Marcos Ambrose joined an elite group when he won Monday’s rain-delayed NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen, becoming only the fourth foreign-born driver to succeed in the US series’ top flight alongside Canadian Earl Ross, Italian-born Mario Andretti and Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya.

It was the Australian’s first Sprint Cup victory in 105 starts and he became the championship’s fifth first-time winner this year. The 34-year-old led more laps than anyone else in the race, pushing his way past Brad Keselowski on the final restart to score Richard Petty Motorsport’s first victory since 2009.

Ambrose has been the man to beat in most of NASCAR’s road races in recent years. He won the second-division Nationwide race at the Glen in 2008, ‘09 and ’10. Marcos has also finished second or third in each of the Glen’s last three Sprint Cup races and was leading last year at Sears Point (Infineon Raceway) but stalled the car while saving fuel under a late-race yellow. So it was a great relief for him to at last achieve his goal of winning a Cup race.

“I know I’ve tripped over myself once or twice trying to get to victory lane,” he said. “It’s not that I was worried, but the word ‘choke’ was starting to creep into the back of my mind. I’ve tried for two and half years and we’re going onward and upward from here. It’s a proud day.”

Ambrose won the British Formula Ford championship in 1999 and took consecutive Aussie V8 Supercar titles on home turf in 2003-04. In ’06 he made the move to NASCAR with JTG/Daugherty and Michael Waltrip Racing.

At the end of last year Ambrose joined the reconstituted Richard Petty Motorsports team, alongside AJ Allmendinger and with Ford cars and engines.

With Ambrose’s victory, Petty’s team has now won 274 first-division NASCAR races over 62 seasons. But in recent decades the team has been much less successful, winning only eight races in the past 26 years. Petty merged with Gillett Evernham Motorsports in 2009 but the partnership did not go well, and when Gillett ran into financial trouble Petty invested several million dollars to buy back his team and enter a new partnership with Andrew Murstein and Doug Bergeron’s DB Investments. Murstein is president of Medallion Financial, which finances the purchase of taxi medallions in New York, Boston, Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

RPM is a small team with fewer than 50 employees. The highly regarded and experienced Robbie Loomis runs the shop and veteran Todd Parrot is crew chief on Ambrose’s car. Roush-Fenway Racing, Ford’s top NASCAR team, supplies most of RPM’s chassis and the engines are built by Doug Yates, also a long-time Ford man.

“You have to admire Richard Petty,” said Ambrose (above). “He saved the company single-handedly. He propped it up when it needed to be kept going and put good people in place to try and reorganise the company – and it’s been done. It’s great to see and I’d personally like to thank Richard and his family and everybody at the team who have persevered through all that adversity and come out the other side stronger. I’m privileged to be working with him and I hope he’s proud of me.”

Ambrose is a driver rarely without a smile and has become one of the most liked and respected men in NASCAR today. He will celebrate his 35 birthday on September 1 and appears to be in the prime of his career.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Now that the May issue of Motor Sport is out, celebrating the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 100th anniversary, I thought I’d take the chance to write about some of the Indy 500’s greatest drivers. Over the next two months I’ll occasionally blog about past superstars who dominated the great race for brief periods of time. I begin this week with Bill Vukovich and Parnelli Jones.

Vukovich started five Indianapolis 500s and won the race twice, in 1953 and ’54, driving a series of Harold Keck’s beautiful Kurtis 500-Offenhausers. Bill dominated the event for four years from 1952-55, but in the ‘52 race he was leading with just 10 laps to go when his steering failed, and he was killed in ‘55 while leading comfortably yet again – an innocent victim of a multi-car accident. In total, Vukovich led 485 of the 676 laps he completed at the Speedway over five races from 1951-55.

Jones won the 500 just once, in 1963, but led five of the seven 500s he started for a total of 492 laps – and never qualified below the first two rows. Parnelli retired from open-cockpit racing after almost winning the 500 a second time in 1967 aboard Andy Granatelli’s STP turbine car, and went on to win the 1970 Trans-Am championship and the Baja 1000 off-road race in 1971-72. The likes of Mario Andretti and Bobby and Al Unser say Parnelli was the best driver they’ve ever seen at Indy, and Colin Chapman famously offered Jones a Formula 1 ride beside Jim Clark. Jones turned Chapman down declaring, “I’m not number two to anybody, Jim Clark included.”

Both Vukovich and Jones were from California, a rural paradise in those days, and they came up through the ranks the hard way about a decade apart. Vukovich started racing in 1938, winning the West Coast Midget championship in 1946-47. Once he finally made it to Indy or Championship cars Vukovich stuck to them, running only at Indianapolis during his final years and building a fearsome reputation as the man to beat at the Speedway.

Parnelli started racing in the early ‘50s at the Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino aboard jalopy stock cars. In 1961-62 he won the IMCA and USAC sprint car titles before going on to success at Indy the following year. That was the race where Parnelli beat Jim Clark in the rear-engined Lotus-Ford’s Indy debut, when there was some wrangling that Jones should have been black-flagged for an oil leak. Parnelli (below) also led the 1964 500, battling with A J Foyt before he was stopped by a pit fire, and then finished second to Clark in ‘65. He dominated with the turbine car in ‘67 before dropping out when a driveshaft bearing broke with just three laps to go.

Vukovich and Jones raced through the height of the great ‘roadster’ era with most of the cars powered by the venerable four-cylinder Offenhauser engine. Frank Kurtis, builder of Vukovich’s cars, was a dominant force at Indianapolis through most of the ‘50s with his svelte torsion bar-suspended cars, but late in that decade and into the early ‘60s he was superseded by more effective roadsters built by George Salih, A J Watson, Quin Epperly, Floyd Trevis, Eddie Kuzma and others. The classic Watson roadster Jones raced from 1961-64 was owned by west coast race promoter J C Agajanian and known as ‘Calhoun’.

Without doubt Vukovich and Jones are among the greatest drivers to race and win at Indianapolis. Over the next two months I’ll write about a few more of the true greats from the Speedway’s epic 100-year history.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine paid tribute to four inspirational racing icons last night at the Roundhouse, London, by inducting them into the prestigious annual Motor Sport Hall of Fame, held in association with TAG Heuer.

Sir Jack Brabham OBE, Sir Frank Williams CBE, Jody Scheckter and Dario Franchitti were all honoured with awards on stage in front of a star-studded audience. Collecting the award on behalf of Sir Jack was his son David Brabham, with the legendary Sir Stirling Moss OBE making the presentation.

Having won three Formula 1 titles in 1959-60 and 1966, Jack Brabham is the oldest surviving World Champion. In 1966 became the only man to ever win the F1 drivers’ title in one of his own cars, having founded the highly successful Brabham racing team.

Frank Williams received his award from legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker, who spoke fondly about the endless passion and commitment to Grand Prix racing that the Wiliams team founder has shown since the late ’60s.

The third inductee of the evening was Ferrari’s 1979 World Champion Jody Scheckter. TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Christophe Babin and five-time Grand Prix winner John Watson bestowed the honour on the South African racer. Scheckter had a sensational career, driving for McLaren, Tyrrell, Wolf and Ferrari. He was the last driver to win a world title for Ferrari until Michael Schumacher did so 21 years later.

