Motorsport People Profiles
The World's Greatest Drivers, Owners, Engineers & Personalities
Profiles of past and present automotive personalities. The drivers who risked their lives in the early days to the engineers who creatively changed the world of automobiles, this is a celebration of the people who played a major role in the world we love.
Pantheon of Speed: Legends of Motorsports
Dive into a captivating collection of profiles and exclusive interviews with the greatest names in motorsports history – the drivers who defied limits, the engineers who pushed boundaries, the designers who shaped iconic machines, and the visionaries who built racing empires. From the daredevils of early Grand Prix racing to the modern masters of Formula 1, we celebrate the men and women who have etched their names into the annals of motorsport legend.
Enzo Ferrari Biography Enzo Ferrari was born in 1898 in Modena Italy. His father, Alfredo, ran a local metal-blacksmith business who forged axles for the Italian railways. When he was 10 his father took Ferrari and his brother Alfredo Jr. to an automobile race in Bologna. There he saw Vincenzo...
In late December 1959, Bill Jennings packed his tools, spares and suitcase into the passenger seat of his self-assembled GSM Dart sports car and drove from his home in Cape Town to East London – a trip of over 600 miles in the days before highways. Jennings then took part...
John Von Neumann was one of those towering figures in the sports car world of the ’50s. He was one of the founders of the California Sports Car Club that eventually became the largest Region of the SCCA. He pioneered Porsche in the Western U.S., not only in racing, but...
Fathers and their sons who have each won the Formula 1 World Championship are few and far between. There are only two dads and their lads who have pulled it off. The first to climb that particular Everest were the Hills: Graham won the 1962 world title driving a BRM...
It took a racing department of 240 people and a huge budget to put Michael Schumacher on top of the world and make him the third millennium’s first Formula One champion driver. A department bursting at the seams with people who receive little outside recognition of their efforts, while the...
Chic Vandagriff’s influence can be seen in many chapters of the history of motor racing in the United States. One could argue that his involvement began before he was even born, since his grandfather, Harry Buchanan Grey, was one of Barney Oldfield’s riding mechanics at Indianapolis during the early years...
Motor sport anniversaries and centenaries seem to have filled the calendar in the last few years, and as our sport continues to get older, there will be many more. 50 Years of Lister Jaguar to 60 Years of Lotus, everyone gets a celebration or at least a tribute these days....
If you ever see a photograph of Philippe Etancelin in action, chances are you will never forget him. Because he’s the one who raced cars wearing his cap back to front. Phi Phi, as Etancelin was nicknamed, was one of those monied gentleman drivers, a wool merchant who loved to...
No way did Elisabeth Junek look like a racing driver. She was, well, a woman to begin with, and there were not many of them hefting potent racing cars around in the 1920s. And she was petite, her fair hair framing a kind, gently smiling face. Even when she raced...
Arthur Francis Riley, endurance-race driver, and owner of Art Riley Motors in Port Washington, N.Y., for a quarter of a century, has passed away at the age of 93. Garage owner and master mechanic Riley was granted one of America’s early Volvo franchises in 1957. “As soon as I drove...
Legendary team owner Frank Arciero has died from the aftereffects of an aneurysm. Arciero was a 14-year-old Italian immigrant when he arrived in America just prior to the outbreak of World War II, and despite speaking no English proceeded to craft a classic American Dream success story in three different...
The man at the wheel of the 2.8-liter, six-cylinder, Ford Sierra XR4i may have been a schoolmaster, but he certainly did not drive like one. In fact, beads of sweat were breaking out on my forehead as he stylishly doorhandled the winged Ford along the narrow roads of the Targa...
Famed Corvette racer John Greenwood has died at the age of 71. The son of a General Motors executive, Greenwood grew up around cars and first rose to prominence in the early 1970 when he won consecutive SCCA A Production National Championships in a Corvette. For 1972 Greenwood secured backing...
Henry Taylor was a farmer, born in Shefford, Bedforshire, UK, and was initially smitten with Speedway (motorcycle racing) at West Ham, London, before changing to four wheels and 500-cc racing cars, in 1954. The following year he won two races, the first at Silverstone, and in 1956 became very proficient,...
