August 2009

Man vs. Machine

Dear Editor,

With respect to Pete Lyons’s column, “Man? Or Machine?” [VR, March ’09], I get the feeling that Pete Lyons and I must share some similar DNA. For many years, I couldn’t understand why I had gradually lost interest in the current modern racing scene. Initially, I thought it was a natural thing, as I get older I become a BOF, you know the sort of thing with respect to your son’s taste in music; it can’t possibly match what we had in the sixties, right? But I think Mr. Lyons has put his finger on it. Way back, the machinery was not only beautiful, but it was different too; you didn’t need a program to tell the players. Sure, I worshipped Mike Hawthorn as a kid, but I positively lusted after those exquisite D-type Jaguars he drove. Phil Hill and Peter Collins were great drivers, but that 250 Testa Rossa Ferrari that they drove at Sebring in 1958, well, that was something else. As further proof, who would not be viscerally moved by that photo of the 450S Maserati on page 46 of the same issue?