Remembering the fallen

[MonteCristo]

Bottom post of the previous page:

RIP Mr Kalkhoven, who stuck it to FTG - for a while at least.

Kevin Kalkhoven 1944 – 2022

Kevin Kalkhoven, whose motorsport involvement included co-ownership of racing series, teams, events and suppliers, has died at the age of 77 after a short illness.

Born in Adelaide, Australia, Kalkhoven first built his reputation as a highly successful CEO and venture capitalist before emerging onto the motorsport landscape in 2003 when he partnered with team owner Gerry Forsythe to bid on the assets of CART, which had declared bankruptcy at the end of that season. After seeing off a higher bid from Tony George of the rival Indy Racing League – who was only interested in acquiring CART’s supply of Cosworth engines and sanctioning deal with the Long Beach Grand Prix – the new ownership group faced a scramble to get the new Champ Car World Series up and running in time for the 2004 curtain-raiser at Long Beach.

https://racer.com/2022/01/04/kevin-kalkhoven-1944-2022/

Interviewed him once at Surfers and he was lovely. Sigh.

[Everso Biggyballies]

I posted a bit about him in the Indy thread, probably more appropriate here so copied across.

One of the three amigos of Champ Car has passed away .

https://racer.com/2022/01/04/kevin-kalkhoven-1944-2022/

What a full and great life he had.... fingers in so many pies from racing teams, series and also suppliers like Cosworth who he led from a lossmaker into a successful business way beyond its original skills.
Extraordinary business successes (ie Uniphase who he took from a 'nothing' $25 mill business to a $100 billion company) . Voted in the top 50 American CEO's last millennium.
Also voted one of the top 5 most powerful and influential people in Motorsport.
Oh and he was also a qualified commercial pilot.

Not bad for an Aussie from Adelaide.
(Although I believe the. Kalkhoven name has Dutch origins)


He will be missed by many

RIP Kevin Kalkoven.

[Everso Biggyballies]

RIP Danny Ongais. 1942 - 2022

Hawaiin Danny Ongais, a race-winner and ace qualifier in Indy car racing whose career spanned three decades died last weekend of congestive heart complications.

The only native of Hawaii to start the Indianapolis 500, Ongais was nicknamed “Danny On-The-Gas” and the “Flyin’ Hawaiian” for his bravery and commitment in overpowered late ’70s Indy cars, but his love of speed had shown itself far earlier...... he was Hawaiian State Motorcycle Champion back in 1960.

Danny also ran a limited number of F1 GPs with Ensign and Penske, as well as F5000, Sports Cars and Drag Racing.

Born in Kahului, Ongais got his start racing motorcycles, and returned from a stint as a U.S. Army paratrooper to win the Hawaiian state motorcycle championship in 1960. More success on two wheels followed, but he wasted little time in branching out and added AHRA Gas Dragster titles to his resume in 1963 and 1964, followed by the NHRA AA Dragster championship the following year. A switch to Funny Cars later in the decade yielded two wins in a Ford Mustang for team owner Mickey Thompson in 1969. The Ongais/Thompson combination would prove to be even more potent on the speed record circuit, where they used a Mach 1 Mustang to set nearly 300 national and international records on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

By that point Ongais had already taken a swing at the Indy 500, but was turned away from the 1968 race on the basis of his almost complete lack of experience in open-wheelers. But his time in Europe with the Army had opened his eyes to road racing, and in the mid-1970s he began working up through the ranks of the American scene. His dominance of the 1974 SCCA season put him on the radar of entertainment mogul Ted Field.

After further success in F5000, the pair went into USAC and Indy car racing in 1976 under the Interscope Racing banner. Ongais made his debut at Ontario that year, and claimed his first win the following season at Michigan. He added an additional five victories in 1978 – more than anyone else in the field – but mechanical problems and inconsistency left him eighth in the points. He also made a mark at the Brickyard that year, planting the Interscope car between Sneva and Rick Mears on the front row.

Ongais in the Interscope Racing Parnelli VPJ6C Cosworth at the 1980 Indy 500. He finished seventh after starting from 16th on the grid. Motorsport Images

Ongais and Field also took Interscope into Formula 1 for the two North American races in 1977, yielding a seventh at the Canadian GP. Ongais returned to F1 the following year for two races with Team Tissot Ensign, but with less success.