Completing the line-up of 2011 Motor Sport Hall of Fame inductees was three-time IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti. Highly respected for his achievements in America, the Scot is also a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and undoubtedly Britain’s most successful motor racing export to the US.

The great and good of F1 gathered for the awards, with personalities including Christian Horner, Eddie Jordan, John Watson and Karun Chandhok in attendance on the night. Celebrity faces were also seen gracing the red carpet outside the iconic Roundhouse and mixing with the motor sport fraternity. James Martin, Chris Rea, Nick Mason and Johnnie Walker all joined the exclusive event.

Commenting on his accolade, Sir Frank Williams said: “Number one I must remind myself not to let my ego get the better of me, because this is an amazing magic. It is an honour, something I will try not to brag about.”

In 2010 Mario Andretti, Tony Brooks, Jacky Ickx and Ron Dennis were inducted at the inaugural Motor Sport Hall of Fame event, along with founding members Enzo Ferrari, Tazio Nuvolari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Stirling Moss, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

In the spirit of the holiday season, I want to share my best hope for IndyCar racing in 2012 when it adopts its new 2.4-litre, twin-turbo V6 formula with adjustable boost for road courses versus ovals. The mantra, of course, from the likes of Mario Andretti (below) and Bobby Unser to Dario Franchitti and Will Power, is more horsepower please. IndyCar is expected to set the boost to produce around 750bhp on road and street circuits with a little less on ovals.

Three-time Indy 500 winner Unser is among those who hope the 2012 Indycar will prove to be a spectacular machine, requiring more judicious use of the throttle in the grand tradition of the great Indycars of the past. “The fact is Indycars just got too easy to drive,” he says. “They don’t have enough horsepower and they drive around running wide-open all the time with the throttle on the floor. They have to make the cars more difficult to drive and more impressive like Indycars always were. If they don’t, they’re not going to make heroes out of Franchitti and Power and these guys.”

Power, winner of five races and IZOD IndyCar championship runner-up this year, agrees: “They’ve got to have 750bhp-plus. That’ll make the racing better because it’ll be harder to drive and the cars will look more spectacular. More horsepower also means the tyres will go off, which makes them more spectacular. I remember when I was a kid going to the Surfers Paradise race when they had 900bhp and the ground would rumble. It was unbelievable and it just looked and sounded fast. They revved to 17,000rpm

“That’s what they need. It’s like when you go to a drag race. When they put 6000bhp or whatever it just shakes the ground. So there are many good reasons to have a lot of horsepower on the road courses.”

Franchitti agrees wholeheartedly with Power, but Dario cautions against the downside of increased power and acceleration. “Having more power obviously makes the straights shorter so it’s harder to pass,” he observes. “That’s the downside. It’s easier to pass on tracks we’ve been going back to with today’s car that we used to race on with 900-1000bhp CART cars, because you get a longer draft with this car. With the CART cars the straight was over so quickly that you couldn’t make those passes.”

Scott Dixon believes a substantial push-to-pass power boost will be available with 2012’’s turbocharged engines, which should help passing. “I think the idea is to have a push-to-pass that gives you a large amount of power, kind of like Champ Car did,” he says. “That could make for more passing.”

More power and more passing – an ineluctably mythic mix. All of us want to see it. Can it be made to happen?

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Where is the best place to chew the cud on the 2010 Grand Prix season? In the office? Too dull – naturally, it’s where we talk motor racing every day. A plush restaurant? That’s Simon Taylor’s territory, surely! So how about the local pub? Now that’s more like it!

The Chelsea Ram is Motor Sport’s regular watering hole, and the perfect place to blot out the realities of economic meltdown and a freezing British winter to concentrate on what really matters. And no, I don’t just mean beer.

To give our pub debate some structure – and thus ensure our natter was actually of some use for the magazine’s pages – we picked on the major themes of the season and began talking. You won’t be surprised to hear that editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck led the discussion and made the best stab at putting the season past into some sort of context, while Rob Widdows, Ed Foster and yours truly chipped in here and there. There are worse ways to spend a couple of hours and we enjoyed looking back at the past year in Formula 1, the result forming the backbone of the January issue, on sale now. Do let us know if you think the beer was talking too much!

Deserving World Champion Sebastian Vettel graces the cover, but the young German’s image will be vying for attention with a very special giveaway this month. We’ve compiled an audio CD of our podcast ‘chat shows’ that have been gaining a growing audience on our website over the past year, and it’s free with the January issue. The list of guests we have pulled in to join us in 2010 is a role call of the great and the good: Mario Andretti, Brian Redman, Damon Hill, Patrick Head, Christian Horner, Sir Stirling Moss, Tom Kristensen, Jochen Mass, Bobby Rahal, Martin Brundle, Emanuele Pirro and Richard Attwood all feature in this ‘best of’ compilation. Each time we pressed the record button, the stories flowed and all the guests got into the true spirit of things here at Motor Sport: in other words, saying exactly what they think on any given subject.

We hope the CD is an added bonus to complement another varied issue of the magazine. Other features this month include Simon Taylor’s lunch with David Hobbs – a man who drove a huge variety of great racing cars during a 30-year career on both sides of the pond; Eoin Young’s memories of meeting Jim Clark for the first time at the Wigram Trophy meeting of 1961; a fond recollection of the F1 team that raced in ‘British Racing Brown’ – the privateer heroes at Hexagon Racing; and a fascinating inside story on NASCAR from an old hand of F1.

I should also mention that we bid farewell to our special guest columnist this month. For the past year Bobby Rahal has brought us snapshots of his fascinating and varied life in racing, for which we thank him and wish him all the best for a successful 2011. Tune in next month to welcome our new guest columnist, who will bring his own unique perspective to our pages as we head into a new racing season.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Chip Ganassi enjoyed a clean sweep last weekend as his three teams won races in NASCAR, IndyCar and Grand-Am. It began at Watkins Glen on Saturday when Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas won the Grand-Am event in Ganassi’s Riley-BMW. Then Juan Pablo Montoya drove a perfect race on Sunday at the Glen to score his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory in three years. Montoya was the man to beat, pulling away at the end to win easily. Juan has been very quick in many races this year but something always got in the way. His next mission, of course, is to win on an oval – and he’s got 14 more chances this year!

In the IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio, Dario Franchitti scored Ganassi’s final win of the weekend. Dario drove a great race to beat Will Power by half a second. It was the Scot’s second win of the year and it keeps him in the thick of the title hunt with Power, who wrapped up IndyCar’s inaugural Mario Andretti Road Racing Championship on Sunday. With five races to go, Power leads Franchitti in the overall standings by 41 points.

But perhaps the most interesting US racing news of the weekend came in Saturday’s American Le Mans Series race at Mid-Ohio, where Chris Dyson and Guy Smith drove Rob Dyson’s Castrol Lola-Mazda coupé to victory. It was the first ALMS win for the Lola coupé, its Mazda engine and Dunlop’s tyres. It also marked the first win for any racing car running on Isobutanol, a BP biofuel which Dyson began experimenting with last year.

