entire unit was reassigned to Ft. Riley, Kansas, I had been promoted to First Lieutenant in ’67 and then Captain in ‘68. During my sadly short time in Europe, I was able to attend a number of races and experienced both highs and lows.

As you will see from the accompanying photos, I was an amateur motorsports photographer. This was long before I learned the art of photography, but I did get lucky with some of my shots. The first couple of events I attended were before I bought a decent camera – a Pentax Spotmatic. It was an excellent camera and had a through-the-lens light meter. Even better, the Takumar lenses that were available were among the best. In a way, it was good that this was back in the day of film. I shot a lot of prints, and it is from those that I selected and scanned the ones for this article.