Towards the end of the decade, Ongais and Field expanded the Interscope horizon to include sports cars – with Field now driving as well ­– and they teamed with Hurley Haywood to win the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 1979 in the Interscope Porsche 935 prototype.

It was also during 1979 that Ongais made his first foray into CART. His debut at Phoenix, where he qualified fourth and led the race before being derailed by an engine failure somewhat set the tone for the next couple of years: a story of blazing speed, but bad luck or other circumstances conspiring against him fully capitalizing on it. But all that took a back seat when he suffered a massive accident in the 1981 Indy 500. He’d pitted as the leader on lap 63, only to lose more than 40s to a catastrophically slow pitstop. Upon rejoining, he made a late pass on a slower car at Turn 3, lost the rear, overcorrected and pounded the barriers nearly head on. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, and spent the rest of the season on the sidelines recovering from factures to both legs, a broken arm, and a six-inch tear to his diaphragm.

Indeed, while he continued to produce decent results upon his return in 1983, his later years were defined almost as much by a handful of significant accidents – not all of which he was directly involved with.

He was very much at the center of the big one in 1985, when he was launched into a massive barrel roll down the backstretch at Michigan after running into the rear of Phil Krueger. Two years later, he crashed during practice for the Indianapolis 500 and sustained a concussion that forced him to miss the race. His misfortune set the stage for Al Unser to make some history of his own when Penske called him up as an 11th-hour replacement and he won his fourth Indy 500 in a backup car that had been serving as a show car on display in a hotel lobby in Pennsylvania just weeks earlier.

Ongais’ final appearance at the 500 had its roots in far more tragic circumstances in 1996 when polesitter Scott Brayton was killed in a practice crash and team owner John Menard tapped Ongais as his replacement. Ongais, then 54 and making his first start at the Speedway in a decade, lined up at the rear of the field and finished a remarkable seventh. He made one final attempt to qualify with Team Pelfrey two years later, but was bumped.

Notoriously private and publicity-shy, Ongais spent his later years surrounded by his family in southern California. He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2000.

https://racer.com/2022/02/28/danny-ongais-1942-2022/


RIP Danny "the Flyin' Hawaiian" Ongais

Dug out a few pics of Danny.....



Danny Ongais driving the Batmobile in the 1981 Indy 500.

[erwin greven]

Tsuyoshi Oono: 1972-2022
Owner of race-winning Super GT team Max Racing, and gentleman driver known as "Go Max," passes away



Tsuyoshi Oono, the representative director of Oono Associates and owner/driver of Super GT team Max Racing, has died at the age of 50.

His passing on 2 March was confirmed via a letter from Oono Associates to their employees and stakeholders. No cause of death has been disclosed.

A successful businessman from the city of Matsuyama in Ehime Prefecture, Oono’s racing career began in the 2017 Ferrari Challenge Asia Pacific series. As a gentleman driver, he competed under the pseudonym “Go Max,” and went on to take five wins in the Ferrari Challenge series from 2017 to 2020 – and finished runner-up in the Am category championship in 2019.

In 2018, Oono established Max Racing. Their journey began in the Super Taikyu Series, where they raced a Lexus RC F GT3 in the premier ST-X class – with “Go Max” competing as their gentleman driver. They also formed a technical partnership with legendary privateer team Tsuchiya Engineering.

After the 2019 Super Taikyu Series, Oono and Takeshi Tsuchiya brought the colourful Takanoko-no-yu RC F GT3 to the Autobacs Super GT Series, competing as a one-off entry in the non-championship GT300 Sprint Cup at Fuji Speedway.

Max Racing would shift focus towards Super GT, beginning with a full-time entry in 2020. While “Go Max” himself was no longer at the wheel of his team’s racing cars, he was hard at work building his racing team and brokering deals with the series itself. Takanokono Hotel and Hot Spring (Takanoko-no-yu), Max Racing’s title sponsor and an Oono Associates subsidiary, became a title sponsor of four races during the pandemic-affected 2020 season.

Max Racing had a difficult first season in GT300, but improved dramatically in 2021. They switched vehicles to the Toyota GR Supra GT300, and the talents of young drivers Atsushi Miyake and Yuui Tsutsumi saw them take their first victory at Suzuka Circuit in August.

Oono would also sponsor Miyake’s 2021 Super Formula Lights campaign with Rn-sports; Miyake finished fourth in the championship, won two races, and will make the step up to Super Formula this season with Team Goh.

