Race driver Hans-Joachim Stuck will be the honoree for the 2016 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, scheduled for March 11-13 at the Golf Club of Amelia Island at Summer Beach in Florida. The two-time Le Mans 24 Hour winner and 1985 World Sports Car Champion succeeds Sir Stirling Moss as the honoree for the 21st annual event.
Stuck is the son of Hans Stuck Sr. who raced for the vaunted Auto-Union team in the 1930s, earning the title bergmeister for his uncanny hill-climbing skills. With his father’s guidance, Stuck junior became one of the most successful and popular international road racing stars of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.
The triple Sebring 12 Hour-winner also raced in Formula 1 and Formula 2, grand touring cars, Trans-Am and IMSA’s GTO championship becoming a favorite with generations of American racing fans. In the early ‘nineties Stuck raced Porsche 911 Turbos for the championship-winning Brumos Porsche IMSA SuperCar team.
In 1986 Stuck’s second Sebring 12 Hour victory preceded his first Le Mans win by three months making him one of those rare racers who won the 12 Hours and the 24 Hours in the same year. Stuck is one of just 14 racers in the nine-decade history of Le Mans to win the 24 Hours in consecutive years.
“BMW put our names on the doors of our cars, and Hans would get so sideways I could read his name – and this would be at 140 MPH,” said Sam Posey, Amelia’s 2013 Honoree, Stuck’s BMW teammate and co-winner of the 1975 Sebring 12 Hours. “Where others saw risk, Hans saw fun. Flinging those CSLs around was play time, and I swear I could hear yodeling coming from his car.”
[Source: Amelia Island Concours; photo: Autosports Marketing Associates]
