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.
From 1950 until his premature retirement from road racing and hillclimbing just three years later, Tommy Hoan set his competitors on their collective ear with the sheer speed of his 1949 MG TC. In the Queen Catharine Cup race of 1952, he also shot out the window of the Grill...
Teddy Pilette It was almost certain that I would be a racing driver because my grandfather raced, my father raced, I raced, and even my sons are racing. That is four generations of racing. I don’t think there are many families anywhere else like that—maybe the Unsers. My grandfather drove...
With the prospect of landing a man on the moon, the American public was captivated by all things “jet-powered” in the 1960s. So, it’s perhaps little wonder that when a California hot rodder named Craig Breedlove set the World Land Speed Record in his jet-powered Spirit of America, he quickly...
Tall, handsome, and charming, Roy Salvadori was everything Hollywood ever wanted a racing driver to be. He was a ’50s–’60s swashbuckler and would not have looked out of place swinging down from the rigging of a man o’ war, sword in hand, instead of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Fantasy perhaps, but...
Keith Duckworth and Mike Costin are the founders of Cosworth, one of the longest surviving and most famous names in motorsport. Our Ed McDonough was able to sit down with both of them as they made plans for the 45th anniversary of Cosworth Engineering. VRJ: How did it all start?...
VR: Why don’t we take a step right back to the very beginning. How did you first get started with cars? I assume it was probably as a kid? BW: Oh, yeah. Ever since I was born I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a car freak. No Subscription?...
Tony Parella They say there is no greater zealot, than a recent convert. Though he came to the sport fairly recently in 2011, Corvette racer Tony Parella wasted no time in deeply immersing himself in the deep end of the sport. After selling his highly successful telecommunications company, Parella turned...
Robert Daley’s name is pretty much unknown in racing circles these days, but he was at Zandvoort that afternoon in 1960 when Dan Gurney’s BRM P48 lost its rear brakes, plunged headlong into the sand dunes and killed a spectator. Daley overheard Gurney say as he surveyed the tragic scene,...
In the days before data logging transformed our sport into a science, the judge of all things was the simple stopwatch. This meant that the men in the cockpits could still make a difference in the performance of their cars, and George Follmer was one of those men. The Phoenix-born...
If there is a single quality that best defines Marc Surer it must be determination. When you consider that he grew up in a country that banned racing when he was four years old, and then overcame a seemingly endless succession of debilitating accidents behind the wheel of competition cars...
Contracted to race as a senior driver for Mercedes-Benz in 1937, Lang validated his selection with victories in the Tripoli Grand Prix and at Berlin’s dauntingly high-banked Avus Ring, where he recorded a top speed of more than 237 mph with this streamlined W125.Photo: Mercedes-Benz Hermann Lang so nearly didn’t...
Tony SouthgatePhoto: Pete Austin Toward the end of my first period with Shadow, things weren’t working out too well, money was getting tight and I couldn’t really get on with my job, as I wanted to. There were cutbacks here and there, and it made life difficult. There were lots...
Starting his career in the early ’60s behind the wheel of a Mini, John Fitzpatrick quickly worked his way to the top echelons of the endurance racing world. From winning the British Saloon Car Championship, Fitzpatrick went on to factory rides with Ford and BMW, as well as notching up...
Roberto Moreno enjoyed a productive career in the upper levels of professional motor sport even though his accomplishments may not have matched his talent or his promise. Like a number of young South Americans of his generation, Moreno realized that if he were to make a go of his racing...
The Petersen Automotive Museum in Southern California is arguably one of the finest museums of its type anywhere in the U.S. Recently, Casey Annis sat down with Dick Messer, the Petersen’s first and now newly appointed director, to discuss the museum’s turbulent past and seemingly bright future. VRJ: The Petersen...
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...
Few Americans have had as significant an impact on the history and direction of global motorsport as Texan Jim Hall. As both a driver and a car constructor, Hall created and guided the highly influential Chaparral line of sports cars, which almost singlehandedly ushered aerodynamics into the lexicon of professional...
As a young mechanic Tony Robinson answered an ad for work with London’s Ray Martin Motors. Little did he know that accepting the position would lead him to work on the Cooper-Alta being built for Stirling Moss, which would, in turn, lead to a lifetime of motorsport with the likes...
Mike Yager is the founder and owner of Mid America Motorworks.Photo: MID AMERICA MOTORWORKS VR: How did you first get started with cars? I assume it was probably at a young age. MY: The long story and the short story, all in one, is I’m the youngest of nine kids....
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...
Over his years in racing, Eppie Wietzes drove everything on four wheels, from a Morris Minor with an Austin A40 engine to Lotus and Brabham Formula One cars, as well as various Lola and McLaren Formula 5000 racecars. He won the 1981 Trans-Am championship with a Corvette. Inducted into the...
Women drivers in Formula One are rare indeed. Since the start of the F1 World Championship in 1950, only five of them have made it to the track in fire-breathing Grand Prix cars, and only one ever managed to finish in the top six and score in a World Championship...
John Watson was one of those rare beasts: an Irish Grand Prix winner. It was a feat pulled off by the number of his countrymen you could count on the fingers of one hand, and when you add to the equation the fact that he was also a successful world...
Porsches have scored a record 16 overall victories at Le Mans, 14 similar triumphs in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and eight 12-hour wins at Sebring, and upon all of them can be found the fingerprints of Norbert Singer. A 30-year-old graduate engineer with a Masters in Mechanical Engineer, Aviation...
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....
Our South Pacific Editor, Patrick Quinn, recently caught up with ex-British Motor Corporation works driver John Sprinzel in Sydney, while John was on a brief visit to Australia. John Sprinzel What brings you to Australia, John? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign...
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...
Big Bangers; that’s what the Brits called Can-Am cars, and they were right. Everything about the Canadian-American Challenge Cup series was big—big speed, big breakthroughs, big bucks. Big names, too. At last year’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, our own Pete Lyons was asked to co-moderate with Dan Davis, a round-table...
“Sex – the breakfast of Champions” was the legend on the T-shirt the 1976 Formula 1 World Champion wore under his driving suit. Ex-public schoolboy irreverence that only partially sums up this deceptively talented, sophisticated and intelligent man. He personified that much overworked term charisma, but he was also an...
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...
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