On this day in Motor Racing's past

[acerogers58]

Bottom post of the previous page:

On this day in 2000, Jeff Burton becomes the latest person (to date) to lead every single lap of a NASCAR Cup series event. He led 300/300 laps at New Hampshire. Cars were fitted with restrictor plates for this race following 2 deaths at the track earlier that year. The restrictor plates, which are not designed for short tracks created an extremely boring race, and they were once again removed at New Hampshire after this event.

[Motorsportrace]

Former F1 driver Kenneth McAlpine turns 100 today.
He drove in 7 F1 races (2 in 1952, 4 in 1953 and 1 in 1955).



He's the oldest F1 driver still alive.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Former F1 driver Kenneth McAlpine turns 100 today.
He drove in 7 F1 races (2 in 1952, 4 in 1953 and 1 in 1955).



He's the oldest F1 driver still alive.

He was also the creator (and driver) of Connaught cars, (he financed the project) a team he entered in F1 in the fifties for himself but also other drivers (and a team that a young Bernie Ecclestone purchased, and in fact entered the Monaco GP in one in 1958))

[EB]

Bernie Ecclestone purchased, and in fact entered the Monaco GP in one in 1958))

I don't believe he was an official entry, he merely took the car out for a lap or more in practice. In those less formal days it wasn't an uncommon occurence.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bernie Ecclestone purchased, and in fact entered the Monaco GP in one in 1958))

I don't believe he was an official entry, he merely took the car out for a lap or more in practice. In those less formal days it wasn't an uncommon occurence.

I understand what you are saying, despite the fact he is shown as an official entry and he is listed as having set a qualifying time, although I am aware qualifying was just 'official' practice.

https://www.statsf1.com/en/1958/monaco/engages.aspx
https://www.statsf1.com/en/1958/monaco/ ... ation.aspx

Certainly in relation to McAlpines career in F1 Bernie is of little significance with McAlpine's career in Motor Racing and indeed Connaught long gone by that date.

[EB]

Well no, I'm saying he was not listed as an official entry, so I don't think you did get me! Entry lists from contemporary magazines do not list him, and with all due respect to whoever runs that website I doubt they know any better.

[acerogers58]

[erwin greven]

[erwin greven]

[acerogers58]

Tony Roper passed away on this day in 2000, he was the third driver killed within 5 months across NASCAR's top three series when he slammed the wall head on along the front stretch during a truck race at Texas on October 13, 2000. He succumbed to his injuries the next day, age 35. His father, Dean Roper, would tragically also die 10 months later after suffering a heart attack while running in an ARCA event at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

Roper earned 79 starts across his brief career, Earning 8 top 10's from 60 races in the truck series and 3 top 10's from 19 races in the Busch (now Xfinity) series with a career best finish of 2nd in the 1998 Cummins 200 at IRP, his first, and only Top 5.

[acerogers58]

October 15, 2000, Dale Earnhardt comes from 17th position with 4 laps remaining to win the Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, in what would turn out to be his 76th and final NASCAR Cup series victory.

The racing in the final laps of this race was fantastic, with multiple rows of 3 and sometimes even four wide. With no "out of bounds line", drivers could be incredibly aggressive, without suffering any penalty, including a move by Matt Kenseth with 4 laps to go in which he put two wheels of his car on the backstretch grass. Earnhardt, Kenny Wallace and Joe Nemechek stayed nose to tail for the final 3 laps, reaching the front at the white flag. The trio then broke away from the rest of the pack, and couldn't be caught, with Earnhardt holding off the Andy Petree racing teammates to claim a Winston No-Bull 1 million dollar bonus. Wallace later stated that he didn't know his teammate was behind him, due to Nemechek running an alternate paint scheme that weekend, and that if he had known, he would of likely attempted a pass for the win.

[erwin greven]

[Everso Biggyballies]

Seppi was always a favourite of mine back in the day.


Jo Siffert, Yardley BRM



About Jo Siffert: From josiffert.com

JO SIFFERT'S LIFE

JO SIFFERT LEFT AS AYRTON SENNA, BY TAKING WITH HIM THE SECRET OF ITS DEATH.
" Relatively speaking, Jo Siffert's death had been felt in Switzerland in the same way as the death of Ayrton Senna in Brazil and they are not less 50'000 people who had come down in the time in the streets of Fribourg to pay him a last tribute during its funeral ", raise Jacques Deschenaux, Jo Siffert biographer's and the former leader of the Sports service of the French-speaking Swiss Television.

