24 replies to this topic

[doc knutsen]

At last week-end's strangely named Asfalt Classic race meeting at Rudskogen, just half an hour up the road from Maison Knutsen, Sweden's Erik Berger was officially recognized as the World's oldest active racing driver, having turned 90 a few weeks ago. Erik drove his 2-litre BDA Escort with customary verve. He drove hard enough, in fact, to blow his gearbox during qualifying on Saturday, thus forcing him to miss Saturday's race...but he was back for the  Sunday race. At his track, heavily revised by Herr Tilke a few years ago, Erik was out-gunned by another couple of Escorts, and victory on Saturday went to an incrediby quick and well-driven Opel Kadett coupe. Mads Gjerdrum, in the Broadspeed replica GAA-engined Capri had to start from the back in the 24-car field as he did not practice, but shattered the lap record during a superb drive through the field. Having entered the last lap 3 seconds in arrears of the Opel, Mads lost out by 12 hundreds at the flag! On Sunday, as a sporting gesture, the Capri again started from the back, but made short work of the field and passed the leading Opel Kadett Coupe with a lap to go.

Erik Berger confirmed after the race that his status was recently acknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records, but at the same time declaring this to be his final season of motor racing. He started his first motor race in 1947...

 

 

 

 

[LotusElise]

Tom Delaney was still racing at 93 or 94, having started in 1929, I think.

 

EDIT: he was 95, and started in 1930.

Edited by LotusElise, 21 August 2015 - 19:48.

[Lee Nicolle]

Gee, our elderly Aussie racers then are only babies in their 80s! Murray Carter and Bob Holden are still racing in their 80s.

A few years back we had Dud Lambert racing midgets up until about 84. Hew was supposedly the oldest midget driver in the world at the time.

Ian Brock is still doing regularity and hillclimbs and he is I believe 91 now.

[Adrian Beese]

I can remember seeing Reg Phillips racing at Prescott when he bumped his MG at Pardon hairpin. He was well into his 80's.

I would have loved to see the face of the nurse at Cheltenham A&E when they brought him in, as a precaution, dressed in his flameproofs.

[Ray Bell]

They make Tom Sulman look young...

Which brings to mind the story Geoff Sykes told us when he was setting up the 'Tom Sulman Trophy' at the Farm.

Over a decade earlier, Tom had turned up at Goodwood with the Kangaroo Stable to race his Aston Martin. Geoff saw him and turned to someone and asked, "Surely they're not going to let that old man race?"

[cooper997]

If I'm on the right path Tom was just 70 when his Easter 1970 Bathurst accident happened, relatively speaking he was a spring chicken to the above mentioned. It's just that in his time Tom was competing with many much younger drivers' than himself.

 

Similar process could be applied to Sir Francis Samuelson in the UK.

 

'Historic' drivers are now pretty much the norm at any given weekend where there's an Australian historics meeting taking place. Probably apply that to most countries actually.

 

George Hetrel is still running his Bugatti T35 at historic events at 86. He started running the car late in life, but still enjoys getting out there.

 

Stephen

 

 

[Ray Bell]

You're right, Tom wasn't really all that old...

But he looked so old for years before that. And he had been racing since before the war.



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Edited by Ray Bell, 23 August 2015 - 13:38.

[Allan Lupton]

And he had been racing since before the war.

"Before the war" always seemed to imply "long ago" as even in the 1950s we thought that someone who raced before the war must be old, whereas in more recent times it seemed natural for someone to have raced over a 15-20 year time-span.

In the UK the VSCC rallies seem to be proper rallying in retirement, and to a certain extent the same goes for VSCC racing.

Sir Francis (H.B.) Samuelson has been mentioned and I can't remember when he stopped racing his TT Sunbeam but I can say that he was racing at Thruxton on 12/9/70 when he would have been 80 and was celebrating 60 years of competition driving.

As LotusElise reported, Tom Delaney was racing his Lea-Francis until the year he died, aged 95. and won a race at BDC Silverstone the year before!

As for whom we have as oldest active racing driver now, I can't say for sure, but Alastair Pugh at 84 was racing yesterday at Mallory Park. As the auctioneer puts it "any advance on 84?"

[Ray Bell]

My opening gambit when I mentioned Sulman was that 'they make Tom Sulman look young.'

