34 replies to this topic

[Joe Fan]

I was wondering if anyone has the race report and result for the 1961 Canadian Grand Prix held on August 29, 1961. From what I have found on the internet, Peter Ryan beat Stirling Moss and both were driving UDT Laystall Lotus 19 Monte Carlos. This performance, along with his US Grand Prix debut, made Ryan was a rising star and he was offered a Lotus works ride the following year. Unfortunately his life was cut short the in a FJ race at Reims in 1962. What I wonder is, did Peter really beat Stirling straight up or did Sir Stirling have problems during the race? Stirling I show finished 3rd.

[Milan Fistonic]

Are you sure you have the correct date? I can't find any record of Moss competing in Canada in August 1961. He raced in the Players 200 at Mosport in June 1961 winning both heats and in the Pepsi-Cola Trophy on September 30, 1961. He finished third in that race and the record I have states that he had gearbox and radiator problems.

I've just seen in another book that the race in September was the Canadian GP and Moss' problems were that the gearbox twicw jammed in third and had to be freed, also the radiator was holed. He had started from pole psition and set a new lap record so I would guess that Ryan's win could be considered a lucky one.

[Geza Sury]

Originally posted by Joe Fan
Ryan was a rising star and he was offered a Lotus works ride the following year. Unfortunately his life was cut short the in a FJ race at Reims in 1962.

I was just considering to bring up this topic. I would really like to know more about this gentleman! Was he Canadian equivalent of Chris Bristow? (Immensely talented to be killed before he could show his real potential)

[Joe Fan]

Milan, I am not certain about the date nor I am certain about Moss's participation. I found this under a search for Lotus on Martin Krecji's results generator.

Geza, Peter was a rising star driver after his 1961 Canadian Grand Prix sports car win. He was also Canada's first Formula One driver. Here is something I found on the Net about him: http://www.canadiana.../peterryan.html

[David McKinney]

The race was the Canadian GP on 10 September
Moss in the UDT-Laystall car lost three laps with his problems. Ryan was not his team-mate, but drove the private Comstock Racing Lotus 19.
That website would have been more accurate if it said Ryan drove a "factory-built" FJ Lotus. He was a member of the Ian Walker team which, whilst probably having strong links with the works, was separate from Team Lotus

[Joe Fan]

Hmmmm...I have Robert Edwards book on BRP "Managing a Legend" and Robert hasn't got this race listed in his UDT-Laystall race result record for 1961. But he does have the following year's Mosport sports car race results listed.

[Vitesse2]

David - there may very well have been a Canadian GP on the 10th September, but Moss wasn't in it - he was at Monza for the Italian GP!

According to the Edwards Moss biography we're looking at the Pepsi Cola Trophy at Mosport on Sept 30th. Stirling was third in an ex-UDT Lotus 19-Climax. He was on pole and set a lap record, but suffered gearbox and radiator problems. There is no race report though.

[David McKinney]

Whoops
My records do show 10 September for the Canadian race, so they must be wrong. My Canadian GP must be the same as Richard's (and Milan's) Pepsi-Cola race on 30 September. The fact of Moss finishing third after striking gearbox and radiator problems applies to both. Can I plead finger trouble?
I was going to question Richard's reference to the "ex-UDT" Lotus 19 but in Stirling Moss, My Cars, My Career SM says "the car had been sold into private American hands by that time, and it was no longer being prepared by our own mechanics". So I'll shut up.
The appendix to that book calls the 30 September race the Canadian Grand Prix. Can we settle for Pepsi-Cola Canadian Grand Prix?

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by David McKinney
The appendix to that book calls the 30 September race the Canadian Grand Prix. Can we settle for Pepsi-Cola Canadian Grand Prix?

It was The as in the 1st Canadian Grand Prix. The event run at Mosport Park in 1967 was the 7th in the line of the Canadian Grands Prix.

Originally posted by David McKinney
Can I plead finger trouble?

Be my guest since my lack of hand-eye-finger-brain coordination is often good for more corrections and discussions than I intended!

[cabianca]

Here we have a typical example of original sloppy reportage leading to the same misinformation being repeated many times over. Peter Ryan was an AMERICAN, not a Canadian. He got a Canadian competition license because he could get one at 18 as opposed to waiting until he was 21 in America, although he may have raced in the U.S. before his 21st birthday (10 Jun 61). Ryan also had a Canadian address to apply for his license - his mother owned a Canadian ski resort. He was from Philadelphia and either was a member of or tried out for the U.S. ski team. The mistake is easy to forgive, he had a Canadian license, he raced in Canada and he had a Canadian sponsor. He carried an American passport in Europe. The obits in the Philadelphia papers said he was an American. DOD, 2 Jun 62.

