There was a summer of my life when I often walked back home from an evening ramble in a European...
Ferrari—let the word roll over your tongue. Doesn’t it taste good? Have you ever experienced—can you even imagine—a better name...
Pete Lyons You’d need a piece of paper the size of Texas to write down all that should be said about Carroll Shelby, so I’ll fall short here. But I’d like to share a few personal recollections. Years ago, during a supposedly formal banquet at the auto museum in San...
In the youth of our racing enthusiasm, we tend to think obituaries are for drivers. We don’t foresee, or at...
Here’s a sure bet: a lot of what you know about the Mille Miglia, and most of how you feel...
Dan Gurney once tried to show me how to wring the neck of a recalcitrant racecar to squeeze out that last tenth of a second, and I blew it. The lesson, I mean. Couldn’t take in a thing… except something important about Dan Gurney. You don’t get a lot of...
Losing a child is one of the harshest agonies of life, and even people who don’t personally know John and...
The happy driver you see here is not Henry Gritzback, aka “Grampa.” How I came to know that is a...
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...
Mountaineers have their El Capitans, their Eiger North Walls, their Everests. For racers too, certain challenges rise above all others....
Mainstream media are chattering these days about “green” cars. Like it’s some new idea. Well, I’ve been a fan of...
After sending in last month’s column, I was prepared for the Editor’s call to discuss corrections, or photo selection, or the need to take his deadlines more seriously. Instead, he said, “You mentioned Bridgehampton; I just heard it’s finally getting closed down.” My spirit sagged. After all these years, I...
Pete Lyons Corvette didn’t show well at Le Mans this year, which is unusual, and I suppose in time we’ll...
Like all heroes, Brett Lunger denies being one. To him, running into fire broiling from Niki Lauda’s crashed Ferrari, its...
This month Pete is recovering from a “close encounter of the surgical kind.” Pete is doing well and will return next month. Please enjoy one of Pete’s best from a very early issue of VRJ. “Absolutely amazing, what you accumulate. Photos, trophies; as we were going through, we thought we...
With F1 about to try another comeback in the U.S., next year in Texas, our minds inevitably reach back half...
The grass had grown long and dense in the cloudy English spring, and the silver racing coupe – a lean,...
Pete Lyons 2006 already! Those mileposts are just whizzing by, aren’t they? I feel like I’m riding up Pikes Peak with Bobby Unser and he’s out to scare me (the boy is known for that). Living on the edge is fun. After all, that’s why we’ve gathered here today. But...
Pete Lyons Have you ever crushed an aluminum can, then found yourself wondering, “Could I straighten it back out, like...
Apparently the new Euro is a success. Friends from overseas tell me the changeover to a single, common currency in 12 of the European Union’s 15-member nations has gone smoothly. Pardon, if I wipe a tear. Become a Member & Get Ad-Free Access To This Article (& About 6,000+ More)...
Exciting; that’s how Jackie Stewart stands in my memory. There’s a lot more to be said of the three-time World...
Recent discussion in these pages about a supposed sixth Grand Sport racing Corvette rang two bells with me. First, I...
First comes denial. No, it can’t be that bad. The driver will get out ok. There’ll be pain and recuperation to undergo, maybe, but one day we’ll all stand together in some paddock and have a good chuckle about that scary little incident back in ’00. Not this one. Vintage...
It reads like a plot line no real screenwriter would dare pitch: A little-known transmission engineer who has never designed...
Pete Lyons How do you stop a racing runaway? Well, you might try throwing more races in its way. Ending...
Still racers, after all these years. That’s what I was thinking as one veteran driver after another mounted the stage and regaled us with stories of his Trans-Am days. Pete Lyons The Trans-Am: It started way back in the mid-‘60s, which means these guys must be, gosh, mumble-mumble years old...
Watching it happen, it was hard to appreciate the magnitude of the achievement. The big blue roadster hardly made any...
The other evening I watched a panel of motorsport reporters on a TV show name their “driver of the year.”...
Pete Lyons Fair warning: I know very little about my topic, which is Rush, the new movie set in the 1976 F1 season. We’ll see it shortly, and I’m keen to. My wife even intends to buy the DVD. This movie matters to all of us in motorsports. By early...
