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.
Felice Nazzaro had brains as well as a heavy right foot and he used them well to work his way up from the shop floor to motor racing stardom in a career that spanned three decades. His favorite technique was to hang back and let the leaders burn themselves or...
Ask anyone who was the first American to win a Grand Prix and chances are they will say Phil Hill or Dan Gurney, heroes of the ’60s. But it was, in fact, much earlier than that. The first was David Bruce-Brown, a strikingly handsome young New Yorker and son of...
This large, domineering man invented the job of motor racing team manager and in doing so changed the way the sport was run forever. Believe it or not, racing drivers of the 1920s used to thrash around circuits for hours on end without ever knowing their position or even whether...
René Dreyfus Biography The story begins in 1914 when René was nine years old. The middle of three children he speaks of his early life with fondness, growing up in Nice. He later joined the Moto Club de Nice, which was sort of a junior league Automobile Club de Nice....
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with professional race car driver, Max Hanratty. As part of the Fast MD Racing team, Max currently competes in the IMSA LMP3 class where he pilots a Nissan-powered Duqueine M30-D08. No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member?...
I first met Maurice at the Castle of Galifet in 1979 or 1980 at a funeral. It was a funeral of a very dear friend of my father who also happened to be a friend of his family. So he attended the funeral, I attended the funeral, and that’s how...
An invitation to drive in the Tulip Rally of 1959 led to my meeting Norman Garrad, manager of the Rootes Competitions Department. He was a rather gruff old chap, known to many as the “Fuehrer.” On reflection, with the aforementioned description, it was rather naïve of me to approach him...
Mike Hailwood had won no fewer than nine World Motorcycle Championships before he ever competed in his first Formula One motor race. Not to mention 14 victories in the heart-in-your-mouth Isle of Man TT. So he quickly earned himself the nickname of “Mike the Bike.” If the truth were told,...
Although he will probably be remembered mainly for a contrasting pair of Indycar accomplishments, Jerry Grant was yet another of the American all-rounders who could, and would, drive virtually any kind of car. After a tour of duty as chauffeur for the head of NORAD Command in Colorado, the Washington...
For many years now, I have been synonymous with sports cars and sports car racing. Of course, when I started my career, I was like any other driver. I started in single-seater racing cars and wanted to become a Formula One racer, not only that but World Champion! My ladder...
I started my racing career with BMW in a touring car in the middle of the1960s. It was a BMW 1,800-cc Ti SA; I used it to drive in the Austrian Touring Car Championship, a series that I won, which led to my being supported by the factory for many...
One of the races I remember well from my career was winning the 24-Hours at Spa in 1968. I drove the Porsche 911 to 1st overall, and it was a beautiful race for me although it had the usual Spa weather with rain for more than 18 hours. I was...
Monza 1970 was where I realized that Grand Prix racing, certainly with Team Lotus, wasn’t for me. I believe too that, in the eyes of Colin Chapman, the writing may have been already on the wall. We were testing the Lotus 72 without wings, I had a major disagreement with...
Interview by Will Silk and photos courtesy of Forgotten Fiberglass Chuck Tatum was what you could say “at the right place, at the right time” by living in California in the early 1950s. It was the golden days of hot rodding, and there were no rules in regards to what...
Nigel Mansell Biography Nigel Ernest James Mansell OBE was born the 8th of August 1953 in Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, England. His early childhood was unremarkable puctuated by frequent moving. He like other young boys was attracted to the exploits of Brutish sports figures including Jimmy Clark. After considerable success in kart racing,...
50 years since his first championship, Hurley Haywood talks about his brilliant career with insight into the role the Brumos brand played. No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in to your account here....
Two heroes and a heroine. What unites them? The Audi Quattro, rallying’s first four-wheel-drive, turbocharged car. Hannu and Stig each won a world drivers title with the German groundbreaker, and Michèle would have done the same if Walter Röhrl hadn’t got in her way. But she still beat 21 top...
A million clichés come to mind. Giant killer is probably the worst, pummelled to death by a thousand newspaper hacks, but that’s exactly what the original Ecurie Ecosse was. A meteor that came from nowhere and took the world’s endurance motor racing crown—twice. It was a shoestring operation working out...
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...
Mike Earle started his career with Derek Bell and Church Farm Racing. Over the years he has had a hand in most of motor racing’s varied formulae, and with a number of famous names of the track. He has probably forgotten more about the sport than many care to remember....
Photo: Tom Schultz Affable and friendly are two words often used to describe Harry Heuer, but on the track he was a fierce competitor for the six years he was active in semi-pro and professional racing—especially with the Meister Brauser team of which he was the organizing power from 1959...
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...
When we presented the first part of our continuing interview with F1 design legend John Barnard last March, VR Contributing Editor Mike Jiggle got him to discuss his early years at Lola and going to work at McLaren, as well as his basic design philosophy. In this second installment he speaks...
In 1980, people laughed when they heard Audi was developing a four-wheel-drive rally car. Hadn’t Ford tried that with their Capri 10 years earlier and drawn a blank? But the detractors stopped laughing when an Audi Quattro won the 1981 Janner Rally in Austria by 20 minutes. And they were...
Francis Bradley, the 1962 Canadian Road-Racing Champion, was born in Germany and raised in England, and served during the Second World War as a motorcycle dispatch driver. He made his way to Canada, as many others did in the early 1950s, to discover a burgeoning motorsport scene. As so many...
A new event in the British racing calendar took place in July 1973, the Avon Motor Tour of Britain. The Tour was based on the Tour de France with similar special rally stages, races at all the U.K. circuits— even a special drag race. Ford entered three Capris for champion...
Louis Delage may have been born to a humble assistant station master and his wife in Cognac, France, in 1874, but he rose to become a dominator of world motor sport. Yet he died in poverty, in 1947, at the age of 73, bankrupt, swamped by mountainous debts and destitute....
Ed Leavens’ career in racing could be compared to an iceberg where 9/10ths of the details of his career lie beneath the surface. He raced from the mid-1950s to around 1962, but he gave it all up for his business of selling cars in London, Ontario, Canada. Here was a...
Bob McKee had chutzpah. He believed he could build racecars that were as good as anyone else’s and build them safer. Not only did he build racecars, he also built components like early transaxles, which many people in the early days of mid-engined racecars sought out from him. However, a...
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