[Geza Sury]

Today is full of surprises

So if Peter Ryan is American, who would be the first Canadian Grand Prix driver then? Maybe Peter Broeker? 'Broeker' doesn't sound like a typical Canadian name! Does anyone know, where this gentleman was born?

[Joe Fan]

Cabianca, the only question I have is why is Peter Ryan inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame? On the link I provided above from the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame, it says that "He grew up at Mont Tremblant, PQ." Could his mother have been Canadian and thus given him dual citizenship? Could this be the same situation as NHL star Brett Hull (son of Canadian NHL star Bobby)? Brett was born in Canada but had an American mother, lived in the US after they were divorced and went to college at the University of Minnesota. Thus he has dual citizenship and opted to play for the US National hockey team because the Canadian National team never gave him a chance early on in his career.

[David McKinney]

This is an interesting one. I believe Ryan spent a lot of time in Canada when he was growing up - may even have lived there permanently - and certainly did most of his racing north of the border. I'm inclined to think that as he chose to race on a Canadian licence he considered himself a Canadian and we should do the same. I think Michael Cabianca is being a bit hard on the "sloppy" reporters. If the man said he was Canadian, why shouldn't they have believed him? OTOH, there is no doubt that Michael is, strictly speaking, correct to call him American.

[Joe Fan]

David, I agree that it would be safe to refer to Peter as an American. However, I think he probably had dual citizenship and played the system that worked best for him. I have a friend who has dual citizenship, born in Ireland but also has American citizenship. He considers himself both an Irishman and American. However, if push came to shove and he had to declare one or the other, he would chose to be classified as an American because has lived in the US almost all of his life.

[cabianca]

Mont St. Tremblant was the ski area his mother owned. I don't think she was Canadian, which would rule out the dual citizenship theory. I don't know that Peter ever said he was Canadian. As I say, he tried out for the U.S. ski team, not the Canadian one. Of course most of his career was in Canada because he was only over 21, the American requirement, for a year before he was killed. Perhaps we can find out where he went to school. That may shed some light on the subject. Believe his is buried in the U.S., another lead worth pursuing. One person who knows is Roger Penske, because Ryan had some kind of living situation in Philadelphia (his mother's house) when Roger lived there. They won at least one race co-driving a Porsche Spyder.

[bpratt]

In a March 10, 2000 article in InsideTrack Motorsport News on Peter Ryan, Mosport/CASC archivist/historian Bob Brockington notes that Ludwig Heimrath drove a Porsche 718 at the non-championship 1962 Pau Grand Prix "as a reward for winning the Canadian Driving Championship in 1961." Sometimes it is argued he was the first Canadian to race in F1 in spite of Peter Ryan's 1961 running at the US GP.

The rest of the article is on Peter Ryan who, as it has been correctly pointed out, was born in Philadelphia. He wanted to join the Canadian Olympic Ski team but was turned down because he was not Canadian and as he had to wait until his 21st birthday to join the U.S. team took up "other sports".

The article has a race record for Ryan from 1959 to 1962. He definitely got his start in Canada. Does that make him Canadian?

Bob McLean originally came from Australia. He won the 1965 Canadian driving championship, points for which were only to be awarded to "Canadians". Was he really Canadian?

John Cannon came from the U.K. but raced in Canada in his early years. Is he Canadian?

I came across the following quote (it's from a music magazine but the thought applies, I think). "Canadians will claim as our own anyone who has even the most tenuous connection to the True North Strong and Free. A young Ernest Hemingway worked briefly for the Toronto Star? He's Canadian. Keith Richards was busted for drugs here? He's Canadian too. William Shatner, who was even born here, has a building at Montreal's McGill University named for him (his hairpiece, however, we concede to the USA). And don't even get us started on Superman."

Makes me wonder, though, if Jaques Villeneuve was born in Canada, but essentially raised in Europe, is he Canadian?

We are a fragile nation.

Brian (with barely a Canadian buck to his name) Pratt

[Doug Nye]

Hmmm - isn't there an allegedly prominent British tennis player who's really Canadian? And isn't there an allegedly British Heavyweight Champion of the World? Interesting, isn't it, how these insecurities and conveniences move in both directions....

DCN

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by bpratt
The article has a race record for Ryan from 1959 to 1962.

How difficult would it be to post that here, Brian?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Hmmm - isn't there an allegedly prominent British tennis player who's really Canadian? And isn't there an allegedly British Heavyweight Champion of the World? Interesting, isn't it, how these insecurities and conveniences move in both directions....

