I saw "Gran Prix" in the mid afternoon at a theater near to the college I was attending in the first week of distribution. Being the afternoon, I wasn't the least bit high or imbibing, both things college age guys did and do frequently. The theater was all but empty.
I left a changed person and went to work in the race car industry thinking I could manage to race someday, somehow. Furthest I got was in karts and I did karts for many years, on and off. I hung the last kart on the wall at age 47, but I managed to get some DE days in a 911 and 914 since.
If you've driven a kart on a normal sports car track at speeds of 100 mph, or so, depending on the track, you've basically experienced what those early F1 drivers were doing. It's rough, nasty and will render you into rubber.
But, it's damn good stuff.
This is me circa 1987 at Riverside going into T6:
