474 replies to this topic

[Kvadrat]

Is there somewhere in the internet full list of Moss' races? If no can someone who has My Cars, My Career book compile the list?

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
Thankyou Doug; his words make it so real and exactly the sort of relationship we like our heroes to have with such a circuit. THere have been a great many books by and about Moss, but I think "Moss on Circuits" would fill a gap and be an ideal companion to "My Cars and My Career".

Well! A wee while since this thread's been active, but I had a reason to trawl through it today and ... Roger poses a rather good question.

DCM? A profit opportunity from within the bosom of TNF!

[Wolf]

I too, as my thread, have been temporarily resurrected*... I like the idea, but would settle for his description of a lap of Nürburgring. As has been learned here he rates Laguna very highly (not a big surprise, IMHO), never won a race @ Spa despite liking the circuit termendously, and I think I have even started a thread (albeit with not much success) about him and the Ring ( http://forums.autosp...&threadid=72420 ). His success there speakes volumes of him, I'd say...

* been D/C-ed from the net for a while now (damned ISP likes to be paid ). Expect to see me rarely in here for a while too. :

[Paul Medici]

He has always been my next best favorite racer.

I was a kid when I read of his terrible crash at Goodwood. Photos in a news article showed workers cutting him out of his car, his father standing close by.

I wrote him a get well letter. I don’t remember where I mailed it to but the article must have mentioned the hospital he was recuperating in. I wished him a speedy recovery of course, and I recall writing something realy juvenile like “I can’t wait to see you racing Ferraris soon.” I never would have written that had I known how serious his injuries were and that he would never compete in another Grand Prix race.

Then to my surprise, I received a small, light blue, airmail letter from England. It was from his secretary, thanking me on his behalf for my letter.

At the time I thought that was a realy nice gesture in his part, acknowledging some teenager from New York City. I still do today and I still have the letter. It has survived over these many years because I slipped it between the pages of his book A Turn At The Wheel.

I’ve met my boyhood hero Phil Hill on several occasions, and someday I would very much like to shake the hand of my next best favorite racer.
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[Gary Davies]

Yet another awakening for this thread.

I happened upon this YouTube link, covering the 1961 Monaco win. Apologies to whomever if it inadvertantly purloins their copyright.

[ex Rhodie racer]

could someone comment on the following. I recently saw an advert (don´t ask me what it was for) where Moss and a few other notables from the past sit around and chew the fat. There were several variations, but in the one, Moss says something like, "If you weren´t cheating you weren´t winning. Everyone was cheating, it was the thing to do".
Did I hear this wrong, or was it taken out of context maybe? If what he said was true, then I must say I have lost all respect for the man. I could hardly believe my ears.
Any comments?

[Ray Bell]

I recall in All But My Life he spoke of taking the rules to their limit, breaking them if there was a loophole or an opportunity to get away with it...

But he denied ever having part in having anything like an oversize engine etc.

[Doug Nye]

No way. Strirl might have said something like "If you weren't bending the rules you weren't winning - everybody did that. It's what you do...".

I have known and worked with him for a long time now and I have NEVER heard him use the word 'cheating' in anything but its most condemnatory sense. Exploiting every advantage you can possibly imagine is part and parcel of clean racing. Rule bending - especially if a rule was loosely worded, or in his day if no regulation existed to prohibit something - was absolutely legitimate....with in his case ONE exception.

During the final scrutineering test at the end of his Gold Cup-winning Alpine Rally - which means finishing three in a row, penalty-free - he hoodwinked the official checking that his Sunbeam-Talbot had all gears working. He woggled the gearchange around, announcing 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc, but covered up the lack of one broken ratio by surreptitiously clicking in overdrive instead. He told me that was the only time he can recall really "cheating", but after three years of penalty-free effort on successive Alpines and faced by the prospect of losing the Coupe merely because of a technicality which would in fact have restricted his chances rather than enhanced them, "I felt I deserved it".

I support him in that.

DCN

[Ray Bell]

Wasn't that two broken ratios?

[Ross Stonefeld]

Ive never liked the excuse of "its a technicality" or "it wasnt performance enhancing"

If the rules say you must race with blue fuzzy dice and you don't show up at tech inspection with them...

[D-Type]

I think the point is that SCM admits publicly what he did in the Alpine Rally and accepts that it was cheating.

The justification (whether public or simply to oneself) is another issue.

[Ray Bell]

Actually, Ross is in over his head here...

He's applying that standard to everything in Moss' racing life. Like so many juveniles, he is disparaging of Moss. The mere mention of 'fuzzy blue dice' and 'tech inspection' shows that he's failed to read the posts.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I apply it to everything about racing. Including people who have nothing to contribute but snipes at me.

I am universally disparaging of the deification of any racing driver.

[James Page]

Purely in the interests of accuracy, I've just seen the advert that started all this (it's on YouTube - type in Stirling Moss and you'll find it). Stirling's actual words are "If you can't win, you cheat."

