How sharp are your detective skills? Can you ID either of these old racecars? This is not a trick question....
Performance perv that I am, I’m turned on by naked racecars. Even partially undressed ones. Lift an engine cover, unveil...
Anyone who saw the terrifying tape of Mario Andretti’s 200-mph “blowover” at Indianapolis on April 23rd will easily visualize the same guy booting Duncan Dayton’s Lotus 79 around Long Beach 11 days earlier. No, happily, the historic F1 car came back unscathed. But Mario, a racer of legendary stature, sure...
Let me mention up front, I may have to cut this short. Something’s coming up on Speedvision that I just...
Pete Lyons Forgive me, please, but I can’t tell you much about any of these oddities. I present them here...
Bet you’re thinking of Fangio’s transcendent victory at the ’Ring. The launch of the Fuelie Corvette. The beautiful Scarabs. Jaguar’s fifth win at Le Mans, the third in a row for the immortal D-type. That year saw the end of the Mille Miglia, but Sputnik went up then, too. For...
Just after 4:00 pm on the rainy Sunday of June 19, 1966, a trio of squat, massive, 427-engined American coupes...
Pete Lyons Any idea what we’re looking at here? Don’t wait for me to tell you, I only have the...
One sunny spring day in Spain, twenty-three Grand Prix drivers shut themselves into a van in a race paddock, refusing to come out and drive their F1 cars. The event promoters threatened to seize the cars and all other team assets. Feelings escalated almost to the point of guns. Tragically,...
Some of us – we know who we are – go all slack in the knees before certain racing machines....
Conception, a friend of mine used to say, “is the biggest word in the English language.” His aphorism came to mind when I learned of the recent passing of John Cooper. It was never my privilege to meet Cooper, but the cars he and his father, Charles, created were central...
Pete Lyons Fifty years ago, when people communicated on paper delivered by hand, her brother’s letters from far-off England would...
Mark Donohue shut down his turbo Offy and made one last left turn into the Indianapolis victory circle. Obviously it...
In racing, we sometimes get to cheer wins that come first-time-out. At the other end of the scale lies the sad saga of the Grand Sport Corvettes, racers conceived amid dreams of competing at Le Mans. It took nearly 40 years for that story to find a happy ending. Today,...
There was a summer of my life when I often walked back home from an evening ramble in a European...
Back in the free-and-easy days when you still could cozy up to naked racecars right out in plain sight, some...
The rain came down cold, heavy, unrelenting, and my lightweight sweater was instantly drenched through. By half distance I was shivering. Yet that Monaco Grand Prix of 1972 was one of the best days I’ve ever spent watching a race. It was a real race, and it was in the...
Pete Lyons How do you stop a racing runaway? Well, you might try throwing more races in its way. Ending...
Hello, Posterity. This is the past calling. Writers and readers being separated by the editor’s deadlines, it’s still 1999 for...
Pete Lyons Come with me to Italy, if you’ve got a minute, I want to show you something neat. We’re standing along a sun-drenched country road, waiting for old race cars in the Mille Miglia Storica commemorative rally to appear. It’s a scene of joyous beauty, with flowers spangling the...
When I were but a lad, my notion of a perfect Saturday was to walk down to the train station...
Pete Lyons Got paper and pen at hand? Or simple fingers will do: Try coming up with a list of...
As the years pile up, I find myself learning more about people I used to know than I ever appreciated at the time. So it is with Ray Heppenstall, the brusque, raw-edged racer from Pittsburgh, PA. Pete Lyons My first impression of him was a little alarming. It was at...
There are many racing drivers, a lesser quantity of great racing drivers, and a very small number who transcend mere...
Pete Lyons Try throwing your arms around all the richness of racing … too immense to embrace, isn’t it? Racecars,...
The first time I went to VIR-ginia International Raceway was in 1960, and road courses like this pastoral gem were...
Sicily’s wild old Targa Florio rates as one of the most appealingly primitive speed events I’ve ever been to. Most race organizers strive to spread a frosting of civility over this nutty-fruitcake business, but they don’t seem to worry about that in Baja, nor did I see much of it...