“Isobutonal is a variant on an ethanol-based fuel,” explained Rob Dyson. “It’s much easier to make and a lot better on the environment to produce than the fermentation of ethanol, whether it’s corn-based or switchgrass or any of the other stuff they’re coming up with. Isobutanol is a lot more eco-friendly in that it doesn’t take as much energy to make it as you get out of it.

“They’re starting to generate the stuff in some quantity now. The availability has gone up because they’re learning how to make it better. In spite of their problems in the Gulf, this is part of BP’s global plan to incorporate this specific product into their gasolines.”

Dyson’s team earned its first win by just half a second as Chris Dyson held off a fierce attack from Simon Pagenaud in Duncan Dayton’s Highcroft HPD ARX-01. Dyson turned the race’s fastest lap with just four to go.

“Chris and Guy have done a terrific job on the track and in reinforcing all the progress we’ve been making,” said Dyson. “The BP guys have given us great fuel and the Castrol guys provide great lubricants. These guys are developing new stuff all the time and the Dunlop guys have done a great job. We double-stinted our tyres at the end and that was one of the keys to winning. Lola has been exceptionally helpful in their wind tunnel and component effort and, of course, Mazda has been incredibly supportive. It’s a tremendous pleasure to finally reward them with a win.”

Dyson has run an ALMS or IMSA team for more than 25 years and remains one of the series’ most enthusiastic supporters. “What I like about the ALMS is the variety of different automobiles and the different types of engines and power plants you can bring,” said Dyson. “There’s just more science and hot-rodding you can do. That’s what makes it so much fun. We’ve made a lot of changes in the cars and fortunately the rules allow us to do that. We run against a couple of normally-aspirated V8s and we’re going to be running against diesel cars at Petit Le Mans.

“I believe the ALMS has the fan base because the cars are so interesting,” he added. “They come to see different cars and engines race. That’s what it’s all about.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

My thanks to those of you who have so mercilessly pointed out the weaknesses in my 2010 motor sport predictions. I do like a bit of feedback…

I am a huge fan of opera, particularly Italian opera. More specifically I am a devotee of Giacomo Puccini whose passions in life, other than his music, were women and fast cars. The music brought him wealth, enabling him to indulge in the fastest and raciest of the 1920s. I am referring here to the cars.

In daring to predict the outcome of a sport such as Formula 1, risks must be taken. Following the premieres of La Boheme and Tosca, two of Puccini’s finest, both were demolished by the critics who were they alive today would be squirming.

This brings me to motor racing, which aside from food and opera is the abiding passion in Italy. Ferrari of course is akin to a religion, vying with the Vatican and Serie ‘A’ football for devotion.

Back in the day, a Grand Prix grid without Italians was unthinkable, whether they were hotshots from lower formulae or sons of a wealthy Papa who brought bags of lire to the party. Both were welcome. There has been a Gran Premio d’Italia every year since 1950 without exception, and always at L’Autodromo Nazionale Monza, a circuit first used for racing in 1922. The country oozes motor racing and has done all the way from Ascari to Zanardi and beyond. Astonishingly, Alberto Ascari was the last Italian to win the World Championship in 1953, unless we’re counting Mario Andretti as an Italian. Today, there are but two Italians on the F1 grid: Jarno Trulli, in his twilight years, and Vitantonio Liuzzi fighting to keep his seat.

What on earth has gone wrong? The last Italian to win a Grand Prix in a Ferrari was Michele Alboreto in 1985. Only Luca Badoer and Giancarlo Fisichella have raced recently for the Scuderia, and only then in place of the injured Felipe Massa.

Some lay the blame at the gates of Maranello. Enzo Ferrari could not tempt the likes of Moss, Clark and Hill to race the red cars, but he wanted them. The (itals) Commendatore cared not where his driver came from as long as he was the fastest, and the Prancing Horse won the race, taking all the glory. If you look upon Ferrari as the university of Italian motor racing, you’ll see that precious few locals have gained entry, let alone graduated with any kind of honours. In recent decades not one Italian has raced regularly for the team, and this may have adversely affected the country’s ‘staircase of talent’, as Sir Jackie Stewart likes to call it. Not Agip, Fiat or Marelli have been of much assistance in the way that Elf and Gitanes have invested in the future of French motor racing.

It is extraordinary to note that post-Tazio Nuvolari, Alberto Ascari remains the most successful Italian with 13 Grand Prix wins followed by ‘American’ Andretti with 12 – and these are the only two in double figures. Riccardo Patrese scored six, while Giuseppe Farina and Michele Alboreto won five apiece. Fisichella took three and de Angelis two, while the rest have only a single victory. This only reflects the modern World Championship, but it does tell a story.

The Scuderia has recently tested three young Italians, including Formula 3 hotshot Mirko Bortolotti. At the same time its ‘Advanced Driver Programme’ includes an 11-year-old Canadian boy who’s been winning kart races in Quebec. As stated, it’s winners they want, wherever they come from.

Forza Italia. Viva Veloce. But when? Not any time soon, it seems. And that’s a real sadness for someone like me, who would choose Italy over any country were I to move from Britain.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

As my namesake Hannibal Smith said in just about every episode of The A-Team: “I love it when a plan comes together.” The 1980s TV-gold catchphrase, not to mention George Peppard’s cigar-chomping grin, sprang to mind several times as the deadline loomed for the August issue. Why? Because this one made us sweat even more than Jacky Ickx and Mario Andretti last month, and when our cover story plan finally did come together, it was Havanas all round.

Last summer Jim Clark’s Indy 500-winning Lotus 38 returned to these shores and stole the show at the Goodwood Festival of Speed as a static display. Clive Chapman, son of Colin and the boss of Classic Team Lotus, told us about a plan to carry out the most sensitive of restorations to this monumentally important relic of racing history in order for the car to run up the hill in 2010. That was enough for me. I decided there and then that the restored 38 had to be on the cover of Motor Sport ahead of this year’s Festival – and luckily for me, Clive agreed.

Deputy editor Gordon Cruickshank tracked progress at CTL through the winter, paying a visit to Norfolk in January to witness the original Team Lotus ‘boys’ get reacquainted with the old girl. But as winter turned to spring, Clive had bad news. He had doubts that 38 would be ready for us to photograph in time to make the issue. Crikey. Now where did I file that plan B?

But in true Lotus style, Clive gritted his teeth and made a decision. His boys would meet their deadline – and hence help us hit ours – and do whatever it took to get the car ready. He was determined that Jimmy’s Indy winner would grace Motor Sport’s front cover, as we’d all hoped.

We booked one of our favourite snappers, Greg Pajo, lined up a studio local to the team and crossed our fingers. Clive had asked if the shoot could be carried out in the evening, to give the team more time to complete the finishing touches. It was that tight. In the office we pressed on with other pages, nervously waiting for news. Then a message from Greg: the green-with-a-yellow-stripe racer with the odd-looking offset wishbones was being wheeled out of a truck and into the studio. It was gonna be all right.

