The FIA sports prototypes were some of the most exciting purpose-built racing cars ever designed. They competed under the regulations...
How amusing, I often smile, that a breed of racer I associate with conservatism generally speeds around to the left....
1960 Kieft Formula Junior The history of British motorsport is rife with postwar racecar manufacturers that saw their genesis in the hands of a dedicated engineer or enthusiast. Names like Colin Chapman (Lotus), John Cooper (Cooper) and Eric Broadley (Lola) are just a few of such individuals that set out...
Canadian Bill Brack was running a Lotus 41 in 1968, as well as the “Hot Wheels” Mini Cooper, and I...
On a bleak day in November 1983, I was at Silverstone. Ken Tyrrell had promised a test drive to the...
Harry Miller Keke Rosberg 1 Scuderia Ferrari is formed (1929). 3 Wendell Scott, the first African American NASCAR racer, dies of spinal cancer at age 69 (1990). Become a Member & Get Ad-Free Access To This Article (& About 6,000+ More) Access to the full article is limited to paid...
I cannot allow the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Gilles Villeneuve to pass unnoticed but it is, at the...
The Expert’s Guide to Collecting FUNDAMENTALS OF MOTORSPORT BOOK COLLECTING by Chris Knapman Book collecting is a very personal pastime,...
There was never any doubt that Chris Amon was an exceptional talent. Mauro Forghieri, Ferrari’s chief designer for almost 20 years, put him in the same sparsely populated category as the legendary Jim Clark. But even though he was in Formula One for 14 years and a works Ferrari driver...
I can still hear my father, Walter Hayes, saying to me: “Sit there and do not, under any circumstances, move.”...
There are many racing drivers, a lesser quantity of great racing drivers, and a very small number who transcend mere...
At the end of 1969, during the height of the Ferrari-Porsche World Sports Car Championship “wars,” Jo Siffert was wined and dined at Maranello by Enzo Ferrari, who offered him a deal for 1970. But it was not only the bravura of the Swiss in a racing car that interested...
Antonio Brivio Mario Andretti 1 A.J. Foyt wins the USAC Championship race on the dirt track at Sacramento, California (1967)....
Alistair Caldwell joined the McLaren team in their early days as a cleaner and ended up as team manager, winning two World Championships—with Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt. Here, he shares with Keith Booker some of his recollections of those early days. How did you first become involved in motor...
I was born in Capetown, South Africa, a very long way from the epicenter of motor racing, Central Europe. Motorsport,...
Opening in 1921, AVUS (Automobil-Verkehrs-und Übungs-Straße) was devised by the AvD as a motorsport venue and test track for the...
Bruce Leslie McLaren won the first-ever Grand Prix of the United States in 1959, but really established his life’s legacy eight years later. It was September 3, 1967, at Road America, when his Can-Am team began a five-year run of dominance in the fastest kind of road racing the world...
For the last 20 years or so of his life, Rodger Ward and I were friends. Even though I had...
“Dinosaurs,” we called them, ridiculing their bulk, their weight, their mindless loyalty to outmoded dogma. Indy Roadsters; they were rife with front engines and beam axles and no clue about “Modern Engineering.” Hopelessly old-fashioned, they should be rolled aside and forgotten. That’s what we said at the time. Pete Lyons...
Jacques Laffite has enjoyed a reputation for many years as an open and straightforward person, willing to talk seriously about...
Emerson Fittipaldi Biography “Emmo” as he is known by legions of fans in America began his rise to fame in...
Like Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell, Emerson Fittipaldi is one of the elite. A driver who has won the Formula 1 World Championship (twice) and the CART title with a record in both—that reads like any self-respecting Walter Mitty’s wish list. He won 14 Grands Prix—not to mention non-title “oddments”...
I guess the best period in motor racing for me was when I managed to have my first drives in...
1976 Holden Torana L34 A month or so back, Vintage Racecar interviewed Leo Geoghegan, a true icon of Australian motorsport. While Leo may have started his racing career in an early model Holden, he later became a household name from his successes with a series of Lotus open-wheelers. While this...
From 500-cc racing to a works ride with Cooper and later a British Hillclimb Championship, Mike MacDowel has had a...
In early April, I made my way to Las Vegas for the inaugural Champ car Vegas Grand Prix. This new...
In the late 1960s—1969 I think—I started racing motorbikes in local races in Belgium. Not too powerful machines, just 50-cc, but it was a start. My car-racing debut was not until 1972. I won the Teddy Pillete Trophy for Formula Vee cars. I stayed with the formula, and had a...
