Nearly 12 years ago, Parker Johnstone walked away from a strong career as a professional Indy car driver with 2...
There was the time I went to the Targa Florio and was strolling by a restaurant in the night-dark streets...
This one picture is why I’m writing these thousand words. I’m doing so in the first week of August 2008—precisely 50 years since I exposed the negative at Lime Rock, made a print in my dad’s darkroom, and air-mailed it overseas to England’s Autosport magazine. When we duly received our...
Third-time charm! That’s what we Can-Am fans were hoping for 40 Septembers ago. On the first of this month in...
Fifty-one years after winning his fifth and final world championship, Juan Manuel Fangio is still my favorite F1 driver. Never...
Jimmy Clark Biography Jimmy Clark was born in Kilmany, in the county of Fife to a Scottish farming family, roots...
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...
Pete Lyons Did you hear about the diesel backhoe that did 350 mph at Bonneville? Yes, really…sort of. 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...
It’s time to talk NASCAR. It usually is. NASCAR’s calendar is the longest in racing, so it has the shortest...
As the years pile up, I find myself learning more about people I used to know than I ever appreciated...
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...
This is the sad tale of my first chance to own a sports car and how I blew it—the chance,...
There are many racing drivers, a lesser quantity of great racing drivers, and a very small number who transcend mere...
David’s repeated defeats of Goliath this summer—American Le Mans Series victories by Porsche’s RS Spyder over Audi’s much bigger and stronger R10—takes us right back to the early days of Porsche, when it made its name as an upstart giant-killer. Pete Lyons It’s a natural human trait to root for...
Bruce Leslie McLaren won the first-ever Grand Prix of the United States in 1959, but really established his life’s legacy...
“Dinosaurs,” we called them, ridiculing their bulk, their weight, their mindless loyalty to outmoded dogma. Indy Roadsters; they were rife...
Bet you’re thinking of Fangio’s transcendent victory at the ’Ring. The launch of the Fuelie Corvette. The beautiful Scarabs. Jaguar’s fifth win at Le Mans, the third in a row for the immortal D-type. That year saw the end of the Mille Miglia, but Sputnik went up then, too. For...
Ferrari—let the word roll over your tongue. Doesn’t it taste good? Have you ever experienced—can you even imagine—a better name...
Performance perv that I am, I’m turned on by naked racecars. Even partially undressed ones. Lift an engine cover, unveil...
Ah, spring, when a lad’s fancy turns to thoughts of…well, what do you suppose? Taut curves. Deep breathing. Throbbing… Yes, we’re talking motorcycles, of course. I’m not sure what’s happening to me, but recently my brain has been brimming with bikes. Become a Member & Get Ad-Free Access To This...
Mainstream media are chattering these days about “green” cars. Like it’s some new idea. Well, I’ve been a fan of...
I didn’t see the accident happen, and it was many laps later when my photo trek around South Africa’s Kyalami...
Let’s call her “Debbie,” because that’s what Derrick Walker called her and I never did get her right name. Must’ve been flummoxed by her sly, limpid eyes. Walker is a Champ Car team co-owner whom I’ve known since he was a Brabham F1 mechanic. We were catching up in the...
In the boisterous opera that has been Italian auto racing, one of the grandest of performers made just the briefest...
Pete Lyons Way back in the Science Fiction period of my youth, I followed a newspaper strip whose title I can’t recall for sure, but it was something like “Alternate Earth.” That’s a common Sci-Fi theme with innumerable variations; this one’s premise involved a duplicate of our planet orbiting diametrically...
Here’s a big four-oh for me: That many years ago this month the Can-Am began, and basically so did my...
Interview most any racecar designer and you’ll likely hear a beautifully turned tale of insight, and enlightenment, and clever science...
I am unsettled. I know it. But I don’t know why. Is it this grass, groomed to unnatural golf course perfection? The blazing Florida sun making metalwork look overpolished? The unreal quiet? What is giving me this creepy Star Wars feeling of “a disturbance in the Force?” Become a Member...