I know he was far from as old as these people, it's just that his physical appearance gave the impression he was much older, and Geoff Sykes' comment confirmed that he'd look that old over a decade before he was killed.

[BRG]

I have just discovered that Sobieslaw Zasada, Poland's best ever rally driver, is making a comeback on the WRC Safari Rally in Kenya which starts tomorrow.  Zasada just turned 91 years old last January!  I must confess that I had imagined that he was no longer with us, but apparently he is very much live and kicking!

 

He started competing on motorbikes and turned to cars in 1951. He competed in a Simca Aronde in 1960 in Polish rallies before venturing onto the international stage with support from the national auto club, presumably an essential thing in Communist days to allow him to go outside the Soviet bloc. He won the 1966 European Rally Championship (a big deal in those days when there was no WRC) in a Steyr Puch 650 TR in which he took some outright wins.  Moving to a Porsche he won the ERC again in 1967 & 1971, and took 2nd in the ERC three other years.  He was 4th on the London-Sydney Marathon and 8th on the London-Mexico World Cup Rally.  He seems to have competed in almost everything with wheels from Simca to Mercedes via BMW, Polski-FIAT and even the inevitable Ford Escort.  He seems to have stopped rallying after 1979, but did the Safari in 1997, and now is having another go in an M-Sport Poland Ford Fiesta Rally 3.  Many may not know that M-Sport's lower category rally Fiestas are built in Poland.

 

Zasada has been honoured in Poland with the Order of Poland Restituta, gaining three different levels of honour over the years.

 

Along with Attila Ferjancz, Hungary's finest rally driver, Zasada was always a secret hero to me.  These guys managed to compete world wide despite all the restrictions of communist rule.  

 

Good luck, Sobieslaw!

[RS2000]

His 67 ERC was in Group One - in a 912 (that was, bizarrely, homologated in Gp1). Think at that time there was no overall ERC and thus 3 ER Champions, the others being Gp2 Soderstrom in a Lotus Cortina and Gp3 Elford in a 911.

He seemed to attract controversy in period wherever he went, largely for baulking .

[ed holly]

Herb Neal is still racing his Neal Ford Mk2 of 1968, similar to a Brabham BT23, some 50+ years after he built it. Still as quick as ever. Herb is around 82 and supported as ever by his lovely wife Jan. At the recent HSRCA Sydney Classic tribute meeting to Ron Tauranac, Herb was consistently around the top 5 in a quality field of 20 cars.

[arttidesco]

His 67 ERC was in Group One - in a 912 (that was, bizarrely, homologated in Gp1). 

 I do not know what sales or production numbers were required for Gp1 but I recall reading somewhere that while the 912 madels were in production they outsold the more expensive 911 models.

[RS2000]

5000 in a year by then (1000 for 911 in Gp2 and 500 for 911S in Gp3). The real issue was whether any 912/911 variant was a 4 seat "touring car". Of course at that time no one normally counted and the exact wording said something like "provisions for" production of the relevant quantity had to be shown.

The seat space issue was still around as late as Mazda RX7 in GpA (via a Walkinshaw tape measure from roof to seat cushion...).

[BRG]

He seemed to attract controversy in period wherever he went, largely for baulking .

I had not heard of that.  How do you baulk people if you are a front runner or even the rally winner? 

[Lee Nicolle]

5000 in a year by then (1000 for 911 in Gp2 and 500 for 911S in Gp3). The real issue was whether any 912/911 variant was a 4 seat "touring car". Of course at that time no one normally counted and the exact wording said something like "provisions for" production of the relevant quantity had to be shown.

The seat space issue was still around as late as Mazda RX7 in GpA (via a Walkinshaw tape measure from roof to seat cushion...).

RX7s here in Oz were at best 2+2. But did have a back seat.

Most of the world however were 2 seaters only. 

We had the stupid case that series 1 2 3 were homolgated as a Touring car but were also elligible in Sports Cars as well.

It seems that precedent had been set with 911 Porkers that raced as a Touring Car and sports Cars also.

Both however are production Sports Cars and never a Touring Car

As a Sports Sedan competitor here in Oz we had a heap of noisy antisocial brap brap things because of this. These days mostly a thing of the past but were never correct for the category.

The series 4 and later too were Sports Cars though were a 4 seat car. And also have raced as Sports Sedans.