This comparison between Jo Siffert and Ayrton Senna illustrates perfectly the mythical dimension which enjoy today still these two big champions in their respective country. Both besides died in the prime of life, at the wheel of their racing car, without we know exactly the failure which cost them the life. Beyond the same dramatic end, Jo Siffert postpones however from Ayrton Senna by the fact that he arose from a very poor family.

His great career, which allowed him in particular to win two formula 1 races and to contribute to the conquest of three Manufacturers world champion titles for Porsche in 1969, 1970 and 1971 with a total of 14 absolute victories, Jo Siffert so owes it above all to his prodigious will. " Left nothing, with nothing, he proved that in the car-racing, as in life, whoever can reach the purpose that he reasonably settled, If he has the will, the determination and the capacity to reach there. Jo Siffert is a striking example ", estimates Jacques Deschenaux at the end of his book " Jo Siffert, everything for the race ".

The prodigious will which allowed Jo Siffert of future one of the best racing drivers of his time and, additionally, no furthermore to be poor also marked Men Lareida, the director of the movie " Jo Siffert - Live fast, die young " presented in the 2005 Locarno Festival: " Jo Siffert's life is a real novel and it lends so perfectly to be told in a movie. Jo was indeed born very poor in the city of Fribourg and invested all his savings to concretize his child's dream to become a formula one driver. And, when he finally realized his dream, he died in full glory. "


STRIKING FACTS
For lack of telling in a exhaustive way all the career of the best driver whom Switzerland knew with Clay Regazzoni, the following lines should allow you to know better Jo Siffert, his career, its exploits and some of his striking facts. The latter belong today still, about 40 years after his death arisen on mechanical failure, in Brands Hatch, on October 24th, 1971, to the racing history.


THE LAST VICTORY OF A PRIVATE TEAM
The victory taken away by Jo Siffert at the F1 British GP , on July 20th, 1968, on a Lotus 49 of Rob Walker's Team, is so today still the last victory taken away by a private Team in a race of the F1 world championship. It was also about the first victory absolved from a Swiss nationality driver in a race counting for the F1 world championship. Jo Siffert then won the second victory in F1, on August 15th, 1971, during the Austria GP, on a official BRM.

IT IS JO SIFFERT WHICH WAS THE FIRST ONE TO SHAKE THE CHAMPAGNE
Since when the drivers do shake a bottle of champagne on the podium, upon the arrival of a race? Since June 11th, 1967. This date indeed coincides with the arrival of the 24 Heures du Mans of this year. Jo Siffert, winner for the second consecutive time of the performance index, has difficulty in removing the cork of the bottle of champagne. The idea comes to him then to shake the bottle and to splash the drivers who share with him the podium of 24 Heures du Mans! This tradition, inaugurated by Jo Siffert, remains even today.

HE WAS PERFECTLY BILINGUAL
Rare are the Swiss personalities with whom the aura continues to shine several decades after their death. Jo Siffert is undoubtedly a member of those. It is enough to think of the remembrances of which the former formula 1 driver was the object during the tenth, twentieth and twenty-fifth anniversaries of his disappearance to convince itself. And the thirtieth anniversary of its death, in 2001, did not make an exception.

There were indeed many tributes which were returned in regretted "Seppi". And it, not only in the canton of Fribourg, but in all Switzerland and also in Europe. The French magazine Auto-Hebdo and the Magazine of the historic automobile dedicated him for example respectively three and sixteen (!) pages. La Gruyère, Le Nouvelliste writer and La Revue Automobile, as well as the Berner Zeitung, the Automobile Revue and Tele-Bärn also dedicated him several reports and these last three German-speaking media are revealing of the popularity of which the child of Fribourg - who expressed himself as well in French as in German - enjoyed in two main linguistic regions of Switzerland.


THE PRAISES OF THE FRENCH SPORTS DAILY "L'EQUIPE"
But much more than its bilingualism and his national aura, it is the fact that it managed to reach the firmament of the car-racing by having left a very modest environment which conferred him a dimension which exceeds by far the sports frame. Besides, for the people of Fribourg, Jo Siffert's success, been born on July 7th, 1936 in a very poor family, brought a little balm to the heart in a time when the canton of Fribourg was a little the laughing stock of Switzerland generally and French-speaking Switzerland in particular. " Jo Siffert's arrival on stage of world sports scene established scathing one denied to all those who thought that Fribourgeois underdeveloped farmers were only who smelt bad ", estimates Jacques Deschenaux.