DCN

The birthplaces of the Great Britain ice hockey team which won Olympic gold in 1936 make interesting reading too ...

[fines]

I believe Icehockey is the one game where probably half of all players in a World Championship tournament are born in Canada. I remember that at times, many (if not most) of the German National team could hardly speak any German...

[Joe Fan]

Originally posted by fines
I believe Icehockey is the one game where probably half of all players in a World Championship tournament are born in Canada. I remember that at times, many (if not most) of the German National team could hardly speak any German...

An Irish poster on this board told me a long time ago that as an American with 1/8th Irish blood would be eligible to play for the Irish National soccer team. I remember back before the NHL allowed players to play in the Olympics, the Italian Olympic hockey team had Italian-Americans and Italian-Canadians filling out their roster. I don't think that their they even had to have dual citizenship in order to do this.

[Roger Clark]

Drinking guiness is probably enough to get you into the Irish football (soccer) team.

[Barry Lake]

Originally posted by bpratt
Bob McLean originally came from Australia.

Brian, I don't think I was aware of this fact (unless I'm so tired I simply can't remember...)

Can you tell me more?

[bpratt]

You'll have to bear with me on the requests. The Peter Ryan story is rather big -- two pages in an oversized magazine. David, if you want you can send me your mailing address to bpratt@paralynx.com and I'll mail a copy off to you (and any others interested).

Barry, Bob McLean came to Canada from Port Pirie, Australia in 1957 and that seems to be when he started his racing with the Sports Car Club of British Columbia (first at Abbotsford Airport and then the Westwood circuit). He lost his life at the 1966 Sebring 12 hour race. He was 33 years old.

[Barry Lake]

Brian

Thanks for the info. If anyone knows more about McLean's rise to Ford works driver, I'd be pleased to hear about it.

I have, from a normally reliable US source, that McLean was 30 when he was killed, now we have a vote for 33. Can anyone confirm either way?

[Milan Fistonic]

Originally posted by cabianca
Here we have a typical example of original sloppy reportage leading to the same misinformation being repeated many times over. Peter Ryan was an AMERICAN, not a Canadian. He got a Canadian competition license because he could get one at 18 as opposed to waiting until he was 21 in America, although he may have raced in the U.S. before his 21st birthday (10 Jun 61). Ryan also had a Canadian address to apply for his license - his mother owned a Canadian ski resort. He was from Philadelphia and either was a member of or tried out for the U.S. ski team. The mistake is easy to forgive, he had a Canadian license, he raced in Canada and he had a Canadian sponsor. He carried an American passport in Europe. The obits in the Philadelphia papers said he was an American. DOD, 2 Jun 62.

One reporter who cannot be accused of being "sloppy" is John Marsh. His report of the 1961 Canadian Grand Prix, published in Motor Racing magazine, ends with this paragraph.

In retrospect, it was nice for local fans to see a Canadian driver win, although Peter Ryan cannot actually be considered a Canadian, as he is an American citizen residing in Canada.....

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Milan Fistonic
One reporter who cannot be accused of being "sloppy" is John Marsh. His report of the 1961 Canadian Grand Prix, published in Motor Racing magazine, ends with this paragraph.

In retrospect, it was nice for local fans to see a Canadian driver win, although Peter Ryan cannot actually be considered a Canadian, as he is an American citizen residing in Canada.....

I will never forget that DSJ on an occasion or two wrote that Bill Boddy and others higher up in the Motor Sport heirachy never cut his stories.- even if they had to go to smaller type sizes to fit them in.

But not all publishers are so compliant, and this is exactly the sort of information that is likely to be left on the editor's floor...

Several of us here know about this, don't we?

[ensign14]

Going way OT, but FIFA regulations allow you to play for a footy team if an ascendant up to great-grandparent was a citizen/subject of that country. Ireland was the first to take advantage.

It got ridiculous at times...Andy Townsend qualified because his grandfather was born in Belfast, before the Irish Republic became independent, so as there was technically an all-Ireland team before then (although footy was not popular in the South because it was not Celtic) he could have played for either...and Tony Cascarino, the London-born of Italian descent, qualified because he thought his grandmother was a Dubliner. Turned out later she wasn't, but it was too late, he'd retired. (She had been adopted & the birth certificate was wrong.)

Interesting as well that Ben Johnson was a Canadian gold medallist...but a Jamaican-born drug cheat...

[Berner]

History lesson: Long, long ago, let's say the early part of the previous century, very wealthy American industrialists purchased huge chunks of Canada - either directly or via holding companies - to feed their factories' ever increasing need for raw resources. Thus, northern Ontario was developed, in part, by U.S. steel and pulp interests, and similarly parts of Quebec were basically ceded to Americans in exchange for campaign contributions or out & out graft.

