Klasika

[alpiner]

Insight: F1’s ‘winningest’ car numbers

Throughout Formula 1 history cars have been adorned with specific numbers, albeit with the system having changed across the 70-year 1000-race existence of the championship. After a slightly random start there was a scheme in place from the early 1970s, which changed in 1996, and then again in 2014 with the introduction of driver-specific numbers. But which numbers have had the greatest success? Motorsport Week delves into the history books.

10 | #11 | 36 wins

The #11 is now occupied by Racing Point’s Sergio Perez and before the Mexican’s occupation of the number it greeted the chequered flag first on 36 occasions. Sir Jack Brabham got the ball rolling in 1960 but it was when Sir Jackie Stewart ran the number for four of his victories in 1971 that the tally began mounting. James Hunt used #11 for his title-winning 1976 campaign and thus the number transferred to Ferrari and Niki Lauda for 1977, who took back his crown, claiming three victories on the way. Lauda’s move to Brabham (with the #1) left Ferrari with #11 for the next two seasons, allowing Carlos Reutemann and Jody Scheckter to add to the number’s success. Scheckter’s 1979 title meant Ferrari and Lotus swapped numbers into 1980 – limiting #11’s success thereafter – but when Nelson Piquet took the #1 to Lotus after his 1987 title victory some alteration went on. McLaren was left with #11 for Alain Prost in 1988 and he added a further seven victories. Since then only Giancarlo Fisichella, in the rain-hit 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix, has triumphed with #11.

8= | #4 | 37 wins

Nino Farina claimed #4’s first victory in 1951 and the assorted allocation of the number meant the likes of Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart all logged victories sporting it through the 1960s. From the mid-1970s Tyrrell was assigned #4 and its lack of success thereafter meant it retained use of the number until the system was changed for 1996 – and the sole win on that side of the garage came via Patrick Depailler in Monaco in 1978. From 1996 onwards #4 was typically run by the number two driver of the previous year’s second-best team. Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello, David Coulthard, Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen all took victories sporting #4. Its last wins came courtesy of McLaren across 2010-12, firstly from Jenson Button and then Lewis Hamilton. Since the unique numbering system was introduced Max Chilton and Lando Norris have claimed #4 but have not added to its 37 wins.

8= | #12 | 37 wins

After 10 victories in the opening 22 years of Formula 1 the #12 belonged to Niki Lauda and Ferrari across 1974/75, with the Austrian adding seven wins. After a year ‘on loan’ to McLaren the #12 returned to Ferrari in 1977 though this time it was Carlos Reutemann and the maverick Gilles Villeneuve who added to the tally. But the bulk of #12’s success came with the inestimable Ayrton Senna. Lotus gave Senna the number through the mid-1980s and upon joining McLaren he retained its use for his title-winning 1988 campaign, meaning the Brazilian was accountable for 14 of the number’s 37 victories. The most recent was added by Jenson Button at the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, when the 2009 champion famously surged from 14^th on the grid in wet/dry conditions.

7 | #8 | 47 wins

Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Sir Stirling Moss and Jim Clark were all victorious with #8 but its greatest success came with McLaren. Peter Revson took victories in 1973 while in the early 1980s it was Niki Lauda who sported the number for his third world title, edging team-mate Prost. McLaren and Brabham thus swapped numbers and the latter ran #8 unsuccessfully, and when the team collapsed after 1992 McLaren re-took the number for 1993. Ayrton Senna took five wins, including his last career triumph in Australia, while in 1998 it belonged to Mika Hakkinen – under the revised scheme – who claimed eight wins and the title. Heinz-Harald Frentzen (1999) and Fernando Alonso (2003) added a few more and it took another seven years until #8 returned to the top, again courtesy of Alonso, whose Ferrari F10 sported the number in 2010. Nico Rosberg grabbed his maiden win with #8 in China 2012, which remains the number’s last win; Romain Grosjean has run #8 since 2014.

6 | #3 | 62 wins

It wasn’t until 1961 that #3 logged its first victory, courtesy of Wolfgang von Trips at the 1961 Dutch GP, and it remained on a relatively lowly figure until the mid-1990s, for Tyrrell held the number until 1995. After initial success with Sir Jackie Stewart and Jody Scheckter only Michele Alboreto added to the team’s win tally in the early 1980s. Tyrrell’s fallow phase kept #3 away from the victor’s enclosure. But when the amended system was introduced in 1996 #3 was given to the lead driver of the previous year’s second-best team. Consequently, it was often a front-runner. Jacques Villeneuve (1997), Michael Schumacher (1998-2000), Mika Hakkinen (2001), David Coulthard (2002), and Juan Pablo Montoya (2003/4) added to the tally, though bizarrely a six-year drought followed. McLaren got the ball rolling again courtesy of Lewis Hamilton (2011) and Jenson Button (2012), Fernando Alonso took his final two wins with #3 in 2013, while since 2014 it has adorned the front of Daniel Ricciardo’s car for his seven career victories.

