Pete Lyons Hail the “Mod Scot!” Such a thought must have flickered through many minds as 27 Group 7 machines...
Pete Lyons I edged my toes to the brink of an abyss a thousand feet deep, issuing my own small...
Our sport is gaudy, so noisy, so cherished and studied and conserved … how can so much of racing’s history have gone missing in the dark deeps of time? Pete Lyons Example: the true background story of this 16-valve Peugeot, 1916 winner of the great Indianapolis race. Become a Member...
That sound! A wild shriek spearing out of the new Japanese F1 sliced like a samurai sword through the dronings...
With F1 about to try another comeback in the U.S., next year in Texas, our minds inevitably reach back half...
Wandering through that great Goodwood paddock of my mind, I delight in thousands of historic racing machines at every hand. All are magnificent and most are momentous, but some few hold my mental gaze longer than the rest. Pete Lyons Bugatti 35s… Alfa straight-8s… D-Types… GTOs… GT40s… 917Ks… Fangio’s 250F…...
A couple of years and a bit ago I suggested in this spot that, during these times of economic stress,...
It exploded at me around a blind embankment, big truck, top-heavy, heeling as it hurtled downhill. What its driver saw,...
It reads like a plot line no real screenwriter would dare pitch: A little-known transmission engineer who has never designed a whole racing car must draw up a new mount for an F1 World Champion. Constructed clandestinely in an old woodshed, the machine proves so fast that it sets a...
In the youth of our racing enthusiasm, we tend to think obituaries are for drivers. We don’t foresee, or at...
The steering feel; that’s what I remember best. The pinion perfectly meshing with its rack was a tactile delight in...
For all the great drivers who contested the old Can-Am, few did well. Your Amons, Andrettis, Brabhams, Elfords, Joneses, Halls, Motschenbachers, Parsonses, Poseys, Rodriguezes, Sifferts, many more…none of them ever won a race. How surprising is it that so much talent came up so dry? Pete Lyons Frankly, not that...
Like all heroes, Brett Lunger denies being one. To him, running into fire broiling from Niki Lauda’s crashed Ferrari, its...
There was a summer of my life when I often walked back home from an evening ramble in a European...
Pete Lyons The year was 1970. The year the ground turned over under America’s greatest sports racing car series. It began in tragedy, and improved little. Bruce McLaren, the sunny New Zealander who had stamped the Canadian-American Challenge Cup Series as his own, and who would have reigned as series...
Still racers, after all these years. That’s what I was thinking as one veteran driver after another mounted the stage and regaled us with stories of his Trans-Am days. Pete Lyons The Trans-Am: It started way back in the mid-‘60s, which means these guys must be, gosh, mumble-mumble years old...
When I were but a lad, my notion of a perfect Saturday was to walk down to the train station...
New race courses keep blinking onto our radar screens, which seems like a good thing until they turn up on...
I’ve had a dream, one of the rare ones I remember clearly and can’t stop thinking about. That must mean it had serious meaning for me. So I am moved to share it. Pete Lyons Although the dream itself had nothing to do with racing, I think I will be...
Losing a child is one of the harshest agonies of life, and even people who don’t personally know John and...
Pete Lyons How do you stop a racing runaway? Well, you might try throwing more races in its way. Ending...
Pete Lyons The little Speedster stared out the dealership’s window like a puppy, its big eyes pleading mournfully: Won’t you take me home? A young couple kept stopping by to gaze in at the radiant red roadster. “Every week—sometimes more often—we fell in love with it.” Become a Member &...
Pete Lyons Take something for granted, and we risk having it ripped away. For me, foolish me, Peter Bryant was...
Le Mans champion Roy Salvadori once wrote in a UK magazine, decades ago, about driving his winning Aston Martin DBR1...
Dan Gurney, as American as we make ’em, was once proposed to be President, and I still think our conflicted country would have been the better for it. But Big Dan did achieve immortality as the first American to create an American F1 car. Wonderfully, he called it the Eagle,...
Emerson Fittipaldi has an impish sense of humor and, one day at Brands Hatch, he unloaded it on my poor...
Pete Lyons You know how someone’s opposing opinion, one that seems inconsequential enough to let slide at the time, can...
Pete Lyons News that Formula One is so financially distressed… Wait! Let us savor this! Become a Member & Get Ad-Free Access To This Article (& About 6,000+ More) Access to the full article is limited to paid subscribers only. Our membership removes most ads, lets you enjoy unlimited access to all...