In the days that followed, Greg delivered his gorgeous images, Gordon’s words were laid out on the page, we put the cover together and the anxiety drained away. Thanks to Clive and everyone at CTL, we had our cover and a cracking story to match. It’s one I’m particularly proud of. When you see the issue, I think you’ll see why.

Don’t miss the chance to see the Lotus 38 and two other Jim Clark classics – the 25 and 49 – at the Lotus Festival at Snetterton on June 20. Motor Sport will be there to join the celebrations. Do come and say hello.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Practice starts this weekend for this year’s 94th Indianapolis 500. Qualifying takes place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 22-23, with the race on May 30. But most of the talk in Indycar circles is about the future, as the IRL debates its new formula for 2012. In Tuesday’s Indianapolis Star, the IRL’s new CEO Randy Bernard declared the time has come to leave the IRL brand behind and find a new, more fan-friendly identity for Indycar racing. Mario Andretti says he hopes Bernard can achieve the many goals he’s set for himself.

“I’m excited with the prospects for Randy Bernard,” said Mario. “The jury is still out, but he’s beginning to show the elements of leadership that we’ve all been hoping for for so many years. He’s talking to a lot of people and I think he’s listening.

“Look at what he said recently about it’s time to bury the reference to the IRL. I talk to a lot of people and so many of them can’t bear to hear the IRL name. Unfortunately, the IRL entity just keeps all the old wounds open. There are probably millions of open-wheel fans who have migrated away from the series and don’t even turn the TV on anymore because they have such bad feelings about the IRL name.

“I called and left a message with Randy when I read what he said in The Star. It takes cojones to do that, to recognise the fact that the IRL name destroyed what was good about Indycar racing. I’m so happy that Randy is addressing this issue because it’s one of many things that need to be put to bed before we move on.

“Randy (above) has got a lot of good ideas and I’ll do everything I can to support the guy. I’ve said to him don’t try to reinvent the wheel. This is a series that had its glory days. A lot of us know what the formula was and we’ve got to get back to that formula. It was a series that everyone took notice of, including NASCAR and Formula 1. But right now it’s reduced to almost a club series. The drivers are barely making a living and nobody cares or knows who they are. There’s no appeal or dimension to it. We’ve got to get back to the level we had 10 and 15 years ago.

“But you can’t do that by copying NASCAR or Formula 1. We’ve got to redevelop the formula that worked for us. We’ve got to get back to venues like Laguna Seca, Elkhart Lake and Milwaukee. These are the traditional venues that are very appealing to the fans and sponsors.

“And they’ve got to get away from all this talk about Scott Dixon being the most successful Indycar driver in history. Why do they take themselves away from their tradition so that everything before the IRL doesn’t count? Where are Foyt, myself and the Unsers? By only quoting the IRL winners you’re giving up the essence of what the sport is all about.

“Indycar racing goes back to the beginning of the 20th century and no other racing organisation anywhere in the world can make that claim,” Mario concluded. “Scott Dixon is a fine driver, but let him fall in line with the rest of the great drivers. Let him go up against Ralph De Palma, Pete de Paolo, Jimmy Murphy, Bill Vukovich, Rodger Ward and all those great drivers who were part of creating the aura of what Indycar racing was all about.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Jacky Ickx and Mario Andretti. Quite simply, two of the greatest racing drivers in motor racing history. Even their names, which carry the resonance of Grand Prix wins from a golden era, heroic sports car feats and more, are dripping with style and class.

As far as we’re aware, these two have never been interviewed together before, and yet these giants of racing formed a bond 40 years ago as team-mates at Ferrari racing in both Formula 1 and sports cars. When they joined us for our inaugural Motor Sport Hall of Fame event in February we had the perfect opportunity to reunite them – and get them talking about the Prancing Horse. The result is the cover story for the June issue of Motor Sport.

Editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck was handed this enviable task, but it wasn’t exactly smooth running. He was made to sweat. Nigel had arranged to meet the pair in Signor Sassi, a favourite Italian restaurant, on the day of the Hall of Fame in London. Andretti had arrived from the States safe and sound the night before, but Ickx wouldn’t be so lucky.

Jacky spends much of his time in Mali these days, but he’d told us flying in from Africa would not be a problem. As it turned out, it wasn’t. But taking the short connecting trip from Brussels would be – his flight was cancelled. Typical!

I got the message in the morning and started to sweat. Jacky was one of our star guests for this special night and now I had images of him failing to make it (the message I got was that his flight was cancelled and I had images of him stranded in Africa!). But with characteristic coolness, Jacky came through for us. He jumped on the Eurostar, came straight to the restaurant and being a true gent was full of apologies (even though it wasn’t his fault, of course). Phew! The Hall of Fame was saved and I’d still get my future cover story.

Following the entertaining lunch, Nigel met up with Andretti again in Bahrain at the Grand Prix and Ickx at the Goodwood press day, topping up the material he’d already got from the two of them together. The result was 19,000 words of transcription from his Dictaphone – and he hates transcribing! I know, it’s hard to complain when you’re listening back to gems from such heroes, but we have to hand it to Nigel this month: he’s put in the hours…

Aside from Ickx and Andretti, there is an eclectic mix of stories in the new issue, from just about every era. Highlights for me include Anthony Rowlinson’s terrific interview with design genius John Barnard, Bruno Giacomelli talking to Paul Fearnley – and the photos of outlandish second-generation Can-Am cars in Gordon Kirby’s retrospective. The stars that passed through that series in the 1970s and early ’80s – including Jones, Villeneuve, Tambay, Rosberg and that man Ickx – has bestowed cult status on the era. So right up our street, then.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Following Formula 1’s Bahrain season-opener Motor Sport’s readers were among race fans around the world who made it clear how disappointed they are with Grand Prix racing’s 2010 edition. We’ve heard the same complaints for years – boring racing, no passing, and cars which all look the same running on an incredibly featureless, soul-sapping track. As many people asked: what happened to the FIA’s special overtaking group? Obviously, they failed miserably in their task.

Some people ask why CART’s old Indy or Champ Cars and the IRL’s current Indycars put on a better show with closer racing and more passing. One reason is that when F1 went to flat bottoms more than 20 years ago CART stayed with a Lotus 79-style ‘tunnel car’. Mario Andretti insisted that flat-bottomed cars were much too pitch-sensitive and more difficult to drive in close quarters, therefore discouraging close racing and passing. Mario’s concept was an integral element of CART’s and then Champ Car’s rules until the latter’s demise in 2008, and was the primary reason why Champ Cars put on a better show.

Of course, the IRL went down an entirely different route. Contemporary IRL cars are seriously restricted on horsepower and downforce, and are designed to run around in a pack. Passing is extremely difficult but the cars do tend to stay close together much like in a NASCAR restrictor-plate race. Yet the IRL’s formula has proven spectacularly unpopular as the series struggles to draw crowds to most races and its television ratings have plunged to miserable new lows.

A key element in the IRL’s formula is the massive amount of drag designed into the cars by the rules. In discussing the new Delta Wing Indycar concept Chip Ganassi told me that designer Ben Bowlby emphasised the excessive amount of drag required by the IRL’s rules. “Ben pointed out to me that an Indycar has more drag than a stock car!” Ganassi exclaimed. “I said, ‘How can an open-wheel car have more drag than a big, full-bodied NASCAR?’ That’s not the way it should be. But that’s how we, as rule-makers, have allowed it to be.”