5 | #44 | 63 wins

It’s not a surprise, given Lewis Hamilton’s success, that #44 is high up on the list. But since 2014 Hamilton has dragged the number from equal-bottom of the list to fifth. Prior to Hamilton picking the number just as Mercedes emerged as Formula 1’s dominant force, #44 had triumphed just once. That victory came courtesy of Maurice Trintignant at the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix. Ironically, a dominant Mercedes team faltered and handed victory to a Ferrari – sporting #44. Juan Manuel Fangio and Sir Stirling Moss both retired from leading positions, Alberto Ascari crashed into the harbour, with the unfancied Trintignant taking victory in a scarlet red Ferrari. Hamilton picked up the mantle for #44 in 2014 and has since raced to 62 victories. Only in 2017 – when he claimed a meagre nine wins – has Hamilton not taken a double-digit number of victories across the last six years.

4 | #6 | 75 wins

6 appeal? For several race winners and champions certainly. After the anomalous early years #6 hit its stride with Williams. In fact, between 1978 and 2003 just once – courtesy of Brabham’s Ricardo Patrese at the 1983 South African Grand Prix – did a non-Williams driver log a win using the number. Keke Rosberg, Nelson Piquet, Patrese (having joined Williams for 1988), David Coulthard, Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya all sported the number for race victories. Kimi Raikkonen’s first two wins came with the number while in 2007 he ran it en route to his world title, either side of Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa adding to the tally. Mark Webber added more wins in 2010 while when the driver number system was introduced Nico Rosberg paid homage to father Keke’s 1982 title triumph by selecting six. Rosberg added another 20 wins to #6’s list before retiring as champion after the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. #6 will be back on a Williams as and when F1 returns courtesy of Nicholas Latifi.

3 | #2 | 83 wins

Not bad for a #2 driver? It’s been taken to the chequered flag on 83 occasions and for the bulk of that time the driver in question has been team-mate to the reigning World Champion. The very first World Championship grand prix was won by eventual 1950 champion Nino Farina with number 2 on his Alfa Romeo. But on occasions champions – or future title-winners – themselves have sported number two. Alain Prost (1985, 89, 93) won 16 races as #2, more than he ever did running the #1 plate. In ’85 he was team-mate to Niki Lauda, in ’89 to Ayrton Senna, and in ’93 he replaced defending champion Mansell at Williams, meaning the #1 plate was unavailable. David Coulthard, Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa all took multiple wins as #2, as did Lewis Hamilton, who ran it as team-mate to Fernando Alonso in 2007, and again alongside Jenson Button in 2010. Mark Webber added the most recent of #2’s wins in 2012.

2 | #5 | 144 wins

Out in P2 by quite some margin is #5. But why? Well… It had a history of swapping between highly successful teams: Tyrrell in 1973, McLaren in 1974, Lotus in the late 1970s, Brabham in the early 1980s, Williams in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That gave rise to the emergence of ‘red 5’ courtesy of Nigel Mansell, who claimed 27 wins with the number before finally taking the 1992 title. It then went to Benetton for 1993 and after Michael Schumacher’s 1994 crown with the number it retuned to Williams, where Damon Hill added more wins, and the 1996 title. Still following? Good. From that year onwards the number five typically went to the lead driver at the third-best team. That meant more wins for Schumacher in 1997 and 2006, brother Ralf in 2001/2, David Coulthard in 2003, Felipe Massa in 2007 and Fernando Alonso in 2008. Alonso sported #5 in his first title-winning campaign in 2005, and again in 2012, while in 2010 Vettel used the number for his maiden success. Vettel adopted #5 as his permanent number and has added 14 more to the tally since 2015.

1 | #1 | 181 wins

Is this any surprise? There was once a time where the reigning champion did not sport the number 1, and it is currently the case, given Hamilton’s preference for keeping his #44. Johnnie Parsons, at the 1950 Indianapolis 500, Sir Stirling Moss, Jimmy Bryan – another of the anomalous Indy500 entries – Peter Collins, Pedro Rodriguez and Ronnie Peterson all ran #1 to victories without being an F1 champion. But for a 40-year spell the reigning champion had to use #1 and its victory tally accelerated rapidly, albeit with a handful of drivers standing out among the legends. Michael Schumacher’s seven titles mean he sported #1 for seven years – including five in a row during his and Ferrari’s supreme period. Schumacher took 52 wins with #1 while Sebastian Vettel swept to 29 victories in just a three-year spell, before unsuccessfully running #1 for the first year of the driver number system in 2014. Senna took 16 wins with #1 while perhaps one surprise is Prost, a four-time champion, taking only 12 wins as champion, albeit with the caveat that he walked away after his final title in 1993. Nico Rosberg took the 2016 title but before revealing whether he’d keep #6, or move to #1, he retired as champion.

