As I posted a photo on another thread this morning of the drivers at last year's F5000 reunion at Oulton Park, it struck me how lucky we are these days to have the historic festivals & meetings highlighted by the Goodwood FOS & Revival that bring these old drivers, our heroes of yesteryear out of the woodwork and allows us to meet them and hear their stories. However there must be many drivers of various distinction and achievement that we know to be still around, who either choose or are unable for one reason or another to attend such events.
At first I thought about Chris Irwin, but then he has been seen albeit fleetingly in recent times. Then I thought of Trevor Taylor who is known to live in the Sheffield area but is never seen. Who is there still out there who you would like coax out of hiding and make an appearance in 2010???

Mad Dan Grewer - the craziest Volvo driver I have ever seen and the driver of I suspect the world's only Cortina with a Volvo engine.Mad Dan epitomised maximum attack before Marku Alen coined the phrase and embarassed some 'names' on the RAC rally - RIP- the rally anyway- I hope Dan is alive and well.

Tony Brooks . I never read anything about him .

By giraffe138 at 2009-05-08


By giraffe138 at 2009-05-08

Tony Brooks at Donington, May 2007.

Derek Warwick seems to shy away from from retro events, or am I wrong?

Seems he should be there . Isn't he doing some journalist work now ?

Well , he should speak up more .

Thanks for the photos . Good to see him out and about .

Derek runs a Honda dealership in Jersey and has his own F1 blog.

Has Kiwi Mike Thackwell ever turned up somewhere? He lives in the UK.

I'd be very curious to know if John Barber is still with us, and if so, where. (Of course not John "Skip" Barber, but the one that drove in the 1953 Argentine GP.)

Mike is featured on TNF by his brother Kerry, who is a TNFer but has not been here for some 3 years. I don't think he is the type to do the ex-racing driver thing, man.

According to my info John David Barber (born on 29. November 1929 in Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire) is still alive. He seems to live on a boat in the Mediterian, which isn't too strange for a former fish merchant.

Would I be correct in saying that is our friend John Campbell-Jones on the left?

John - a former Grand Prix driver now in his eighties - often accompanies David Holland to the TNF filmshows. A most charming man.

Well spotted, I'm not sure but that man does indeed look like him.

John was 80 in January, and his pal Tony was 78 last Thursday, the 25th.

Yeah, that's what we know - but if he had died any time in the past 30 years (I hope not) would we know? I'm not sure, as we don't even know which country he lives in.

Ih he'd died any time in the last 30 years he wouldn't be alive and living on a boat in the Med, would he

I don't think thats JCJ. A most delightful man indeed, and as I'm a good friend of David Holland, I've delighted in sharing good time with JCJ.
Barber - still alive to the best of my knowledge. His brother might let the aforementioned David H know, as David was the one who found out he was living in the Med in the first place.

Going to the point of the thread - well, funny, I was thinking this only earlier today.

We don't hear much (or hardly anything) from:

Alex Soler-Roig
Dave Walker
Hans Binder
Patrick Neve
George Eaton
Francois Hesnault
Ian Burgess
Mike Taylor
Trevor Taylor
Robin Widdows (recently, anyway)
Damien Magee
Kenny Acheson
Boy Hayje
Gerino Gerini
Alberto Colombo
Corrado Fabi
Rikki von Opel
Hector Rebaque
Brausch Niemann
Bertil Roos

I've deliberately not included the ill (although a couple on there are), and the notoriously well-known stay-aways (Thackwell, Wunderink etc.) Most of the above have, to the best of my knowledge, made very fleeting or no appearances to any kind of historic event recently. This is a deliberately F1-centric noting, because there's plenty that have just slipped out of the radar totally in the US - Bobby Olivero, Eddie Miller to name just two off the top of my head.

Thanks for that, I've only known that Doug tracked down his brother, and he wrote that John had retired incommunicado to the Med - I thought even his brother hasn't heard of him since.

Of the list probably the only thing that you might not know is that Alex Soler-Roig is now an art dealer in New York.

I had the pleasure of briefly meeting George Eaton at Silverstone a few years ago. I'd spotted a single-seater with the name Eaton and a Canadian flag on the side and felt compelled to ask the driver if he was related to the ex-GP driver.
"Yes, he's my dad. There he is!"
It always pays to check!

Sorry, I can't be more specific on dates or George's son's name and what he was racing in. It might come back to me with a bit of digging.

Off the top of my head this morning....

Leo Kinnunen (may be on Richie's sick list), & Tom Belso.

Tom had his occasional run in historic events but not anymore AFAIK. If you're interested: I got a black/white F5000 pic of Tom Belsø in the 'Radio Luxemburg 208' Lola T332.

As for Leo Kinnunen: he is physically in poor shape.

Sad to hear that - last photo I've seen of him was a few years ago and he looked fine then. Is he still in Lieto?

Robin used to turn up at Grands prix in the 1990s, and at Goodwood in the early days of the Festival of Speed when I had the pleasure of meeting him, when he was working as a representative for Moët et Chandon. Now retired, he lives in Majorca. He was, of course, also a leading bobsleigh driver in the 1964 and 1968 Winter Olympics and one-time record holder on the Cresta Run.

Is Andre Simon still alive? I remember reading in a book about the W196 that he was very bitter about his treatment in motor racing. No wonder, he came close to a number of big results but for one reason or another they never came off, and he never seemed to get a permanent drive. But for a Mercedes works driver (however briefly) to vanish off the face of the earth is a bit unusual.

As far as I know yes. I fondly recall him driving the Martini 917K with Rodriguez and dominating the Interseries in his awsome AAW 917/10.

