Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Pete Lyons' Travels On Racer Road: Can-Am & Formula 1 in their Golden Age

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Pete Lyons' Travels On Racer Road: Can-Am & Formula 1 in their Golden Age · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all
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over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors,
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designers, and everything in between.
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Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder to.
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How did they get that job or become that person?
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The Road to Success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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Tonight we're honored to welcome one of Motorsport Journalism's
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most respected voices.
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I. Pete Lyons with a career spanning over five decades.
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Pete has covered everything from the raw thunder of Can-Am and Formula one to the
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gritty drama of endurance racing at lama.
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His vivid storytelling, deep technical insight, and front row access to some
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of racing's most iconic moments have made him a staple in publications
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like Auto Sport Road and Track Auto Week and Vintage Motorsport.
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Whether he's recalling battles between legendary drivers or peeling back the
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curtain on Motorsports innovation, Pete brings history to life with unmatched
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passion and precision, and we're going to dive into his latest publication.
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My Travels on Racer Road, Canam and Formula One in their golden Age
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with a man who not only chronicled Motorsport history but lived it.
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Joining me tonight is John Summers, the motoring historian,
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one of the many personalities on the Motoring Podcast Network.
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And with that, let's welcome Pete to break fix.
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Well, Eric, John, and, and everybody, thank you so much and I'm gonna
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hire you to be my publicist.
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You did a great job there.
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It really is.
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Marvelous, isn't it?
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Some of it's almost true.
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It's all true.
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Even the lies.
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Pete, with that said, reading your most recent book, it looks like you weren't
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that enthusiastic about cars when you were younger, but yet by your teenage
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years, it became a passion of a lifetime.
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So what were the experiences that had piqued your interest and set you
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on the path for your future career?
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My dad was really keen on cars.
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Ozzie Lyons, photographer, engineer, movie guy.
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He did a lot of things, but he was a, a journalist, did a lot of photography
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at car races and so he was really very interested in cars, especially
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car racing when I was like 12 years old or so, I would go along with him
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to the track, like a family vacation.
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We go from New York state all the way down to Florida to Seabring every
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March, so dad could photograph the races and we could play in the sand
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and the mangrove swamps and so on.
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But I was completely bored by cars.
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I mean, I'm in the backseat.
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I'm a kid, I don't get to do anything but sit there and wait for us to
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get to the next Howard Johnson so we could have some lunch or something.
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And so I had no hands on experience of a car, so I didn't
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understand what it was all about.
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But then when I got to learner's permit age, dad started teaching me to drive.
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Oh, I get it.
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This is fun.
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In the matter of weeks, I was a converted race car person.
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I remember vividly my first time had driving a car and also being in at a
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race where I was interested and Dad gave me a camera and told me about shooting,
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and then he had a dark room at home.
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Every house we lived in in, he built a dark Aram.
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So I got hands on instruction on Souping film and making prints and so on.
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Basically, that's the path that set me on and here I am.
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So as we continue down your journey, looking through the chapters of the
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book, it seems like you were a backpacker before backpacking was popular,
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and you hear those romantic stories about a loaf of bread and a bottle
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of wine and traveling through Europe.
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So you found yourself in England and then continuing on European travel.
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What drove you to go to Europe?
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Well, let me first say that there were a lot of backpackers in my day.
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It's not a new phenomenon.
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We're talking 19 61, 62, 63.
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When I was there.
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I was with backpackers all the time.
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There'd be two or three standing at the side of the road when you'd
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walk up and stick your thumb out or on trains or sleeping in campsites
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or on park benches in Paris.
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True story.
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I did that.
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So, you know, backpacking was not novel, but it's a way to go.
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So was it motor sport that drew you to Europe?
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Oh yes.
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Yeah.
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I was not doing much of anything by the time I turned 20 years old.
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A whole bunch of stories in the, in the book about what I was doing,
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traveling and working and so on.
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But I was really trying to go to all the races I could and I decided I have to
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go to Europe and so I went to Europe.
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I had enough money for about two months in Europe.
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And then at the end of that two months, I didn't want to come home.
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So I found a job and I worked that winter and then I traveled the next
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summer and worked again that next winter and traveled some more the third year
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and I just didn't want to come home.
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I went to as many races as I could.
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I bought an old Norton motorcycle secondhand, and I traveled all the way
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down to Sicily, to the Target Florio.
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In 1962, I went to the Berg Ring in Germany where I froze
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the piston and the cylinder.
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It was a single cylinder engine and I devoured the piston and
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had to wait in Germany for nine months before I could fix the bike.
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I learned a little German then.
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What Model Norton was it?
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It was a 1959 model.
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50. It was a three 50 single, very basic, but the engine wasn't anything special.
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What I liked about it was what I'd read about the road holder
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forks and the featherbed frame.
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You know, the man won so many motorcycle races in that era.
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I. And this was basically the same motorcycle.
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A lot heavier, a lot slower, a lot cheaper, but so am
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I. So it suited me fine.
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I, I enjoyed riding that all over Europe.
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Where did you buy it?
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In London.
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I bought it, I walked into a dealer in London and you showed
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me the bike and I bought it.
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It was the new bike, was it?
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No, no, no, no.
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Two years old.
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This, this was almost winter time of 61 when I bought it.
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And it was a 59, so it was two years old.
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It was a good bike, but I did thanks to it that I shouldn't have.
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So you're deepening your romance, your love affair with Motorsport
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being in Europe, because every time you turn around there's a famous
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racetrack here, there and everywhere.
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Had you established, at this point, maybe some favorites or some bucket
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list tracks that you were trying to get to, to record a photograph
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or capture or just experience?
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Yes, but the first one on top of the list is always going to be the
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Burging, that Fantastic Mountain Road course in eastern Germany.
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In those days, it was 14.7 miles around and it had something like 184 corners
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depending on how we count a corner.
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And it was incredibly difficult to learn.
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It was incredibly devious.
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It was really damned dangerous.
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It's my idea of what a racetrack ought to be, and I know it.
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Doesn't fit into the modern, uh, conception of what racing ought to be.
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So be it.
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I'm in the old days.
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Compare that to Lama.
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Lama is totally different.
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There's a lot of magic there.
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It's not as long.
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In those days, it was about nine miles around far fewer turns.
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The driving isn't as intricate.
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But of course you do it for 24 hours and there's two to three, even sometimes
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four different people in the car.
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So each one wants something different.
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So you have to compromise.
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And also in those days it was really endurance cars could not stand flat out
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driving for 24 hours like they can today.
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It's astounding what they can do today.
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But you, you had to nurse the car.
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I've been at Lama late in the afternoon and on Sunday afternoon they're, they've
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been running like 23 hours and they just have to get through the last hour.
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The engine note that used to be so pure and clean and lovely
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in the middle of the night.
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It's sounding hoarse and raspy and something's gonna break
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if I'm not really careful.
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The cars are streaked with filth.
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I mean, they have been through a long, long endurance, you know, 3000
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probably miles, uh, in the 24 hours.
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So it, it's a totally different experience and perfectly valid.
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Is that.
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And I love night racing.
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I love watching the car has emerged from the darkness and flash by and you
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see the flames from the exhaust and the bright red brake rotors and so on.
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So it's a spectacle, but it's not like Formula One at the Berg Brain.
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For instance, your story at the beginning of your book that's just coming out.
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The story of seeing the mat coming by at Lamar, it really resonated for me.
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Thank you.
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My best memory of Lamar, I went three years in the Audi years, about 20 years
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ago, and my best memory of Lamar is having the ritual Chinese meal at the restaurant
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at Herand Air, which I only did that once.
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And then walking down, and it would've been like 2000 or 2001, the
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guys I were wi was with were like, you know, za Straits just there.
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We could like walk down this driveway and like into this guy's back garden.
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And so we got close to the, and I remember the, I remember the night of the
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Corvettes and the glowing break discs.
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Yes, your piece.
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Brought that alive for me again.
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Ah, thank you.
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Thank you.