[raceannouncer2003]

Al Ores is still right up there...just turned 89...

 

https://www.gvmps.or...ductee/al-ores/

 

Vince H.

[RS2000]

I had not heard of that.  How do you baulk people if you are a front runner or even the rally winner? 

 

Easy if someone else is faster than you and is running late or was poorly seeded. Didn't he hold up Porsche team mate Waldegaard on one Safari and cause him to go off?

London Mexico I recall was another case of him not being flavour of the month with other top runners.

[BRG]

Easy if someone else is faster than you and is running late or was poorly seeded.

 

Yes, of course, but if you are one of the front runners & potential rally winners, as Zasada usually was, who is going to be so much faster that they catch you and get baulked?  Don't recall anything about the Safari, but it is possible.  Every rally driver has occasionally held up someone - even Bjorn Waldegaard probably did once or twice.  Rally drivers never want to let anyone else past.  

[Jim Thurman]

And the prior leader to Zasada's return was Hershel McGriff, who raced The Carrera Panamericana and in NASCAR in the early 1950s, returned in the late 1960s and raced through 1989, and then make an occasion reappearance, the last being at age 90:

https://www.espn.com...tucson-speedway

Edited by Jim Thurman, 26 June 2021 - 19:33.

[BRG]

Reality hits sadly.  Zasada stopped on the very last stage.  But still a massive achievement for the old war horse.  Make your come-back at 91 years of age, and chose the physically most demanding rally on the calendar.  They make them tough in Poland!

[RS2000]

That's a terrible slur on rally drivers, especially British ones. The simple fact is that in period Zasada was not considered particularly fast compared to most top drivers of the era and definitely had a reputation for getting in the way of some. Winning championships can embrace a number of factors other than speed, particularly when obscure rallies count. Aaltonen's ERC in 65 depended on BMC entering a number of obscure East European events. 

Most British rally drivers and a lot of continental drivers of the era would let a car catching them overtake as soon as possible. Seeding as we know it now was non-existent in some events. There was not the same ethic regarding giving way in some nationalities.French drivers had a reputation, I'm sure not deserved in many cases, for not pulling over.

A club mate running in the Group 5/6 category ahead of the 68 RAC went over to Aaltonen's Fulvia to apologise for not pulling over earlier and was told "Don't worry we know you will as soon as you can".

Before Kielder on one RAC I was chatting happily with a French driver who would have known I was starting on the next minute. When I caught him I hung back and my co-driver complained "You'll have to get closer than that to make a Frenchman pull over" and I replied "I'm not losing 6 lights for the sake of a few seconds". .     

[john aston]

Rather different now on single venue rallies (I don't do forests since spectators were charged through the nose and the kettled into an enclosure ). Plenty of light flashing , horn blowing, arm wavnig  and hissy fits by car behind , even if car in front has nowhere to go. Bit like F1 really ... 

[BRG]

That's a terrible slur on rally drivers, especially British ones. The simple fact is that in period Zasada was not considered particularly fast compared to most top drivers of the era and definitely had a reputation for getting in the way of some. 

 

Terrible slur?  Do leave off. British drivers are no better (or worse) than anyone else.  I have experienced plenty of baulking on British rallies, some of it deliberate, mostly not.  Some drivers seem to think they are in a race where they need to defend their position.  I always told my drivers, if we were caught, to let the faster car by and chase them to the finish and get a better time as a result.  

 

I still wonder how Zasada was baulking people when he was finishing at the front of many rallies, even obscure ones?  If you are one of the fastest, who did you baulk?  You seem to have some animus against him, suggesting that he trundled round slowly, getting in everyone's way and yet somehow mysteriously winning the event.

 

I certainly wasn't aware of any such reputation.  If there was one, I suspect might have been because he was from behind the Iron Curtain.

[RS2000]

In Zasada's time and later, British drivers were less likely to cause problems to others. We were talking about International rallying, not overmonied cowboys on modern minor events (and probably major, although that's rallying but not as I know it). This is the Nostalgia forum not a Racing Comments version of rallying. As already stated, continental drivers less so and many French drivers very less so. The only view I have on Zasada is the one most held in period. You will find many such comments in period reports and even recent books (Culcheth's in particular, I think, in the context of London Mexico).