historicracing

keeping the spirit alive since 1999

FEATURED DRIVERS

Grover Bergdoll

Grover Bergdoll
Grover Cleveland Bergdoll was a wealthy early aviator, racing driver and notorious World War I draft dodger who fled to Germany to avoid service....continue reading
Luigi Musso

Luigi Musso
Winner of the Italian two-liter sportscar championship in 1953 and the Targa Florio in 1957. He also raced in F1 on occasion and won the Italian Championship in 1955. He was killed in the French Grand Prix in 1958....continue reading
Violette Morris

Violette Morris
Violette Morris's story is a not comfortable tale. Indeed some historians have shied away from her completely. Disturbing and bizarre she is never the less worth including if for no other reason than to illustrate the full spectrum of people involved in our sport....continue reading
Camille du Gast

Camille du Gast
Camille du Gast, a truly remarkable woman, green eyed and fair haired, with a great sense of humour and a magnetic smile. She was also determined to do what she wanted, regardless of opinion.

6 minute read....continue reading
Georges Boillot

Georges Boillot
Georges Boillot was the top French Grand Prix driver pre WWI and a fighter pilot during the ensuing war. He was shot down near Verdun in a dogfight with a squadron of German fighters during WW1....continue reading
Robert Benoist

Robert Benoist
Benoist served during World War I and took up racing in the early 1920s. In 1927 he won the French, Spanish, Italian and British Grand Prix for Delage. He later joined Bugatti and won the Spa 24 hour race in an Alfa Romeo. He won Le Mans in 1937 with Jean-Pierre Wimille before retiring. In WWII he served in the Special Operations Executive as a secret agent. Eventually arrested by the Gestapo in June 1944 he was taken to Büchenwald where he was executed on September 9 1944....continue reading
David Piper

David Piper
David Piper. One of the most successful sportscar racing privateers and a right proper Chap. Who, during the course of filming Le Mans, the movie, became intimately involved in a caramboulage of a level of magnitude that, when the dust had settled, left him with an approximate, and permanent, 50% deficiency in the overall length of one of his original allocation of legs....continue reading
Richie Ginther

Richie Ginther
Richie Ginther was 5 foot 6 inches tall and weighed 130 pounds not what you would call a typical Formula One driver, especially in the 1960s, yet he was not only a quick driver but an extremely fine test driver, technically adept as well, with a rare mechanical sympathy. After racing Ginther dropped out of the rat race to live in a camper in the desert. He died of a heart attack in 1989....continue reading

FEATURED DRIVERS

This section has grown from Friday Chaps which was started by the late Chris Bowen. Over the past few years we worked with Chris to add and contribute to the Friday Chaps stories. Chris had started in F1 with Brabham in 1984 before moving on to Benetton, McLaren, Ligier, Arrows, Toyota, Red Bull, Honda, Brawn GP and in 2010 to Mercedes AMG Petronas. Sadly Chris passed away suddenly in 2020. His knowledge and story telling ability were of the highest order.

Thus in the spirit of proper chaps, our featured items will not neccessarily come from the annals of Formula 1, they will be characters from all the corners of motor sport and the globe. Their one requirement is to be, for whatever reason, good or bad, to have a story worth telling.

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