A sudden snarl under my elbow, the mighty baritone of a big, twin-cam six with open pipes. Then a flash...
Photo: Pete Lyons / www.petelyons.com Pete Lyons If you have a two-car garage, do you keep two cars in it? That would suggest you’re fairly normal. In Robert Judy’s, there must be a hundred racecars. Plus somewhere beyond 1000 racing books. Also magazines and videos and photographs and posters. Then...
Recent discussion in these pages about a supposed sixth Grand Sport racing Corvette rang two bells with me. First, I...
Dan Gurney once tried to show me how to wring the neck of a recalcitrant racecar to squeeze out that...
We have a winner! Just as we hoped, a VRJ reader has recognized one of the “Mystery Cars” shown in the February 2002 issue (page 10), and identified its driver. It’s the handsome sports racer bearing no. 47 and a large overhead wing, which I photographed in the pit lane...
I didn’t see the accident happen, and it was many laps later when my photo trek around South Africa’s Kyalami...
For all its color and commotion, which I do enjoy, I also like vintage racing for the moments of quiet...
That’s a question I found occupying (the few) idle moments of my mind during October’s Porsche Rennsport Reunion IV at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. That will happen if you spend four days cooped up in a 400-sq-ft tent lined with racing photos on display and notice that some seem to...
From time to time someone asks how I got into this business – apparently it looks like fun – and...
Just after 4:00 pm on the rainy Sunday of June 19, 1966, a trio of squat, massive, 427-engined American coupes...
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...
Maybe I’ll change my mind by the end of the column, but as I tap out this opening sentence, I...
In the youth of our racing enthusiasm, we tend to think obituaries are for drivers. We don’t foresee, or at...
Friday evening before the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix, over dinner in a quiet countryside hotel, Mark Donohue told us about setting a 221-mph speed record the week before with his old Can-Am Porsche. “It’s the only thing I’ve accomplished this year,” he remarked with a small grin. By his high...
Jimmy Clark Biography Jimmy Clark was born in Kilmany, in the county of Fife to a Scottish farming family, roots...
Howden Ganley stopped by our vendor booth at the recent Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, where one of the old photos...
Pete Lyons There is no great genius without a trace of madness,” declared the Roman philosopher Seneca, and can we have any doubt he was looking ahead 1.9 millennia to designers of Can-Am racecars? The wonderful old Canadian-American Challenge Cup series of 1966 through 1974 is justly famed for many...
You know that brief sense of disjointedness between us and some celebrity we meet who up to then had been...
Can it be 50 whole years since the first Sebring 12-hour? I guess I’ve seen this coming, but still, it...
Here’s a sure bet: a lot of what you know about the Mille Miglia, and most of how you feel about it, came through the writings of a short, towering genius of a journalist named Denis Jenkinson. Can there be any racing fan who has not thrilled to the epic...
David’s repeated defeats of Goliath this summer—American Le Mans Series victories by Porsche’s RS Spyder over Audi’s much bigger and...
Pete Lyons Fifty years—let’s set the old timescope at that fulsome number today. It’s been a long time since 1954,...
It exploded at me around a blind embankment, big truck, top-heavy, heeling as it hurtled downhill. What its driver saw, way down under his bluff bow, was my little white Volvo 122S hustling uphill just as hard. Obviously, both of us were enthusiasts caught up in the joyous rhythm of...
The last car ends its cool-off lap, sending one last snap of delicious sound echoing away across the raceway. This...
Forty years! That’s how long it’s been since our man Philip Toll Hill, Jr., became the first American to win...
While indulging one of my secret vices the other day – watching motorcycle racing on TV – I started thinking about something a commentator mentioned. This is the last year of 2-stroke engines in the Grand Prix bikes. Next season they start using 4-strokes. Not that anyone asked me, but...
For all the great drivers who contested the old Can-Am, few did well. Your Amons, Andrettis, Brabhams, Elfords, Joneses, Halls,...
Pete Lyons News that Formula One is so financially distressed… Wait! Let us savor this! 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 access to all...