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It was magic.
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It was magic being there and I, I always figured my role was to try to express
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the magic for what I felt for people who couldn't be there, but wish they would.
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So that's the perfect segue into our next portion of your story, which is
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when did the light switch flip and you went from backpacker and motorsport,
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enthusiast to motorsports journalist.
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What were the series of steps that brought you to that point and then realizing
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that that was gonna be your career?
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That overstates the case.
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It just sort of happened and it happened because my dad was already associated
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with Autosport, the English weekly.
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You know, Motorsports publication from London.
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Dad was their USA correspondent and photographer for some years.
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And so it was actually not a path I chose, it was the path dad
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was following as on a weekend.
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And so I'm going along with him and I remember the thrill I had
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the first time, bought a sport, published one of my own photos.
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I mean, this is so exciting and I have to tell you, it's still exciting, but
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I couldn't figure out the, I was not aware of anything else I got to be doing.
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I thought I should do this.
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So I did.
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I wondered if.
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Part of the reason why you came here in the first place wasn't Dennis
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Jenkinson's Continental Notes.
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You're exactly right.
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As a mobile sports subscriber myself, that lifestyle was appealing to me,
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and I wondered if the Norton bike and the coming to Europe and the
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following, the Continental circus was DSJ instrumental in that.
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I got the sense he was absolutely.
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I often call Jens my guru.
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I never said that to his face, but when I was still in high school,
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someone gave me a book for Christmas.
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Obviously my dad, it was Dennis Jenkinson's book called The Racing Driver,
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which I still have, and I've photographed.
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There's a picture from it in the book.
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Jinx had this life, and it was the Continental Notes you could
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read sometimes in the magazine.
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We didn't get that magazine, but I saw copies from time to time.
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So I knew this English guy.
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In those days, he had a Porsche, a little 3 56 coop, and he would motor around
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Europe going to these fantastic races like the Targa, Florio like spa, like
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Monaco, Rimini, Pescara, places like that.
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And then he would write about his journeys and then his stories about the races.
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They just spoke to me.
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He brought out the feeling in me.
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I can remember there, there was a, a story that Jenks wrote.
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I think it was about Pedro Rodriguez driving a Porsche nine 17 around
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brands Hatch and probably the BOAC six hour race, something like that.
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As I recall, it was a rainy day and he just described Pedro just
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dancing slithering around that wet.
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Racetrack.
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And honestly, John, I felt my breath coming fast.
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I was, and I'm sitting 3000 miles away months later reading words
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and I, this is powerful stuff.
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Yeah, it's, it is awesome.
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That reading your words in the book, expressing that for me, the article
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that did that for me was Dan Jenkinson's article about the Milli Milia in 1955.
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It was republished in 1995.
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In the June edition of Motorsport, and it was right after I'd finished
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graduation so I could read something that wasn't the decline and fall
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of the Roman Empire for a minute.
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Yes, and I read the Jenkinson article and I loved it.
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Yes.
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Love the sense of.
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Adventure and there's a sense of joy diviv, which is missing from contemporary
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motorsport, and it's sad that that's gone.
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I'm not close enough to motorsport to be sure, but I think the people who
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are involved in current motorsport, I think they're as passionate
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about it as we were in those days.
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So I'm not gonna say that they're not finding the same kind of enjoyment.
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It's different from what I remember.
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But on the other hand, there's a lot of it.
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It's good too.
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For one thing.
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We're not killing as many people.
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That was the perfect segue into talking about the mortality.
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I don't think we want to dwell on it.
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I think people know that it was very dangerous.
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I mean, all you had to do is look at the cars and the circuits and the driver's
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suits and so on and and the helmets.
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And they were very aware that it was dangerous.
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There were ongoing efforts to make it safer.
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Every year they tried their best to improve the cars and improve
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the barriers and et cetera, et cetera, but we kept losing people.
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The first year in my, in Formula one for me, we lost two drivers and then
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the next year we lost one, and the third year we lost two more in 76.
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My last year, I don't think anyone died.
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I not on in Formula one that I can remember.
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I might be wrong, but it was a very, very dangerous period.
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I put this in the book, the editor of Autosport in those
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days, he was the founder.
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He was a Scottish guy named Gregor Grant, and he said something once, I think
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he wrote it in one of his editorials.
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He said that, you know, motor racing is indeed dangerous, but you know, you must
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remember that when we started in the late forties, early fifties, we had just
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come through the most dreadful war and we were used to horrible things happening.
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And so motor racing is quite innocuous by comparison.
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So that was their thought.
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Nowadays we have moved so far beyond that, we just don't know what it was like then.
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And nowadays when someone is.
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Killed.
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And it does happen.
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Many younger people are just shocked.
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How can this possibly happen?
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And yet it was part of the game back in those days, very much so.
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And I, I feel like that kind of motorsports survives in the
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form of the Isle of Man tt Yes.
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Have a place of students at local university.
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And for them, they see the TT more as existing with other extreme sports than
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it does with Motorsport, as the resident motorsport as they understand it now.
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And I thought that was quite an interesting perspective.
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It was something that we had to deal with.
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I had to write obituaries for people that I thought of as friends.
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I used to try very hard not to get close to them because there was
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that risk of, you know, losing them.
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I wasn't very good at not being friendly with 'em because
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they're such fascinating people.
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I've said before that I don't recall ever meeting someone in motor
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racing who wasn't an interesting person in one way or another.
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Part of it is we're all there because we're all enthused by
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the same thing, and you just feel like you're part of a fraternity.
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I'm on the outskirts.
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I'm a journalist.
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There's an adversarial relationship that one is aware of subliminally.
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It's not that they were unkind to me or wary of me, but you could see that the
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way the mechanics talk to each other is a little different than the way they
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talk to the journalists who stopped by.
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I developed good friendships and, and they would tell me things that I heard
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them not telling other people, you know, you never actually break through
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the barrier and get to the inside.
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I discovered that a couple times when I joined the crew of a, a race
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team on a, like a club racing thing.
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All of a sudden I'm a remember a team and somebody else comes around and
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wants to know what we've done and.
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I can feel it.
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I'm not going to tell him.
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I can see from that perspective how my approaching any of the mechanics or, or
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designers or crew chiefs around the racing team in those days, they would be cordial
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and friendly and partly because I'm the press and so they want to be nice to you
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so they will write about them and so on.
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So it's a, it's a lovely conversation.
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In the same moment you can see in their eyes, I'd best be careful.
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He might ask me something I shunt wish to tell him.
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You know, let's switch gears and talk about Canam.
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We have had only very few opportunities to discuss Canam on this show.
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I had been fortunate to sit down with a friend of yours.
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We had Rick Nup on here.
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Yes, talk to us about his Lamont experience.
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But he has tons of racing experience in Can-Am and he
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shared those stories with us.
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And so I want John to lead us down this exploration of Can-Am.
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It has such a mystique around it and has such an epic period in Motorsport history.
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So, John, take us down this road with Pete really does have a
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epic kind of, uh, worldly feel for me as a, as an Englishman.
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So let's begin with the obvious about.
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Canam.
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The perception is that there were no regulations.
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It was this sort of wild west of no rules.
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Was it really like that?
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There were some rules, but there were so few rules.
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Many people have said, I like to say it was the thinnest rule book in Motorsport.
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It probably rivaled only by the Pikes Peak Hill Climb Rules where
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it says Open class at Pikes Peak.
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Is any car capable of going for the Hill Climb Track record is eligible.
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Okay, we can work on that.
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Canam did have rules because it was associated with the Sports
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Car Club of America and their Canadian counterpart, CASC.
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They came together and they produced a sports car series, an international
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one between the two countries.
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That's why it was called Can am Canadian American, and it was
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a series of professional races.
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Across North America and they adopted the old idea of sports cars as experimental
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things Can-Am cars didn't come into being.
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They evolved outta what had existed before.
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In Britain, you had what they called big banger racing.
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They were McLaren's and Lolas and other cars.