A million clichés come to mind. Giant killer is probably the worst, pummelled to death by a thousand newspaper hacks, but that’s exactly what the original Ecurie Ecosse was. A meteor that came from nowhere and took the world’s endurance motor racing crown—twice. It was a shoestring operation working out...
Drino Miller has lost his long battle with cancer at the age of 72. An early off-road racing legend—his Baja Boot was the first purpose-built off-road racecar—Miller later expanded his influence into sports car and Indycar racing. He was one of racing’s great innovators, choosing to pursue the sport after...
On June 7–8, 1958, the Texas Region of the SCCA hosted a weekend of sports car racing 10 miles north of Fort Worth. The organizers laid out a 3-mile course at the National Guard Air Base near Eagle Mountain Lake, where 112 entries showed up to contest 10 scheduled “Sunburn”...
Joe Leonard who, like John Surtees, won major championships on two and four wheels, passed away last Thursday at the age of 84 following an extended illness. Leonard, a San Diego native who moved to San Jose, California, as a 16-year-old to chase his racing dream, established himself as one...
The Bugatti T57C “tank” had won the 1939 24 Hours of Le Mans driven by Jean-Pierre Wimille/Pierre Veyron and had been back in Molsheim for several weeks. It was about to compete in the La Baule Grand Prix but its designer, 30-year-old Jean Bugatti, was a perfectionist and wanted to...
The man who scored Ferrari’s very first Formula One World Championship victory, Argentinian Jose Froilan Gonzalez, has died at the age of 90 in Buenos Aires. Gonzalez, nicknamed the Pampas Bull for his physical presence and his muscular driving style, made his F1 debut in 1950 at Monaco, driving a...
Unlike those of Jim Clark, Mario Andretti and Michael Schumacher, not a name at the forefront of all our minds. Yet it was one that had been hovering about in my subconscious for years, though I never took the trouble to find out who the hell he was. Then Renault...
There was a flurry of events in Italy to mark the 30th anniversary of Gilles Villeneuve’s death in a crash during qualifying for the 1982 Grand Prix of Belgium at Zolder. Probably the most evocative happened on May 8, when his son Jacques, the 1997 Formula One World Champion, drove...
Tazio Nuvolari Biography Tazio Nuvolari a legend in his own lifetime, was known as Il Montavano Volante, the Flying Mantuan. He epitomized courage and daring and for 30 years he amazed the racing world with his exploits on both two and four wheels. He was born November 18, 1892, in Casteldrio...
On Sunday, February 26, 2017, Peter Adrian van der Vate passed away peacefully at his home in Fairfax, Virginia. Pete, son of Jan and Harriett van der Vate, succumbed after a long battle with cancer. He is survived by his wife Fran and their daughter Sarah van der Vate, and...
Racing car designer and manufacturer John Crosslé has died at the age of 83 following a brief illness. Crosslé was inspired to open his own shop, Crosslé Cars, after finding he couldn’t afford to go racing with one of Colin Chapman’s popular Lotus VI machines, and so decided to build...
Villeneuve won four races, including Indy, on his way to the 1995 CART Indycar crown. Photo: John Zimmermann Collection This self-confident Canadian is one of the élite. Only he, Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi have won motor racing’s grand slam, the CART Championship, the Indianapolis 500 and the Formula 1...
The man known to many as “Mr. MG,” Tony Roth, has passed away after a long fight with cancer. Roth began vintage racing his MG TD in 1979, and shortly thereafter became one of the founding members of the Southeast Vintage Racing Association, and asked by Ford Heacock to coordinate...
“Gregg, Peter (FA),” was filed between “Greenwood, John” and “Gregory, Masten.” The file, dog-eared and stained with the outline of a coffee cup, showed its age; it dated back to 1970. I recognized the handwriting, it was mine; the (FA) did not stand for Formula Atlantic. This brought a smile...
Woolf Barnato is the man with a perfect score. He entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times and won it three times: in 1928, 1929 and 1930, driving his own beloved Bentley cars. A record that still stands today, despite many attempts to break it over the last...
Bob Bondurant (1933–2021) I met Mr. Bondurant in the autograph line at Carroll Shelby’s Roast in Palm Springs, 1990. I remember him as an affable man who treated everyone with respect. You could have no idea of the exciting life he had lived or his accomplishments from a casual conversation...
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