Drivers A - Z
K
Tony Kanaan
1974Tony Kanaan is a Brazilian racing driver of Lebanese descent. After starting racing in Brazil he moved to Italy. From there he went to America winning the Indy Lights Championship in 1997. He graduated to Champ cars and won the title in 2004 for Andretti Green.
Jerry Karl
1941 - 2008In a driving career spanning over thirty years he won numerous races and set and still holds a number of records in Midgets and Sprint cars. Between 1972 and 1975, he drove for the legendary Smokey Yunick, and qualified for the Indy 500 seven times.
Narain Karthikeyan
1977Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan is the first Indian Formula One driver. He made his debut in 2005 with the Jordan team. He is currently a Williams F1 test driver.
Ukyo Katayama
1963Ukyo Katayama was one of several Japanese drivers to try their hand at F1 without making a major impact. However, Katayama was popular in the paddock for his unshakeably sunny disposition and self-deprecating sense of humour.
Ken Kavanagh
1923Very successful Norton and Moto-Guzzi motor cycle racer, who dabbled briefly in four-wheeled competition racing a Maserati 250F in 1958.
Hiroshi Kazato
1949 - 1974Hiroshi Kazato first made a name for himself racing in Japan then in F2 in Europe and Can-Am in the USA. He was killed in a crash at Fuji International Raceway in 1974.
Hal Keck
1931 - 2007Hal Keck mostly raced in club events but did share the GT class winning Cobra Daytona Coupe at the 1965 Daytona 24 Hour race with Jo Schlesser. He went on to win the A Production SCCA National Campionship that year in his Cobra.
Ray Keech
1900 - 1929He was a board and brick track racer in the 1920s. He is best remembered for winning the 1929 Indianapolis 500, and for setting a land speed record in the Triplex Spirit of Elkdom. This monster featured three 27-litre Liberty aero-engines! He died in a racing accident at the Altoona 200-Mile Race in 1929.
Rupert Keegan
1955A Miami based Englishman who won the British F3 Champioship in 1976. He raced in 37 F1 Grand Prix between 1977 and 1982 driving for Hesketh, Surtees, Arrows, Williams and March. He spent two years trying to break into Indy cars before driving in the World Sports Car Championship for three years.
Eddie Keizan
1944Four time winner of the South African Saloon Car Championship, Keizan also won the 1972 F5000 title in his homeland. He drove in three World Championship Grand Prix, all in South Africa. He failed to score any points.
Al Keller
1920 - 1961Keller raced in NASCAR's Strictly Stock and Grand National series and in Champ Cars. He is the only driver in the history of NASCAR's Grand National series to win a race in a foreign car, the 1954 race at Linden Airport, New Jersey, driving a Jaguar XK120.
Curt Kelley
1948 - 1996Curt was a driver, a car owner, a mechanic, and an engine builder and though he never won any championships he was still winning races 10 year after he started. While preparing for one of the heats at Anderson Speedway he suffered a heart attack and died 11 days later.
Joe Kelly
1913 - 1993Joe was a larger-than-life motor dealer from Dublin, who raced in a number of Grand Prix with the last of Geoffrey Taylor's three GP Altas.
Tommy Kendall
1966Kendall is an American race car driver and television broadcaster, best known for his SCCA Trans-Am Series career.
Dave Kennedy
1953After winning a number of Formula Ford championships, he entered the Aurora F1 championship. Narrowly missing out on the title in 1979 he moved up to Formula 1 in 1980 with the Shadow team. Attempted and failed to qualify for seven races. He then joined the Mazda sports car team.
Mel Kenyon
1933A former midget car driver. He is known as the King of the Midgets, Miraculous Mel and the Champion of Midget Auto Racing! The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America says "Many consider him to be midget car racing's greatest driver ever."
Leonard Kerbs
1895 - 1960Leonard Kerbs was the elder statesmen of Mid-America dirt track auto racing.
Csaba Kesjár
1962 - 1988Had a F1 test drive with the now defunct Zakspeed Team. Had the potential to get into F1 but was killed in an F3 race at the Norisring .
Loris Kessel
1950 - 2010Loris Kessel was a Swiss racing driver who died in Montagnola in 2010 following a long illness. He participated in six Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 2 May 1976. He scored no championship points. In 1976, he drove a Brabham for RAM and in 1977 he drove his own Apollon-Williams although this car was not a success.
Bruce Kessler
1926Kessler was an American driver who shared a car in the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix with a certain B.Ecclestone! He went on to be involved in the trawler and television industries, even acting as a TV director for such notable shows as Knight Rider, The A Team and I Dream of Jeannie.
Glen Kidston
1899 - 1931W.O. Bentley described Glen Kidston as "a born adventurer." He was rough, tough, sharp and as fearless as Birkin. He was one of the four core members and perhaps the most wealthly of the infamous Bentley Boys of the late 1920s.
Isaac John Kilpatrick
1883 - 1919One of the smallest racing drivers arouind at the time, he drove relief for Louis Disbrow in the 1913 Indy 500.
Bill Kimberly
1933Bill Kimberly (of Kimberyl-Clark fame)is either confused with his uncle Jim Kimberly or his family name is misspelled. He rarely raced as a professional, though Kimberly drove a wonderful range of Maseratis for Briggs Cunningham. He also drove for the works Aston Martin team under John Wyer in 1963, during the last of their early efforts in international long distance racing.
Rex King-Clark
1913 - 2007Lieutenant-Colonel Robert "Rex" King-Clark MBE MC was a British pilot, racer, photographer, author, and diarist.
