Motorsport People Profiles
The World's Greatest Drivers, Owners, Engineers & Personalities
Profiles of past and present automotive personalities. The drivers who risked their lives in the early days to the engineers who creatively changed the world of automobiles, this is a celebration of the people who played a major role in the world we love.
Pantheon of Speed: Legends of Motorsports
Dive into a captivating collection of profiles and exclusive interviews with the greatest names in motorsports history – the drivers who defied limits, the engineers who pushed boundaries, the designers who shaped iconic machines, and the visionaries who built racing empires. From the daredevils of early Grand Prix racing to the modern masters of Formula 1, we celebrate the men and women who have etched their names into the annals of motorsport legend.
Bob Wollek was a champion many times over before he even got into motor racing. He won no fewer than three gold and two silver medals in the World University Games—second only to the Olympics—in downhill, slalom and combined skiing events in 1966 and 1968. When he exploded onto the...
At the first Shelsley Walsh meeting after the war, only the weather was as predictable as the belief among spectators that Raymond Mays would establish Fastest Time of Day (FTD). The weather was dreadful and, for a small boy, it was almost like the echo of voices from the past...
Vintage Racecar was immensely saddened to hear of the passing of “Gentleman” Jack Sears following a long fight with cancer. Jack was born into a farming family in Northampton. His love of cars came through his father Stanley’s interest and participation in motoring events. Jack first took part in the...
The fifth annual Motorsport Festival at the Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey, England, scheduled for Sunday, October 11, will for the first time be welcoming the 22.3-liter W12-engined Napier-Campbell Blue Bird. In 1927, on the Pendine Sands in Wales, Malcolm Campbell drove the car to a new Land Speed Record...
Known simply as “Prof” to many in the motor racing community and Sid to his near friends, Professor Watkins may have made more of a mark on motor racing safety over the past 30 years than anyone else. Indeed, his dogged determination and stubbornness to get things right nearly cancelled...
Allan McCall, who enjoyed a career filled with “career moments,” from working with Jim Clark in saloon cars, F1 and at Indy to building his own line of Tui racing cars, has passed away at the age of 76, apparently succumbing to complication from heart valve surgery. Serving at various...
Niki Lauda Biography Andreas Nikolaus Lauda was born to a well-to-do Vienna family on February 22, 1949. His family’s social status proved both nuisance and good fortune. Although he was later to become successful in business on his own, it was obvious early on that he was not cut to fit the conventional Lauda...
You wouldn’t need all the fingers of one hand to count the number of men who could beat Juan Manuel Fangio around the daunting Nordschleife of the Nürburgring, but one of them was certainly a suave German named Rudolf Uhlenhaut. Strangely, he wasn’t a racing driver at all but a...
To me, and all of us who knew him and worked with him at Shelby American, Dave MacDonald was much more than just another racing driver. He was a friend and an intensely committed individual who strove for excellence in everything he did. He was an extremely quiet person who...
Sad news emerging today that British driver and team manager, Reginald Harold Haslam “Tim” Parnell has passed away at the age of 84. The son of racing great Reg Parnell, Tim qualified for two Grands Prix in 1959, but eventually went on become a noted team manager, including the BRM...
News emerged late last week that prominent racing entrepreneur Carl Haas had died on June 29, at age 86, from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Tributes poured in from around the world with the news, as Haas had been a major player in both the American and international racing communities for...
After 36 seasons, time seems finally to have caught up with Formula Atlantic. We are saddened to report that the most prolific training category in American open-wheel racing history appears to have run its course. Current series owner Ben Johnston recently announced that “due to the downturn in the global...
On May 9th, 1992, Roberto Guerrero earned the pole position for the 76th running of the Indianapolis 500-mile race. Piloting a Buick-powered Lola T92/00 for King Motorsports, the 33-year-old Colombian became the first man in Speedway history to officially break the 230-mph barrier as he set new track records for...
I have included a few remembrances about Lance in some previous Vintage Racecar columns, but because he was such a fascinating character, I thought a column explicitly about him would be appropriate in order to wrap up the theme. I wrote what was hopefully an amusing story about a party...
