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 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...
The boys from Brazil just keep on coming: Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna and, since 2002, Felipe Massa. The others won eight Formula One World Championships between them, but even with 11 GP victories to his credit, Felipe hasn’t made it yet. He almost did in a 2008 mind...
Photo: Chris Mann This was going to be an important year for me. My win at Oulton Park, in Richard Attwood’s Cooper, had impressed the MRP gang and for 1963 I was offered a full season with them in a brand-new car. The team had done a deal with Lola...
Peter Bourassa is the Publisher of the weekly MMR Community Newsletter and the online Motorsports Marketing Resources Directory (www.MMRsite.com) a resource for sports cars enthusiasts that lists more than 3,000 vetted suppliers of 350 different goods and services. He is also a car guy. Peter Bourassa VR: Let’s start from...
The possibility of working with Ferrari surfaced in mid-1996. Michael told me at the end of 1995 that he was leaving Benetton to join Ferrari. I was aggrieved about this, more with the team than Michael. He had a problem with Benetton over money and it was not handled properly—he...
Brian RedmanPhoto: John Zimmermann Honored with his own night by the Road Racing Drivers Club this year at Long Beach, Brian Redman remains one of our sport’s treasures. A lifelong racer, he claimed 18 major international endurance race victories in a succession of Fords, Porsches, Ferraris and BMWs, and won...
Ex-Donald Healey Motor Company works driver, Clive Baker first began his connection with Healeys and Austin-Healeys in Tasmania. Clive went on to race Sprites in the UK and after being noticed by Donald Healey would drive Works prepared Sprites and 3000s culminating in steering the Healey SR at Le Mans...
It has been three and a half years since Bernard Cahier passed away, but my memories of him still linger affectionately. I first came to know Bernard in the late fall of 1972 when I hired him as a consultant for a documentary film I was planning to make about...
Michael Rich & Joanie Rich, Mark Lizewski VR: How did The Grand Ascent and The Elegance come about? MR: About four years ago, I approached my father (Jack Rich, a long time collector who passed away in December 2011) about putting on an event to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research...
I think it was in 1957 that I saw Fangio race at Silverstone, it was a catalyst for me to get interested in motor racing and think of how I could design a racing car. I was always, and still am, fascinated by the technicalities of racing car design and...
My story of winning the 1981 Macau Grand Prix actually began two weeks before, when I first raced the Hayashi 220P-Toyota at Suzuka, Japan. I had never seen the car before and really never heard of Hayashi, a wholesale wheel manufacturer. My involvement came through Vern Fotheringham who was their...
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...
Gordon McCall is founder of the Motorworks Revival at the Monterey Jet Center and co-founder of The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering VR: Let’s start off right at the beginning. How did you first get started with cars? GM: Real early in life, like a lot of people in my demographic range,...
Carol Spears In the late ’60s, a boyfriend introduced me to motor racing. Until then it had been all horseback riding and 4-H. The big thing then was the Can-Am, so we went to the l967 race at Laguna Seca and sat outside Turn 9. When the relationship ended, I...
Collector, Enthusiast, Racer & Founder of Radnor Hunt Concours VR: Why don’t we start from the beginning? I understand you got involved with cars at a pretty young age, around 12 or so? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in to your account here....
VR: So, let’s go back to ground zero, if you will. How did you first get involved with cars? RC: It was pretty much an accident for the most part. My mother had known a fellow from Chicago by the name of Bill Victor for years, and it’s funny in...
My first exposure to Formula Ford came as a lot of us began hearing about how neat it was in Britain, and certainly in 1968 I was aware of all the car importers and the future American manufacturers getting started in the class. By 1968, my career racing sports cars...
My very first experiences in a racing car were in a Lotus Seven. In fact, prior to purchasing the Lotus I went to Lotus and asked for a job. I thought I must know how they build these cars if I’m going to race them. I was conscious too that...
It’s wrong to call Baconin Borzacchini the “eternal second,” as some motor sport historians do. Sure, he came 2nd in quite a number of races, but that’s very much to his credit, not his detriment. And he also won a lot during his short life. Events like the 1930 Grand...
Tony Southgate began his lengthy career in motorsports by joining Lola Cars in the early days of that venerable marque’s existence. The young Englishman became the first drawing office employee of founder Eric Broadley’s growing company, a firm that would serve as fertile ground for a number of aspiring young...
In modern Formula One terms, the young driver Max Verstappen is creating a storm in the motor racing press due to his tender years and being at the forefront of Grand Prix racing—I believe he has just turned 19-years old. It reminded me of my dad, known to many simply...
Prior to 1980, I had raced in the United States on a few occasions—I’d done Daytona two or three times with Porsche and I’d been to Watkins Glen. I won at The Glen in ’78 with a 935, but I hadn’t done many races. Just two or three a year....
After church one Sunday in 1957, a 13-year-old Philadelphia boy named Tom Pomeroy was playing with some of his friends, when they discovered an out-of-service subway car parked on a rail siding. Exhibiting his characteristic curiosity, young Pomeroy climbed on top of it to investigate the purpose of the car’s...
Dario Resta competed in the first race ever held on Britain’s hallowed Brooklands circuit on July 6, 1907, and died there trying to set speed records on September 3, 1924. In between the two, his European career had its highs and lows, but his exploits in the United States were,...
Gilles Villeneuve Biography “He’s different from the rest of us, on a separate level …” Jacques Laffite describing Gilles Gilles Villeneuve was born in Quebec on 18 January, 1950. He rose up through snowmobile racing and Formula Atlantic. In fact he credits some of his success to his snowmobiling days:...
My first experience with a front-engine roadster was when I first went back east to race. I wound up driving a lay-down roadster that was built by Quin Epperly. Actually, in my rookie year—my first year there was 1960—I almost won the race at Milwaukee. I was leading in the...
It’s nice to be asked back! (Taylor was featured in an interview in VRJ in March 1999). Especially to talk about the old days and the people I found so interesting. I always considered that I was lucky to have been close to some of the real characters of the...
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...
Enzo Ferrari telephoned his driver Peter Collins before the 1956 Grand Prix of Italy for one of “those” conversations. The Great Man said he would not ask Peter to give up his chance of winning the year’s Formula One World Championship in favor of Fangio, but he wanted to know...
Formula Atlantic celebrates its 35th season in 2008, standing as the second oldest training category in the world, behind only British Formula 3. Despite this admirable longevity, however, the series entered its landmark season facing an uncertain future after the reunification of IndyCar racing, following a dozen years of civil...
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