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British made chassis with big Chevrolet Ford and Oldsmobile engines.
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They were called big bangers, and the crowds loved them.
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And I'm talking, you know, 64, 65, and we had the same thing going on in the States.
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Not only English cars with American engines, but we had American cars
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like the Cunninghams came before them.
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Then we had the scabs in the late fifties, and then by the early 1960s,
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they were building things like the Chaparral 63, 4, something like that.
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Again, all of that was.
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A fermenting growing blossoming thing, which in 1966 was codified in the Can-Am.
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But that whole ethos of you wanna put a bigger engine in it, oh,
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that's great, let's hear it run.
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Whereas eventually, and in most cases.
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Rules get piled on top of rules.
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One rule leads to two more and eventually you can't move.
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If you wanted to design a Formula one car or a Lama car today, but
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you wanted to make it a little wider than usual, Uhuh can't do that.
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Lad, you wanted to make the engine a little bigger.
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Uhuh not allowed.
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Seems like every line of a modern design race car is drawn for the
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designer by some rule or another.
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It's so constrained, whereas Can-Am was wild and free.
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You want a bigger engine this year or this week?
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You want a bigger engine.
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Okay?
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We'd love to see that.
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You want a different transmission.
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You want to make different aerodynamics.
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Remember, the Chaparral came up with that wing on the above, the rear wheels
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so that it would, aerodynamics would push the back wheels down on the road.
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That was unheard of and yet was perfectly legal in Canam.
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Everybody loved it so that it was a totally different era.
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So thinking about those kind of creative innovations, I mean, you
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mentioned Jim Hall and Chaparral.
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Who would you say the top three innovators were in Canam?
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Chaparral with Jim Hall and Hap Sharp for sure.
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They did the first fiberglass, meaning composite chassis in racing in 19 63, 62.
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There had been a car made by Colin Chapman at Lotus, which had a glass
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fiber chassis, but that was a road car.
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The elite Jim Hall, I'm sure he knew about that car, but they
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built a rear engine sports car that had that fiberglass chassis.
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Guess what?
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Today everybody has a carbon composite chassis.
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So that was an innovation which has stuck.
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Jim Hall pioneered what everybody called an automatic transmission.
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It wasn't automatic.
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It was a torque converter transmission.
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So in other words, there was no clutch, but you put your foot on
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the gas pedal and the thing locked up in the car moved forward.
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And the way you changed gear was you simply moved a lever.
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You had to move the lever.
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It didn't do it by itself, so it wasn't automatic, but it was
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an innovative, different kind of transmission that allowed the driver
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to have two pedal control, just like you have in a Google cart.
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Left foot brake, right foot gas, and like you have in Formula
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One cars and other cars today.
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Again, that that was a Chaparral thing that came about in the early 1960s.
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And then the aerodynamic revolutions that Jim Hall came out with, I described
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the wing, and later on there was the fan car that had an extra motor.
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You could add an extra motor to a KN car.
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Nobody said you couldn't do it.
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And that was to spin a couple of fans at the back, which extracted air from out
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under the car and turned the whole car into a limpet, you know, suction cup.
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It just grabbed the road.
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Those are the main things that Chaperral did.
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They also were the first people that I was aware of doing instrumented testing.
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I have a picture that I took at Bridge Hamden once, a big passenger seat
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of the Chaparral with a big reel to reel tape recorder sitting in the
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passenger seat, belted in with wires, going to all sorts of sensors around
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the car, and I knew enough not to ask, what's all that for Mr. Hall?
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Oh, would rather not talk about that.
21:09
I asked Jim Hall once there had been a little aerodynamic appendage at
21:12
the nose of one of the chaparrals, like a little additional aerofoil,
21:16
no, no bigger than my arm, stuck at the front where the air intake was.
21:21
Then it disappeared, and I, I said, Jim, why?
21:24
Why did you, why have you removed that little appendage that
21:26
front of the car while Pete.
21:29
I had enough time to think I'm gonna get a great answer here.
21:32
He's thinking about his answer.
21:34
It had a neurodynamic effect that I'm not gonna tell you about.
21:38
Thank you, Mr. Haler.
21:40
This is the kind of thing that made that whole episode of my life so much fun.
21:44
I felt like I was in a giant adventure going along with people who were opening
21:50
doors into the future and they tolerated me tagging along and watching them and
21:55
taking pictures and writing about it.
21:57
I wasn't one of them, but they welcomed me to come along on the ride.
22:00
It was just so much fun.
22:01
I was lucky enough to meet Don Nichols some years ago, and I found talking
22:07
with him in the pit lane at Monterey.
22:09
He clearly relished telling stories, and I found myself
22:14
thinking some of these are true.
22:16
Some of them I'm not really sure about.
22:18
I'm just enjoying all of them.
22:20
Talk about some of the innovations that you remember shadow bringing to Can-Am.
22:25
Well, the first one of course was Trevor Harris's tiny tire car, the 1970 car.
22:30
Trevor and Don got together.
22:32
Trevor had fountains of ideas.
22:34
He's an amazingly talented, brilliant, innovative guy.
22:37
His mind just throws out ideas like sparklers.
22:40
He wanted to try a car that was like a go-kart and that had small wheels.
22:45
He had, he wanted 10 inch diameter wheels, so therefore like 14
22:49
inch, 15 inch diameter tires and slightly larger at the back.
22:52
But the whole idea was to make a car that was lower to the ground.
22:56
Trevor knew about endurance carts.
22:57
Doesn't say that.
22:58
That's what led him to the idea, but the same concept, getting
23:02
a smaller package down low.
23:04
And so there's less air resistance.
23:06
And he thought with a, a smaller engine but less air resistance
23:09
and less weight, you could go as fast as a big block heavy car.
23:13
And so he got done.
23:14
Nichols interested in that, and Don agreed to finance it.
23:17
And so they came out in 1970 with this most.
23:19
Amazing thing.
23:21
I mean, it would literally stop you in their tracks the first time you
23:24
saw it, thought for the first time at must sport in 1970, I knew what
23:27
it was, but I hadn't seen it before.
23:29
And good Lord, so how can I photograph this?
23:32
You know?
23:32
So get down to my knees, and I looked photographed up because that would
23:36
elevate the height of the people around it and things like that.
23:39
It was not a successful car.
23:41
A lot of that had to do with circumstances outside of Trevor's control, but it
23:46
led to a long line of other shadows, each of which got more and more
23:51
conventional, but finally won the Canam Championship four years later.
23:55
So that's an important car.
23:57
And then in Formula One, they did do some cars that were fast, particularly in 1975.
24:04
The Shadow DN five was it.
24:08
That started from pole position on a couple of races that year,
24:11
which is darn good in Formula One.
24:13
In 76 I think they won a race.
24:16
They won the Austrian Grand Prix.
24:18
Alan Jones, later a Formula One champion won his first Grand Prix with shadow
24:23
at the Austrian Grand Prix in 1978.
24:25
So, but then the team never had the funding it needed, not when they
24:29
started to get good, so it faded away.
24:31
The story is fascinating.
24:33
Don Nichols own personal story is fascinating.
24:35
Trevor Harris and Peter Bryant, who was an interim designer, and then Tony Southgate
24:40
who did the successful cars later, what a kaleidoscope of fascinating people.
24:45
Absolutely.
24:46
That's what I found myself thinking that Don Nichols was
24:49
in his seventies when I met him.
24:51
He had a long ponytail and I was like.
24:53
Dude, that's just so cool.
24:56
Riding with Revy.
24:58
Ah, you must have been friends with him for that all to come along and just
25:02
explain to people who've not perused your book, what that's all about.
25:05
Riverside Raceway 1971, a few days before the very last Canam of that year, and
25:12
at the end of that race in 1971, Revson was going to be the first American to
25:17
be the Can-Am champion in McLaren MAF.
25:20
You can see the two seats in there and the full Bo that you work over the wheels and
25:24
it actually has doors here on each side.
25:27
And those three things together make it a sports car.
25:30
Other than that, it's a, it's a wild, basically unlimited car.