Leo Kinnunen
1943A sports car specialist who won the 1970 International Championship of Makes and the Interserie Championships in 1971, 1972 and 1973. He had a brief foray into F1 with a Surtees TS16 but soon returned to the more familiar world of sports cars.
Chauncey Corydon Kinsley
1898 - 1925Chauncey Kinsley raced on the oval tracks of the USA in the early 1920's.
Andy Kirby
1961 - 2002Andy Kirby was born in White House, Tennessee and started racing motorcycles before switching to four wheels. He took three Nashville Speedway track championships (1994, 1996, and 1997). He was getting ready for Pikes Peak when he was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident in Nashville.
Louis Klemantaski
1907 - 2001Famed racing photographer, born in Manchuria. He entered the Monte Carlo Rally three times and the Mille Miglia twice, finishing second in 1956.
Hans Klenk
1919 - 2009Raced an ex-Karl Kling Veritas in the 1952 German Grand Prix. Driving with Kling in a Mercedes they took second in the Mille Miglia, then won the Carrera Panamericana.
Karl Kling
1910 - 2003Karl Kling was a member of the Mercedes racing team during the glorious Silver Arrow era after the Second World War. The legendary racing manager Alfred Neubauer brought him into the team as a works driver and Kling later became Neubauer's successor.
Ernst Klodwig
1903 - 1973Ernst Klodwig was an East German racing driver. He raced his rear engined special in nation F2 with some success. He made two German Grand Prix appearances in the West, 1952 and 1953, and has the distinction of being the first person to race a rear engined car in the World Championship.
Harry Knight
1889 - 1913Knight is perhaps best remembered for being involved in the accident that was one of the causes of the confusion over who acually won the first Indy500 on May 30th, 1911. He died two years later in a 200 mile race on the dirt oval at Columbus.
Robert A Koehler
1921 - 2003The most successful driver in Chicago area racing history. Winner of over 500 main events in both midget and stock car racing competition, Koehler was an 11-time stock car champion at Raceway Park.
Robert Kohlrausch
1904 - 1953Primarily a hillclimb specialist, Bobby Kohlrausch raced for BMW and MG with great success before WWII. After the war he returned with a self built 500cc GvB eigenbau. He was killed in practice for the Schauinsland hillclimb in 1935.
Helmuth Koinigg
1948 - 1974Helmuth Koinigg was a highly-regarded young racing driver who was killed in the 1974 United States Grand Prix, It was only his second Grand Prix start.
Count Alexander Kolowrat
1886 - 1927Born in New York, Alexander returned to Austria-Hungary where he set up the first film studio in Vienna. A keen racing driver he once entered a midget as his riding mechanic to save weight.
Walter Komossa
1913 - 1987German F3 Champion in 1948, 1949 and 1951. Manufactured Scampolo cars with his partner, Walter Arnold.
Masahiko Kondo
1964Masahiko 'Matchy' Kondō is a Japanese singer, lyricist, actor, racing team manger and former racing driver. He was a member of the Tanokin Trio.
Franz Konrad
1951Franz Konrad has won many sports car races. He is also head of Konrad Motorsport one of the most respected names in racing.
Heikki Kovalainen
1981Finnish racing driver who raced in Formula One between 2007 and 2013 for the Renault, McLaren, Team Lotus, Caterham and Lotus F1 teams, scoring a single victory at the 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix. Since then he has raced in the Japanese Super GT series where he won the championship in 2016.
Willi Krakau
1911 - 1995A member of the German rowing team at the 1936 Summer Olympics, Krakau became the first German to enter an International event post WWII. With a reputation as a constructor of specials, he entered one World Championship race, the 1952 German Grand Prix. Driving his six-cylinder AFM car, he qualifyied but did not dtart the race.
Bill Krause
1933Bill Krause started racing in midgets before pressure from his family switched him to raing sports cars. His mother thought open wheel racing was too dangerous and after a couple of accidents his father bought him a 3.4 liter D Type Jaguar in early 1956. In 27 races, he had 13 firsts, seven seconds, three thirds and three fourths. He retired in 1966 to concentrate on his growing Honda motorcycle dealership.
Charles Krebs
1931 - 2006Charles R. "Buddy" Krebs started racing in 1948 and was one of the all-time great Modified Drivers. He won an estimated total of 200 feature races, competing in the Modified, Sportsman, and Grand National races at tracks all over the Northeast.
Erwin Kremer
1937 - 2006Erwin was one of the founders of Kremer Racing who competed successfully for three decades in spots car and prototype racing.
Tracy Krohn
1954Tracy Krohn an entrepreneur and recent addition to the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, is a driver and team owner competing in the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series.
Jeff Krosnoff
1964 - 1996Jeff Krosnoff was one of the upcoming stars of Indy car. An experienced racer, coming into Indy from five years in the Japanese Formula 3000 series, and three LeMans 24 hour races (2nd overall 1994). He died from injuries sustained in a crash in the 1996 Toronto Molson-Indy car race in Toronto, Canada.
Peter Kuhn
1955 - 2009Peter Kuhn won both the USAC and SCCA Formula Super Vee championships in 1980 and ran a few races in CART in 1984.
Alan Kulwicki
1954 - 1993Alan Dennis Kulwicki, nicknamed 'Special K' or the 'Polish Prince', was an American NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing driver. He was killed in a plane crash returning from a promotional appearance at the Bristol Motor Speedway in the Hooters corporate jet.
Takuya Kurosawa
1962Japanese driver who was a test driver for Jordan before trying his hand in Indy cars. Had more success at home and returned to Japan in 2001 to race in donestic series.
Masami Kuwashima
1950A former racing driver from Japan. After some experience in the Japanese F2000, he made one attempt at Formula One which resulted in the shortest ever career at the top level.