Just missing out…

Perhaps surprising for an iconic number but 27 does not feature on this top 10 list, coming in P12, with #7 and #9 the other numbers to bag 20 victories. Altogether 43 numbers have recorded a grand prix victory, including #0, all by Damon Hill in 1993/94, as Williams sported the number after the retirements of champions Mansell and Prost. Perhaps understandably #13 – not used during the 1974-2013 system – is the lowest number without a race victory, with #29 next on the list. The most recent number to log a maiden victory is 77 – courtesy of Valtteri Bottas – while only one triple digit number has triumphed: 101, courtesy of Alberto Ascari at the 1952 Spanish GP. Drivers in the modern era are only allowed to choose numbers between 2 and 99.

https://www.motorsportweek.com/2020/04/11/insight-f1s-winningest-car-numbers/

[zoran59]

Mladjima to ime ne znaci bog zna sta, no za nas koji smo "nabrijavali" fice (i Zastave uopste) u Jugoslaviji '70-ih - kao i nasi uzori '60-ih - Abarth je bio bozanstvo.

O istoriji same marke postoji gomla clanaka na netu, ima i knjiga, pa necu ovde "prodavati pamet".

 

No, juce se navrsilo 70 godina od prve pobede automobila sa Abarthovim imenom. Na brdskoj trci Palermo - Monte Pellegrino je pobedio Cisitalia-Abarth. Za volanom je bio legendarni Tazio Nuvolari, tada vec 57 godina star!

Abathova prva pobeda, a Nuvolarijeva poslednja - par godina kasnije je umro od tuberkuloze.

Kraj jedne legende i pocetak nove...

 

 

Auto je jos ziv i danas vredi 10 do 15 miliona $ (poslednji put je promenio vlasnika za oko 10 pre nekoliko godina):

 

[Radoye]

@alpiner

 

Slicna lista za Indi 500:

 

https://www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com/events/indy500/history/car-number-history/race-winners

 

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by Radoye

[Radoye]

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Remembering Tommy Morrison, 1941-2020

 

By Vintage Motorsport | 6 hours ago

 

 

Tommy Morrison, whose Chevy Corvettes and Camaros ruled 1980s and 1990s U.S. sports car racing, died April 2.

 

Morrison, a native of Glasgow, Kentucky, was inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame in 2017. A talented driver, he achieved more fame as a team owner and manager.

 

His first big Corvette win was at Mid-Ohio in August 1984, when his 1985 prototype broke the Porsche/Nissan stranglehold on top-tier showroom stock road racing in the U.S. Altogether, Morrison’s Mobil 1 Corvettes and Camaros would win more than two dozen SCCA and IMSA endurance races between 1984 and 1989. In addition, his contracts to conduct tests of Corvette brake, suspension and power train systems would find him working closely with GM engineers on future products.

 

 

[Radoye]

 

[Radoye]

Ser Sterling Mos, Monako 1961:

 

 

 

[Radoye]

 

[Radoye]

 

[Radoye]

 

[Radoye]

 

[Radoye]

Srecan 78. rodjendan, mnogaja ljeta!

[Radoye]

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Legendary F1 designer John Barnard believes that Michael Schumacher's lack of success at Mercedes was rooted in the great German driver's singular driving style.

 

Schumacher was convinced by Ross Brawn and Mercedes at the end of 2009 to exit his plush retirement and return to F1 with the Silver Arrows squad.

 

However, the seven-time world champion never returned to his winning ways during his three seasons with the team and was consistently outpaced by teammate Nico Rosberg.

 

Barnard, the man behind a collection of winning McLaren and Ferrari designs and who worked alongside Schumacher when the German arrived at the Scuderia in 1996, doesn't single out the latter as the best driver he has ever encountered.

 

"Oh, for me the best driver was Alain Prost without a shadow," Barnard explained in the latest episode of F1's Beyond the Grid podcast.

 

"Nigel [Mansell] was quick but he was quick because he’d got big cojones basically.

 

"Michael was quick but… I didn’t like the way he had the car set up. For me it wasn’t the way to go.

 

"And I would love to have been the fly on the wall when he drove for Mercedes in 2010 alongside Rosberg."

 

At Ferrari, Barnard analysed Schumacher's style which favored a car set up with a strong front end, an approach that perhaps didn't allow him to extract the most from the famed engineer's design at the time.

 

"I tried to speak to Michael and put across my viewpoint," explained Bernard.

 

"'For me, the way the car is quick is if you can plant the back end, if I can give you maximum traction at the back at all times, you can open the throttle sooner and you will be quicker'," he told Schumacher.

 

"Now, Michael didn't didn't drive like that. Michael drove what I call 'off the front of the car'.

