Motorsport Legends Speak
Interviews & Words With The Heroes of Motorsports
This is where the rubber meets the road, where the smell of burnt rubber and high-octane fuel mingles with the sharp insights of those who have lived and breathed motorsports. Here, the legends of racing take the wheel, sharing their firsthand experiences, hard-won wisdom, and unique perspectives in a collection of captivating articles and exclusive interviews.
The Driver's Seat: Insights from Motorsports Legends
This is where the rubber meets the road, where the smell of burnt rubber and high-octane fuel mingles with the sharp insights of those who have lived and breathed motorsports. Here, the legends of racing take the wheel, sharing their firsthand experiences, hard-won wisdom, and unique perspectives in a collection of captivating articles and exclusive interviews. Get ready to dive deep into the minds of champions as they dissect race strategy, reflect on career-defining moments, and offer a glimpse into the intense pressure and exhilaration of life at the limit. Hear from visionary engineers, team owners, motorsport executives, and influential figures who shape the sport from behind the scenes.
Eldon Rasmussen Eldon Rasmussen was the second Canadian (after Billy Foster) to race in the Indianapolis 500 in the modern era. Eldon and Billy were supermodified drivers who had competed in the Canadian American Modified Racing Association or CAMRA series, which promoted races in western Canada and the western United...
Andy Bell: Pre-War Aston Martin Expert For the past 20-25 years, mention of pre-war Aston Martin brings your name to the head of the conversation. Where did your association and love of these cars originate? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in...
London Fashion Designer, Car Enthusiast London fashion designer Simon Carter spends his work days designing all types of sophisticated, high quality men’s clothing, particularly shirts. He first started in the mid-1980s designing jewelry—which is still very much a part of his accessory range today—but now includes watches and luggage. Although...
I started to race not very, very, young like today as I didn’t have the permission of my father to do so. I had to wait until I was eighteen and a half years old, mainly because my family was not involved in the motorcycle trade or racing. When I...
I was a student at the University of Grenoble, when I became very friendly with the children of the organizer of the sports car races at Le Mans. This would be in July 1956. I was invited to go to the Le Mans 24 Hour race because I could speak...
Horst Kroll started off his involvement with automobiles as an apprentice in the Porsche factory in Stuttgart. Porsche sent him to Canada in 1959 to assist at Volkswagen, Canada. By 1963, he was winning his first races both on ice and road circuits. In 1964, he won the first of...
With no fewer than 32 world championship victories to his credit, Jochen Mass is one of the most successful sports car racers of all time. He was only beaten to the unofficial title of the most successful by his longtime co-driver, Jacky Ickx, who has 37 wins. Born in Munich,...
Primarily, my racing with BMW was through Teddy Mayer and McLaren, as BMW and McLaren had been partners in a previous racing program when David Hobbs drove for them. The BMW GTP project relied on input from McLaren North America, as it wasn’t something BMW’s headquarters in Munich got too...
Sir Jackie Stewart This Audi TT is a car capable of being driven on or pretty close to the limit. It’s a well-balanced car, turbo-charged with four-wheel drive, with higher performance than you would get in a “normal” TT. It’s been created for the driving school at Silverstone, so it...
King George V thought it was very funny. “You’re late, my boy,” he guffawed. The world’s fastest human being had tried to get to Buckingham Palace on time for his own investiture, but he turned up half an hour late. He had been delayed by a slow goods train huffing...
John Cordts is a quiet, modest man, which is likely the reason why many fans of the sport are not familiar with this Canadian Hall of Fame driver. However, Cordts’ racing resume is impressive, including several decades racing everything from MGs and Corvettes to 65 starts in the Can-Am from...
Nigel Mansell Biography Nigel Ernest James Mansell OBE was born the 8th of August 1953 in Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, England. His early childhood was unremarkable puctuated by frequent moving. He like other young boys was attracted to the exploits of Brutish sports figures including Jimmy Clark. After considerable success in kart racing,...
With the prospect of landing a man on the moon, the American public was captivated by all things “jet-powered” in the 1960s. So, it’s perhaps little wonder that when a California hot rodder named Craig Breedlove set the World Land Speed Record in his jet-powered Spirit of America, he quickly...
