92 replies to this topic

[T54]

Apparently Jacques in one of his biographies referred to the kid as a "Mec" or "Meck" which isn't a term most North Americans are familiar with.

It's "mec", a derogatory slang term that can be loosely translated by "jerk"...

How about this crunchy nugget: Alain Prost stole Jacques Lafitte's wife and caused their co-ownership of the Dijon golf club with Yves Morizot, the Stand 21 racewear boss, to be dissolved. Laffitte and Prost have not been talking to each other ever since.
This was about 15 years ago...

The French call this behavior, "la culotte".

[paulhooft]

Sally Swart was at Road America, Ed Swart was driving a Jan Lammer's Shadow in the HGP race.
They have Jack Russell that is a friend of our Cosworth. They also have several children and, I believe, 4 grandchildren. They both look great!


Great to hear about Sally Swart ,
Never met her, but saw both Jimmy and Ed Swart race back in the mid sixties when at Zandvoort.
(and at 59, I am a grandfather myself now, for some years...)

Paul

[Louis Mr. F1]

Originally posted by T54


It's "mec", a derogatory slang term that can be loosely translated by "jerk"...

How about this crunchy nugget: Alain Prost stole Jacques Lafitte's wife and caused their co-ownership of the Dijon golf club with Yves Morizot, the Stand 21 racewear boss, to be dissolved. Laffitte and Prost have not been talking to each other ever since.
This was about 15 years ago...

The French call this behavior, "la culotte".

is this true??? Prost and Laffite used to be good friends in the 80s, so what happened to Prost's wife Anne Marie, did they divorce? I've heard that Prost has done similar things to one of his boss before....not sure though.

[T54]

I can absolutely guarantee that it is true, because I was somewhat in the middle of it... my best friend IS Yves Morizot. Divorces ensued...
The golf club was sold shortly after. Morizot, a golf fanatic, eventually converted the funds into a new successful line of... golf clothing!

[bigbrickz]

Originally posted by T54
It's "mec", a derogatory slang term that can be loosely translated by "jerk"...

In France and french-speaking Switzerland (dunno about Canada) "mec" is a slang term for "guy" or "bloke". When applying it to a baby it probably just means it was male. Nothing derogatory about the term itself, though you'd need the actual sentence to know the context.

[T54]

Like in "brave mec" (OK bloke) or "sale mec" (jerk or bandit depending on circumstances). Context is everything indeed...
Thanks for the precision.

[CarlBauer]

Originally posted by Barry Boor

First time I've heard this one!

Dan's wife Evi is German and is the daughter, IIRC, of Huschke von Hanstein, or some other high-up in the Porsche organization for whom Dan drove in 1961-2.

Dan's first wife, Arleo, was, I'm fairly sure, an American lady, so if Ron Dennis is connected with Dan could it be via one of Dan's children from his marriage to Arleo. Only one of the 4 is female - Lindy, IIRC.

Can anyone throw light on this one, please?

I believe Evi Butz and Norbert Haug are brother and sister.

Evi Butz wasn't the daughter of H.vH but his personal assistant.

http://www.allameric...m/hanstein.html

[Fiorentina 1]

So, is it true about the Tambay-Villeneuve deal? That is wild. :

[Louis Mr. F1]

Originally posted by T54
I can absolutely guarantee that it is true, because I was somewhat in the middle of it... my best friend IS Yves Morizot. Divorces ensued...
The golf club was sold shortly after. Morizot, a golf fanatic, eventually converted the funds into a new successful line of... golf clothing!

so i'm quite disappointed about this (along with the Renault boss' wife rumour), Prost used to be my childhood hero ...... his status already sunk quite a bit with his team management endeavour..... how come i never read this in the news before? is there a unwritten rule by the FIA that this type of news cannot be reported?

[T54]

Sorry to disappoint you, lust is a pretty common sin nowadays, and frankly we don't know who sought whom...
But it is true. :

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by Louis Mr. F1

(along with the Renault boss' wife rumour)

Also true - Zandvooort 1983 - and caught red-handed at that...