Outside of motor racing, Oono was also an avid enthusiast of thoroughbred horse racing: One of his horses, Stella Veloce, won the 2021 Kobe Shimbun Cup G2 race.

https://www.dailysportscar.com/2022/03/ ... -2022.html

[John]

Been sort of off the grid lately, so just found out about Ongais' passing. Very said, RIP Danny.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Tsuyoshi Oono: 1972-2022
Owner of race-winning Super GT team Max Racing, and gentleman driver known as "Go Max," passes away



Tsuyoshi Oono, the representative director of Oono Associates and owner/driver of Super GT team Max Racing, has died at the age of 50.

His passing on 2 March was confirmed via a letter from Oono Associates to their employees and stakeholders. No cause of death has been disclosed.


https://www.dailysportscar.com/2022/03/ ... -2022.html

So young..... RIP Tsuyoshi Oono

[hollie3sa]

[Everso Biggyballies]

RIP Vic Elford,



.....arguably the best all rounder of all time and still the last British driver to win the Monte Carlo Rally before marking his name in F1 and Sports Car record books. He is still the only person to have won the Monte Carlo Rally and finished the Monaco GP. As an aside, Vic won the first ever rallycross event

He was also the first person to ever lap Le Mans at over 150mph in the Porsche long-tail 917 in 1970.

Although he achieved his successes with many marques he will be remembered for his involvement with Porsche for much of his career. He was the first person to ever win (outright) a 24 hour race with Porsche..... a feat he managed at the 1968 Daytona 24 hours in a Porsche 907. Remarkably just the week prior he had won the Monte Carlo rally driving a 911!

At the Targa Florio, despite starting the second lap of the ten lap, 720 km race more than 18 minutes behind the leading car, Vic and co-driver Umberto Maglioli came back to win by more than a minute. Porsche, in recognition of his efforts, dedicated their traditional victory poster not to the car, but to the driver. The only time a Porsche poster ever featured only the driver - not the car.





Add to that a victory too in the impossibly long Marathon de La Route in 1967 that combined both the Nordschleife and now disused Sudschleife in a 28 km lap, Vic completing 7 hour long stints to win the race with Hans Hermann and Jochen Neerpasch.

In 1970 Vic Elford turned his attention to America, driving for Jim Hall's Chaparral team in TransAm (with a spectacular win in the rain at Watkins Glen) and CanAm (with sensational performances in the 2J "sucker" car).

By 1971 Vic had become one of the very few drivers to have won both the American Crown Jewels of endurance racing, the 24 hours of Daytona and the 12 hours of Sebring.

Lap records included:

Targa Florio
Nurburgring
Daytona
Sebring
Norisring
Monza
Buenos Aires
Road Atlanta
Laguna Seca
Riverside
Le Mans



As an aside, to show his bravery and the sort of fuy he was, during the 24 hours of Le Mans, when a Ferrari crashed in front of him, Vic stopped in mid-race to extricate the driver from his burning car T.V. cameras caught the action and Vic was named Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite by French President Georges Pompidou for his act of courage and heroism.

I know Vic had his cancer return last year, so I imagine it was this that finally took his life.

Goodbye Vic....










A bit James Hunt -ish in this pic.... sat in the car having a smoke.

[Oliver Dale]

RIP Vic Elford, arguably the best all rounder of all time and still the last British driver to win the Monte Carlo Rally before marking his name in F1 and Sports Car record books.record books a

He also narrated the film The Speed Merchants (all about the 1972 World Sportscar Championship) brilliantly.

A truly gifted gentleman in many ways.

RIP.

[erwin greven]

Kunimitsu Takahashi: 1940-2022
Japanese motorsport legend passes away at 82



Kunimitsu Takahashi, one of the greatest luminaries in the history of motorsport within Japan and around the world, passed away today at the age of 82.

Across five different decades, the man known affectionately as “Kuni-san” was a pioneering and successful racer, on both two and four wheels. As a motorcycle rider, Takahashi first made his name at home, winning the grueling All-Japan Motorcycle Road Races around Mount Asama in 1958 and 1959. His success captured the attention of Soichiro Honda, who recruited Takahashi to join the Honda Speed Club factory team in the 1960 World Grand Prix motorcycle racing circuit.

