Just after 4:00 pm on the rainy Sunday of June 19, 1966, a trio of squat, massive, 427-engined American coupes...
Forty Memorial Days ago, I sat in the Indianapolis grandstand across from the pits and witnessed Graham Hill capturing the...
Sicily’s wild old Targa Florio rates as one of the most appealingly primitive speed events I’ve ever been to. Most race organizers strive to spread a frosting of civility over this nutty-fruitcake business, but they don’t seem to worry about that in Baja, nor did I see much of it...
Pete Lyons Night racing. Why do we love it so? I think one reason is, darkness adds another dimension to...
Pete Lyons 2006 already! Those mileposts are just whizzing by, aren’t they? I feel like I’m riding up Pikes Peak...
Racing transcends venue. I’ve done my time at grungy old bullrings, squalid street courses, insipid parking lots, sterile speedways, a...
Racing lays down rich strata of history with every passing season, but even though their glory days mostly lie four...
“A great hammer struck my spine, slamming my head back. I forced it down, and stared at the long black roadway between the orange wheel bulges. It was rushing like some demonic torrent frantic to enter the gates of hell… Pete Lyons “There was no longer any sensation of speed....
Pete Lyons Occasionally here you may notice me express disdain for the twisted state modern Formula One has gotten itself...
Pete Lyons Forgive me, please, but I can’t tell you much about any of these oddities. I present them here...
Like a flawlessly cut gemstone, the latest iteration—is it the seventh?—of Porsche’s ageless 911 looks perfect to my eye. They’ve...
It was one of those good races spoiled by bad scoring. After taking the checkered flag at 10 pm, Phil...
Pete Lyons Mr. Cozza lifted the right side of the center-hinged bonnet and bent over the long, bristling racing engine....
This month Pete is recovering from a “close encounter of the surgical kind.” Pete is doing well and will return...
Shanghai’s gaudy new, $300-million supercircuit, home of the first-ever Grand Prix in China, has a truly distinctive first turn complex. It coils up tightly one way like a watch spring, then unwinds. It seems obvious to me it’s meant to look like the oriental yin and yang symbol. SpeedTV commentators...
The last car ends its cool-off lap, sending one last snap of delicious sound echoing away across the raceway. This...
The happy driver you see here is not Henry Gritzback, aka “Grampa.” How I came to know that is a minor detective story I hope you’ll enjoy. My dad’s photo archive includes several thousand 4×5-inch negatives, many of which depict his lifelong enthusiasm for racing. According to Ozzie’s notes on...
In a Millennium when Ferrari seems all-conquering in F1, it’s hard to remember the bad old days of the late...
Speaking to a room packed with eager ears, Vic Elford was well into a detailed description of how he used...
Pete Lyons Fifty years—let’s set the old timescope at that fulsome number today. It’s been a long time since 1954, yet it’s still within reach of mind—of mine, anyway. For me, photographs of that age have eerie dual powers—they depict a world so distant as to seem alien, yet often...
Friday evening before the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix, over dinner in a quiet countryside hotel, Mark Donohue told us about...
Recent discussion in these pages about a supposed sixth Grand Sport racing Corvette rang two bells with me. First, I...
The other evening I watched a panel of motorsport reporters on a TV show name their “driver of the year.” It was an interesting discussion, and I learned a lot. It also made me realize—once again—how much racing has changed in the past few decades. Pete Lyons For one thing,...
The first time I went to VIR-ginia International Raceway was in 1960, and road courses like this pastoral gem were...
Thirty years ago the world was no less crassly simplistic than it is today, and many people glancing at Peter...
Some of you model makers, I know, and probably you historic artists too, have been wondering why Jo Siffert’s 1971 Can-Am Porsche, which normally was painted all Day-Glo red, had blue trim on its nose for a couple of races mid-season. At long last I can tell you why. That’s...