[eigar]

John Watson and Jochen Rint's widow Nina, and later Ronnie Petersons widow Barbro.

Watson and Barbro were together until her tragic death in '87.

Here is a quote from the Swedish newspaper Experssen, who run a series of articles about Ronnie Petersons life 3 years ago:

Quote:
När Barbro syntes på bild med James Hunt tog romansryktena fart. Men det var en annan racerförare som fångade hennes kärlek, nordirländaren John Watson. Watson hade tidigare haft ett förhållande med Jochen Rindts änka Nina, och det var också Watson som fått ta över Ronnies plats i McLaren-stallet 1979. John Watson debuterade i formel 1 1973 och fortsatte att tävla till och med 1985. 1982 var han tvåa i VM-tabellen. I dag är John Watson expertkommentator på BBC.
Barbro och John flyttade ihop i Maidenhead och paret förklarade 1981 att de tänkte gifta sig. Det blev aldrig något giftermål, men Barbro, Nina och John fortsatte att leva tillsammans.
Lördagen den 19 december 1987 hittades Barbro Peterson död i sitt badkar. John Watson hade brutit upp dörren till badrummet och hittat Barbro i badkaret. Barbro dog bara 40 år gammal. Hon är begravd i Örebro, tillsammans med Ronnie. Dödsorsaken fastställdes till drunkning, och precis som vid Ronnies dödsfall så har det spekulerats om hur och varför det skedde.
- Det gjordes en polisutredning och det fastställdes en dödsorsak, efter det finns det ingen anledning att spekulera. Sånt skadar bara de anhöriga, säger Staffan Svenby.
Unquote

[philippe7]

Originally posted by T54
Alain Prost stole Jacques Lafitte's wife and caused their co-ownership of the Dijon golf club with Yves Morizot, the Stand 21 racewear boss, to be dissolved. Laffitte and Prost have not been talking to each other ever since.

Alain Prost must have kept the Dijon Golf Club to himself then, since when I last was there (3-4 years ago) there was still a Prost F1 car on display in the bar....

Just to get my memories straight : wasn't Jacques Laffite's "original" wife the sister of Jean-Pierre Jabouille's wife ? Laffite and Jabouille were close at the start of their carreer , Laffite even holding the spanners for Jabouille before he started driving himself, and I seem to remember they had married two sisters.....

This story sheds a strange light on the fact that Jabouille apparently still gets on very well with Prost ( they shared a Viper in the French GT series on a few occasions last year ) who "replaced" his good friend Laffite alongside his own wife's sister......oh well......

( and of course, it's none of our business....)

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Jim Thurman

Still haven't had a chance to check the info on the two time racing widow. Nothing under Joe Russo, so I don't think my recollection was right on that one either.

Or maybe it was, Jim. In Brock Yates' captions to Smith Hempstone Oliver's Vanderbilt Cup book he says that Helene Russo married Billy Winn. Winn died in 1938 .... perhaps she married again?

[fines]

Yes, I posted this on another thread: Joe Russo, Billy Winn and Dave Champeau, all three died in racing accidents. The unfortunate lady was a three-time widdow!

[Formula Once]

Zandvooort 1983 - and caught red-handed at that...

Anymore details as to by whom and how? And are we talking about Mrs. L. here?

I knew the rumour, never heard about the Zandvoort thing.

Alain must have thought he'd get away with anything that weekend then, given the way he tried to pass Piquet on Sunday...

[Jack-the-Lad]

Off topic, but just by a few degrees....I once witnessed Ronnie Petersen's and Danny Ongais's crews pull them apart in the Daytona garages in a tussle that was apparently motivated by, um....."territorial rights"


Jack

[Jim Thurman]

Originally posted by fines
Yes, I posted this on another thread: Joe Russo, Billy Winn and Dave Champeau, all three died in racing accidents. The unfortunate lady was a three-time widdow!