For the full article: Here

[Everso Biggyballies]

RIP Kunimitsu Takahashi

[hollie3sa]

E:\\ Missed the other thread: viewtopic.php?f=32&p=423458#p423458

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F1 podium finisher Reine Wisell dies aged 80

Reine Wisell, one of the elite group of drivers who finished on the podium in their first Grand Prix start, has died at the age of 80.

The Swede drove for the works Lotus, BRM and March teams before a career that started so promisingly faded away, and he slipped into the shadow of his close contemporary and longtime rival Ronnie Peterson.

Born in 1941 he began his career in saloon cars in 1962. He graduated to F3 in 1966, scoring a couple of local wins with a Cooper in his first season...

Full article: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-p ... 0/9197518/

[Everso Biggyballies]

Indy 500 veteran Ted Prappas dies

Indianapolis 500 veteran Ted Prappas has died, at the age of 66.

Prappas, who passed away on April 22 (local time), made just the one start in the ‘Greatest Spectacle in Racing’, but it came in memorable circumstances.

He had been the final driver to qualifying for the 1992 race, in 32nd position, thanks to a run he made with just six minutes remaining on Bump Day.

Ironically, Prappas had bumped Scott Goodyear with what was his third and final attempt to qualify in his primary car, only for Goodyear to take over Walker Racing team-mate Mike Groff’s car, and ultimately finish the race just 0.043s behind winner Al Unser Jnr.

The Southern California native won two Indy Lights races during his career, one in 1989 with Teamkar International and another in 1990 with P.I.G., when he ended the year as the runner-up.

He was also runner-up as CART Rookie of the Year to Jeff Andretti in 1991, after moving up with P.I.G., with which he also contested the 1992 season.

Back in 1986, Prappas took out the title in the West Coast Atlantic Racing Series, after debuting in open-wheelers in Super Vee in 1983.

He had done so in a car bought for him by Academy Award-winning actor James Stewart, whose career his mother had helped to manage.

https://www.speedcafe.com/2022/04/24/in ... ppas-dies/

[Everso Biggyballies]

RIP - SID TAYLOR (1932 - 2022)

Sid Taylor died Friday, 15 April from the effects of COVID19 and pneumonia. He was 89 years of age.

The name Sid Taylor will be remembered by many of 'the older generation', or those who take an interest in racing from the 1960's and 1970's onwards.... Sid was initially as a driver but more well known as an entrant in every category from F1 and F5000 down. The names of Denny Hulme, Vern Schuppan, Brian Redman, Frank Gardner, Jody Scheckter, Peter Gethin, Reine Wisell, and many others are those who benefitted from Sid Watkins involvement in Motor Racing. The white cars with the thick green stripe and two thin stripes is a firm memory of mine.


The car above is one I remember well. This is part of the auction blurb when it sold recently.

THE EX-SID TAYLOR, 1969-70 LOLA-CHEVROLET T70GT MK IIIB ENDURANCE RACING COUPE
Prominent Lola entrant Sid Taylor acquired the car and in his hallowed white livery with green centerline striping, backed by Hamlyn Books sponsorship, the car was campaigned Internationally by such tremendous driving talent as Denny Hulme, Brian Redman, Frank Gardner, Peter revson, Andrea de Adamich and Nino Vaccarella. The car fi nished 13 of its 17 races that season, winning fi ve, and adding four second places and a third. Brian Redman won in it at Thruxton, Norisring in Germany and Karlskoga in Sweden, while 1967 Formula 1 World Champion Denny Hulme also won in it at Thruxton and Frank Gardner at Innsbruck, Austria.



Peter Gethin in Sid Taylor's Mclaren M10B F5000 Thruxton



Another of Sid's Lolas at Brands Hatch for the Guards Trophy Support race at the 1966 British GP.



This is the BRDC (of which Sid was a life member) Notice of his Death .

We regret to have to report that Life Member Sid Taylor died last Friday, 15 April from the effects of COVID19 and pneumonia. He was 89 years of age and had been a BRDC Member since 1966.

Born and brought up in a farming family in the village of Rathfarnham, south of Dublin, where he was to run Taylor’s Grange Hotel, Sid moved to the West Midlands and established a successful plant hire business which enabled him to indulge his passion for speed on wheels. His first interests had involved motor cycles until a serious accident caused him some nasty injuries and left him with a permanent limp. Sid made the move to racing on four wheels with his road car, an Austin-Healey 3000, in 1961 before acquiring a Lotus Elite. In 1962 on home ground with the Elite Sid came second to South African Bob Olthoff’s Austin-Healey 3000 (the famous DD300) in the Leinster Trophy on the Dunboyne road circuit. The race was run on a handicap basis over a distance of 100 miles and admitted both single-seaters and sports cars. The following year, Sid went one better and won the Leinster Trophy against opposition which included John Pringle’s 2.5 litre Formula 1 Cooper-Climax T51.