 

"He wanted a front end [where he could] absolutely just turn the wheel and bang, into the corner and he would kind of look after the back.

 

"All the other guys said: 'we don't like that, because when we do that the back end comes out'."

 

For Barnard, the fact that Schumacher collected but a single podium during his three-year stint with Mercedes was perhaps also related to the German's style being at odds with how his car was set up.

 

"He [Schumacher], quite often, was nowhere near as quick as Rosberg then and I thought: ‘This is strange, there’s something going on here', "Barnard said.

 

"My theory, and this is only my theory, is that Rosberg was like most of the guys who wants a car that’s nicely planted at the back and will then find a way to get as best he can around the understeer.

 

"Michael didn’t like that, and when they did set the car up for Michael he was quicker than Rosberg, but he wasn’t overall quick.

 

"I just think Michael’s approach to it [was the issue]. It was good when he was young because his reactions were phenomenal but as he got a bit older, I’m not sure that that system worked so well."

 

Ovo o cemu Barnard prica, i Keke je imao isti problem kad je vozio za Meklaren. Barnard je dizajnirao bolide pod uticajem Nikija Laude koji je u to vreme bio glavni sto se tice testiranja u Meklarenu. Niki je voleo bolid sa blagim podupravljanjem i imao je tehniku kocenja kroz krivinu do samog temena, i onda koristio superiornu stabilnost zadnjeg kraja da nagazi gas na izlasku. Sa druge strane, vozaci koji vole stabilan prednji kraj koce u pravoj liniji, zanose bolid u krivinu i volanom resavaju nestabilnost zadnjeg kraja pri dodavanju gasa. Prost se brzo prilagodio Laudinoj tehnici i bio je kadar izvuci maksimum iz Barnardovih dizajna ali Keke to nije bio u stanju da uradi i trasfer u Meklaren mu je prakticno unistio reputaciju u F1.
E sad, Sumaher je ipak malo ozbiljniji igrac bio od Kekea pa je bolje i "prosao" vozeci njegove bolide ali svoje najbolje rezultate ipak je postigao u bolidima koje su drugi dizajnirali.

 

[Radoye]

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Robin Miller's Tough Guys: Mike Nazaruk

 

By Robin Miller | 21 hours ago

 

 

Iron Mike Nazaruk wasn’t around very long, but made quite an impression in open-wheel racing.

 

After fighting in Guam and the Battle of Guadacanal, Nazaruk came home and dove into midget racing, twice winning the ARDC championship. He moved up to Triple A sprinters and immediately started winning on the high-banked pavement tracks like Salem and Winchester, and showing his prowess on the dirt as well.

 

In 1951, he came to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a rookie and finished second. He was also fifth in 1954.

 

Brave and sporting big biceps and forearms, Iron Mike cut an impressive figure and could be pretty intimidating to other drivers, but in 1955 he was killed in a sprinter at Langhorne. He was only 33 years old.

 

 

 

 

[Radoye]

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Unique Streamliners Set Stage for Sleek Cars of Today at Indy 500

April 15, 2020 | By Leigh Dorrington

 

 

The German Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union teams dominated international racing in the pre-World War II era. The “Silver Arrows” defeated everything in their path with the support of the German government, using aircraft technology and modern metallurgy.

But one of the Germans’ other secret weapons was streamlining. In addition to the open-wheel Grand Prix cars, Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union created a series of highly successful fully enclosed streamliners that set international speed records.

Mercedes ushered in a new era of streamliners in 1954, when it re-entered Grand Prix racing with open-wheel and fully enclosed streamlined race cars designed for different types of tracks. Mercedes won the World Championship in 1954 and 1955 with these cars. A Mercedes-Benz W196 streamliner is permanently exhibited in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.

Some of the top builders of Indianapolis-type cars also experimented with streamliners in the post-war era.

Master mechanics and innovators Jim Travers and Frank Coon chalked out a new car on the floor of their Torrance, California, shop for car owner Howard Keck to enter in the 1952 Indianapolis 500. The design offset and lowered the engine and surrounded the driver with a high-sided cockpit, creating the first Indianapolis “roadster.” Built by Frank Kurtis and driven by Bill Vukovich, the car revolutionized racing at Indianapolis.

After leading 150 laps in 1952 and winning with the car in 1953 and 1954, Travers and Coon undertook development of a streamliner for Vukovich to race, powered by a supercharged V8 engine. The car resembled a single-seat sports car. The body was designed by Norman Timbs, aided by the wind tunnel at Cal Tech, and built by fabricator Quin Epperly. The car appeared on Indy 500 entry lists but never competed.

Not one, but two different streamliners did compete in the 1955 500-Mile Race. Epperly built one for car owner Sandy Belond that was entered as the Belond-Miracle Power Special and driven by Jim Rathmann. The car combined a sleek roadster-style body with pannier side pods and streamlined fairings behind the rear wheels. The car arrived at the Speedway with a fully enclosed cockpit but raced without the canopy. Rathmann qualified 29th and finished 14th.

