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...
Meo Costantini in the cockpit of the Bugatti Type 35 that he would drive to a 4th-place finish in the ACF’s 1925 French Grand Prix at Montlhéry. One day in 1923, Ettore Bugatti met Bartolomeo “Meo” Costantini, an encounter that would change both their lives. The suave Costantini, who was...
I remember the 1968 Oulton Park Gold Cup Race very well because it was my first Formula 1 drive, and Oulton Park was a circuit I knew very well from previous years in F3. We went there, and I qualified on the third row, next to Oliver in the Lotus...
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...
Oklahoma-Based Collector, Brass-Era Enthusiast VR: How did you develop your interest in automobiles and brass era cars in particular? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in to your account here....
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...
Collector, Head of Brightwells’ Classic Car Department The well-established auction house Brightwells has expanded its Classic Car Department, opening an additional center at Bicester Heritage, Oxfordshire. Heading the team at this new venue is Matthew Parkin, who joined the company in 2010 from his position as Sales Director at Morgan...
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...
Unlike many racing drivers, none of my family was associated with motor sport or the motor trade. Spain, my country, had its sporting roots in bull fighting, football, and golf. Motor racing was for a minority of people. During the 1960s, I was a spectator at the Rally of Spain,...
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...
Today, we’re having a chat with Mike Boldt, a well-known and respected figure in the world of automotive photography. If there was ever an instance which showed how things can come full circle for us car enthusiasts, this latest meeting would be the proof in the pudding. No Subscription? You’re...
The 2005 Walter Hayes Trophy meeting at Silverstone took me full circle back to Formula Ford, the formula I started my racing career in. I was working for (Sir) Frank Williams—he head-hunted me to join him as a mechanic—and I built my own Formula Ford car from a wrecked Formula...
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...
Sports Car Market Co-Founder, Alfa Romeo Owners Club, President VR: Lets go back to the very beginning. When did you first realize you were bitten by the car bug? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in to your account here....
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...
On May 23, 1945, the British wartime government came to an end and on July 5 voting took place to elect a new government. The result of the election surprised, but did not altogether shock, Winston Churchill, who had campaigned for a re-election. There were, however, more than a few...
Following the demise of motor racing during the Second World War years, there were those enthusiastic individuals, at a very much grassroots level, who championed the cause for a revival of motorsport immediately following the cessation of hostilities. Alec Francis Rivers-Fletcher, known simply as “Rivers,” who once worked under the...
Tom Kendall may be best remembered for his dominant 1997 championship season in the SCCA’s Trans-Am series when he set a record with 11 consecutive victories in Jack Roush’s All Sport Ford Mustang on the way to his fourth Trans-Am crown, but he’s much more than that. He began his...
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...
Duncan was initially entranced by record keeping and statistics in racing events. This interest morphed into a desire to race and so he has for 22 years. However, with a keen eye for the history of the sport, his desire to race eventually juxtaposed into a desire to keep alive...
He is literally the fastest man on the planet, and has been since October 15, 1997. That was when Andy Green set the current World Land Speed Record of an average 766.035 mph taking him to Mach 1.02, which also made him the world’s first supersonic car driver. And he...
Not only did Rubens win 11 Grands Prix, competing in more of them than any other driver, came 2nd in the 2002 and 2004 Formula One World Championships and win a couple of national and world titles, he also beat The Stig. Who, you might ask, is that? Well, he’s...
It was a very difficult decision at the time to go to Audi, which seems strange now. But then I was doing very well and had a few good possibilities to do rallies with other manufacturers, but Audi persuaded me to come to test the normal Quattro car. I could...
Inoue is shown here in the Hart-powered Footwork FA16 at Silverstone’s 1995 British Grand Prix where he spun into retirement after 16 laps.Photo: Peter Collins When I started racing in my home country, Japan, it was in a touring car—a bit of a “Mickey Mouse” car compared with the touring...
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...
My father, the late Colin Chapman and founder of the Lotus name, was driven by ambition—ambition to be the best at what he put his mind to. It was an overriding characteristic of his makeup. There are a lot of intelligent people who have the ability to do certain things,...
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...
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