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.
While best known in current racing circles as the Director of CART’s Indy Lights Series, Roger Bailey has had a long and colorful career in motorsport that includes working as a mechanic for teams like Ferrari, McLaren and Cooper. John R. Wright sat down with Bailey during the CART Toronto...
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...
Enzo Ferrari was always a sucker for fighters who would never give up, like Tazio Nuvolari, Guy Moll and Gilles Villeneuve. In fact, he thought Moll could become the anti-Nuvolari, so talented was the little Algerian. But Guy’s brief yet spectacular career came to a sudden end on August 15,...
Swiss-born Bernard Juchli is the Higgins to Jay Leno’s Robin Masters and serves as the Major Domo for the Big Dog Garage where he is, at various times, mechanic, engineer, fabricator, manager and auto historian. Despite his full plate, he still looks forward to going to work. VR: So how...
Bruce Trenery founded his classic car dealership, Fantasy Junction, in 1976. VR: Why don’t we step all the way back to the early days, can you tell me a little bit about when you first became afflicted with the disease? BT: Well, basically, I grew up in Berkeley, California and...
Involved with mechancial things virtually all his life, John Barnard first worked in racing at Lola, then a fertile training ground for many men who would impact racecar design. Upon “graduating” from Lola he went to work alongside Gordon Coppuck at McLaren to develop the M23. In 1975 he joined the...
Niki Lauda Biography Andreas Nikolaus Lauda was born to a well-to-do Vienna family on February 22, 1949. His family’s social status proved both nuisance and good fortune. Although he was later to become successful in business on his own, it was obvious early on that he was not cut to fit the conventional Lauda...
John Coombs was literally born into the motoring business, as his multi-talented craftsman father was already working with automobiles when John appeared on the scene. As John grew up he eventually began racing, soon moving successfully into 500-cc Formula Three. Eventually, the family firm, Coombs & Sons, Ltd., became known for...
For many years now, I have been synonymous with sports cars and sports car racing. Of course, when I started my career, I was like any other driver. I started in single-seater racing cars and wanted to become a Formula One racer, not only that but World Champion! My ladder...
Joy RaineyPhoto: Pete Austin I suppose every time you win something, it’s quite a boost, like when I first broke the outright ladies record at Shelsley Walsh. I used to do that on a fairly regular basis, but overall I think I hold that record; I lost it once, but...
If he lasted long enough—that is, if he didn’t get killed in the process—canny observers thought this young South African could become a Formula One World Champion. Not even their crystal ball, though, could have predicted how: it was when driving a Ferrari 312T4 at Monza, the holiest of holies...
It was in the West of France that the team from Artcurial’s collector car department made an extraordinary discovery. Forgotten for almost fifty years, the team at Artcurial found some 60 automobiles originally curated with devotion in order to create a private museum that would pay tribute to this great...
Executive Director, Petersen Automotive Museum VR: Can you tell me a little bit about how you first came to cars and when you were first bitten by the bug? No Subscription? You’re missing out Any Text Here Get Started Already a Member? Sign in to your account here....
“Sex – the breakfast of Champions” was the legend on the T-shirt the 1976 Formula 1 World Champion wore under his driving suit. Ex-public schoolboy irreverence that only partially sums up this deceptively talented, sophisticated and intelligent man. He personified that much overworked term charisma, but he was also an...
Mike Jiggle speaks with the Australian legend about his long career, his tough guy approach and the red underpants that enpowered him to become the 1980 Formula One World Champion. Your father enjoyed a reasonable motor racing career. Was it, therefore, inevitable that you became involved in the sport? No...
If there is a single quality that best defines Marc Surer it must be determination. When you consider that he grew up in a country that banned racing when he was four years old, and then overcame a seemingly endless succession of debilitating accidents behind the wheel of competition cars...
My very first experiences in a racing car were in a Lotus Seven. In fact, prior to purchasing the Lotus I went to Lotus and asked for a job. I thought I must know how they build these cars if I’m going to race them. I was conscious too that...
Alistair Caldwell joined the McLaren team in their early days as a cleaner and ended up as team manager, winning two World Championships—with Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt. Here, he shares with Keith Booker some of his recollections of those early days. How did you first become involved in motor...
Bev BondPhoto: Pete Austin I was born with a competitive spirit, my father represented Great Britain at Speedway, my mother and two of my aunts rode Speedway bikes, too. I suppose Speedway should have been my sport, on the contrary, I preferred four wheels and made my mark in kart...
Dario Resta competed in the first race ever held on Britain’s hallowed Brooklands circuit on July 6, 1907, and died there trying to set speed records on September 3, 1924. In between the two, his European career had its highs and lows, but his exploits in the United States were,...
Many might find it unusual that the 58-year old son of legendary racecar driver Dave MacDonald had never driven a race car on a racetrack, but it’s true. Going fast has always been in my blood—as evidenced by countless speeding tickets—but it’s only in the past five years that I’ve...
Manfred von Brauchitsch Biography He was called die Pechvogel, the unlucky bird. He was known more for the races that he lost than those that he had won, but to dismiss him as a journeyman driver would do him a great disservice. While not at the level of his teammates Caracciola, Fagioli...
Photo: Chris Mann This was going to be an important year for me. My win at Oulton Park, in Richard Attwood’s Cooper, had impressed the MRP gang and for 1963 I was offered a full season with them in a brand-new car. The team had done a deal with Lola...
It started with a phone call from the photographer/journalist Bernard Cahier. He said, “Carl Haas has a problem. Brian Redman flipped his car at the Mont Tremblant Can-Am. Are you interested in driving for Lola Cars in the States?” I talked to Carl Haas the next morning and he said...
For this special Porsche issue it was only right to interview the man who, in real terms, helped to put the Porsche name firmly in motor racing record books as a marque to be respected and feared. In 1970, together with Richard Attwood—some would say a most unlikely pairing—and from...
Michael Turner Atmosphere and emotion are two ingredients I have tried to incorporate into my painting. It was Tony Kydd, the features editor of Motor Magazine in the late 1940s who said to me, “Without attention to background, scenery, and people you lose so much in a picture, it’s not...
With a dad like Stan Jones it was hardly surprising that Alan became a motor racing nut when he was still a kid. Stan won the 1954 New Zealand International Grand Prix, four 1955 Victorian Trophies at Fisherman’s Bend, Melbourne, became the 1958 Australian Gold Star Champion and won the...
I’m not too sure who first referred to me as “the Professor” of Grand Prix motor racing, it may have been something a journalist, or TV reporter said, or it may just be a respectful remark from some motor racing fans that somehow made its way into motor racing conversation....
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...
In the first two installments of our multi-part interview with John Barnard he discussed his early years with Lola and McLaren, how he developed his design philosophy and then looked at his experiences in Indycar racing and, back in Formula One, with McLaren and Ferrari. In this third and final...
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