On June 7–8, 1958, the Texas Region of the SCCA hosted a weekend of sports car racing 10 miles north...
John Zeitler Nigel Mansell Photo: Maureen Magee 2 Emerson Fittipaldi, driving a Penske PC-18, wins the CART Budweiser Cleveland Grand...
While the postwar American sports car scene was inspired by European road racing, it was different in many respects. In...
We seem to hear more and more these days about the sorry state of the media. I’d say I have...
During the early fifties, road racing in the United States took place, for the most part, at airports. While airports have a number of advantages, they lack the interest and drama of actual roads. Without the authority to utilize public highways, venues were hard to come by. As road racing...
Over-2-liter Grand Touring cars have always had a place to compete within the ever changing regulations of International Motorsports; the...
Someone once said that Indy car drivers would be lost if they had to turn right as well as left. They also said that at Le Mans they’d never find their behinds with both hands when it got dark or if it rained. Obviously, they never met Lloyd Ruby. During...
The late news—very late—that U.S. open-wheel racing’s long uncivil war has finally staggered to its hemorrhagic conclusion, fell with less...
One of the enduring aspects of vintage racing is the camaraderie that develops between racers. With cars and racing as...
Augie Pabst is one of the practitioners of the skillful art of road racing from the early days of North American road racing. He began as did so many others of his contemporaries in the 1950s, went on to race with Briggs Cunningham’s team, and from there went to the...
Southern California has always been a hotbed of car aficionados. The hot rod craze started there and, after WWII, it...
Although there were a number of pre-WWII cars that can be described as sports cars, the craze in the U.S....
In the history of motor-sport safety, few names are as universally recognized as that of Bill Simpson. Initially an active drag racer, Simpson went on to race in various road racing categories before moving on to USAC racing and eventually the Indianapolis 500. While Simpson often demonstrated great speed and...
One of the “old school” low-grip/high-fun tracks, Moroso Motorsports Park, is a car control circuit, rewarding smoothness and sensitivity. The...
As the years pile up, I find myself learning more about people I used to know than I ever appreciated...
February 2008 Dan Gurney’s Eagle Racing Cars By John Zimmerman Dan Gurney had already established himself as one of America’s dominant international racecar drivers when, in 1965, he set out on a path that select few drivers ever pursue—to build and win in a car of his own making. Back...
West Coast photographer John Wilson started shooting pictures of racing in the 1960s at various racetracks in California. As such,...
Today the name Rahal is synonymous with motor racing. Bobby Rahal has entered the history books as a top Indianapolis...
How amusing, I often smile, that a breed of racer I associate with conservatism generally speeds around to the left. But we don’t do politics here, just history, so let’s have a look back at interesting times when oval drivers first tried their hands at turning both ways. The big...
The Canadian American Challenge Cup was co-sanctioned by the SCCA and CASC—it was a series nicknamed the “unlimited” series. Although...
Gaston Chevrolet Ricardo Rodriguez 1 Ricardo Rodriguez dies on the way to the hospital after crashing his Lotus during practice...
The Can-Am Porsche 917 The Can-Am Race Series, held from 1966 to 1974, helped propel professional sports car racing to new heights of popularity in the United States. The series was governed by an open and simple set of rules, which created an environment that brought the most powerful and...
1957 Climax-powered Jomar 1957 Climax-powered Jomar. Photo: Harold Pace You know the story. Start with a svelte English chassis, add...
He was known as “the Silver Fox,” “the Racing Grandfather,” and “Merle the Magician.” These nicknames might indicate a gentlemanly...
John Von Neumann is an important name in the history of the second half of the twentieth century. A Princeton professor, he was an eminent mathematician and physicist, instrumental in the development of computer science, a participant in the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb and a Nobel laureate....
Bobby Allison Bill Kraus 1 Stefan Bellof dies from injuries sustained in the crash of his Porsche 956 during the...
Formula 5000 was a racing series for open-wheel, single-seater racing cars built to a specific set of rules. The engine...
The under-2-liter Grand Touring (GT) cars have always had a place to compete within the ever-changing regulations of international motorsports; the World Sports Car Championship from 1953–1961, the Speedworld Challenge from 1962–1963, the International Championship of Makes from 1964–1971 and the World Championship of Makes from 1972–1981. This included racing...