Frank Kurtis built the Sumar Special for Terre Haute, Indiana, car owner Chapman Root. The Sumar Special was even more radical than the cars built by Travers and Coon or Epperly. A wide sports car nose pushed the air past full fenders covering all four wheels before it slipped over a streamlined tail. A Perspex canopy that blended into an aerodynamic fairing and ended in an upswept fin covered the cockpit. The car practiced nervously in this configuration, and driver Jimmy Daywalt asked to have the streamlined components removed before qualifying. The car qualified and raced shorn of the full-width nose, fenders, side pods and the wide tail, as well as the canopy. Only the fin remained. Daywalt started 17th and finished ninth in the reborn roadster.

These streamliners weren’t the first attempts at cheating the wind. As early as 1917, barnstormer Barney Oldfield had a special enclosed race car—known as the Golden Submarine—built by Harry Miller. Oldfield successfully raced the Sub for two seasons, but never at Indianapolis. The car was entered in the first post-World War I “500” in 1919 with the egg-shaped body removed in favor of an open body for driver Roscoe Sarles.

In 1926, Englishman Ernest Eldridge entered two low-slung racers at the Speedway that resembled airplanes more than the upright race cars of the day. One, driven by Douglas Hawkes, was distinguished by its extremely low height, accomplished by locating the frame under the axles. The driver sat very low in the car, with his shoulders below the tops of the wheels.

Art Sparks, who would become part of Speedway legend, built a streamlined car with a low, “catfish” nose and tall tail fin for the 1932 race. The car was entered as the Gilmore Special and driven by H.W. Stubblefield. Although it might look like something from a Buck Rogers feature film today, the design resulted from a Stanford University engineering class study to design a streamlined race car.

But arguably the best-known streamliners in Speedway history were the cars built by Mickey Thompson for the 1963 and 1964 races. Thompson was a hot-rodder, who experimented with a series of streamlined drag racers and built a four-engine streamliner to capture the Land Speed Record. He reached a one-way speed of 406.6 mph in 1960 at Bonneville, but the car failed to make the required return run in the opposite direction to claim the record.

Thompson’s first car built for Indianapolis was a neat, rear-engine design driven by rookie Dan Gurney in 1962 and powered by a Buick V8. Thompson returned to the Speedway in 1963 with five cars, including the 1962 cars with the addition of pannier side tanks similar to the 1955 Belond-Miracle Power Special. The new cars, however, were revolutionary.

Thompson’s new cars were lower, with the side tanks artfully blended into the smooth bodywork that now covered a Chevrolet V8 engine. A wider nose extended toward the centerline of the front wheels. But the wheels and tires set the cars apart. Thompson designed the cars to ride on tiny 12-inch wheels mounted with wide tires specially developed by Firestone. The cars, entered as Harvey Aluminum Specials, immediately were dubbed “roller skates.” Only two of Thompson cars qualified. Al Miller finished ninth in one of the modified 1962 cars, and Duane Carter finished 23rd in the only “roller skate” to make the race.

Thompson returned in 1964 with three cars. As they arrived at the Speedway, the cars featured full-width noses and fenders that flowed over the front wheels. The side tanks curved up sharply at the rear to direct airflow over the wheels, although the rear wheels were not enclosed. Ford’s new DOHC Indy V8 powered the cars. Masten Gregory and rookie Dave MacDonald were assigned to drive two cars, with the third held in reserve.

Problems emerged immediately. Mechanic Peter Bryant, who later designed and built the successful Shadow Can-Am cars, described in his book “Can-Am Challenger” that Thompson hired him to work with the cars in 1964. The first challenge came when Thompson was required to use larger wheels than the cars were designed for. He chose to use 15-inch wheels of his own manufacture with tires specially made for his sponsor, Sears Allstate. The taller tires and wheels meant the cars rode and handled differently than the previous year.

The full-width nose and fenders over the front wheels created other challenges. The front ends alternately lifted and darted under braking. Bryant wrote that he worked on the suspension while “Mickey had the crew cut the tops out of the front fenders in an attempt to allow the air to escape.”

The changes worked immediately. Gregory never became comfortable with the car, but MacDonald qualified 14th fastest and veteran Eddie Johnson qualified 24th in a later qualifying session—although at nearly 2 mph faster. Sadly, MacDonald and Eddie Sachs were involved in an accident at the start of the second lap of the race that took the lives of both drivers. Johnson’s car was withdrawn four laps later with a failed fuel pump.

Despite vast developments in aerodynamics and speeds at the Speedway, the Thompson-Sears Allstate cars were the last streamliners to race in the Indianapolis 500. Rules today limit body width and prohibit enclosed wheels.