Vitesse, Michael, thanks for bringing this back up. I found the exact same info some while after that post, mentioning Winn and Champeau. It simply wasn't where I thought it was in "The Tribute Project" (not mentioned under Russo or Winn, but under Champeau). Normally, I would have checked all three entries, but was short on time : (guess I should check back into other threads I've left hanging...)

My father witnessed Dave Champeau's accident. It was only about 20 years ago that he told me about it (of course, they announced over the PA that "the driver is ok, he's fine"). Digging through the family photos, he found a few photos he'd taken from the main grandstand that day.

[macoran]

Originally posted by KJJ
Stirling Moss isn't he Pat Moss's brother?

sounds like the joke about Johnny's visit to the vatican.
he gets to visit and stand next to the pope
his mate, looking from afar says
who the f***'s that next to Johnny

sorry

[RStock]

Maria Teresa de Filippis was dating Luigi Musso at the time of his death , and was then dating Jean Behra at the time of his death . If what I hear is correct .

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by Formula Once

Anymore details as to by whom and how? And are we talking about Mrs. L. here?

Yes.

Mr L forgot his briefcase (or some document or other) and was, shall we say, *enlightened* when he went back to his room to collect it...

[Doug Nye]

Originally posted by CarlBauer
I believe Evi Butz and Norbert Haug are brother and sister.

But Evi's gorgeous... Shome mishtake shurely?

DCN

[jcbc3]

Originally posted by Doug Nye


But Evi's gorgeous... Shome mishtake shurely?

DCN

I see what you are trying to achieve there. But glasshouses and stones springs to mind....

[LotusElise]

Originally posted by REDARMYSOJA
Maria Teresa de Filippis was dating Luigi Musso at the time of his death , and was then dating Jean Behra at the time of his death . If what I hear is correct .

She dated both, but not at their times-of-death. I think Behra was engaged to someone else, although he might have still been seeing Maria Teresa on the side. She definitely finished with Musso before he died. His long-term girlfriend at the time was called Fiamma (sp?), who later had some sort of relationship with Enzo Ferrari. At the time that Musso and Maria Teresa were supposedly engaged, Luigi was married to someone else as well. They fell out quite badly when Maria found out.

[wildman]

What? Nobody remembers Lou Erding shacking up with Frank Capua's wife Elora? Or that little tramp Pat Stoddard throwing herself at Pete Aron while her husband was on the mend from his Monaco crash?

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by Muzza
Watching the ABC (which, as Robin Miller once quite corretly put, stands for "Always Bad Coverage") pre-Indy 500 show yesterday I learned that Scott Brayton's widow is today Mrs. Robbie Buhl.

Besides Barbro Peterson - that years after Ronnie's death became John Watson's girlfriend - and Mrs. Ralf Schumacher, who was once Heinz-Harald Frentzen's girlfriend, what other driver wives (or fiances, or girlfriends) had love affairs with other drivers? Just a curiosity.

(I am talking about public love affairs, of course... )

Good heavens, maybe hard copy of this thead should be on sale by grocery store cash registers.

[RStock]

Originally posted by LotusElise


She dated both, but not at their times-of-death. I think Behra was engaged to someone else, although he might have still been seeing Maria Teresa on the side. She definitely finished with Musso before he died. His long-term girlfriend at the time was called Fiamma (sp?), who later had some sort of relationship with Enzo Ferrari. At the time that Musso and Maria Teresa were supposedly engaged, Luigi was married to someone else as well. They fell out quite badly when Maria found out.

Thanks for the info . I was always suspect of the Jean Behra , Maria Teresa connection . I always wondered if it was just rumor , I believe she was driving one of his cars in F-1 at the time of his death , and I also thought he was married at the time . But there could still have been something going on , I suppose .

But I didn't know she and Luigi were on the outs . I thought they were still dating . Again , thanks for setting things straight .

