Letters - March 2024

Further to your editorial on FIA sexism [The Editor, February], drag racing has a healthier record of female racers. The lone female prize winner you mentioned at the FIA ceremony was Linn Engan Fløysvik, the FIA Top Methanol champion. Normally the Top Fuel dragster champion (in this case Ida Zetterström) would represent drag racing at the ceremony, but that weekend Ida was attending the PRI Show at Indianapolis to reveal her deal to race next year in NHRA with a leading American team. We shall be disappointed to lose Ida from the European scene, but she has never kept her ambition secret.

Meanwhile Erica Enders has been NHRA Pro Stock ‘world’ champion six times. (NHRA is a North American series but everyone accepts that it is drag racing’s premier series). A second woman, Camrie Caruso, has raced in Pro Stock for two seasons, but before that Enders was the sole female entrant in an otherwise all-male, and intensely competitive, class.

I also commend to your attention Leah Pruett, who fell short of this season’s NHRA Top Fuel championship by a single round of racing. She is married to Tony Stewart, former USAC, IndyCar and NASCAR champion and all-round motor sport entrepreneur, who spent this year learning the ropes with a prominent Top Alcohol Dragster team, finishing second in NHRA’s Lucas Oil championship, headed only by yet another female, Norwegian expat Julie Nataas.

Now Pruett and Stewart plan to start a family and Stewart will take his wife’s seat in the Tony Stewart Racing Top Fuel Dragster. Their PRI Show announcement garnered significant coverage in America’s wider sporting press. Perhaps it filtered through to this side of the Atlantic too.

Robin Jackson, Santa Pod Raceway, Bedfordshire

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I fully support your piece leading in the February edition when you refer to Chelsea FC Women’s team [The Editor, February]. However the comparison is not entirely even. Abramomovic personally bought them their home ground in Kingston for around £4m several years ago, and crowds were highly subsidised with hundreds of tickets given free to local schools. Agreed, Chelsea are doing very well with most home games sold out, but it’s taken over a dozen years to get there and a lot of subsidy by a generous benefactor.

Adam Hermitage, Oxshott, Surrey

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I enjoyed Gordon Cruickshank’s article about the early days of Motor Sport [The birth of Motor Sport, February] but I must correct his assertion, in relation to motoring in the 1920s, that “at the time there was no maximum speed limit on the open road”. In fact there was an overall speed limit of just 20mph which had been imposed by the Motor Car Act 1903 and which wasn’t repealed until January 1, 1931 when the Road Traffic Act 1930 came into force.

Amusingly, in a subsequent debate in the House of Lords in December 1932 concerning speed limits and speedometers for certain vehicles, Lord Buckmaster opined that “the reason why the speed limit had been abolished was not that anybody thought the abolition would lead to the greater security of foot passengers, but that the existing speed limit was so universally disobeyed that its maintenance brought the law into contempt”.

Simon Johnston, Newtownards, Co Down

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Congratulations on 100 years of issues.  I can’t match that, but in January 1950 I was walking down Spring Bank, in Hull, on my way to the Hull School of Architecture, and while passing a newsagent on the corner I spied in the window a green magazine – Motor Sport, price 1/3d (around 7p).

I went in and bought it, and I have bought every issue since (through thick and thin)! Most have now gone due to ‘downsizing’ three years ago, but there is now a three-year pile in my new den.

J Michael Oates, Halifax

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Troy Kennedy Martin, who died in 2009, wasn’t just the screenwriter of the new Ferrari movie [“I had to make the film the right way or I didn’t want to make it at all”, February]. His first screenplay was The Italian Job of 1969. Should anyone need an excuse to watch that movie once again, his name is at 1min 38sec in the titles. And it was him who wrote that line about the doors and explosives…

In between, he wrote, among many others, Kelly’s Heroes, Reilly: Ace of Spies and the sublime 1980s thriller Edge of Darkness.

Quite a varied and distinguished career, bookended between Lamborghini and Ferrari. A shame he did not live to see his Enzo story come to the screen.

Andy Graham, Meadvale, Redhill, Surrey

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Looking at the photo of the Brooklands event at the bottom of p91 in February [The birth of Motor Sport], above, one has to wonder who is going faster – the cars or the train? My money is on the train!

Jimmy Lisle, Roanoke, Virginia, US

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When it comes to motor sport legends, Mario Andretti is right up near the top of the tree. There isn’t anyone more passionate about Formula 1, and motor sport in general. The article in February’s Matters of Moment about Mario yearning to get the Andretti team onto the F1 grid shows how much it would mean to him (and son Michael). F1 should be bending over backwards to have Mario in and around the paddock as a competitor, as he brings something that is often overlooked, and that is the love of the sport itself. Others may say it; he exudes it, and F1 needs all the characters it can get.

F1 is far too corporate and serious at present, but having someone like Mario around would add a different dimension, as he speaks with a deep affection of the sport. I, as a fan, have not supported a team since the Ligier/Prost team folded many moons ago, but would support the Andretti team in a heartbeat, just because of Mario being involved. I’m sure I would not be the only one.

So come on F1, make the announcement that Andretti Global can come and play. You won’t regret it.

Michael Skeet, Lordswood, Southampton

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I always enjoy reading your pages especially when they deal with classic machines, and your January 2024 edition was no exception. The Lotus Cortina [Twist and shout] is rightly a legend. But just after reading that article I picked up a book by Ted Talbot, chief design engineer on the Concorde project. In his book Concorde: A Designer’s Life he describes how in his early career with BAC he bought a Ford Cortina, and this outstanding engineer was so displeased with the car that listing its shortcomings occupies three whole pages!

Finally he sent a letter to the managing director of Ford, England. It produced “a response from the Publicity Director, who apparently judged the consumption of four gearboxes, three clutches, two half shafts and two differentials in 18 months, plus innumerable other faults, as being close to norm. ‘Sir, we note that the car is a 1963 model,’ he apologised. It was obviously a bad vintage.”

And, obviously, the Lotus badge made a great difference!

John Davies, Lancaster

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I read the Matters of Moment article about RM Sotheby’s Iso Grifo [February], still one of my all-time favourite cars. The top speed however depended solely on the gearing. To make it reach 170mph with the small-block Chevy would make it very lazy on acceleration. But the car weighing less than 1000kg? That must be a stripped version made of cardboard!

I never owned an Iso but I had the opportunity to drive one. I even used it to go to the recycling park. It was also a small-block with a manual gearbox. In the recycling park you got weighed on arrival and exit and like this I discovered that with an almost full 100-litre fuel tank the car weighed 1483kg. I drive a Porsche 928 GTS, same engine capacity, almost the same horsepower and that one weighs 1636kg with a full 90-litre tank. And the owner of the Iso also had a Corvette C2 Sting Ray. Seeing these two cars parked next to each other, heaven!

Steven Proost, Belgium

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