In the youth of our racing enthusiasm, we tend to think obituaries are for drivers. We don’t foresee, or at least don’t want to, that time also will rob us of friends who don’t court risk on the track. Art Eastman, artist, photographer, writer, editor, passionate enthusiast, and friend, departed...
Robert Donner Jr., whose interest in cars began as a toddler while his father was an Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg dealer in northern New York, passed away on January 13. It was after his family moved to Colorado that Donner got his first taste of road racing, driving his father’s...
The planning for this issue was complete and work well under way, when, on August 28, we received the very sad news that Formula One and Le Mans champion Phil Hill had lost his long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Despite being nearly finished with this issue, it seemed only fitting...
Luigi Fagioli Biography Luigi Fagioli was born on June 9th, 1898 to a wealthy family in the small city of Osimo, in the Marche region of central Italy. His family was in the business of manufacturing pasta which allowed him to pursue a racing career though he studied accounting just...
Jacky Ickx and the smoky Martini Porsche 936 just made it to the end to claim the win for himself, Hurley Haywood and Jürgen Barth at Le Mans in 1977. Photo: Ed McDonough Jacky Ickx’s motor racing CV is enough to make your head spin. Believe it or not, it all...
Achille Varzi was the opposite of his capricious nemesis Tazio Nuvolari, who was steeped in instinctive talent. Varzi was a controlled, calculating driver, a ruthless opponent, ferocious in exploiting his adversaries’ weaknesses and was, of course, immensely fast. As a man, he could be charming, had a sardonic sense of...
Masten Gregory sits in the cockpit of the 1965 BRP Indycar as team manager Tony Robinson looks on. What brothers? Most motor racing aficionados know something about Masten Gregory. An American, he won Le Mans in 1965 and drove in Formula One. Few, however, remember that he had a brother...
This son of a German garage owner had never raced a car until May 26, 1935, at the superfast Avus circuit near Berlin. But by the end of 1936, he was the king of all he surveyed—the 1936 European Champion, with six Grand Prix victories to his credit. All scored...
A shooting star is an astronomical phenomenon which appears suddenly in the night sky, burns brightly for a few seconds as it streaks across the heavens, then disappears from view as suddenly as it appeared. This also is an apt description of the 1950’s racing career of a Northern California...
Rudolf Caracciola [dropcap]A[/dropcap]t Monaco, the first significant race of the 1933 season, a new Grand Prix team made its debut: Scuderia CC, with Rudi Caracciola and Louis Chiron as its principals. Two of the finest, most successful drivers in the world, they each had broken away from their established works...
Dad was a part-time taxi driver and Mom a secretary, and five-year-old Mika plagued the life out of them to let him race a kart. They hired one for him, but he crashed it on the first lap of his first race, so kart racing was a no-no in the...
The designer of the iconic 911 and the scion of the family that left an indelible mark on the history of automobile manufacturing in Germany, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche was dedicated to functionality and that ethos is still evident in the visage of every new car from Zuffenhausen. According to current...
Bernd Rosemeyer Biography On the Frankfurt-Darmstadt autobahn, just beyond the Langen-Morfelden crossing and set back amongst the trees stands a monument to the great Rosemeyer. Originally from Lingen, Lower Saxony. His career, like many other drivers of the period, began in motorcycles. He competed in various local races including hill-climbs...
Nico Rosberg, son of World Champion Keke Rosberg, took a major step in his father’s footsteps in early May when he completed a day of Formula One testing at Silverstone. Perhaps not coincidentally, Rosberg’s test was with the Williams Formula One team, with which his father won his 1982 World...
At the end of 1969, during the height of the Ferrari-Porsche World Sports Car Championship “wars,” Jo Siffert was wined and dined at Maranello by Enzo Ferrari, who offered him a deal for 1970. But it was not only the bravura of the Swiss in a racing car that interested...
Born to a Paris butcher and his wife in April 1937, the late Jean-Pierre Beltoise had won the incredible number of 11 French national motorcycle racing championships, in three years, by the time he was 28. After that, he made a profession out of being a champion of many forms...
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