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.
President and COO of Black Horse Garage in Bridgeport, Connecticut Vintage Roadcar’s J. Michael Hemsley met John Buonanno at The Elegance at Hershey. Buonanno is the President and COO of Black Horse Garage in Bridgeport, Connecticut. After chatting about the Alfa Romeo he had accompanied to the show, talk turned...
In our January 2007 issue, Pete Lyons shared some remarks about the grand old Canadian-American Challenge Cup series made by 14 influential men who were there. Ten drivers—including two Can-Am champions, a couple of designers, a crew chief and a master photojournalist gathered at last year’s Amelia Island Concours for...
My first race was a small event at a BARC Goodwood Members Meeting, at the wheel of my Jowett Jupiter. Although my father enjoyed cars, there was no history of anyone in my family competing, so I was on new territory and learned as I went along from personal mistakes...
Graham Gauld has written more than 16 books and been deeply invovled in the hobby for over 60 years. He speaks and writes with a lilting Scottish accent that defies and ignores commas and periods. He claims he is not a motor racing historian but a storyteller, yet has a...
Martin Swig is a former multi-franchise new-car dealer based in the San Francisco Bay area who is an avid vintage racer, car collector and founder of the California Mille which has evolved into one of the world’s premier road rallies attracting participants from around the globe.Photo: Dennis Gray VR: How...
I grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland, far removed from motor sport, and my parents strongly disapproved of my even being interested in the sport. As my mother one day said to me, “It’s not as if you’ll ever take part.” How wrong she was! From the glamor...
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...
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...
Privateer Bruce Halford took part in the epic 1957 German Grand Prix, finishing 11th in his Maserati 250F. It was one of my duties to convey Bruce’s Maserati around the Continent in a converted Royal Blue AEC coach. This particular saga began at the Maserati factory in Modena, where I...
His contemporaries called him the “Garibaldino,” a term they reserved for the best of their select band. Like Giuseppe Garibaldi, the general who kicked the Austrians and French out of Italy in the mid-19th century, Antonio Ascari, was a courageous and determined fighter. He was the one who always got...
At the tender age of 15, John Fenning started his racing career competing in small, 500-cc racecars, like many postwar enthusiasts in the UK. Eventually, Fenning worked his way up to factory rides with Lola and Lotus before a devastating road accident topped the trajectory of his driving career. However,...
Until the outbreak of World War I (1914–18), a Targa Florio had been staged every year since 1906, so Vincenzo Florio was determined to get it going again before the end of 1919. However, it was May before the wealthy Sicilian began to tour Europe to drum up entries, so...
Robert Newman You might well ask “Who the hell’s he?” when you read the name at the top of the page. Well, he’s the man none other than Niki Lauda described as The 20th Century’s Greatest Rally Driver. Not the most popular branch of motor sport in America, but rallying...
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?...
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...
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...
During the late 1960s and 1970s, the names of Leo and Ian (aka Pete) Geoghegan became known thoughout almost every household in Australia. In the case of brother Leo, a string of successes in Lotus open-wheelers, back-to-back Australian F2 championships and an Australian Drivers Championship gave him not only Australian,...
It started with a phone call from the photographer/journalist Bernard Cahier. He said, “Carl Haas has a problem. Brian Redman flipped his car at the Mont Tremblant Can-Am. Are you interested in driving for Lola Cars in the States?” I talked to Carl Haas the next morning and he said...
How will history remember Count Wolf-gang Alexander Albert Eduard Maximillian Reichsgraf Berghe von Trips? “Von Krash,” as the dim-witted sniggeringly called him? As a journeyman? Or as a true gentleman who all but won the Formula One World Championship for drivers? The latter, I believe, would be a fair entry...
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...
When Jack Brabham was demobbed from the Royal Australian Air Force in 1947, even he did not realize he was about to establish an Australian motor racing dynasty, but that is exactly what he did. Jack would win no fewer than three Formula One World Championships, the last in 1966...
Teddy Pilette Belgian racing driver Teddy Pilette is a third-generation racer of the Pilette motor racing family. His grandfather, Theodore, famously took part in the 1913 Indy 500 where, driving a small-engined Mercedes, he finished 5th. His father, André, took to the track too, and participated in 14 Grands Prix between 1951...
I was fifteen years karting, and ten years karting and car racing. I started with Mercedes Benz as a mechanic; I lived about 100 meters from their factory. In my time I learned to build many things, in my motor racing career this has helped me with a lot of...
The combination of GM’s Jim Musser and Jim Hall proved to be one of the most potent combinations in autosport ever, counterbalancing the equally potent combination of Ford and Carroll Shelby. Together, Hall and Musser, along with their teams of brilliant engineers and technicians, produced some of the most famous...
Now Auto Union’s number one driver after replacing the dead Bernd Rosemeyer, Tazio Nuvolari and his Auto Union Type D on full song at the Nürburgring on 23 July 1938. The great Italian came 4th after crashing his own car and taking over H.P. Muller’s Type D.Photo: Fiat Few would...
Dr. Stephen E. OlveyPhoto: Dan R. Boyd USA LAT Photographic I met Alex Zanardi back in the late ’90s when he first came into Indycar racing. My impression at the time was: what a happy, friendly guy. Alex is the type of person who shortly after you first meet him...
This is the story of a hero who was more heroic than most. You may not have heard of Archie Scott-Brown, but that shrewd judge of racing driver talent Juan Manuel Fangio, who won the Formula One World Championship five times, called this diminutive Scot phenomenal, and said he showed...
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...
Brian Redman is well-known as one of the most successful and versatile sports car drivers of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Late in 1971, Redman joined a veritable “Dream Team” of drivers racing the soon-to-be dominant Ferrari 312P sports car. Redman spoke with Casey Annis about what made the...
Lots More Motorsports Goodness
Thousands of articles across decades of racing.