25:34
The engine was as big box Chevy as they could make with an aluminum block.
25:38
Gearbox was big and, and they could absorb that torque.
25:41
The tires were big and fat.
25:42
It had aerodynamics on it.
25:44
By this time, there were some rules restricting The aerodynamics could
25:47
no longer have them mounted up in the air like Chaparral had with struts
25:52
going down to the wheels to press the wheels themselves down onto the road.
25:56
This way, the downforce goes through the body and the suspension down to
25:59
the wheels, which isn't as pure as the Chaparral, but that got banned.
26:03
So more and more rules were creeping into the cannon.
26:06
Anyway, to your question, it was a, I think it was Tuesday before the race
26:10
and one of the sponsors had some of their people out, and I was out there
26:14
anyway because I'm a racetrack junkie.
26:16
Hey, they're gonna be testing today, I'm going out.
26:18
And I found that, uh, ready was giving people rides from the sponsor.
26:22
So I got in line and they looked at me, oh, I paint in the seat on this side.
26:28
There was no upholstery in it.
26:29
It's nothing but a sheet metal tub, you know, aluminum tub.
26:33
Although the rules said that it was supposed to be equal for the
26:37
driver and the passenger, they did cheat it over a little bit because
26:40
there wasn't enough room between the fuel tanks for two human beings.
26:44
So the driver needed to have a good seat and the passenger only needed to be along.
26:49
He didn't have to actually be comfortable.
26:51
I can, I remember sort of driving my hips down into this narrow thing.
26:55
And then I had to keep my right arm away from Revson.
26:59
He's right hand drive car, and he's shifting with his left, doing
27:02
this with his steering wheel.
27:03
And so I didn't want to get into his way when he's steering the car.
27:07
Teddy May, the team manager, he clasped by hand.
27:10
He was doing this to everybody.
27:11
He said, give your hand.
27:12
He held it up and clamped onto the roll bar here, where, where my
27:15
thumb is, that sloped part of it.
27:17
And, and that's my head underneath there.
27:19
And so I'm holding on like this.
27:20
And on the left side, I've got my hands out as far as I can and
27:24
holding it over the outside of the mono clock underneath the door.
27:27
And then my foot well, was so narrow.
27:29
The only way I could get in there was to take off my shoes and in my
27:32
stocking feet, I put one over the other and just sort of slipped in there.
27:36
So it was not what you call a, a relaxing and comfortable position, but.
27:41
At a time like this, who goes for comfort?
27:43
We went out of the pit.
27:44
By that time I knew Riverside, I'd done a Formula Ford School there.
27:47
So I, I was familiar with going around Riverside at Formula Ford speeds.
27:51
But this thing was, he sort of motored out of the pits and then nailed it in first
27:57
gear and literally my head went like that.
28:00
I mean, you know, we hear about next snapping acceleration.
28:04
It's true and nothing but blue sky.
28:06
Then you put your head down and then bang again.
28:08
And even when he went from fourth gear in into fifth at 140 miles an hour,
28:14
whatever it was, there was the same thing.
28:16
It didn't lessen with the speed.
28:19
And I reckon we, by watching the tachometer, which I could see in
28:23
the wiggling needle, the highest number I saw was the equivalent.
28:27
I found out later from the lap chart, from the gearing chart,
28:30
it was 185 miles an hour.
28:32
And then after that, he still had his foot down on the
28:35
throttle for a couple of seconds.
28:36
So I'm convinced I saw like 190 miles an hour down the back,
28:40
straight at Riverside with like that.
28:42
And at the end of it, there's this boilerplate steel wall
28:45
around the outside to turn nine.
28:47
It's a long way away, but it's coming at me like this.
28:50
And, uh, kept thinking, Mr. Revson, sir, perhaps you might want to
28:54
think about putting your foot on the brakes, sir. I'm exaggerating.
28:58
But when he did, I saw why he didn't have to do it before.
29:01
I mean, we just like that.
29:03
And if I had not been holding onto the bar like this, I have a feeling
29:08
I would've pivoted outta the car, forward my ankles over my heels,
29:12
out over the nose of the car.
29:14
That was the feeling I had.
29:15
I'm glad Teddy put my hand here.
29:17
You mentioned Teddy Mayer there.
29:19
Yes.
29:19
In the wake of Bruce McLaren's passing, did Teddy hold the team together?
29:25
I mean, it's astonishing that the team leader passes and then all of a sudden
29:29
you have this incredible success in Can-Am and then through the seventies.
29:35
Building success in Formula One into the Ron Dennis era.
29:38
So did you perceive that firsthand?
29:40
Talk about that Teddy Mayer for sure.
29:42
I mean, he was a very early friend of Bruce.
29:45
He was a business partner.
29:47
He was a manager financial guy I think.
29:50
And Teddy was an instrumental portion of the structure that
29:53
makes a team a part of the machine.
29:55
But the mechanics, they were all on board with this keeping Bruce's legacy going.
30:01
Tyler Alexander, another American, both Teddy and Tyler were Americans there.
30:05
There were a whole bunch of Kiwis, some English, there might've been
30:08
other nationalities, I'm not sure.
30:10
But it was the kind of team that was so successful and so solid that people
30:14
wanted to come and work for McLaren.
30:16
They brought Dan Gurney and when Bruce was killed 10 days before
30:19
the first race of 1970, they tapped Dan Gurney to come in and drive the
30:23
car for the first couple of races.
30:25
And of course he won the race, both of those races, and then he'd step back.
30:29
So all of those people, including Denny Hall.
30:31
Denny home was often described as sort of a tower of strength.
30:35
I've used that phrase that held the team together, but it wasn't any one person.
30:39
But certainly all the people we've mentioned, it's just the way they were.
30:43
They're racers, and if you are a racer, you keep racing.
30:46
If you decide you don't wanna race anymore, you stop racing.
30:50
I mean, it's actually a fork in the road.
30:51
Thinking about the tracks, you mentioned Moss Port.
30:55
Was canam better to watch when the circuit was really fast, or was
30:59
Canam better when it was a slower circuit and it slowed the cars down
31:03
and they couldn't use all that power?
31:05
Each circuit tends to be different, which means you see different things.
31:09
I wouldn't say one is better than the other.
31:12
Mosport is a wonderful track, still is today swooping and
31:16
fast and bumpy and varied.
31:18
You know, I love tracks with hills on them.
31:20
For that reason.
31:21
I used to love San Jave in Canada, in in Quebec.
31:24
Province we go is like that.
31:26
Watkins Glen has a lot of that road.
31:28
Atlanta and mid Ohio and so on.
31:30
Riverside was wider and faster, more open, and longer straits gets
31:36
the same number of corners roughly.
31:37
I used to think of that as a faster track than Laguna second, but then I think it
31:42
was Denny Holm one day who corrected me.
31:44
He says, no, Laguna second is bloody fast, Mike.
31:46
I think it has to do with, even though you're not going that speed, you're in
31:50
a tighter turn and there's things closer to you, so it still feels that fast.
31:54
It might be a little like Silverstone in Silverstone in its original form.
31:57
Yes.
31:58
None of the straits were that long, but you didn't have to slow down
32:01
for any of the corners that much.
32:02
So the overall lap speed was not that far off.
32:05
Monza?
32:06
Yes, Silverstone is a track I've known for a lot of years, various iterations of it.
32:11
It was built on an airfield, a World War II bomber base, and so it's basically
32:16
on flat terrain, so it doesn't have that dramatic up and down that I love.
32:21
And you're right, in those days it had, it was the perimeter road around the runways.
32:25
It went around the X shaped runways.
32:27
So it wasn't that complex a circuit, but it was fast and wide
32:31
open and wood coat turn in those days, the last turn on the lap.
32:35
Was a blood accordingly, fast, right-Hander, I mean
32:39
fifth gear, practically flat.
32:41
Practically flat and fifth gear.
32:44
And on those tires in the seventies with the big baggy Goodyear tires,
32:48
their bias play tires were not radial.