Philip Young: Founder and GM of the Endurance Rally Association The second part of our interview with Philip Young, head of the Endurance Rally Association (ERA)—a motor club he founded just over 25 years ago which organizes some of today’s most inspiring classic rallies—was to be a celebration of his latest...
Bob Dance I started work with Lotus Components in 1960. I really wanted to join the Lotus Formula One team, but unless you were in the right place at the right time and talking to the right person, it was difficult. It was very curious in the way it worked,...
Photo: Bob Jackson In 1962, I was Jim Hall’s mechanic. There are many stories I could tell about the five years I worked for him; this is one of the more interesting ones. Jim decided we would go to the inaugural Mexican GP, scheduled for November 4, 1962. This was a...
Oklahoma-Based Collector, Brass-Era Enthusiast VR: How did you develop your interest in automobiles and brass era cars in particular? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in to your account here....
Frank Williams started out like so many racers, with little more than his desire to go racing. Over nearly half a century, however, he built that desire into a multiple World Championship-winning entity that employs several hundred people, and to honor those accomplishments, in 1999 he was knighted by Queen...
Frank Raymond Wilton “Lofty” England was not head and shoulders above many other men just because he was 6 ft 5 ins (196 cm) tall. He was also an amazing blend of racing motorcyclist, rally driver, bomber pilot, racing car engineer, race strategist and Jaguar’s chairman and CEO. But the...
You know how it is when a friend dies; you wish you had done more, visited him more, telephoned him more, at least thought of him more? That is how it was with me when Luigi Villoresi, distinguished gentleman and heroic racing driver, died eight years ago. I had known...
Jochen Rindt Biography Rindt was born in Germany in 1942 of Austrian and German parentage. His parents died under Allied bombing in 1943 and he was taken to Graz in Austria where he was brought up by his grandparents. He took his place in the family spice importing business on...
Much of Brawn’s success has come courtesy of Michael Schumacher, seen here in 1992 at Spa, winning his first Grand Prix with the Benetton B192.Photo: Mike Cotes Whoosh-bang. That sort of gives an impression of Ross Brawn’s 2009 Formula One season. The year of the spectacularly successful, flash in the...
At the end of 1969, during the height of the Ferrari-Porsche World Sports Car Championship “wars,” Jo Siffert was wined and dined at Maranello by Enzo Ferrari, who offered him a deal for 1970. But it was not only the bravura of the Swiss in a racing car that interested...
When he was a kid in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Patrick Depailler’s idol was French motorcycle champion and racing driver Jean Behra. The two were alike in more ways than one, as they shared a living-for-the-moment attitude that didn’t always pay off. Surprisingly, though, Patrick’s devil-may-care lifestyle didn’t really do his motor...
Ed Leavens’ career in racing could be compared to an iceberg where 9/10ths of the details of his career lie beneath the surface. He raced from the mid-1950s to around 1962, but he gave it all up for his business of selling cars in London, Ontario, Canada. Here was a...
Anthony Joseph Foyt Jr. is one of racing’s all-time great all-rounders. During a career as a driver that spanned five decades, and one as a car owner that continues to this day, Super Tex has been victorious in everything he’s tried. Before becoming the first driver to win the Indianapolis...
The name Robin Donovan may not mean much to most, but this man has quietly gone about his business and played a significant part in Le Mans history. He raced there for 14 consecutive years. From his point of view it is a “dream come true” story of a little...
Peter Bourassa is the Publisher of the weekly MMR Community Newsletter and the online Motorsports Marketing Resources Directory (www.MMRsite.com) a resource for sports cars enthusiasts that lists more than 3,000 vetted suppliers of 350 different goods and services. He is also a car guy. Peter Bourassa VR: Let’s start from...
John Watson was one of those rare beasts: an Irish Grand Prix winner. It was a feat pulled off by the number of his countrymen you could count on the fingers of one hand, and when you add to the equation the fact that he was also a successful world...
An invitation to drive in the Tulip Rally of 1959 led to my meeting Norman Garrad, manager of the Rootes Competitions Department. He was a rather gruff old chap, known to many as the “Fuehrer.” On reflection, with the aforementioned description, it was rather naïve of me to approach him...
Lots More Motorsports Goodness
Thousands of articles across decades of racing.