The Elite gave way to a Jaguar E-type in 1964 which in turn was replaced by one of the new Lotus Elans which brought Sid a couple of third places at Crystal Palace. At this point Sid made the conscious decision to progress from amateur racing for fun at weekends to a competitor to be taken seriously on the national stage. He acquired from Team Elite the Brabham-Climax BT8 sports-racing car which had been driven by Bob Anderson and Denny Hulme, the future 1967 Formula 1 World Champion in particular enjoying considerable success with the car. Part of the deal involved Team Elite’s ace mechanic, Ron Bennett, continuing to look after the Brabham. An incidental ‘bonus’ was that the car was delivered in the Team Elite white livery with one wide and two narrow green stripes along its bodywork. Sid saw no reason to change the colour scheme which over the ensuing years has come to be regarded as synonymous with Sidney Taylor Racing.

In 1965 Denny won the RAC Tourist Trophy and other sports car races at Mallory Park and Crystal Palace with the immaculately prepared Brabham BT8 while Sid himself used the car extensively at circuits around the United Kingdom, winning six races and finishing second or third on five other occasions. The Taylor/Hulme/Bennet triumvirate proved so successful that the decision was taken to acquire one of the new Lola T70s for 1966. The successes continued as Denny won the first four major British races in succession including the RAC Tourist Trophy for the second time. Not surprisingly Sidney Taylor Racing and Denny won the British Sports Car Championship. Highlight of the year for Sid as a driver was winning at Phoenix Park near Dublin, setting a new lap record at 107.95 mph for the challenging parkland circuit.

By 1967 Sid’s team had become one of the best in the business with the ability to attract drivers of the highest calibre. In addition to Denny Hulme, others who raced and won for the team included Brian Redman, Peter Gethin, Frank Gardner, Reine Wisell, Derek Bell and Brett Lunger. Most successful of all was Brian Redman with 13 victories to his credit across both sports cars and Formula 5000 single seaters into which Sid Taylor Racing branched out with Peter Gethin in 1970, Peter winning eight races on his way to taking his second successive European Formula 5000 title in a McLaren-Chevrolet M10B. Peter also finished as runner up in the 1971 Interserie with a McLaren-Chevrolet M8E while Brian was second in the 1972 European Formula 5000 Series and third in US equivalent.

Another of the leading drivers who raced regularly for the team was Vern Schuppan through whom Sid came to meet Teddy Yip. The consequence was that Sid merged his racing team into Teddy Yip’s Theodore Racing. Over the next decade Sid ran the team which continued to be able to attract some of the best drivers with funds provided by Teddy Yip’s profitable businesses in the leisure and related industries in Macau and elsewhere. Formula 1, Formula 2, British F1, Tasman, Formula 5000, Formula Atlantic and Formula 3 were all categories in which the team won with drivers who included Keke Rosberg, famously the winner of the 1978 BRDC Daily Express International Trophy in torrential rain at Silverstone in the unfashionable, Ralt-derived Theodore TR2; Desire Wilson who won a British F1 race at Brands Hatch in 1980 and remains to this day the only woman to have won a Formula 1 race; Alan Jones, David Kennedy, Geoff Lees, Roberto Moreno and Bob Evans.

Sid Taylor lived for motor racing. At the peak of his powers, he ran a formidable team which achieved considerable success in most of the leading categories of International and British national racing. Although not in the best of health in recent years, Sid valued his membership of the BRDC and visited the Clubhouse as often as he could accompanied by his wife Mary who had been a considerable racer herself in the 1960s until suffering serious injuries in an accident at Silverstone. To Mary, to their daughter Tracey and to their many friends in the motor racing world, the BRDC offers its most sincere condolences at the loss of a great character. Sid and Mary’s son Sid Junior passed away in 2017.

http://www.brdc.co.uk/Notice-of-Death-- ... 932---2022

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bruce Ropner RIP
April 13, 1933 - April 15, 2022

Most wont have heard of him but an absolute eccentric larger than life character who whilst from a wealthy family funded many in hi speed sports, and providing for communities, whilst also being a Champion Olympian Bobsleigh Legend and motor sport identity.
He gave us Croft Autodrome Circuit, still in use by the BTCC to this day. He also had a hand in the resurrection of Mallory Park. Other than that he was a legendary record holding Bobsleigh Champion and Olympian (Something he still enjoyed doing well into his eighties!) and whilst from a wealthy background and he ran the family boat business he always joked his collection of cars was more the real him.