 

 

[Radoye]

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Former CART Rookie of the Year Bob Lazier dies at 81

Image by Dana Garrett/IndyCar

 

By Robin Miller | 2 hours ago

 

 

Bob Lazier, the racer with the perpetual smile who always seemed optimistic no matter the odds, has died at the age of 81.

 

The 1981 Championship Auto Racing Teams Rookie of the Year and father of 1996 Indy victor Buddy Lazier was thought to have succumbed after being hospitalized and placed on a ventilator combating the coronavirus.

 

“What sad news,” said team owner and long-time friend Chip Ganassi. “I (went) skiing with Bob a few months ago at his place and we were up every morning at breakfast talking about everything and having a good time. He was such a great guy. Always upbeat.”

 

A native of Minneapolis, Lazier moved to Colorado as a young man and became a major building contractor in Vail, numbering among his many properties his pride and joy, the Tivoli Lodge.

 

But he was hooked on racing and competed in SCCA club racing before moving up to Super Vee and the Mini Indy series from 1977-’79 before trying Indy cars.

 

 

Lazier at Indy in 1981. Image via IndyCar

 

He drove for Bob Fletcher at the Indy 500 in 1981, where he qualified 13th but lost an engine and wound up 19th in the race.  Later that season, he would score fourth places at Watkins Glen and Mexico City, finishing ninth in the ’81 CART standings and taking Rookie of the Year honors.

 

The following May he returned to Indianapolis driving for the Wysards. But, on the opening day of qualifying, Gordon Smiley was killed in a devastating accident and 13-year-old Buddy Lazier begged his father to quit after watching the replays and becoming distraught.

 

Bob abided by his son’s wishes and walked away. But, ironically, he would become Buddy’s biggest fan as, just a few years later, his son took up open-wheel racing. Buddy would eventually conquer Indy in ’96, still healing from a broken back suffered in a wreck at Phoenix. Buddy was also the IRL champion in 2000.

 

Bob’s youngest son, Jaques, also embarked on a racing career and competed in the Indy Racing League. A seven-time starter at Indy, he scored one win at Chicagoland in 2001.

 

 

Bob Lazier (center) with sons Jaques and Buddy at Indianapolis in 2014. Image by Dan R. Boyd/Motorsport Images

 

In 2013, Bob and Buddy formed Lazier Partners Racing, competing at Indianapolis through 2017 as a small budget, one-car team and making the show four times.

 

RACER send its most sincere condolences to all in the Lazier family.

 

 

[Radoye]

 

[Radoye]

 

[Radoye]

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Check out the entries in the Corvette Museum’s online car show

Image by Ed Van Scoy

 

Last week, we told you about the National Corvette Museum’s online car show that will present a total of 24 awards bestowed by a panel of celebrity judges. Now you can take a look at the galleries of cars submitted. Simply use the drop-down menu to select from a number of categories, including Race Cars. One of our favorites is an entry from Fred Kokaska in the Best Story category that speaks to the personal connections we have with the cars in our lives…

 

See more images and view the gallery at VintageMotorsport.com.

 

 

[Radoye]

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On the Wednesday evening in the week prior to the first F1 race in Long Beach in 1976, renowned photographer Bernard Cahier organized a private party for the Formula 1 drivers through his friend Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills.

 

“Bernie had told the drivers to be in town for that press lunch and Bernard Cahier seized upon the timing for Hugh Hefner to organize one of his infamous parties at the Playboy Mansion,” Pook relates.

 

“Through Hefner’s staff, Cahier organized limousines for the drivers, most of whom were staying on the Queen Mary, to take them to and from The Mansion. Of course, everyone had a great time, but the following morning we got a call from the Beverly Hills police complaining about the theft of a limousine. They said they believed one of our drivers was responsible and they wanted to talk to me.

 

“It wasn’t long before a Beverly Hills cop and a Long Beach police sergeant arrived with another guy, who apparently owned the missing limousine. They told me that the fleet of limousines had been parked outside the Playboy Mansion and one of the drivers, who had a receding hairline and a mustache and was either French or Italian, decided he wanted to leave the party with another driver and two girls. They said the race driver apparently couldn’t find the driver for his limousine, but saw the keys laying inside the driver’s cap on the front seat. So he put the keys in the ignition and off they went.

 

“While the cops were in our office discussing this situation, Jean-Pierre Jarier was also in the office looking for some passes. So I asked Jean-Pierre if he knew anything about this story the cops were telling me. He said, ‘Yeah, it was Regazzoni. Clay wanted to leave and we had these two girls with us. We were going down the freeway at 100mph with the roof open and the girls took their tops off and were showing their breasts to everyone. It was one big joke!’

 

“I turned to the cops and said I wanted to talk to Clay before they did. I said I wanted to be delicate with this. I told them I didn’t want them putting him in handcuffs and taking him off to the station. The Long Beach cop agreed, but the Beverly Hills cop said he wanted to arrest Clay.