32:50
So they, they were floppy springs were soft and the aerodynamics
32:54
were not very strong in those days.
32:56
So you could really see something going on.
32:58
The cars would lean and slide and the drivers are working like this and
33:02
there, there's two of them doing that.
33:04
And through boot coat it, who knows?
33:05
160 miles an hour maybe that was a vision.
33:09
And then of course they put in the bloody chicane that ruined it.
33:13
Didn't shechter one year cause a big pile up or, so I've probably
33:17
denigrated Shechter name unjustifiably there, but there was a big rack.
33:21
One year and that's what made them put the chicane in.
33:23
Shechter did have a big crash there and I guess it was not immediately after,
33:27
but after that they did put in a chicane.
33:29
That's right.
33:30
Yeah.
33:30
Later did what everyone called the Shechter chicane at Watkins Glen.
33:34
Watkins Glen had a somewhat similar sequence, uh, as you know, the glen sort
33:39
of down and first in those days it was the first turn, sort of fast downhill
33:43
right up the hill over the crest and so on, and there was a nasty fatal
33:48
accident that crested that hill once.
33:50
Subsequently Shechter lobbied people to introduce a chicane partway
33:55
through it to slow the cars down.
33:56
And immediately there were all sorts of accidents at the Shechter chicane.
34:00
So they took it out and went back to the original.
34:02
That's Jodi's, uh, contribution to this particular discussion.
34:05
Silverstone used to be my local circuit, so the first time I ever watched a motor
34:09
race was in the grandstands at Woodcote.
34:12
Oh, great.
34:13
Fully, I appreciate what you mean.
34:15
It wasn't until I came to California and I rode motorcycles around Laguna
34:19
and Infineon see's point that I realized what they talk about when
34:23
they say technical because no circuit in Britain is remotely technical.
34:27
All the corners, they're just like there.
34:29
And how big are your cahones?
34:30
And you turn in and maybe the car slides and maybe it doesn't
34:33
and you wrestle it round.
34:34
And Silverstone was wonderful for that.
34:36
Do you have a favorite British Club circuit?
34:39
Well, I didn't see enough of them to actually judge that.
34:41
I liked Brand's Hatch.
34:43
In the old days, the first racing car I ever drove was at Brand's Hatch.
34:47
I fronted up one day in 1967, I think, and I paid X pounds and I got four laps
34:53
and a little formula Junior or something.
34:55
And it was all over so fast.
34:56
I can't really tell you what I thought about it was, oh, this is,
35:00
I'm closer to the road than I thought.
35:01
Oh, those are wheels there.
35:02
My gosh, this thing just Agile.
35:04
Oh, you know, oh, is that the last lap?
35:07
You know, it wasn't until I took the formula of the Ford School,
35:10
then I had three days of it, then another three days of the racetrack.
35:13
Then I began getting an acclimated to it and I felt, I knew what a
35:16
Formula car should feel like then.
35:18
But I liked Brand's Hatch.
35:20
I had a wonderful ride with Ronnie Peterson once he was out there testing
35:25
one of the Lotus Formula one cars, and of course testing his little
35:29
while of intense action on the track, and then an hour between times while
35:33
the mechanics changed something.
35:34
And so he had a Lotus that was the mid-engine car with a rental engine.
35:39
So we're, we're sitting in the B. He's sitting there.
35:41
And the thing about Ronnie is he was so langy.
35:45
I mean, he was tall, Swedish guy, pale blonde hair, very placid.
35:50
And in that car, he was sitting back and his left hand was just sort of lying on
35:54
the console, massaging the gear lever.
35:57
And his right hand was on the steering wheel and it was going like this,
36:00
and his face was perfectly placid.
36:02
And at Bren's Hatch, you came past the pits and went uphill over the crest of a
36:06
hill, which then went down into a gully.
36:09
The S speed motor was about 80, and the thing is healed over and
36:12
sliding and Ronnie's doing this, it felt like we were in streetcar.
36:17
You know, it was pretty hairy.
36:19
And all this while Ronnie's driving this and he's got his head turning
36:22
me, he's talking to me the whole time.
36:24
And I thought I couldn't do that.
36:27
I liked Brian's aelant, but, but you don't consider that a technical circuit?
36:30
I dunno.
36:31
Brands.
36:31
I know Thruxton pretty well and Thruxton is my favorite
36:34
of the British Club circuits.
36:36
It seems like every adventure we go on with Pete, we can't stop talking about
36:41
Formula One in some capacity or your return to Europe after the advent of
36:45
Can-Am and finishing up that series.
36:48
So let's talk about returning to Europe in more detail and
36:51
your time with Formula One.
36:52
How did that come to be?
36:53
How did you pick up that gig?
36:54
The short story is that Leon Mandel at Autoweek informed me
36:57
that I was coming to work for him.
36:59
Canam was dying at the end of 72.
37:01
There were several reasons for it.
37:03
Not at the only reason, but part of it was, you know, the Porsches
37:06
had come in with factory cars.
37:08
The Canna McLaren's, for instance, had roughly 750 horsepower if you
37:13
could believe what people told you.
37:15
Whereas the Porsches came in at like 980 and very quickly were at 1100 horsepower.
37:21
I mean, there's just no way McLaren could compete with that.
37:24
They would've had to build a whole new car, go through a
37:26
whole new development program.
37:28
They did a turbocharged Chevy engine, but they were breaking the
37:31
gear boxes, so they'd have to go through a whole gearbox program.
37:35
So at the end of 72, they were beaten by Porsche.
37:38
They just decided they couldn't come back.
37:40
It was a financial thing.
37:41
It was business matter.
37:42
You know, you can't squander money.
37:43
And at the end of that year, I could see that coming.
37:46
Lola was gone, Chaperral was gone.
37:48
Shadow hadn't yet amounted to anything.
37:50
So it was just a matter of Porsche, Porsche, Porsche, and
37:53
I was losing interest and I.
37:55
Just one make racing per se.
37:57
And so I was thinking of doing something else.
38:00
Anything else?
38:00
I didn't know what I would do, but I was thinking, I, I think this
38:03
is my last year, I'm gonna quit.
38:04
And I was walking into the pit lane on the first day of practice and there's,
38:08
uh, race cars and they're running and it's hard to hear anything but Leon
38:12
Mandels at the far side of all four of them, they're two McLaren and two forces.
38:16
But Leon had the kind of voice that pierced that cacophony, and
38:20
he said, lines, don't go away.
38:23
Your future all planned.
38:25
That sounds interesting.
38:26
So basically he, he hired me and sent me to Europe to do Formula One.
38:29
So that's actually the story of how it happened Comes at a super exciting
38:33
time in Formula One history, right?
38:34
This is the advent of the aerodynamics and the Y tires and all the sponsorships and
38:39
the famous deliveries and the Marlboros and all the other brands that we can't
38:43
talk about or show on cars anymore.
38:45
And don't forget, at that point, 73 was the same year that Shadow came
38:48
in, followed by both Penske and vs.
38:51
Parelli Jones.
38:51
For one point we had three separate makes of American car in Formula One.
38:57
But it was, I think, was part of the reason Leon sent an American to cover
39:01
the races and in so much as Can-Am has this mystique unto itself, the team,
39:06
the name, the brand Lotus is also shrouded in a bit of mystery, right?
39:10
There's so many different stories and hearsay and you're there in
39:13
the middle of it, in the fray with Colin Chapman and everyone else.
39:15
Can you talk about your time witnessing Lotus and what was going down?
39:19
Not from any good insider perspective.
39:23
They were one of the 15 teams, let's say, that I had to keep track of.
39:28
I had to write two stories from each race, auto, sport, and auto week.
39:31
And I had to keep track of chassis numbers for odds sake, which is kind of a joke,
39:35
but we won't go into that right now.
39:37
So Lotus was here, but then there was McLaren Ferrari, Heskith March
39:42
problem, whole bunch of them, you know, so that my time was split.
