Motorsport Legends Speak
Interviews & Words With The Heroes of Motorsports
This is where the rubber meets the road, where the smell of burnt rubber and high-octane fuel mingles with the sharp insights of those who have lived and breathed motorsports. Here, the legends of racing take the wheel, sharing their firsthand experiences, hard-won wisdom, and unique perspectives in a collection of captivating articles and exclusive interviews.
The Driver's Seat: Insights from Motorsports Legends
This is where the rubber meets the road, where the smell of burnt rubber and high-octane fuel mingles with the sharp insights of those who have lived and breathed motorsports. Here, the legends of racing take the wheel, sharing their firsthand experiences, hard-won wisdom, and unique perspectives in a collection of captivating articles and exclusive interviews. Get ready to dive deep into the minds of champions as they dissect race strategy, reflect on career-defining moments, and offer a glimpse into the intense pressure and exhilaration of life at the limit. Hear from visionary engineers, team owners, motorsport executives, and influential figures who shape the sport from behind the scenes.
Like many other drivers in the West, Chuck Daigh arose out of the California hot rod culture and became one of the premier drivers of his generation driving the virtually invincible Scarab sports racing cars and moving on to the unsuccessful Scarab Formula One car. An especially efficient and brilliant...
Photo: John Zimmermann Before 1975, sanctioned automobile races through city streets in North America were rare, the only real example being in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, first run in 1967. After the Long Beach Grand Prix showed how it could be done, street racing swept the continent, with some circuits good and...
For the 1924 French Grand Prix at Lyon, Count Zborowski raced an American MIller 122 (#6), but completed only 16 of the race’s 35 laps before retiring when the front axle broke. He’s shown here being chased by Henry Seagrave’s Sunbeam, which finished 5th as Giuseppe Campari won for Alfa...
My first good job after college was designing suspension bits for Traction-Master Co. Later in 1968, I became a small contractor to Douglas Aircraft. In those days I enjoyed competing in slalom racing, which is how I met Elliott Forbes-Robinson who introduced me to Dan Gurney. After several lengthy interviews,...
Nino Vaccarella won the Targa Florio three times, and for this alone he remains a Sicilian national hero. His name became virtually synonymous with that great road race throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as evidenced by the large painted messages appearing on the roads and walls on the eve of...
When you first meet Walt MacKay, you are struck by what a quiet, modest man he is. Currently, he runs a shop repairing, restoring, and preparing vintage racecars, usually Porsches. Once you dig a little deeper into his background, however, you find a more than merely competent racecar driver, one...
Andy Bell: Pre-War Aston Martin Expert For the past 20-25 years, mention of pre-war Aston Martin brings your name to the head of the conversation. Where did your association and love of these cars originate? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in...
Sullivan’s best GP came in the tight and twisty streets of monaco where he started at the back of the grid, but drove through to finish a creditable 5th. Photo: Maureen Magee My drive with the Tyrrell F1 team came due to the close relationship my mentor, Dr. Frank Faulkner,...
Derek Bell initially made a name for himself, racing in open-wheeled cars including Formula 2 and Formula 1. However, it is long-distance sports car racing, particularly in Porsches, where Bell forged his legacy as a champion with five overall victories at Le Mans, three victories in the 24 Hours of...
Kirk F. White took a circuitous route to his successful classic car business in Philadelphia, entering the workforce earlier than most young men after his father passed away when he was a pre-teen. Because he had to help keep the family afloat financially, he went to work as a gofer...
41 year-old German Christian Danner is one of a very small number of active drivers with connections to the heady…and dangerous…..days of Formula 2. He drove for some of the “old style” privateer F1 teams, succeeded in touring cars of all types, went on to Indy cars, and continues in...
My early days of racing gave very few opportunities, starting with a Sprite I slowly progressed to Formula Ford and then onto Formula Three. However, had it not been for the support of Alan McKechnie, I may not have “made it” at all. Injury, too, was something that hindered me....
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...