Now, whether his words have been cleverly edited and taken out of context in order to fit the ad's tagline, who knows…?

PS - I was trying to listen to the ad without headphones, while at work, with my boss sitting at the next desk. I therefore had it on pretty quietly, and might have missed the point behind Stirling's words!

[Wolf]

Ross- he started the race in perfectly legal car which has suffered a technical malfunction. All he did was to fake the scrutineer in believing that the car was running perfectly, whereas it has lost two gears. I think it could hardly be seen as cheating.

As for his attitude towards the cheating- he claimed he was perfectly comfortable with playing as close to the limit as possible (and exploring loopholes) but would never agree to anything that was contrary to the rules. It makes perfect sense IMHO.

Rhodie- I recall that Nike commercial, it also featured Agostini, Becker (he had a funny bit in another commercial from that 'series') and few other famous athletes: skiiers, &c.

[James Page]

Originally posted by Wolf
Rhodie- I recall that Nike commercial, it also featured Agostini, Becker (he had a funny bit in another commercial from that 'series') and few other famous athletes: skiiers, &c.

The version on YouTube is indeed the one with them all sitting around (Becker, Daley Thompson etc etc), but it's for a company called Bet & Win. Tagline, 'In the spirit of the game'.

[RS2000]

I notice the "cheating" accusations above have arisen in a rallying context, not racing. Against the background of today's sanitised "sprint" world championship rallies and modern highly regulated racing it sometimes seems to be forgotten just what the "golden era" of rallying was all about.
By definition, rallying was, until comparatively recently, a contest not just between competitors but between competitor and organiser (and the terrain and the weather) (and the governing body, via homologation). The difference then between exploiting the regulations and what is now termed "cheating" was a grey area - and one which necessarily held no stigma. Bending the rules was part of rallying.
I am often bemused today at the hostile reaction in other branches of the sport if an organiser's line is questioned. As a rally Clerk of the Course, I always had to bear in mind that the guy querying the regs or a decision had to be listened to because there were 119 other co-drivers who could be challenging me too and about 20 of them were probably more experienced at it than me. I am equally bemused when "hard core" navigators/co-drivers of the old school like Stuart Turner critcise in (MSA) print those today doing exactly what they did "in period".
"Regs are regs" has to be seen in the context of the day - just as the appalling mess over fuel testing caused by a mixture of MSA incompetence and arrogance is being seen at present. Some regs were there to be broken. There would have been no competitive Liege, for one, without that attitude on the part of both organiser and competitor. Penalties for a broken gear in an otherwise still mobile car or penalties for damage that could be negated if you took a hammer to all four corners of the car before scrutineering were a nonsense from an even earlier era that had not caught up with common sense. It was later recognised as such and removed. Different eras, different standards. We can't go back but we shouldn't be in denial of what it was like.

[D-Type]

Ross,

It's a question of the spirit and the letter of the rules.

By your reckoning, who won the 1958 Safari?

Here's the story:
The principle was that you got penalised if you changed certain parts, including shock absorbers. They affixed seals to them such that if you changed one you broke the seal. The Kopperud brothers in a Ford Zephyr finished the rally with the least road penalties just ahead of John Manussis in a Mercedes. At post-rally scrutineering, it was seen that the seals on several of the Fords, both Zephyrs and Anglias, had broken - this was apparently because of the way the MacPherson struts flexed. The scrutineer accepted the Ford argument that the way in the seals had broken did not indicate that the shock absorber had been changed and if the component had been changed there would have been further breakage of the seals and he agreed that the shock absorbers had not been changed. However, the stewards ruled that the rule said 'broken seal' rather than 'changed component' and that the Fords should be penalised. The decision went up to appeal and further appeal and finally the (British) RAC ruled in favour of Ford.

i.e. the spirit of the rules rather than the letter prevailed.

Now consider the case of Schumacher in the whenever British GP. He had earned a 1 minute stop/go penalty for an infringement and by careful interpretation of the letter of the rules the team contrived to make him take his penalty after completing the race. The stewards ruled in favour of the letter of the rules and he got away with it. In terms of the spirit of the rules he (or his team) cheated.

i.e the letter of the rules prevailed

Now consider the Moss Alpine Rally story. A component had failed and according to the spirit of the rules the car should have been penalised. But the letter of the rules stated you got penalised for faults discovered during scrutineering. The scrutineer failed in his duty in that he didn't discover the defective gearbox. Stirling Moss admits that he had fooled the scrutineer. So who was in the wrong?
Does the fact that the performance of the car was reduced by the defect have anything to do with the issue? Not really.
So, was he wrong to attempt to fool the scrutineer? Yes, morally. But it could be debated that his actions were within the rules.
Was the scrutineer at fault for falling for it? Yes.

Incidentally this is not a new story. It appeared in either All but My Life or the earlier Moss autobiography A turn at the wheel.

[Ross Stonefeld]

In the interest of consistency I would not have allowed cars with broken seals to have passed.

