When we presented the first part of our continuing interview with F1 design legend John Barnard last March, VR Contributing Editor...
Telling about cannibalizing a pickup truck engine for his racecar, he said, “Any of you would have really enjoyed” that...
Pete Lyons We start the new season with two interesting notes on the subject of pulchritude. Near the end of January, Lorna and I spent most of a weekend planted squarely before the Flat Screen, surprised by how much we were enjoying Speed’s marathon coverage of the Rolex 24 at...
The Canadian American Challenge Cup was co-sanctioned by the SCCA and CASC—it was a series nicknamed the “unlimited” series. Although...
Pete Lyons Hail the “Mod Scot!” Such a thought must have flickered through many minds as 27 Group 7 machines...
For a baker’s dozen of years in the late 1950s and early ’60s, Nassau in the Bahamas Islands hosted a week-long, end-of-year party disguised as a race meeting. It was an event that virtually everyone looked forward to and the cast of characters that wrote its history was truly world...
The Canadian American Challenge Cup was co-sanctioned by the SCCA and CASC—it was a series nicknamed the “unlimited” series. Although...
It exploded at me around a blind embankment, big truck, top-heavy, heeling as it hurtled downhill. What its driver saw,...
By now everyone should be familiar with YouTube as a source for long-lost films from the old days, and these two new links take you back in time to a position trackside at two of America’s favorite racing grounds, Watkins Glen (not Kent, Washington as suggested) and Riverside. The first...
In the youth of our racing enthusiasm, we tend to think obituaries are for drivers. We don’t foresee, or at...
Fundamentally, the development of the Brabham “fan car” was due to the introduction of the Lotus 79, and in a...
Mario Andretti Photo: Pete Austin Jim Hall Photo: Keith Booker 2 Achille Varzi is killed when his Alfa Romeo 158 crashes in heavy rain during practice for the Swiss Grand Prix at Bremgarten (1948). 4 A.J. Foyt wins the Firecracker 400 NASCAR stock car race at Daytona, Florida (1964). Become...
When I first talked with Vintage Racecar editor Casey Annis in 2005, the conversation revolved around the subject of me...
Jim Hall, creator of the legendary Chaparrals and the man who gave Gil de Ferran his first Indycar drive, was the honoree during festivities surrounding de Ferran’s final race as a driver at Laguna Seca’s American Le Mans Series finale. After beginning his Indycar career with Hall’s team in 1995,...
Chaparral 2J Legend “according to Jim Hall” has the idea for the Chaparral 2J came to him through a child’s...
In the days before data logging transformed our sport into a science, the judge of all things was the simple...
The Canadian-American Challenge Cup was a series nicknamed the “unlimited” series co-sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America and the Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs. Although there was a basic set of rules—the cars had to be two-seaters with bodywork covering the wheels, have doors, a windscreen, brake lights, and...
New race courses keep blinking onto our radar screens, which seems like a good thing until they turn up on...
Pete Lyons How do you stop a racing runaway? Well, you might try throwing more races in its way. Ending McLaren Can-Am domination—that may have been one goal of series officials when they scheduled their fourth season, 1969, with nearly twice as many rounds as before. Become a Member &...
Chaparral 2H Looking back over the years you have to wonder how Jim Hall could have gotten it so wrong...
Chaparral 2E In 1966 Chaparral introduced the 2E for the Can-Am series. With its high mounted wing it was the...
Pete Lyons You know how someone’s opposing opinion, one that seems inconsequential enough to let slide at the time, can keep gnawing on you ’til finally you just gotta explode? That’s what I’ve been nursing ever since a NASCAR telecast last year, when I heard announcer Darrell Waltrip say something...
The Canadian American Challenge Cup was co-sanctioned by the SCCA and CASC, and quickly became known as the “unlimited” series....
Grand Prix racing comes with a new look in 2009. Among other significant technical changes—wider cars, grooveless slicks, and Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (think “electric power-to-pass”)—there are new aero rules intended to improve a car’s ability to overtake another. Pete Lyons Included is this fascinating detail: Front wings will be...
Roger Penske was honored with induction into the Legends of Laguna Seca during ceremonies preceding this year’s mid-October American Le...
An opportunistic mix of Group 5 endurance racers and Group 7 thundercars enlivened Watkins Glen’s 1970 Can-Am Text and Photos...
There was the time I went to the Targa Florio and was strolling by a restaurant in the night-dark streets of Palermo just as the reigning world champion popped out. My companion, brasher than me, blurted, “Hey, Phil, can we talk to you?” “Ya,” replied the reigning world champion, and...