Surely the people who write the rules have defined far too many of the specifications for today’s racing cars, F1 included. Darn near every element of the cars are specified by the rulebook. Today, there’s no room to create something that’s at all innovative like a rear-engined Cooper-Climax or a Lotus 79. Instead, we’re supposed to drool over the latest aerodynamic refinements to wing endplates and so forth. But these things are way too arcane, if not trivial, for most race fans. Clearly, people are tired of watching the same basic package that we’ve seen for the past 20 or more years.

Something radical is desperately needed, and that’s why I think the Delta Wing concept is a great thing, just to shake up everyone’s thinking. This spirit drove the sport for most of its history but there’s no longer any room for out-of-the-box thinking. If Colin Chapman was alive today, he’d shake his head and walk away, disgusted with the spec car syndrome that has infected the sport at every level, F1 again included.

Of course, if the rules were to be opened up F1’s team principals would complain that it would be too expensive and would result in too many different solutions and probably in one concept proving much quicker than anything else, making all others obsolete. No doubt there’s some truth to this riposte, but that doesn’t mean the sport isn’t in dire need of inspired technical leadership to recreate itself in a way that intrigues and excites more of us.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Welcome to our March podcast with 1996 Formula 1 World Champion and current BRDC president Damon Hill.

He played a big hand in securing the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and has an interesting perspective on Formula 1 at the moment, a perspective he’s not afraid to air.

Enjoy… We all certainly did.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Welcome to part deux of the Motor Sport Hall of Fame audio podcast.

As I’m sure you’ll agree Brian is one of our best guests yet as the tales of his racing career are quite simply, jaw-dropping. We’re back next month on March 8 so do make sure you ask us a question by clicking here.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Welcome to a very special Motor Sport audio podcast. This month we’re joined by Mario Andretti and Brian Redman – such a stellar line-up that we’ve had to cut it into two parts!

Part 2 will be online next week, but for the time being sit back and enjoy what one of the most talented racing drivers ever, has to say.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport broke new ground last night – for both the magazine and for British racing – when we launched our Hall of Fame event at the Roundhouse in Camden.

It was a star-studded night as some of the biggest names in motor sport joined 400 guests for a celebration that looks set to become an annual highlight of the racing season.

The Hall of Fame format is a popular one in the US, particularly in sport and music. But it’s a new idea for motor racing here in the UK.

Last night our host – and BBC Formula 1 presenter – Jake Humphrey announced the eight ‘founding members’ of the Hall of Fame, a group best described as the most important and successful men from racing history. The eight founders are:

Tazio Nuvolari
Enzo Ferrari
Juan Manuel Fangio
Sir Stirling Moss
Jim Clark
Sir Jackie Stewart
Ayrton Senna
Michael Schumacher.

Moss and Stewart were on hand to mark their inclusion in motor racing’s newest and most exclusive club. Once this ‘virtual’ Hall of Fame had been officially opened, the first four inductees were invited to join them.

The motor racing knights welcomed Moss’s old friend, team-mate and rival Tony Brooks into the Hall of Fame. Brooks has never received the recognition he deserves for his performances with Connaught, Vanwall, Ferrari and Aston Martin during the 1950s, and he was delighted to be presented with a beautiful watch, courtesy of TAG Heuer.

Le Mans legend Jacky Ickx, McLaren boss Ron Dennis and American all-round hero Mario Andretti joined Brooks to complete the line-up of inaugural inductees. They were all there at the Roundhouse to accept the honour.

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Once the formalities were over, the guests were entertained by the fabulous Kyle Eastwood Band. Kyle, son of movie icon Clint Eastwood, is one of the most highly rated young jazz musicians around – and we found out why last night.

To read more about Motor Sport’s special night, don’t miss the April issue of the magazine, which goes on sale on March 5.

Our thanks to: TAG Heuer, Virgin Cargo, Bahrain International Circuit, Mercedes-Benz, NSPCC, the Roundhouse, Hackett, David Weguelin, McLaren, Richard Frankel, DT Performance, Hugo Boss, Sky Sports, Jake Humphrey, LAT Photographic, The Macallan, Lord March, Janet Bradley at Goodwood, Rob Widdows, Sir Paul Vestey, Doug Nye, Stephen Vokins at the National Motor Museum, Richard Gadeselli of Fiat Group Automobiles SpA, Martin Stockham of Gemini Pictures, Renault

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The Lotus name returns to Formula 1 this year. Neither Tony Fernandes nor Mike Gascoyne are pretending this new team has any direct link to Colin Chapman’s great squad, but still the use of the Lotus badge is seen as controversial in some quarters. After all, the legacy is a huge one to live up to and anyone who goes racing under the auspices of “Britain’s Ferrari” (as Johnny Herbert so correctly describes the marque) accepts great responsibility.

We have our own reservations about the use of the name by an all-new squad, but would those most closely associated with Team Lotus feel the same? We asked Paul Fearnley to find out as part of our celebration of Lotus in F1, the centrepiece of the March issue of Motor Sport. The verdict? Well, read the magazine to find out!

As part of the Lotus special, editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck recounts his personal memories of Team Lotus and explains why the team means so much to him. Meanwhile, lucky Andrew Frankel gets behind the wheel of the F1 car that first inspired him: Mario Andretti’s Type 79, the ‘wing’ car that stormed the 1978 World Championship. And Rob Widdows meets Fernandes and Gascoyne to hear about the revival of Lotus in F1.

From a personal point of view, this issue felt like a long time coming. In fact, it seemed as if it would never end! Hopefully that should come across when you read it (in a good way) because there is plenty between the covers.

Highlights include more from the 1970s, as dep ed Gordon Cruickshank witnesses a very cool reunion: Andy Rouse and the British Leyland Jaguar XJC tin-topper, the epitome of that romantic motor racing standard – the glorious failure! Then it’s that man Frankel again as we remember the Tour of Britain, which attracted stars from stage and track – plus the odd Radio 1 DJ…

Finally, I must mention Simon Taylor’s latest ‘Lunch with’ interview. He met March co-founder Robin Herd for what would prove to be an entertaining bout of reminiscence, but in a venue with a twist. You’ll find out what I mean on page 74.

The April issue is already well underway, and so far it’s coming together nicely. In fact, I’d better get back to it! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the March edition and do let us know your thoughts on the return of Lotus to F1.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Just as we were getting prepared to have Mario Andretti as our next podcast guest a call came through saying that Brian Redman also wanted to join us.

There’s no point in going over Redman’s career here as I am sure you’re all perfectly familiar with it. However, the 12 Hours of Sebring and Targa Florio winner is well known for telling a good story so you can imagine the delights that await both you and us here in the office.

So Andretti and Redman in a room together with Rob steering the chat and Nigel getting stuck in too. As you can imagine Damien and myself may be taking a step back from this one as our past exploits and stories will look relatively lame next to these two.