39:45
And so I didn't live Shea Lotus for the whole period of time.
39:49
They had some marvelous cars.
39:51
They were fascinatingly innovative within the rules.
39:55
My favorite was the wedge-shaped Lotus 72 that Emerson Foral
39:59
drove for a championship.
40:00
I mean, that car, I've written a book about it and that car is
40:02
just so elegant and interesting.
40:05
It was a car unlike any other, it was almost like a spaceship compared
40:09
to a, a typical Braham or Laren.
40:11
Well, and the reason I bring it up is because things are happening
40:14
simultaneously and we tend to fixate on a single point, or a
40:17
single person or a single thing.
40:18
But at this point, fellow Motorsports, journalists, Jerry Cromack is chronicling
40:23
the story of Lotus that later became the book Chapman and his machines.
40:27
And so I'm wondering, you know, did you rub elbows with Rom back
40:30
and was he able to share anything that he was working on with you?
40:33
I did know, Ja, of course.
40:35
In fact, I visited him in Paris one day and he gave me an assignment.
40:38
It's like seem to remember, I can't tell you what it was now,
40:40
but I didn't delve into it.
40:42
I mean, it was well known that he was a Colin Chapman fan.
40:45
Oh, I was a bit of a McLaren fan.
40:47
You talk about you, you knew Mike Sson and were were friends with Mike.
40:51
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
40:51
He was my landlord for some time.
40:53
I believe.
40:54
Mike Sson was the journalist who developed a close relationship with
41:00
Sana, and then SNA felt that he liked.
41:03
Betrayed his trust and you wouldn't speak to him anymore.
41:07
And there was a whole, I know nothing about that.
41:09
That was after my time and I, I can't say a thing about it.
41:11
I didn't know that.
41:12
My thought about that was there must have been occasions where you were told
41:17
things or overheard things or learned things just by being around the pit, just
41:23
by walking from the shadow garage to the McLaren garage past the Ferrari garage.
41:28
There must have been things that you heard or saw or juicy bits of news
41:33
that you didn't want to write about.
41:35
Very little, but I was told things in confidence and I promised I wouldn't say
41:41
anything, and I'm gonna hold to that.
41:43
Nothing earth shaking, I mean nothing scandalous, no bodies anywhere.
41:47
There is something I can talk about.
41:48
Just to satisfy you, BKI Sims, who was at Braham one day came to me and he says.
41:54
Pete, what do you know about that Chaparral that had the fans on the
41:58
back and it stuck to the ground?
42:00
I said, oh, are you thinking of doing something like that?
42:03
Then Beaky, he says, oh, the governor wouldn't want me to say,
42:07
but you, do you have any photographs?
42:09
And so I went into the Autosport archives and I dug through file folders, and
42:13
they came up with two or three, four pictures that I had personally taken
42:16
back in 1970 and sent to Autosport.
42:18
Then I got on my Norton and I wrote down to, uh, almost straight to, uh,
42:22
Gordon Murray, the designer at Bra.
42:24
I says, BKI tells me you're thinking of doing a ground effects car.
42:27
Did he?
42:28
That was indiscreet of him.
42:31
But the end result was I took those photographs on my bike riding down
42:35
to where he and his wife lived on in the, it, it actually looked
42:39
like a little cottage in the woods.
42:40
It a pretty, and, uh, I turned up and his wife says, oh, yes, Golden's expecting
42:44
you, but he's, uh, he's out in the wood at the moment on his motorbike.
42:48
And presently I heard this trial's bike coming, PA, pa, pa, pa. And.
42:52
Gordon appeared coming outta the woods and stopped me, and he looks at me,
42:55
he says, you can't think about bloody motor racing when you're riding this.
42:59
So we went in and I displayed my photographs and I told him what I knew
43:04
about it, the Chaperral and how it worked, and what the effects were and so on.
43:07
And then I said, I won't say a word about this until you're
43:11
actually ready to announce it.
43:12
If you go ahead and do it, I want an exclusive on the story.
43:16
And that was the deal.
43:17
But the car actually came out after I had left Formula One, so
43:21
I never wrote about it and it was many years before I wrote about it.
43:25
But that's the kind of thing that you can get into, particularly if you're
43:29
accepted and trusted to a degree, they will tell you things, but on the
43:33
understanding, you both understand that you're going to keep it to yourself.
43:36
People would say that Lotus is, were built a little too light.
43:39
Well, unfortunately that probably was accurate.
43:43
Lotus did have a number of nasty failures that caused accidents.
43:47
A team like McLaren was probably on the other side that, you
43:50
know, they were conservative, which is why they finished races.
43:53
I used to keep statistics and at the end of one year I figured out that
43:58
the team with the best reliability, the best finishing record was
44:02
McLaren by quite a long bit, like something like 84% of the races.
44:06
Whereas other teams were down in the 50% range, they broke that often.
44:10
Why were you able to perceive a difference in the approach?
44:13
Yes.
44:13
McLaren, for instance, was much more conservative.
44:16
They didn't fly out and try to do something novel just because it was novel.
44:22
They had plenty of ideas of their own.
44:24
They made the interesting developments of their car, but they didn't suddenly
44:27
decided they needed to take a hundred pounds off the weight to the car.
44:31
You know, the idea is to finish the race, and they built cars to finish the race.
44:36
My perception of it, they might say to something else, but at the same
44:40
time they were qualifying on pole.
44:42
They were doing fastest laps.
44:43
They were making world champions.
44:45
So you can't say they were slow, but they were built in a kind of robust, logical,
44:51
solid way, and they lasted through races.
44:53
Whereas Lotus's tended to be a bit fragile.
44:56
So let's turn the page and talk about another team that I think many people
45:01
have probably spent time on unpacking.
45:03
And that's Tyrell.
45:04
Oh yes.
45:04
I used to hear the story that they were built in a timber yard.
45:07
A woodyard, I thought, oh yeah, sure, sure, sure.
45:10
And it turns out to be absolutely true.
45:13
So stupid.
45:14
I never went there.
45:15
I mean, it was a matter of 45 minutes drive from where
45:17
I was living in those days.
45:18
I could have gone to Terrell, I could have gone to Lotus.
45:21
I did go to McLaren.
45:22
I went to a couple of other places, but I never went to some of the ones that, in
45:26
hindsight I wish I had, in which case I would have walked into this timber yard.
45:30
Ken Carroll was, he sold a lumber and it would've been a, a woodyard
45:35
piled with timber and sheds.
45:37
And one of the sheds that you might not have looked twice at,
45:39
if you open the door, there was the Formula One racing shop in it.
45:43
So it's true that they were building a in a timber yard.
45:45
Ferrari's Garage, east Easter Jaw.
45:47
He had some truth to it.
45:49
Oh.
45:49
Oh, he called them the Galler East.
45:51
That's right, yes, that's right.
45:52
It was thanks to first the Coventry climax engine from Britain and then the Cosworth
45:57
DFE engine that Keith Duckworth designed.
46:00
Those were the ones that were available publicly so that so many
46:03
could participate in Formula One.
46:05
In those days, you did have Ferrari that built their own engines and
46:09
gearboxes as well as chassis.
46:11
And you also had BRM that did the same thing in England, and
46:14
occasionally you had somebody like Al Romeo or at TS or Mara did that,
46:19
but list all the cars on the grid.
46:21
You had the Lotus's that McLaren's the Tyrells, the
46:25
Brahams marches, uh, keep going.
46:27
They were all built around the Ford Cosworth DFVV eight engine.
46:32
Yes.
46:32
To the extent they were hot Rods garage East, perhaps some of them were actually
46:37
built in garages like the Terrell's were.
46:39
But I know that the, the first shadow was started construction in the guy's
46:44
garage, literally his home garage.
46:46
He pushed his wife's car out and put the bare metal that they were
46:49
putting together for the first shadow before they got their actual factory.
46:53
So yes, it garage east is accurate.
46:55
But, excuse me, sir, that Mr. Uh, crime back, they were winning races.