Great friends with a guy called Keith Schellenberg who I met very briefly decades ago as he was about to set off on the 1968 London to Sydney Rally in his Le Mans Bentley! (Maybe World Cup Rally. Many years ago and the memory.....) Somewhere I have a photo I took of the car on a Special Stage.

Anyway Schellenberg and Ropner between then converted Croft Airfield into a motor racing circuit..... Although there had been motorsport activity at Croft (sometimes called Neasham) Aerodrome in the fledgling years just after the Second World War, it wasn’t until April 1962, when the Air Ministry offered about two-thirds of the land totalling 160 acres for sale at a public auction, that things really started to take off as the two wealthy locals decided the area needed somewhere where they and others could race their cars, bought the land and developed Croft as a racing venue..


A short fun read of the more speed orientated part of his life can be found here (Unable to copy it) BRUCE ROPNOR: MAN OF SPEED

If you feel like reading more, an article about him from a couple of years ago telling of his career and how he still (in his mid eighties then) practices on his private bobsleigh run,Also he has been Bobslighing for over 7 decades, last going to Austria in 2018 where he ran at 140kph! Is this the world's oldest bobsledder? Former champion, 84, still practises on his own personal track despite two false hips and two new knees

Ropner and Shellenberg at Croft with Ropner's owned from new especially ordered racing version AC Cobra





He was crowned the 1962 British two-man bobsleigh champion just three years after jumping in a toboggan for the first time.

Obit in the Times of 4 May 2022:

Bruce Ropner obituary

Fast-living British bobsleigh champion, friend of Lord Lucan and shipping heir who built his own cricket ground and racing car circuit

...On one occasion he alarmed the young Duke of Kent by driving him at 132 mph in a 1930s eight-litre Barnato Hassan Bentley down the Great North Road. “The wheels were hardly touching the ground,” the duke reported, according to Ropner’s diary. The Bentley was still in one piece five decades later when it was sold for £1 million.

As if Ropner’s life was not already sufficiently colourful, he bobsleighed with Lord Lucan, umpired the inaugural cricket match on his own ground with Dickie Bird and converted a disused airfield into a racing car circuit....

...Although Ropner took having fun more seriously than he took himself, he also had a serious side, finding time to work for his family shipping firm, run his estate in North Yorkshire and chair his local Conservative Party association. He also found time to marry Willow Hare, a debutante who had been presented to the Queen....

...Jeremy Ropner would tell his family in later life how bizarre it was to have had someone who became so infamous sitting right behind him in the sled. “No one disliked Lucan but he was regarded as a bit thick,” he said. When Lucan disappeared after allegedly killing his children’s nanny in 1974, there was little further discussion about him among the Ropners, who were not gamblers....
...Ropner became chairman of the British Bobsleigh Association and was awarded an OBE for services to youth.

Robert Bruce Beecroft Ropner was born in West Hartlepool in 1933, the son of Sir Robert Ropner... The family were descended from German immigrants who had established a successful shipping business in the northeast, although the long-standing joke was that the family cars were worth more than their ships...

...On his estate near Bedale, much of which comprised forestry, Ropner created his own cricket ground for use by players in the locality... Ropner met Willow, the daughter of the chairman of a firm of cloth manufacturers and merchants, on holiday in the south of France. She survives him along with their two children, Robert, who runs a glamping centre on 150 acres at Camp Hill (the bobsleigh track closed as a result of Covid); and Nicola, who lives in a cottage on the estate. Robert’s wife, Johanna, is lord lieutenant of North Yorkshire...

Bruce Ropner, sports enthusiast, was born on April 13, 1933. He died as a result of heart problems on April 15, 2022, aged 89
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bruc ... -7b29cl69c

[erwin greven]

Sadly not only drivers or old-drivers pass away. This time a marshal passed away. While the race ran at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, a 52 year old marshal passed away while doing his job track side. That is why there was no champagne ceremony after the race.