We’re recording the podcast on February 11 so get your questions in now by clicking here. This really is a great opportunity to question two of motor sport’s greats.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

We all know that Mario Andretti was one of the world’s most versatile drivers, winning in Formula 1, Indycars and long-distance sports cars, as well as NASCAR stock cars, sprint cars and USAC dirt championship cars. He enjoyed a long career, racing successfully into his fifties, so what was his secret?

Ed Nathman was Newman/Haas team manager during the final years of Andretti’s career. Today, he is engineering director for Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing in NASCAR, running Juan Pablo Montoya’s cars. He says Andretti had a rare talent for reading the car and reporting his findings to the team.

“Mario was exceptional,” says Nathman (below with Jimmy Vasser in 2003). “You could put him in the car and right away he’d tell you what it was doing, and not many drivers can do that. I liked working with Mario a lot. He loved testing; Goodyear liked Mario for testing tyres because there was nobody like him.”

Donnie Hoevel worked for Newman/Haas for 22 years until 2007. He was Andretti’s chief mechanic during his final seasons racing Indycars and tells of the last tyre test Mario did for Goodyear in 1994 at Indianapolis. “They had every Goodyear engineer known to man out there and they all said they were disappointed because they all loved to do tyre tests with the old man,” he recalls. “There were times when they’d slip in a set of control tyres without telling him and he’d say, ‘Ah, you guys are trying to fool me! You can’t fool me. I know what you’re doing.’ There aren’t too many people who have that kind of feel.”

Peter Gibbons (below with Mario and Marco) was with Newman/Haas for 13 years until 2004. During this time he engineered Michael Andretti’s car and was Nigel Mansell’s engineer in 1993-94. He also engineered Emerson Fittipaldi’s Indycars in the ’80s and was Rick Mears’s race engineer at Penske Racing from 1989-91. Gibbons moved to Michael’s IRL team in ’04 where he’s now technical director. He says he’s never seen another driver with Mario’s relentless work ethic.

“It was just remarkable. He worked harder then anyone I’ve ever [seen]. Mears was so amazingly naturally talented that he didn’t have to work at it. Emerson worked at it, but Mario loved working at it. He was just phenomenal. He was a major contributor to our effort until the day he retired. Mario was the team. His contributions to our set-ups were incredible and he thought about it all the time. I never got the impression that Michael enjoyed doing it, but Mario just lived for it. He set the standard.”

Mario with Johnny O’Connell during testing at Road Atlanta in 2000

Bruce Ashmore, Lola’s Indycar designer from 1988-93, says: “Mario would be in the car at nine o’clock in the morning and, if you had to, he’d run every hour until six o’clock with the sun in his eyes. Yet he would run every lap the same so that the component you were testing was the difference that made the lap time. A lot of people in motor racing get it wrong. They want something to work because it was their idea. But that’s a mistake. Mario had the ability to cut all that out and just assess the part on its performance and how it fitted into the package.”

Adds Hoevel: “The guy treated you with the utmost respect. If you worked hard for him, he worked hard for you. He was the utmost professional and he’s a great friend today. I can call him any time. Mario’s pretty far up the pedestal. He drove as hard as he could all the way ’til the last day he got out the car.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

A few days after Christmas I had the pleasure of talking to Jacky Ickx for a book I’m writing about the history of Carl Haas and Newman/Haas Racing. Thirty years ago Ickx won the Can-Am championship driving a Lola for Haas’s team, and I wanted to talk to him about his 1979 season in America. Jacky celebrated his 65th birthday on New Year’s Day and he’s not only one of the most accomplished racing drivers but also a delightful, old school gentleman.

Ickx is proud that, much like Mario Andretti, he won races across a broad range of categories. Jacky won Le Mans six times, of course, but he also won 37 World Championship long-distance sports car races – more than any other driver – and two world sports car titles in 1982-83.

Ickx won sports car races driving Gulf Ford GT40s, factory Porsches, Ferraris and Mirages, and came to be celebrated as a maestro of Le Mans and endurance racing.

He also finished second to Jackie Stewart in the 1969 Formula 1 World Championship and was second again the following year to Jochen Rindt. He won eight Grands Prix between 1968-72 driving for Brabham and Ferrari, and claimed the European F2 championship in 1967 when he was just 22. Jacky retired from racing sports cars in 1985 but continued to compete in the Paris-Dakar rally until 1992, having won the gruelling event in ’83. “I had a career that was similar to Mario in a way because Mario did all kinds of racing successfully,” says Ickx. “He could go from a dirt track, to Indy, to long-distance racing or F1, and whatever he did he could do it well. And that’s what I did, too.”

Jacky says that over the years he’s gained a deeper appreciation for the people and teamwork that makes the sport happen. “When you’re older you don’t see things the way you did when you were a kid,” he says. “It’s a very individual sport and a selfish sport too for the drivers, and it takes time to understand that you don’t do anything without a large number of people – the engineers and mechanics and so on – who are working in the shadows with a lot of motivation and passion. Your success depends on their abilities and goodwill. They do their jobs with pleasure, but the only rewards they receive is when their driver wins.”

Jacky is also aware how lucky he’s been and how much richer his life has been made by racing. “In sport, your career is reasonably short,” he says. “Mine started when I was 16 in 1960 and I stopped in 1992. So it was very long and I was extremely lucky to survive 30 years of motor racing in those days. Today, when I meet Jackie Stewart or Carlos Reutemann or some people from that era, the first thing we say is how lucky we’ve been to survive such a big amount of racing miles in F1, long-distance racing, Can-Am, the Paris-Dakar and everything else without losing a wheel or having a major technical problem. It’s a miracle!

“That is why every day when I wake up I feel lucky. It’s also why I pay more attention to the human side than the score. To me, the score is not important – the fact that I won Le Mans six times, or that I won 50 long-distance races, the F2 championship or Paris-Dakar. What counts are the outstanding people I had the chance to meet.”

Jacky is also a devoted Motor Sport reader. “It’s the only racing magazine I buy,” he says. “You guys are doing a great job. Keep it up!”

Thanks for the compliment Jacky. Keep reading and we’ll keep writing.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

When I arrived home after the Daytona 24 hours at the end of January I was greeted by a fresh snowfall measuring about a foot and a half. Three weeks later, following 10 days back in Daytona for NASCAR’s season-opening 500, I woke up at home amid another knee-deep snowstorm. We’ve had plenty of snow in New Hampshire this winter, and Mario Andretti tells me the same is true a little further south in northern Pennsylvania at his rural getaway called ‘Open Woods’. “The snowmobiling has been great this year,” said Mario. “I’ve been able to get in three or four really enjoyable weekends up there.”

For my part, winter sport means snowshoeing. Behind my house I’m blessed to have 500 acres of protected wilderness where I can hike in the spring, summer and fall and snowshoe in the winter. After a day of writing, telephoning, emailing and web-trawling, it’s a pleasure to get out into the fresh air and exercise my legs and lungs a little.

In New Hampshire the snowshoe season can last for four months, or even longer. I learned to snowshoe on old Indian-style shoes with large wood frames and webbing made from animal hide. But about 10 years ago I switched to modern lightweight Sherpa snowshoes with aluminium frames and synthetic rubber webbing. The new shoes are lighter, smaller and much more manoeuvrable.