In the interest of consistency I would have allowed Schumacher to win the 1998 British Grand Prix, even if it was the silliest loophole in a rulebook I've seen in a while. Second being only Alex Zanardi's 'win' at Laguna Seca in 1996.

The question of morality is particularly interesting given the attitude that 'back in the day' the drivers raced to a certain code of gentlemen that isn't prevalent today.

[VAR1016]

Michael Schumacher at Silverstone.

If I remember correctly, the rules stated that the penalty had to be taken within three laps of notification. That day the stewards took so long in deliberation that they announced the penalty far too late. So that time it was the stewards' fault!

PdeRL

[oldtimer]

As far as I am concerned, watching Moss on the hammering on the edge when 1 or 2 laps down after mechanical problems says enough to me about his self respect and joy as a racer to negate any thoughts that cheating would be part of his armoury. Unfair advantage? Yes, any day. Taking away from self respect, no.

Yes Ross, from all these years and the great drives, there has been some 'deification' of SCM. And why should you be impressed by any deification process?

I saw SCM racing in England quite a bit, from 500cc Formula 3 cars to F1 and everything inbetween. I never saw less than 100%, on the edge stuff. I never saw any of the 'great' drives, but they made sense in the light of what I had seen in his racing at lesser events, not in how they have become extolled over the years (your deification?).

As a racer, SCM was 'something else again', I can assure you.

[James Page]

That's how I remembered it, VAR1016. About half an hour passed between the infringement and Ferrari being informed of the penalty. Because of the delay, there was then some confusion over whether the penalty should be enforced as a 'stop-and-go' or as time added on to the race total. By this time, the race was almost over and Ferrari did what they did more to cover any eventuality than to 'cheat' as such.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Although I'm not convinced he served the penalty. He entered the pitlane on the final lap, but didn't serve the penalty.

[Wolf]

Thanks for the correction on the company name, James- I completely missed the mark...

As for difference between finding loopholes and cheating, I think there is a difference. Take that Michelingate a few years back as an example- as I understand Michelin made tyres that were in violation of maximum tyre width, but had them made in such a way that they would pass the scrutineering. If it was so, it was plain cheating- because tyres did not conform to regulations (even though they passed the scrutineering).

As Moss said (I'm paraphrasing, not citing)- if rules said fuel (even if they thought gasoline, but did not specify), too bad, I'll use whatever fuel I like; but if they state no alchohol added, there is no way I'd put it in fuel, not even a cupful of alcohol in 5 gallon tank.

[Magee]

Motor Sport Benevolence Ongoing
By Michael Gee

Giving time and money to social funding is not usually publicized by motor sport greats. For instance, many may not know about Carrall Shelby's financial support to children with coronary and kidney medical afflictions. One child who needed transplant support received it from Shelby's Children's Foundation and later in life went on to pre-Olympic Games trials as a figure skater.

Here in Vancouver, years ago, local organizations benefited from the Player's Pacific motor sport race in 1965 and specifically from the efforts of Sir Stirling Moss, OBE, English racing great. Player's supported his week-long stay in Vancouver to promote the event at the Westwood Circuit in Coquitlam, BC.

The "Evening with Stirling Moss", according to local newspapers, was held at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre featuring Bill Kenny from the Ink Spots, a well-known musical quartet, and a fashion show off at-the-races styles for women. Moss commented that it was the first time he had taken the stage for a benefit cause. The majority of attendees was male who asked the majority of questions and enjoyed the stage display of models wearing the mid-sixties fashions.

The proceeds, some several thousand dollars, from his public activities, went to the Vancouver Junior Stadium Fund sponsored by one of Vancouver's daily newspapers.
Before his next journey from Vancouver to Indianapolis Speedway Moss spent time at the Westwood Circuit to do some driving. He borrowed Bob McLean's Lotus 23B for at least 15 laps taking news reporters and other dignitaries such as Minister of Highways Phil Gaglardi for a tour of the circuit at high speed. He also managed a solo fast lap that beat the Player's Pacific lap time of the winner. However, during the time Moss was there the sun shone, but on race day the winner had to lap the track in pouring rain.

Moss was very active, in the time he had in Vancouver, visiting City Hall and Mayor Rathie who declared Pacific Race Week. And later on, a special motor parade with Moss the center of attraction through downtown Vancouver helped toward building a large crowd for the race weekend. It was indeed one of the top races in Westwood's history.

In their lives, both Carroll Shelby and Stirling Moss have had major medical problems that cut short their motor sport racing careers. Shelby had heart problems that eventually resulted in a transplant operation, and Moss suffered major injuries in a track accident at Goodwood Circuit in England. These events in their life seemed to have been the turning point directing their efforts to assisting social foundations. However, there are others in today's ranks of motor sport drivers and teams who also devote time and money to worthy causes. Both Moss and Shelby, with their efforts, should be recognized as having led the way in the motor sport world.