[LotusElise]

The fact that M-T de Filippis has always cited Behra's death as the reason she hung up her helmet has always made me wonder about the precise nature of their relationship at the time. I don't think she was even speaking to Luigi Musso when he met his end.

[RogerFrench]

How about Edouard Sarazin's widow marrying Emile Levassor? Is this the earliest occurrence?

[fines]

Did Sarazin ever drive an automobile???

[RogerFrench]

Originally posted by fines
Did Sarazin ever drive an automobile???

Possibly not in the way the original post meant, but as a friend of Levassor and Daimler, and the Daimler patent-holder in France, it does seem possible, even though his death in 1887 didn't give him a lot of time, I'll grant you!

[fines]

Thnx for "granting" me that but, excuse my humour, which car would he have driven? Was he ever in Germany, because I don't think you could have possibly driven a car outside of Germany before the Paris Exhibition, was that 1889 or 1890?;)

[962C]

OT I know, but reading this thread I was wondering if Jean-Louis Schlesser was still married to Bjorn Borg's first wife Mariana (née Simionescu)

[LotusElise]

Didn't Schlesser also go out with Jutta Kleinschmidt for a long time?

[Loren Lundberg]

Sorry, Ladies and Gentlemen, but who cares? Is this why you frequent this forum? What a waste of time and cyberspace,,,,,,

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Loren Lundberg
Sorry, Ladies and Gentlemen, but who cares? Is this why you frequent this forum? What a waste of time and cyberspace.....

Loren, this might seem a little gossipy, maybe even more than that, perhaps a bit of voyeurism, but it's really just a small part of 'racing history'...

Just one thread in many thousands, I don't think you could accuse us of frequenting the forum for this purpose.

[Nanni Dietrich]

Originally posted by Jim Thurman


...

I didn't know Bobby Grim's wife had been married to Frank Luptow. Makes sense, since they were both around IMCA at the same time and that seems to be a prime reason why they re-marry drivers.

Still haven't had a chance to check the info on the two time racing widow. Nothing under Joe Russo, so I don't think my recollection was right on that one either.

According to Open Wheel magazine, issue March 1985, when 1951 IMCA champion Frank Luptow died at Lakewood Speedway on 21 September 1952, he left a widow, Betty Drake from Flint, MI, and a daughter, Suzie born in 1950 who eventually married the Indy 500 veteran Sheldon Kinser. Luptow was a close racing friend of Bobby Grim who at the time had ended his first marriage and had fathered a son, Bobby, Jr., in latter days a Goodyear employee and sometime a midget racer of promise. Bobby Grim and Betty were married in 1954.
She was still with him when he died of cancer on 04 June 1995.

Suzie's life was touched by tragedy. According to another source (an American website, don't know how reliable), she lost both husbands Sheldon Kinser and the next Jimmy Caruthers to cancer. Her last marriage to Iowa WoO driver Rocky Hodges finished too.
Can you confirm Jimmy Caruthers?

[ghinzani]

Originally posted by Nanni Dietrich


According to Open Wheel magazine, issue March 1985, when 1951 IMCA champion Frank Luptow died at Lakewood Speedway on 21 September 1952, he left a widow, Betty Drake from Flint, MI, and a daughter, Suzie born in 1950 who eventually married the Indy 500 veteran Sheldon Kinser. Luptow was a close racing friend of Bobby Grim who at the time had ended his first marriage and had fathered a son, Bobby, Jr., in latter days a Goodyear employee and sometime a midget racer of promise. Bobby Grim and Betty were married in 1954.
She was still with him when he died of cancer on 04 June 1995.

Suzie's life was touched by tragedy. According to another source (an American website, don't know how reliable), she lost both husbands Sheldon Kinser and the next Jimmy Caruthers to cancer. Her last marriage to Iowa WoO driver Rocky Hodges finished too.
Can you confirm Jimmy Caruthers?

Caruthers yes because he was reigning USAC champ (maybe Gold Crown) at the time I think, 76 or 75.