I step into my snowshoes wearing my LL Bean Maine Hunting Shoes. These are 16-inch tall leather lace-up boots with rubber shoes and soles. Some people call them ‘swamp’ or ‘snake’ boots because you can wade through a swamp in them and they’ll also protect you from snake attacks! In the winter, they keep your feet and legs warm and dry.

It takes only a minute or two to hike out of the field behind my house and set off into the woods. Breaking trail through fresh snow can be strenuous work and is not for the weak of soul, but hiking along a well-trod trail is relatively easy. The great thing about snowshoes is they allow you to go almost anywhere you want, off-trail, up or downhill.

Most of all, it’s a fine way to clear the mind and get a little healthy exercise, too. There’s a ski mountain only a few miles away but I prefer the simplicity and solitude of snowshoeing in what I affectionately call ‘my back forty’. In only a matter of minutes I’m about as far away from motor racing as you can get. It’s a great pleasure.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

On Monday after the Canadian Grand Prix, our editor in chief Nigel Roebuck and I drove south from Montreal through the Adirondack Mountains to Albany. After dinner and an overnight stay at my friend and photographer Gary Gold’s home we continued our trip south to spend an afternoon with Mario Andretti at his home in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Armed with a selection of fine black and white Bob Tronolone photos, shot in the sixties, we planned to chat with Mario about the glory days of championship dirt car racing when four or five races on one-mile dirt ovals – usually State Fairground tracks – were rounds of the USAC Indy car championship. Nigel will write a story for Motor Sport later this year about our conversation with Mario and I’m sure some parts of our day will appear as vignettes in his column.

1970 Watkins Glen 6 Hours, July 11 – Jo Siffert/Brian Redman, Porsche 917K, 2nd position, battles with the Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti Ferrari 512S Spyder, 3rd position.

For my part, as a fan, student and biographer of Mario’s career, the man never ceases to charm and inform me, not only about motor racing but as a human being, family man and friend. He is as good as they come and he’s also an incredibly funny guy with a sharp, dry wit. He’s a great mimic too, and even though he exudes character and charisma he has a remarkable ability to put everyone at ease so they feel entirely comfortable and equal. It’s a rare gift.

Mario’s great achievement in racing encompasses all those things but his career was defined by its tremendous diversity and by its competitive longevity. From dirt tracks to Formula One and sports car racing and darn near everything in between, including victories in the Daytona 500 and at Pike’s Peak, Andretti amassed a wider range of race wins and championships than any other driver and was fearsomely competitive well into his fifties.

He’s also passionately committed to the sport and was a major influence in cajoling and compelling the warring open-wheel factions in America to sit down at the table to find a way to bury the hatchet and form a single Indycar championship after twelve ruinous years of civil war. Without him, it may never have happened. He is a giant of the sport in many, many ways and Nigel and I will continue to take great pleasure in writing about and with him on a wide range of subjects in the pages of Motor Sport.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The opening weekend of qualifying for this year’s 92nd Indianapolis 500 takes place this weekend. Favourites for the pole must be Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon who have been the men to beat on oval tracks so far this year in Chip Ganassi’s pair of Dallara-Hondas. Other pole contenders include 2001 and ‘02 race winner Helio Castroneves and new team-mate Ryan Briscoe with Team Penske, and Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti (above) and Danica Patrick (below) at Andretti-Green Racing.

Thanks to the unification of IndyCar racing thirty-four drivers are entered at Indianapolis this year and the field is a little stronger than in recent years. On the other hand, the previous two winners Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish are missing from the field as they have moved their careers, for better or worse, to NASCAR. The only previous winners entered this year are Wheldon, Castroneves and Buddies Rice and Lazier.

Five Brits are entered – 2005 winner Wheldon, Darren Manning, Justin Wilson, Jay Howard and Alex Lloyd. Wilson, Howard and Lloyd are rookies, although Wilson has some oval experience from his four years in Champ Car and is the number one driver of course, at Newman/Haas/Lanigan, replacing Sebastien Bourdais in the team’s McDonald’s car.

This has been a tough week for Newman/Haas/Lanigan because the team’s most experienced and respected man Davey Evans was brutally murdered in an Indianapolis bar last Saturday night. Evans, 63, had worked for Carl Haas’s race team for forty years, going back to the original Can-Am and Formula 5000 series. Born in Sudbury-on-Thames, Evans started his working life in 1959 as a teen-aged engineering apprentice with HWM Motors. He moved on to Maranello Concessionaires before finding work at Lola Cars and then becoming a key man in America in Haas’s Can-Am and Formula 5000 teams before the creation in 1983 of the Newman/Haas CART team.

For many years Davey worked at Lola during the winters building Haas’s cars. Evans was an old-school artisan who could construct almost anything. He was not only Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing’s most experienced crewman, but also probably the longest-serving man in the contemporary IndyCar garage area.

“I have a tough time accepting it and I’m sure everyone else feels the same way,” Mario Andretti commented. “It’s such a waste of a wonderful life. For some meaningless human being to take another life that meant so much is a total travesty. There are very few people that I’ve known in my life who you could say, ‘I don’t think this guy had an enemy in the world.’ All the years that I’ve known and worked with him, whether it was with Carl’s Can-Am team or through Formula 5000 to all the years with Newman/Haas, Davey was always there with a smile, always kind. What can you say? He was a friend for life.”

Two memorial services were held in Indianapolis this week for Evans as many who knew him paid their respects to one of the sport’s most-liked men, fated to lose his life in deeply tragic circumstances.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Parnelli Jones is one of the living legends of American racing, up there in the pantheon with Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney. Jones dominated three of the seven Indy 500s he started and won the race in 1963, beating Jim Clark. He looked to be a clear winner again in ’67 with Andy Granatelli’s STP turbine car, but a driveshaft bearing broke with only four laps to go and after the race Parnelli retired from driving open cockpit cars.

Indianapolis, USA. 30th May 1966. Parnelli Jones (Shrike-Offenhauser).

Parnelli continued to race in Trans-Am, Can-Am and off-road cars and trucks. He won the 1970 Trans-Am championship with a Bud Moore Ford Mustang, beating Mark Donohue and Penske Racing by a single point when Trans-Am was one of the USA’s top racing series, brimming with manufacturer-backed teams.

Can-Am race. Riverside, California, United States. 29 October 1967. Parnelli Jones (Lola T70-Chevrolet), 4th position.

He also won the Baja 1,000 in 1971 and ’72, and his resume includes a second career as a team owner in partnership with Vel Miletich. Vel’s Parnelli Jones racing won the Indy 500 with Al Unser in 1970 and ’71, three consecutive USAC championships in 1970-72 with Unser and Joe Leonard and a total of 40 USAC races between 1968-77. VPJ also produced the first Cosworth-powered Indycar, developed by John Barnard and driven successfully by Unser, and a similar F1 car raced by Andretti from late 1974 to early ’76. VPJ’s cars were usually beautiful and often revolutionary.