 

“I said, ‘If that’s your attitude, you’re on your own. Go find him and arrest him and create a mess. I’m trying to find a solution, get the limousine back into the owner’s hands and provide some compensation if needed.’ The cop looked at the limousine owner, who said he just wanted his car and keys back and to cover the costs if there was any damage to car. The limo owner said, ‘Give me $500 and 25 tickets to your race, and I’ll be OK.’

 

“Meanwhile, we reached Regazzoni on the phone. He was still in his room on the Queen Mary and the Long Beach cop asked us to bring him over to our offices. Clay objected strenuously, but finally came over. It was about noon by then, and I said he had apparently borrowed one of the limousines to drive back to Long Beach last night. Clay said, yes, he had and told me the car was parked in the Queen Mary’s parking lot.

 

“I asked him if it was locked. He said no, and I asked him where the keys where. You have to understand that he was telling me all this in French, so neither the police officers nor the limo owner understood a word. Clay looked me, grinning, and said, ‘Oh, the keys are a bit of a problem. As I was walking up the gangway onto the Queen Mary the keys fell out of my pocket into the water!’ All the time, he was grinning and laughing.

 

“I asked the limo owner if he had a spare set of keys and he said, ‘Yeah.’ So I told the cop and the limo owner I would take care of the $500 and the tickets he wanted, and asked the cop to take Clay over to the Queen Mary to show them where the limo was parked. After that the limo owner came back with his car and said he needed 50 tickets, not 25. Then he complained that we were giving him only general admission tickets and he needed grandstand seats. So we did.

 

“We could ill afford to give away free tickets like that, but I didn’t want a silly, negative story to get out there. Nevertheless, we all had a good chuckle about Clay driving down the freeway with a chauffeur’s cap on his head and two half-naked women showing their breasts to the world!”

 

 

Da se ovo dogodilo u danasnje vreme Kleja bi verovatno javno razapeli na drustvenim mrezama i karijera bi mu bila zavrsena.

[Radoye]

Jos malo atmosfere nekadasnje F1 iz Long Bica:

 

Quote

 

In the week leading up to the 1977 Long Beach GP, Pook had to deal with the physical and mental condition of defending world champion James Hunt.

 

“James flew in on Sunday afternoon, the week before the race, and he wasn’t feeling well,” Chris recounts. “He was pissed off because he had just been in New York and had bumped into Suzie Hunt, who was in the process of getting a divorce from him and she was in a limo with Richard Burton driving down Fifth Avenue. Suzie Hunt and Burton had become an item, and James was not too happy about it. We had laid out our plan for James’s promotional appearances during the week in LA and suddenly, out of the blue, James said he wasn’t going to do any of it despite the fact that Marlboro had committed to him doing this work.

 

“Very late that Sunday night I got on the phone directly to John Hogan, who ran the Marlboro program, and told him about our problem with James. Hogan said he would have Paddy McNally on the first flight that afternoon to LA, and Paddy would sort it out. Paddy arrived around 6 o’clock that evening and went immediately to see Hunt, who by this time had a raging fever and wasn’t feeling at all well.

 

“We all went over to St. Mary’s Hospital and dropped James off, and a little later that night my phone rang at home. Dr. Geoffrey MacDonald told me that James needed to have complete rest for the next 24 hours. On the assurance of strict confidentiality, Geoffrey said James had a massive case of gonorrhea and they had loaded him up with antibiotics. They said he needed to continue taking these antibiotics for 30 days, and he should go and see his own physician in England to see how bad the infection was. My first thought was how is Hunt going to drive in the race four days away, but then I did not know James Hunt!

 

“The next day, Tuesday, Paddy McNally told me James was feeling better and that it was only a mild case of the flu. Paddy said James wanted to do the press lunch on Wednesday, regardless of his condition. Paddy said James’s new girlfriend was coming into town and he wanted to introduce her to the press at the Moet & Chandon champagne reception. James showed up wearing cut-off jeans and a T-shirt with a badge saying, ‘P****, the breakfast of Champions’. He had this long-legged woman with him who was absolutely gorgeous. He called her, ‘Hot Loins’.

 

“On cue, James got up in front of the press and said, ‘I want to introduce you guys to my latest lady friend, ‘Hot Loins’. I leaned over to John Hogan who arrived the night before and said, ‘Has anyone told her that he’s got the clap?’ Hogey, laughed and said, ‘Well he won’t be the first world champion with the clap, nor the last!’

 

“What happened from there, I don’t know, but at the start of the race that year James went flying at the first turn. James cut down on Jacques Lafitte on braking at the first turn just before the Linden Leap, as it had become known, and flew into the air. The photo of James in the air became an iconic Long Beach shot.”