Much of Brawn’s success has come courtesy of Michael Schumacher, seen here in 1992 at Spa, winning his first Grand Prix with the Benetton B192.Photo: Mike Cotes Whoosh-bang. That sort of gives an impression of Ross Brawn’s 2009 Formula One season. The year of the spectacularly successful, flash in the...
When Ferrari decided to withdraw from the sports car championship for 1974, there were a lot of drivers on the market and Carlo Chiti acted to get some of them for Autodelta and Alfa Romeo. I was signed along with Mario Andretti and Carlos Reutemann. Rolf Stommelen and Andrea DeAdamich...
Haskell Wexler is an Oscar-winning cinematographer, taking home the coveted golden trophies for his work on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Bound for Glory. Not many car enthusiasts, however, know about his racing experiences. Wexler took driving lessons from Carroll Shelby, but gave it up when he discovered just...
Charlie Kemp was born in Mississippi, and his inimitable southern drawl once led Carroll Shelby to say that had Charlie raced as slowly as he talked he’d never have won anything! Charlie did win, however, and he won big. He finished 3rd in his very first race in a jalopy...
Eldon Rasmussen Eldon Rasmussen was the second Canadian (after Billy Foster) to race in the Indianapolis 500 in the modern era. Eldon and Billy were supermodified drivers who had competed in the Canadian American Modified Racing Association or CAMRA series, which promoted races in western Canada and the western United...
Over the coming months we will have a series of three interviews with former BRM mechanics who worked with the team during the beginning, middle and end of the marque’s history in Grand Prix motor racing. The first of these interviews is with Richard “Dick” Salmon, now in his 92nd...
CEO, LeMay—America’s Car Museum VR: So, why don’t we start off at the very beginning. When and how were you first bitten by the bug? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in to your account here....
Tony SouthgatePhoto: Pete Austin At the end of the 1972 season, I left BRM to join Don Nichols and his Shadow race team, my brief was not only to design a Formula One challenger, but also to work on a new sports racing Can-Am car, the DN2. Shadow had competed...
There is something about racing which gets into the blood more thoroughly than a good dose of Castrol R and those people who cannot do without it are an inspiration to all of us who secretly harbor Walter Mitty fantasies about outduking Michael Schumacher into the Karussel at the Nürburgring...
Fathers and their sons who have each won the Formula 1 World Championship are few and far between. There are only two dads and their lads who have pulled it off. The first to climb that particular Everest were the Hills: Graham won the 1962 world title driving a BRM...
When he was a kid in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Patrick Depailler’s idol was French motorcycle champion and racing driver Jean Behra. The two were alike in more ways than one, as they shared a living-for-the-moment attitude that didn’t always pay off. Surprisingly, though, Patrick’s devil-may-care lifestyle didn’t really do his motor...
There are so many, what I would call, “Tyrrell moments” in my life. It was a very gradual process. You have to remember that Dad started racing himself, before he moved up to run cars for John Cooper. Subsequently, he made the step to running F2 cars for Matra and...
Lloyd Ruby hailed from Wichita Falls, Texas, up in the north central part of the state, not far from the Oklahoma line. Born a year before the Depression, he was soft-spoken by nature — a wicked sense of humor notwithstanding — but not someone to be taken lightly. He began...
Racing legend Jim Russell, at 85, is as active and upbeat as ever. Though “pretty much” retired, he certainly doesn’t spend much time sitting around, and retains a keen interest in motor racing. European Editor Ed McDonough recently spent some time examining his career at the Russell Suffolk home, talking...
Following my initial foray into motor racing, I soon found I needed money, money, and more money. There were many false dawns with many teams, including Lotus. I did the Temparada series with Emerson Fittipaldi; the promise was, if Emerson did well, he would end up with a lot of...
Denny Hulme was one of the most reserved men in motor racing. He seldom showed his emotions, which he camouflaged with a likable but sometimes gruff personality. Hulme never regarded himself a star, even if that were the case, and often went unrecognized in the most public of places, among...
From an Austin A30 sedan to the wheel of a Formula One car is quite a journey. When growing up, Australian driver Tim Schenken had a burning passion to be a Formula One driver. It was this passion that proved successful with 34 Grand Prix starts and has kept him...
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