Ontario, California, USA. 3rd-10th March 1974. Al Unser (Eagle-Offenhauser), 2nd position, with Parnelli Jones.

Jones became a very successful Firestone tyre distributor and property developer in Southern California, and today, at 74, he remains as sharp as ever, and as knowledgeable a man about racing as anyone alive. Parnelli is delighted to see a unified IndyCar series emerge from the sport’s long civil war, but he emphasizes that the real work begins now.

“We need to build respect for Indycar racing again and the only way we’re ever going to get there is to make some dramatic changes,” Jones observes. “It’s a great start that the two series have merged, but it’s not the answer. When you’ve got 50 cars like NASCAR, then you’ve got something. It’s been embarrassing to go watch qualifying at Indianapolis in recent years. There’s nobody there. We used to have 250,000 people show up for the first day of qualifying. But today, we don’t have the respect for the Indy winners that we used to.”

Like many of us, Parnelli believes the most important factor is for the sanctioning body to take control and devise a new formula that will create plenty of competition among engine and car builders.

“Before we go forward they’ve got to step back and take a long look,” he says. “You can’t let the manufacturer run the series. What made all the series in the world in the first place, even NASCAR, is having all those different types of cars for people to root for. But it’s easier said than done.

“They’ve got to get more than one manufacturer. I have nothing against Honda, but right now Honda is calling the shots. NASCAR controls not only the drivers and teams but also the manufacturers, and that’s what Indycar racing needs to get back to.

Parnelli Jones brings the 1968 Lotus Turbine Indy Car back to the pits after taking a ceremonial lap of the track prior to the start of qualifying. 84th Indianapolis 500, Indy Racing Northern Light Series, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 28 May, 2000

“We need to have competition and we need to look at it not just from a technical, Formula 1-type mentality. We need to look at it from an entertainment value because we have to compete against so many other entertainments in this country. It’s not about going out and seeing who’s the best racer and how many laps he can lead or how quick he can lap the field. Those days are gone.

“We need to be entertaining but you’re not going to get there with one manufacturer supplying the same thing to everybody because there’s no entertainment value.”
Jones believes the best way forward is to design a rocker arm engine formula, and that in the long run this would bring manufacturers back into Indycar racing in the best possible way.

“They ought to go to rocker arm engines because you can buy all the parts in the US,” he explains. “Get rid of the manufacturers. Let them go by the wayside and you would have the Childresses and Hendricks building engines for Indy. Make them 260 or 270 cubic inches and you can buy all those parts. Not everyone could build a Hendrick engine but they could grow into that.

“Don’t call them stock-blocks. Call them rocker arm engines and you could have guys building Chevies, Fords, Dodges and Toyotas. Then the manufacturers would come back and start supporting the teams that are running their product. But this time the sanctioning body controls it.”

Tony George (below) and the IRL might do well to consider Parnelli Jones’s ideas of how to secure a healthy future for Indycar racing.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The inaugural Formula 5000 race in 1975 at Long Beach.

I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of covering all thirty-four Long Beach Grands Prix, from the inaugural Formula 5000 race back in 1975 through eight Formula One races from 1976-’83 and twenty-five CART or Champ Car races from 1984-2008. This year’s race was Champ Car’s swansong in the beachside California city as the defunct organisation’s Panoz DP01-Cosworth turbos raced for one last time before the unified Indy Racing League arrives in town next year. So Long Beach ‘08 marked the end of a quarter century of the sweet sound of turbocharged engines wailing through the sunny California air and as the drivers cruised into the pits at the end of the race and the turbocharged engines – the signature song of Indy car racing – fell silent, the moment brought tears to some eyes.

For the next year or two, the familiar whine of Cosworth’s turbo V8 will be replaced by the harsh, coarse noise from Honda’s much less powerful, naturally-aspirated V8 IRL engine and there’s no doubt that the vast majority of fans and competitors would love to see the IRL adopt a more powerful, turbocharged engine formula as part of its new formula for 2010 or 2011.

1976 Grand Prix of Long Beach, California, USA. March 26 – 28 1976. Niki Lauda (Ferrari 312T), 2nd position.

Like Mario Andretti, I’m among those who believe the new IRL formula must create spectacularly fast and demanding cars to drive. We think there must be a much greater difference between straightaway and cornering speeds. We also believe the new formula must inspire competition between engine and chassis manufacturers as well as adopting some serious elements of green technology. Over the upcoming month of May at Indianapolis I will discuss these issues with many people in the sport and will write about these conversations in the pages of Motor Sport later this year.

And as I reminded many people at Long Beach this year, back in 1975 at the inaugural Formula 5000 race – won by Brian Redman in a Haas/Hall Lola T332C-Chevrole – the garage area boasted no fewer than forty-two cars built by eight different car constructors. Thirty-nine of those cars started the two qualifying heats and because Bill Simpson’s Berta didn’t make it the first Long Beach race featured seven different car builders making this year’s race pale in comparison.

Brian Redman with the trophy from the Formula 5000 race in 1975.

If American open-wheel racing is to enjoy a resurgence under the IRL’s unified banner it must rediscover this essential nature of the sport. The IRL’s new formula for 2010 or 2011 must dispel the banalities of spec-car racing and attract a trove of competitive engine and chassis builders. That’s the only way Indy car racing and Long Beach will thrive again.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The new issue of Motor Sport, on sale now, is a very special one for all of us on the magazine. Producing each edition always has a ‘labour of love’ element to it, but that feeling was heightened as we worked towards deadline this time. And it was all down to the great man who graces the cover.

As I have written in Matters of Moment this month, Jim Clark died before I was born, but that hasn’t lessened the power of his influence over me. He remains an inspiration to racing fans around the world, from his home town of Duns in Scottish border country to the pilgrims who head to the Indianapolis 500 every year.

To mark the 40th anniversary of his passing, Nigel Roebuck offers a personal tribute to the man who was “everyone’s hero”, as Brian Redman puts it. Also, American writer Robin Miller looks back at Clark’s incredible impact on the Indy 500, speaking to Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt and Parnelli Jones about how this quiet legend won over the tough Brickyard racers.

David Tremayne recounts that final, fateful day at Hockenheim, while Rob Widdows asks Lotus mechanic Jim Endruweit for the insider’s view of what Clark was like. It was a pleasure to put the pages together and we hope it is just as much a pleasure to read.

Back in the current world, we are enjoying the start of what looks set to be a fascinating Grand Prix season. The first race in Australia got a big thumbs up from everyone at the magazine, as you can read in the issue. The loss of driver aids has been a big gain for the sport.

And if you are a motorsportmagazine.co.uk regular, you will have spotted yet another addition to our coverage during the first couple of GPs. Our web maestro Ed Foster, who is one of Motor Sport’s three ‘bloggers’, has been writing frantically during GP weekends, from Friday through to Sunday, to offer his thoughts on the action. He’s also organised for practice times and race results to be added to these special blogs, so please do take the opportunity to read his words and add your own comments. We’d love to spark some conversations between fans on the site, with Ed’s GP coverage becoming a regular feature.

So enjoy our special Jim Clark issue – and keep logging on to motorsportmagazine.co.uk!

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