1984 - Heinz Melkus erklärt "Die Sozialistische Renngemeinschaft"

When talking about racing in the East, Heinz and Ulli Melkus left their mark. Heinz, the father, competed in Formula 3 in 1955 in a 500 cc JAP. From then on, he influenced the racing scene with his driving and design skills. In 1960, a racing car bore his name for the first time: the Melkus 60 Wartburg. Racing cars were designed, tested, and successfully fielded in his Dresden driving school and in Sports Car Construction, as his company was later called. Heinz Melkus took advantage of the socialist need for recognition. He called development collectives "Socialist Racing or Development Communities," whose ideas were used quite successfully until the end of the GDR. These so-called racing communities had an easier time obtaining scarce materials; at the very least, they opened doors and gates much more quickly. Heinz Melkus then achieved the coup with his RS 1000, which was built "in honor of the GDR," shaped the racing scene, and is still a sought-after cult car today... With improvements in East-West relations, Western countries also took notice of motorsport in the East. In 1984, a Western television crew took up this topic and reported on the racing community in the East. Today, one must say: "Thank God," because such a report was not exactly in the interest of the sports leaders in the GDR, and nothing about the organization of the racing scene in the East was made until the fall of the Wall. With his explanations, Heinz Melkus proves once again that, in addition to his well-known skills, he is also an excellent diplomat. He "gently" describes the East German problems, but also shows excellently how they were solved. It is difficult to convey how racing functioned in the East, but viewers will find it here, and Michael Schumacher described the principle in one of his visions, "Equal Conditions for All." The filmmakers made every effort to make the film available to everyone in the East on cassette. Thus, it arrived in Dresden in 1985 via Most in Czechoslovakia. Only now, 35 years later, can we show it, as its filmmakers once intended. Back then, this was a utopian dream... To underscore Heinz Melkus's words about the effectiveness of the racing communities, the film is accompanied by a contemporary document by his son, Ulli Melkus, on the construction of new MT 77 racing cars from 1984, which shows the distribution of work and thus guarantees equal racing cars. At this point, many thanks to Reinhard Ahr's YouTube channel for their great support. ---------------------- The text in the film: While a powerful car lobby supports racing in the West, since the mid-1970s the Eastern Bloc could no longer keep pace due to the technologically stagnating automobile industry. East and West racing diverged. Formula 1 emerged as the premier class of motor racing, and in the East, a group limited to 1300 cc developed from the few available vehicles and their components: Formula E1300, where E stands for East. This meant that the Eastern European countries held their own "(World) Championship," the so-called "Cup for Peace and Friendship of the Socialist Countries," as a counterpart to Western Formula 1, now called "Formula 1 of the East." The film is a tribute to Heinz Melkus, the "Stuck" of the East, and his son, Ulli Melkus, on the occasion of his 70th birthday and 30th death anniversary in 2020.