46:59
It's astonishing for me that this one engine packet, were they different
47:03
or when you walked down the pit lane and stood close to them, was the
47:07
construction similar, even though the livery and the wings were different?
47:10
Very similar because, let's face it, they were all built by the same basic people.
47:14
A lot of the chassis were actually farmed out to, uh, specialist
47:18
that built things like that.
47:19
So they were similar.
47:20
They were built to the individual design, but they were riveted and
47:24
glued together, and that probably the thickness of the metal was the same.
47:27
And all the tools and the, the workmanship was the same.
47:30
Not all of them, but they used the same suppliers for brakes, for wheels and
47:35
tires, suspension springs, gearboxes, almost all used a specific gearbox.
47:41
So there was a lot of commonality.
47:43
On the other hand, at the same time, you could see that the designers were trying
47:47
different things, but it, it wasn't major.
47:49
You know, they would change little shapes here and there and different
47:52
suspension geometries and put their radiators in different places and
47:56
try different body profiles and different wing shapes and positions.
48:00
So there was some difference, but it was variations on a theme, let's say.
48:05
Whereas in Kda, you know, the Chaparral had very little resemblance to a McLaren,
48:09
to a Lola, to a shadow, to a Bryant, yes.
48:13
They tended to have big block Chevy engines and Hu and transmissions.
48:16
Okay.
48:17
And this, at the same time, they did have the same kinds
48:19
of brakes and shocks and so on.
48:21
And the tires all came from the, the supplier, Goodyear, I
48:24
think, and Firestone for a while.
48:25
So from that standpoint, they were the same.
48:28
And yet the fact that.
48:29
You could do a different chassis.
48:32
In the earlier Chaparrals, they had these aerodynamic changes
48:35
that other people didn't have.
48:36
Even though they were using many of the same components, it's still, they
48:40
were, I think there was more variety in k and m than there was in Formula One.
48:44
Formula One had more rules.
48:45
My perception is certainly that there was more variety in Can-Am and there
48:50
was in Formula One, and I wonder how much the, you know, similar components
48:53
and all of that led to Formula One being, I'm not sure if competitive's the
48:58
right word, but certainly its popular appeal grew right the way through the
49:03
seventies and its appeal to sponsors grew out the way through the seventies.
49:05
And I wondered how much of that was due to the fact that the cars were.
49:08
Relatively similar.
49:10
So you didn't have the situation where Porsche came along
49:12
and kind of won everything.
49:13
I'm sure you're right.
49:14
Yeah.
49:14
The days of Mercedes having the dominant car and then Ferrari having the
49:19
dominant car, it's still an interesting spectacle to watch, but it's much
49:24
more exciting if you have different cars and different drivers doing
49:28
different things on different tracks.
49:29
You know, in one track, certain car is good, the next track you go to, the
49:33
other one has an edge, and sometimes the races are just dreadful, boring
49:36
processions, but other times they're just wheel to wheel and oh my God.
49:39
Did you see that?
49:40
So it's Vila di.
49:42
I'm sure we could talk about Formula One and Canda all night, but let's not
49:46
give away all the details in your book.
49:49
So let's switch gears into our final segment and talk more about your book
49:54
and let's talk about the journey of what I call 80,000 words and setting off.
49:58
And you've written books before, but let's talk about.
50:00
Why this book?
50:02
Why now?
50:03
Why put this compilation together?
50:04
What inspired you to write basically your life story?
50:07
I'm going to turn 85 in a few weeks, and the morning of my 80th
50:12
birthday, almost five years ago, I woke up thinking, ha, 80 years old.
50:17
Who would've thunk it?
50:18
I've had one hell of a life, and I think that was the germ.
50:21
I, I can remember taking a piece of paper.
50:23
Well, before I got outta bed, I, and I started writing down some thoughts, which
50:27
over time sort of turned into the book.
50:29
I think it was just an idea until one day my wife said to me, her name is Lorna.
50:34
She said, Peter, you should write your own life story now.
50:38
Okay.
50:38
You know, my wife isn't giving me instructions.
50:41
I can do that.
50:42
And then totally serendipitously the publisher in England, Evro Publishing,
50:46
Mark Hughes is the editor there, and he's a wonderful person to work with.
50:50
I had done a couple of books with him before Lotus and Shadow and so on.
50:54
We were talking one day and he says, Peter, have you ever thought
50:57
of doing a book about your life?
50:59
And I said on, you should mention that, mark.
51:02
So I sent him some samples of what I'd been kind of noodling up and he says,
51:07
yes, yes, we'd like to see more of this.
51:09
So what really pushed it over the edge was the photos I could bring to it.
51:13
The words are one thing, but I was blessed with having such a huge photo archive.
51:17
Not only my own, but of my father's before me and including childhood
51:21
photos, and even back when he was a, a young man dating my mother.
51:25
You know, he's got photos and a lot of those are in the book.
51:28
And when Mark saw the wealth of photography I could offer,
51:32
they got quite excited.
51:33
And I thought, this makes a good book.
51:35
With a normal biography, there's maybe one or two childhood pictures,
51:39
but I get the impression because your father was into photography.
51:43
Those early chapters give a really complete picture of your childhood and
51:47
sort of set the scene for the person that you become in later chapters.
51:50
It's, it's really an enjoyable experience.
51:52
Those early chapters.
51:53
John, you make my heart soar.
51:54
That's exactly what I hope to come across.
51:56
Thank you, sir. How did you find it?
51:58
Writing about yourself and not writing for someone else.
52:02
You had such a long illustrious career as a journalist, writing about other things,
52:06
and you're always that omniscient third party looking in and then, you know,
52:09
reporting the story to us, the audience.
52:11
But now you're reporting your life story to us, the audience.
52:14
You maintain a sense of your journalistic style in your writing in the book,
52:18
but did you find it to be a whole new challenge, really writing about yourself?
52:23
I'm not sure challenge is the right word, because it seemed to flow.
52:26
You're right, it's different and the whole period of time,
52:29
and I'm still feeling it is.
52:31
What bloody cheek to write about yourself, who cares?
52:35
But I'm getting a lot of people that seem to like what I did,
52:38
so that's very gratifying.
52:39
It's sort of narcissistic to do a thing like this.
52:42
If people wanna read it, I'm perfectly happy to do that.
52:45
But it is different.
52:46
You're right.
52:46
So when you look back over your chronology with wiser eyes and maybe rose colored
52:52
glasses in some ways, do you have a sense that your journalism, or even journalism
52:57
in general in motor sports has evolved over this time and putting together
53:01
all of your memories and your memoirs?
53:02
Before I ever even thought of becoming a writer on that trip to Europe, the
53:07
two and a half years I spent in Europe, I was keeping journals all the time.
53:10
Diaries, I guess we call them in those days.
53:12
I filled several notebooks or you know, composition books with, I'd have a few
53:16
hours of motorcycle ride and then I'd stop at I'd sidewalk cafe for light
53:21
lunch or something, and I'd pull out the notebook and I'd write down some
53:24
of the things I'd seen in my sleeping bag that night in the campsite.
53:27
I'd write some more.
53:28
And so I got used to writing what I had seen during the day, not necessarily
53:34
anything to do with motor racing.
53:34
I'm talking about the Alpine Pass that I just crossed earlier that day, and now I'm
53:39
sitting at a gustof and I'm having a beer and a wienerschnitzel, and I pull it on.
53:43
I talk about riding that my Norton across the A.
53:46
That was fantastic.
53:47
That's the kind of thing that set me up for doing what I
53:50
did later and professionally.
53:52
And we've had other writers on the show, and they've talked about the editing
53:55
process being one of the biggest hurdles, you know, getting their story told the way
53:59
they want it to be, because some editors said, well, you should take that out.
54:02
Yeah, that makes sense when you're telling a story again from that third party
54:05
view because you're like, well, maybe we can take out that paragraph or two,
54:08
because it doesn't really add any value.
54:10
But here again, you're writing about yourself and what do you say to your
54:13
editor when they go, oh, come on Pete.