[fines]

Originally posted by Nanni Dietrich
Suzie's life was touched by tragedy. According to another source (an American website, don't know how reliable), she lost both husbands Sheldon Kinser and the next Jimmy Caruthers to cancer. Her last marriage to Iowa WoO driver Rocky Hodges finished too.
Can you confirm Jimmy Caruthers?

I can confirm that Kinser was married to the Luptow daughter, but not Caruthers (who died at least a decade before Kinser, so this source has at the very least the order of marriages wrong!).

[Jim Thurman]

Originally posted by Nanni Dietrich

Suzie's life was touched by tragedy. According to another source (an American website, don't know how reliable), she lost both husbands Sheldon Kinser and the next Jimmy Caruthers to cancer. Her last marriage to Iowa WoO driver Rocky Hodges finished too.
Can you confirm Jimmy Caruthers?

I can't confirm she was married to Jimmy Caruthers, but I can confirm Jimmy Caruthers passed away in 1975 and Sheldon Kinser passed away in 1988. So, at the very least (as fines points out) - the order is reversed.

[fines]

I found another two-time racing widdow:

William "Spider" Matlock was not a racing driver, at least not that I am aware of it, but he was a famous riding mechanic in the Indy junk era. He sat beside Billy Arnold when the young Illinoisian won the '500' in 1930, but Spider was arguably more "famous" for his accidents. Twice he crashed heavily with Arnold at Indy, and the two of them "alternated" injuries, then he spectacularly flipped with Les Spangler at Oakland before finally perishing together with Al Gordon at Ascot Speedway, in 1936. Two years later, his widdow married the Californian racer Al Putnam, who was to die at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in 1946.

[fines]

Originally posted by fines
Yes, I posted this on another thread: Joe Russo, Billy Winn and Dave Champeau, all three died in racing accidents. The unfortunate lady was a three-time widdow!

... actually, it's even worse!

The Syracuse Herald (NY) of Sep 3, 1935 has a feature about Helene Yockey, then Mrs. "Billy" Winn. Described as a "black-haired, 26-year-old Detroit girl" (Billy relocated to Detroit from KCMO upon marriage), Helene appeared at the New York State Fair with her 11-year-old son Bobby Yockey to witness Winn's thrilling defeat of Bill Cummings in record time*, a sort of hand-over of the dirt track crown from the acknowledged master, coming only a week after defending his Illinois State Fair title at Springfield.

Helene apparently made a point of attending races along with her son, and called herself "a fatalist". "Bobby's father was killed", the article goes on, "when his automobile left the road in a Detroit suburb two years ago and cracked up against a tree." He apparently left behind a furniture business, providing employment for Winn, and three show horses, for the enjoyment of Helene and Bobby, who professed to want to become a lawyer when quizzed by the newsmen, no doubt to their utter disappointment!

Joe Russo isn't mentioned, but from other sources I know that she was married to him for six months, up to his fatal accident in June of 1934. Winn perished in August of 1938, and Champeau in July of 1946. Helene would only have been 37 then... and a four-time automobile widdow! Do you ever get used to THAT???


*As an aside, the same issue has two pictures of the two cars involved, and though grainy, they absolutely confirm my initial suspicion about their identity: Cummings drove the Boyle-owned Miller 230 "Big Eight", debuted at Indy in 1931 by Lou Moore, and Winn the Duesenberg/Miller that was last seen at Indy in 1933, also driven by Moore.

[fines]

The Charleston Gazette (WV) of May 2, 1934 has the story of Joe Russo's marriage to Helene: "Russo's marriage was a romance of sports. Early in January he met Miss Helene Yockey of Detroit, society girl and noted horsewoman. They were married on January 10 at Martinsvllle, Ind." Russo "will give his bride of four months her first taste of racing and await her decision as to whether he ever races again or not", and is quoted thusly: ""My wife has never seen an automobile race and will make no decision about my driving until she gets a little first hand information about it". Seven weeks later he was dead.