No info about Leo's current physical condition on his own website: http://www.leokinnunen.com

Quote:
"Today, Kinnunen spends a considerable amount of his time in Spain enjoying the sun. At age 61, Mr. Kinnunen still actively test-drives and comments motor sports and can easily fit into his own Surtees F-1."

Note: he was born on 5. August in 1943, so he is 66 by now. The site is apparently not up-to-date.

Good question - Richie has an address in Alfortville, France, but when I tried to contact him last year or two years ago it came back as RTS. I don't know anything else unfortunately.

Getting back to my motivation for this thread, our heroes of yesteryear are a limited and dwindling commodity. Ok, the cars will be around in one form or another for as long as we are able to maintain, restore and retain them but not their drivers.
We are currently in a golden era where a lot of the drivers are prepared or motivated to turn out for festivals, events etc. Once they are no longer available, there will be no-one to replace them as midfield International racing drivers have no profile these days unlike the past for a whole variety of reasons and World Champions, Grand Prix and major sportscar race winners will have no motivation due in great part to the enhanced remuneration that they receive these days in comparison to days gone by.
So lets appreciate these guys whilst we still have the opportunity to do so!

Tony Brooks is a regular visitor of the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Revival: I met met Tony at the Festival 2008 and at the Revival 2009.

John Campbell-Jones ist still alive and also a regular visitor of the Festival and the Goodwood Revival. No, this is definitely NOT John in the photo (thread #4).
I met John last year at the Festival and at the Revival.

Mike Thackwell took part at the Ennstal-Classic in Gröbming, Austria with his Chrysler. The last entry was, I guess, 2005.

Best wishes from Austria
Alfred

Here

Niemann lives in the "South of France" and Thailand.

Fast ladies:
Jenny Birrell (Nadin) - a big lady in all respects - a great character. Was involved in running the BTCC for a while i think?

Anita Taylor - sister of Trevor and "eye candy" as well as a good driver in Anglias etc.

Christabel Carlisle - Mini ace. Also a good looker. Retired after a fatal accident and married well I think.

She was pictured on a thread with John Rhodes quite recently.....

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?show...t&p=3926345

Ms Carlisle was my mate Anton's piano teacher, she lived in The Little Boltons in Kensington. Knowing Ant, he probably spent most of each lesson trying to peek up her skirt, I know that at 15 he fancied her something rotten, but I imagine a lot of other males , young and old, did as well.

I know what you mean, but this just looks...odd.

Death can be fatal.

I suspect not, perhaps too tall for JCJ, and not smartly enough attired. John turned 80 on January 21 this year. I recall a couple of years back at the FoS John was with a small group of us and SCM came across and asked to "borrow" John. Apparently he could not remember if JCJ was a year older or younger than SCM - it was part of a discussion which SCM was having with an ex Moss Cooper owner at the time . That is one of the delights of John; he knows everyone from that period and they know him, and his power of recall is brilliant, but is often seemingly overlooked.
Roger Lund

No that's not John Campbell-Jones in the earlier photo. I was invited to his 80th birthday party at his brother's place by the Thames in west London. The cake was racing car shaped (Cooperish) but there were no other racers there (although David Piper was invited). John was fashionably late to his own party by about 90 minutes - which didn't seem to surprise anyone present!

I spoke to Douglas Barber years ago and he didn't want to see or speak about his younger brother. It was our Doug who mentioned the Med rumour in his mighty fine Cooper book (buy it or borrow it if you haven't read it). For the record John Barber was born on 22 July 1929 not as stated above.

To answer the original question I would like to see Ian Burgess, Gerry Ashmore, Geoff Lees, Mike Taylor at some future event although I may have "seen" them already as I'm not aware of how they look today.

Doesn't Brausch Niemann have his exhaust business in Wales anymore?

Gazelle Exhausts is still there in Rhoshill, Dave. Thanks for the correction on JCJ.

Brausch got married again in 2008 and semi-retired to the South of France.

Peter Schetty is one who seems to never be heard from . I suppose he's still living in Switzerland , but he must be getting on up in age now .

Russell Wood. as quick as Tony Brise and Alan Jones in F3 in '73.

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?show...t&p=4118784

As recently posted by Alan Cox.

I think what Giraffe said here;



is one of the best things written on TNF for ages - I often find it quite incredible that at historic events, many go ga-ga about a car (often a replica) when the man who drove it 30/40/50/60 years ago walks by completely ignored. But then I have always been a driver or personality man and not a car one.

It's not just drivers - until quite recently, Eric Broadley didn't appear at many events, even ones heavily involving Lola. Gianni Lancia, meanwhile has long shunned the sport.

Thanks ! Good to see Pete is still able to give it a go .

Very interesting. Not to be *too* harsh on Eaton, but I figured he might have gone into hiding after he Tony Georged his family's department store chain into the ground!

If this is hiding then I'd like to be hiding as well

Well it looks as though he's still pretty handy on a lawnmower at least!

I have just noticed that Hans Herrmann was 82 just over a week ago. Hans used to be a frequent visitor to historic events and festivals, but is one driver whom I have missed to date. Does anyone know when he last made an appearance and if he is still active?

Hans is an excellent example of the gendre of drivers that we will soon not see at events anymore, a driver who trancends eras and whom we remember not for Grand Prix wins and championships, but for a certain mystique and charisma along with his not inconsiderable achievements.
Another driver with a similar aura whom has avoided me so far and will celebrate his 77th birthday tomorrow is Nino Vaccarella. I know Nino made occasional appearances in recent years; doubtless Alan Cox will follow this by posting recent pics of both these gentlemen!

My point is that drivers of this ilk will not be replaced by subsequent generations and at meetings and festivals, we will be left with just the cars with no characters (in the broader sense!) from the period to recount their experiences first hand.

(Oh, I meant to say we will be left with just the cars and Barrie Williams!)

I should add that that picture was taken some 20 years ago!