So, the Ryan family fell into this category of rich industrialists who had the luxury of exploring the unspoilt tracts of Canada by private plane in their pursuit of great fishing, hunting and other dalliances. They stumbled upon an area around the town of Ste. Jovite where, with the help of the local priest and the provincial government, they established one of the first eastern ski resorts. The train line was completed such that New Yorkers and Bostonians could travel in comfort from their homes to the slopes via Montreal. The premise behind this resort was to offer a similar experience to that of Vail and Aspen.

If you have the opportunity to travel to Mont Tremblant, the ski resort, you will notice runs named after Ryan (senior) and many plaques and photos here and there around the village. I would also recommend a quick trip to the actual circuit which has been totally revamped over the past 2 years. It is amazing.

The train line from Montreal (also known as the Petit Train du Nord or, for anglos, the Snow Train) is long gone but it has been replaced by an incredible "linear" park which you can cycle or hike all the way from the northern suburbs of Montreal, stopping at quaint B & Bs along the way. It's worth the journey!

[Carlos Jalife]

Guys, I can not open this forum without finding stuff that helps (or contradicts) all the research done on the Rodríguez. First, I had the 1st Canadian GP as September 23, taken from some book where it talks about the Bridgehampton race on september 16 and the Canadian GP next week, but then I found the correct date as the 30th on some other newspaper articles about the brothers, which were given the keys to the city of Toronto a few days before the race (and since this event was the 27th, they could hardly have raced the 23rd). Then Pedro ran a TR250 and Ricardo was supposed to drive a 246 but I have conflicting reports about him starting, some mechanical problem sidelined him. Pedro ended second after some trouble with the car after he led so the Ryan win was twice lucky from what I could find in the mexican newspapers, Pedro in trouble and Ricardo DNS, plus Stirling also in trouble, Ryan was certainly lucky.

And By the way, the baseball world championship has teams like Italy (a bunch of guys from New Jersey who probably act as extras in The Sopranos), Holland (another bunch of gringos God knows where from) and Norway (mostly from Minnesota) and in Spain, at least until recently, all the mexican players who went up to try soccer like famous Hugo Sánchez, could be considered locals since their grandparents were from Spain and since virtually all americans (continent not country) come from spanish origin, all of them can play as locals (communitarians) and the same goes for all the argentinians in Spain and Italy, and it happens at all sports, like the 800 meter danish guy who is really form Kenya and the marathon record holder who is from Morocco but runs for USA and we'll never finish.
PS Gringo is not an offensive word in Latin America (Yanqui -except in baseball- is, and that's our spelling for Yankee).

[Manfred Cubenoggin]

Just stumbled upon this thread while searching for some data on the Player's 200. I find it interesting that in all that's been said of this event...the '61 Canadian GP..., there hasn't been a single mention of the fact that Olivier Gendebien participated in a car identical to SSM's. I was there as an eye witness to boot.

http://wsrp.ic.cz/canadasc1961.html

[Jerry Entin]

Manfred: They weren't identical cars, Gendebien raced a 2-liter, Moss a 2.5-liter.
all research Willem Oosthoek.

[HDonaldCapps]

Originally posted by Jerry Entin
Manfred: They weren't identical cars, Gendebien raced a 2-liter, Moss a 2.5-liter.
all research Willem Oosthoek.

Just saw the earlier posting, beat me to the punch....

[Manfred Cubenoggin]

Hi, Jerry, Don.

Thanks for that headsup on the engine capacities. This AM, I checked further to confirm referencing this page...

http://wsrp.ic.cz/usacrrc1961.html

...which lists other events of that Autumn. Ollie G is indeed listed as using a 2.0-litre in his UDT-Laystall Lotus 19 at both Riverside and Laguna Seca.

Nothwithstanding, I seem to recall that both Stirling and Olivier were 'dicing' for the lead at Mosport and running nose-to-tail for some laps early on. Playing up to the crowd? Almost certainly. This kind of thing is far from unknown, of course.

At the 1969 Mosport CanAm, Bruce & Denny were head-and-shoulders the class of the field in their spanking new M8B's yet 'diced' with Surtees, Gurney, Parsons and Cordts in the early laps before breaking away to lead comfortably. While it lasted, the intense 'race' had the crowd on their feet screaming approval.

Perhaps Vince H. could advise us from contemporary reports in CP&AW or CT&T.

[HistoryFan]

Peter Ryan also drove in the 1961 United States GP. His team was J Wheeler Autosport. Who was owner of that team? Is there more racing data about this team?