After the death of the driver, all the press had unanimously paid him tribute. During his ten seasons in formula 1, punctuated by two magnificent victories in Brands Hatch in 1968 and in Zeltweg in 1971, he had accumulated an enormous fund of goodwill. So, in the French sports daily "L'Equipe" of October 25th, 1971, we could read that Jo Siffert was one of the most liked drivers: " He was fast, skillful and aggressive as all the racing drivers can be him. But he had something furthermore, something different. His ease indeed had an equal only his surprising courage. A courage which seemed all the bigger as he never mentioned it that by laughing when, after one of its exploits, we were going to ask him how it had passed ".

THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE GAZZETTA DELLO SPORT
Gazzetta dello sport raised for its part that Jo Siffert was the most complete drivers: " He made no distinction as regards the various types of cars which were confided to him." Peter Falk, the former sports director of Porsche, stands out for which one Jo Siffert was going to win fourteen victories in the manufaturers world championship, considered for his part that " Seppi was, doubtless, the best driver of its generation ".


THERE, WHERE THERE IS NO RISK, THERE IS NOT A LIFE.
"His life was the race, the race was its death", wrote Jacques Deschenaux in the Swiss daily paper La Liberté of October 25th, 1971, the day after this tragic Formula 1 race during which Jo Siffert was going to die. Ironically, this race, not counting for the Formula 1 world championship, would never have taken place if the Mexican Pedro Rodriguez, the team-mate of Siffert as well at BRM as at Porsche, had not died July 11th, 1971 on the Norisring race track.


THE DATE OF OCTOBER 24TH WOULD INDEED HAVE HAD TO WELCOME THE MEXICO GP.
Having lost the idol of a whole country three months previously, the Mexican organizers had however no more the heart to set up a Formula 1 race. British, quite happy to celebrate the conquest of the second world title of their fellow countryman Jackie Stewart, seized then this date become vacant to organize to Brands Hatch a race in the honor of Jackie Stewart.

A race which counted for no championship and in which Jo Siffert, for once, did not wish to participate. It is true that he had the right to be saturated and that with the trinket of 40 races, his season 1971 was well filled!

" I remember although he did not want to participate in this race ", remembers Simone Siffert, the widow of Jo Siffert. " In the same date, he should moreover have roamed to Japan on a Porsche 917 with which he competed in the United States for the CAN-AM championship. Since Edmonton, in Canada, theater of the lrace of the CAN-AM championship, there was however a problem to transport the car in Japan and Seppi did not insist. He had said to himself besides that towards a friend such as Jackie Stewart, who lived in the time too in Switzerland, in Begnins (VD), it was necessary answer present to Brands Hatch. "

We know the suite: on this circuit of Brands Hatch, where he had won his first Formula 1 race in 1968 - the last race to have been won by a private driver-, Jo Siffert had to die in the 16th lap, in the Mike Hawthorn curve. Came out of the track to more than 200 kph, his BRM was almost fired immediately and Seppi died suffocated. Was it a question of one flat slow like that had already arrived at him a few weeks before during the Austria GP where it had nevertheless gained its second victory in formula 1? Was it a question unlike a blocked gearbox? As Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and Pedro Rodriguez before him, as Ayrton Senna, Joseph Siffert went as the biggest champions there, taking with him the secret of his death.

During his funeral, Father Duruz pronounced a become sentence, since then, very famous:

" There, where there is a risk, there is a death. There, where there is no risk, there is not a life.

http://www.josiffert.com/en/about-jo-siffert/

[erwin greven]

[MonteCristo]

Rest in peace Greg Moore, who passed away on this day in 1999 during a CART race at Fontana.

[acerogers58]

Jeff Gordon earned his 93rd and final win on this day in 2015 at Martinsville, it came in a race with 18 cautions, and an infamous takeout of Joey Logano performed by Matt Kenseth, as payback for an incident that occurred at Kansas two weeks prior. Kenseth was suspended for 2 races and this arguably cost Logano a championship.

Despite the 18 cautions, only 3 cars DNFed due to crashes, although this was before the “Damage clock” was brought in by NASCAR to prevent cars heavily damaged and multiple laps down from rejoining the race.