54:15
We really wanna talk.
54:16
You wanna talk about this?
54:17
And you're like, yeah.
54:18
Right.
54:19
It's my story.
54:20
I wanna tell it the way I wanna tell it.
54:21
So what was the editing process like for an autobiography?
54:24
Well, particularly with Mark Hughes, it was marvelous.
54:27
It was a delightful experience, but as you say, there are things that
54:31
they want to take out, and I was able to dissuade him on occasion.
54:37
He accepted my reason for wanting to leave something in, but
54:40
thick as this book is 550 pages.
54:42
It would've been like 700 had they printed everything I sent them to begin with.
54:46
So there had to be a really painful chopping off your left arm kind of thing.
54:51
There's a value in that storytelling.
54:53
I mean, obviously you have those 200 extra pages somewhere, but do you feel
54:56
like part of your story is left untold by not having that information published?
55:01
No.
55:02
No.
55:02
Honestly, I think Mark's expertise, his vision, his view of it, his
55:07
perspective is superior to mine.
55:09
I really actually enjoy writing.
55:11
I like to watch thoughts appear on the screen, and just because
55:15
I've had the thought, it doesn't mean it needs to be in the book.
55:18
Just as an example, riding across France, I stopped for supper one night.
55:22
I had a experience in the restaurant that I wrote about for the book,
55:27
but Mark thought, well, it doesn't actually advance the story much.
55:30
It was a matter of my first French restaurant meal.
55:33
So I thought, oh, this is, I've heard about French dining.
55:36
Let's see what it is.
55:37
So I ordered a salad and something else.
55:39
Presently the salad appeared and it was a very good salad, and I ate some of it.
55:43
Then I put it aside to enjoy the rest of it with my meal,
55:46
and I sat there and no meal.
55:48
I sat there some more, no meal.
55:51
Started crossing my arms like this and looking around.
55:53
There was nobody else in the restaurant.
55:54
I was alone.
55:55
Looked around and finally outta the corner of my eye, I saw the face of
55:58
the waiter stick his head out of the kitchen and he looked back and got back.
56:02
And the third time he did it, I was ready.
56:04
And I said, where's my supper?
56:06
And he came over and he carried a dish out and there was something about his posture
56:09
and his movements, his deliberate motion.
56:11
He was telling me something like, and he put it down in front of me.
56:14
Then he moved to take the half eaten and salad.
56:17
I said, no, no, I want to have that.
56:18
And he put it back and he just gave me this weird look and he walked away.
56:22
Then I remembered that I'd heard that in France, they eat meals and courses.
56:27
We eat everything.
56:29
I mean, I eat everything together.
56:31
I'll take some meat and then some potatoes, and then
56:33
some salad and vice versa.
56:34
In France, apparently you're supposed to finish the salad and then that goes
56:38
away, and then you have the main course.
56:39
And I told that story.
56:41
It was part of the adventure of cruising through Europe and getting
56:44
to know what was going on there.
56:46
So that's one of the stories that got put on the cutting room floor.
56:48
Thank you for letting me tell it.
56:49
Now, inside of that anecdote is.
56:52
Moral for younger writers who are looking for some inspiration from you.
56:58
And, and I, I wanna expand upon that to ask any advice for someone who's
57:02
sitting down and maybe considering writing their autobiography.
57:05
Not to mention writing an a novel or a biography or another type of book,
57:08
but if you're considering writing an autobiography, do you have any words
57:12
of wisdom that you can pass on or, or lessons learned from your experience?
57:16
I won't call anything I say is wisdom.
57:18
No way.
57:18
I often get asked when people know that I've been writing my biography, they
57:22
say, oh, I've always wanted to do that.
57:24
I said, well, what's stopping you?
57:25
Oh, I know I don't have time, or I don't know how to write or anything.
57:29
So I say, start simple.
57:30
You know, just think of something that happened in your life.
57:33
It could have been this morning, it could have been when you're more five years old.
57:36
Just put some words down on paper and I don't know any
57:40
other advice to give somebody.
57:41
It's just to start developing it.
57:43
The people so far that I've talked to that I've told them that to,
57:47
I asked them a few weeks later, well, how's the biography coming?
57:49
Oh, well, I haven't, haven't actually done that.
57:52
You know, so I haven't helped anybody is the answer.
57:55
I, I would seriously advise anybody to just keep a diary.
58:00
Also do photographs.
58:02
And I don't mean just put them up on the cloud from your cell phone,
58:04
keep them somewhere, get an office like uh, John has of your own photos.
58:09
But the fact that my dad had this archive and I had an archive
58:12
helped a lot with the book.
58:14
But even if you don't have that, but what you need to do is make writing
58:18
a practiced thing that you do.
58:21
I'm not sure that the skill is the right word either, but if you just write and
58:25
write and write and think about what you write, am I expressing what I felt like?
58:29
What happened to me going to work today?
58:32
What did I see that was different and what do I think about it?
58:35
Stop and scribble down something.
58:37
Things like that.
58:38
And eventually you'll build up something and you'll find that, you
58:41
know, this reminds me of something happened when I was four years
58:44
old and I see a relationship.
58:46
This kind of thing has happened to me.
58:48
So I, I think it's a voyage of self-discovery, but
58:50
you've got to actually do it.
58:51
Keep rolling the boat.
58:53
Pete, at nearly 85 years young, it took you almost five years
58:57
to complete this project.
58:59
Yes.
58:59
What's next?
59:00
Is there something else on the horizon?
59:02
Well, I, I am in fact working with another guy on a book.
59:05
I don't think he's ready for me to tell the world what he's working on, but he's
59:09
a person who has a fascinating life story to tell, and I'm helping him tell it.
59:13
Well, Pete, we've reached that point of the episode where I like to invite
59:16
our guests to share any shout outs, promotions, thank yous, or anything
59:20
else that we haven't covered thus far.
59:21
Let's not forget this.
59:23
This is available@petelyons.com.
59:25
Lorna and I sell it.
59:26
You're all invited to go to pete lyons.com and uh, look for it.
59:30
And if you like what you see, there's other places you
59:33
can get it, but you get it.
59:34
My, with my autograph here.
59:35
And folks, that's a wrap on this incredible conversation with a motor
59:39
sports author and historian Pete Lyons.
59:41
From the Thunders Days of Canam to the drama of Formula One, Pete's
59:45
storytelling continues to bring racing history roaring back to life.
59:49
His passion, insight, and firsthand experiences remind us why
59:53
motorsports isn't just about speed.
59:55
It's about the people, the machines, and the moments that define them.
59:59
Whether you're a longtime reader of Pete's books or just discovering his
1:00:02
work now for the first time, we hope today's episode inspired you to dig
1:00:05
deeper into the archives and relive some of racing's most iconic eras.
1:00:10
So be sure to check out his website, www.petelyons.com to
1:00:14
learn more and pick up a personally autographed copy of his latest book.
1:00:18
My Travels on Racer Road, Canam and Formula One in the
1:00:22
Golden Age from his website.
1:00:24
And with that, Pete, I can't thank you enough for coming on Break Fix
1:00:27
and sharing your stories with us.
1:00:29
This has been a beautiful experience, reliving the past, an epic past in
1:00:33
one of the best periods of motorsports through your words, and it's been an
1:00:36
absolute privilege to share your stories.
1:00:39
So thank you for doing this.
1:00:41
Thank you for writing the book, and we hope to hear more from you soon.
1:00:44
Thank you to both of you.
1:00:45
It's been a great fun day.
1:00:46
And John, thank you again for coming on and sharing this journey with me.
1:00:50
Thank you, Eric.
1:00:51
Thank you very much.
1:00:52
And thanks, Pete.
1:00:53
Thank you.
1:00:58
This episode is brought to you in part by the International
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Its charter is to collect, share, and preserve the history
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The Center's collection embodies the speed, drama and camaraderie
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The Center welcomes serious researchers and casual fans alike to share stories of
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To learn more about the center, visit www.racing archives.org.
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