 

 

[Radoye]

Evo malo totalne egzotike:

 

 

[Radoye]

Quote

 

Celebrating Senna's first Formula 1 victory: April 21, 1985

 

Lotus Cars is observing the 35th anniversary of motorsports legend Ayrton Senna’s first Formula 1 victory — April 21, 1985 — with 52-minute podcast interview with Senna’s mechanic on the day, Chris Dinnage.

 

Senna, age 25, was behind the wheel of a Lotus 97T at the Portuguese Grand Prix, and delivered a master class in extreme wet-weather driving for the hardy Estoril crowd. Such was the young Brazilian’s dominance that he lapped the entire field up to second place, finishing over a minute ahead of his nearest competitor.

 

In just his second race for Lotus, Senna took the first of 41 career F1 victories — six for Lotus — and a legend was born.

 

 

[Radoye]

Quote

 

How Trans Am’s early driver champions lost their asterisks

Image courtesy of Ford Motor Company

 

By Trans Am | 5 hours ago

 

 

Back in 1961, Roger Maris walloped 61 home runs for the New York Yankees, breaking Babe Ruth’s 1927 mark of 60. But, since Maris needed seven more games to set his mark, Major League Baseball attached an asterisk to his home-run record, one that stood for many years.

 

Similarly, the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli also has asterisks, attached to its driver champions, 1966 through 1971.

Here’s how that happened:

 

When the Sports Car Club of America launched what was then labeled the Trans American Sedan Championship in 1966, the series was unique in that its focus was on the manufacturers, not the drivers.

 

For its first seven years, the Trans Am attracted many of the biggest names in motorsports, giving America’s top sports car drivers the opportunity to mix it up with legends of Formula 1, Indy cars and NASCAR.

 

However, the point standings were reserved for the manufacturers. Ford won titles in 1966, ’67 and ’70 (pictured above: Parnelli Jones in a Bud Moore Mustang in 1970). Chevrolet was the 1968 champion, while American Motors came out ahead of Detroit’s “Big Three” in 1971.

 

For 1972, though, the SCCA added a drivers’ championship, claimed that first year by George Follmer in an AMC Javelin.

 

As the Trans Am grew in popularity, there were a lot of ‘what if’ questions surrounding who would have won drivers championships in the great early battles featuring stars like Dan Gurney, Mark Donohue, Parnelli Jones, Peter Revson, Follmer, Swede Savage and the others.

 

In “Ford: The Dust and the Glory, Volume 2,” author Leo Levine relates that following the 1980 season, the SCCA public relations department went back and assigned points for the 1966-71 seasons, coming up with driver championships for each year – with an asterisk attached.

 

Alfa GTA co-drivers Horst Kwech and Gaston Andrey shared the inaugural championship in 1966, edging Plymouth Barracuda driver Bob Johnson by one point, with Dodge Dart driver Bob Tullius another eight points back.

 

Roger Penske rolled out the new Chevrolet Camaro in 1967, challenging Carroll Shelby’s Ford Mustangs and Bud Moore’s Mercury Cougars, but Jerry Titus topped the unofficial points in a Mustang, tallying 122 points to Mark Donohue’s 115.

 

Donohue prevailed in a Camaro in ’68 and ’69, helping Chevrolet clinch the manufacturer title both years. Donohue won 10 races in ’68 – including eight in a row – to tally 222 points, with runner-up George Follmer notching just 97.

 

Donohue followed up by winning six races in ’69, beating Ford Mustang driver Parnelli Jones by 26 points, 156-130.

 

The 1970 season was one of the greatest in Trans Am history. Parnelli Jones, driving a Bud Moore Ford Mustang, edged Donohue by only one point, 142-141. Jones won five races, including the final two to unseat Roger Penske’s star, the team having switched to AMC Javelins.

 

Splitting time for Penske between Trans Am and Indy cars, Donohue added a third unofficial Trans Am crown in 1971, winning seven races and finishing second once in eight starts in a Javelin. His exploits included the July 4 weekend sweep of the Brainerd Trans Am and Pocono Schaefer 500 Indy car race. Donohue tallied 19 points more than Follmer, who raced in both Mustangs and Javelins.

 

In 1972, Follmer became the first official Trans Am driver champion, winning four races for Roy Woods, driving the Javelin formerly fielded by Penske. Milt Minter took second in a Pontiac Firebird, 35 points back.

 

Major League Baseball officially dropped the Roger Maris asterisk in 1991. Eventually, the asterisk also disappeared from the Trans Am records, extending “official” status to the early titlists.

 

“As far as I’m concerned, they should be considered champions,” said Trans Am President John Clagett.

 

 

 

[alberto.ascari]

Monza 1971.

 

 

[Radoye]

Upravo pogledao Uppity, dokumentarac o Viliju Ribsu, prvom Crncu na Indi 500. Mnogo dobro!

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5862338/