16 replies to this topic

[SteveB2]

A few years ago, some magazine ran a series on Americans in F1. (Racer or Road and Track, I think) It was a great series. The section on Masten Gregory told how, whenever he had lost control and was sliding, instead of waiting for the impact, he had a habit of getting to his feet and jumping out of a car before it hit anything. What I was wondering if this was ever caught on film.
Surely, I would have seen it by now if it had. (Don't call me Shirley)

Thanks,
S.

[Dennis David]

Yes Dan Gurney commented on just that when he remarked about a time when he jumped out of a car that he was not up to Masten in style points. I don't know of a film of that but maybe there is a photo floating around somewhere.

------------------
Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Ray Bell]

There's a nice bit of dialogue about this subject in the Stirling Moss/Ken Purdy book "All But My Life," Moss commenting, on other things, about more than one car that he bailed out of being on the wrong side of 100mph.
I know of no pictures, but most of his racing was before my time.

[Joe Fan]

Interesting to find a post on Masten Gregory. He was from my home town (Kansas City) and I doubt the vast majority of area motorsports fans here even know who he was or that our area produced a very talented driver such as Gregory. He scored a podium finish in his very first F1 start at Monaco in 1957 and he certainly was impressive in his short stay with Cooper, outqualifying and/or outperforming Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss and Bruce McLaren (who all were driving Cooper-Climaxes) on a occasion during the 1959 season. He finished 2nd in the Portuguese Grand Prix behind Moss that season then he got injured bailing out of his Jaguar in the Tourist Trophy sportscar race at Goodwood when his steering failed. He suffered rib and shoulder injuries as a result and missed the final two remaing Grand Prix events at Monza and Riverside. He wasn't asked back by Cooper the following season. Something that he was very bitter about. He never had a quality ride in F1 again but an impressive victory at Le Mans in 1965 opened up a good career for him in Sports Cars after that.

[Uncle Davy]

"Mastoid" was indeed an interesting character; and an underrated driver, IMO.
As far as bailouts go, how about Hans Herrmann at AVUS in '59? Famous pix abound; alas, I have no scanner...

[Ray Bell]

Once somebody with a scanner does their bit with that Hans Hermann pic you'll see he didn't bail, he was dumped.

[Uncle Davy]

I stand corrected. His was indeed an involuntary disembarkation.

[Don Capps]

I just thought it interesting to go back three years and see what was last posted on that date...

[Ron Scoma]

I have a film called "Pit Pass," about the Camoradi team.
I will check if Jumping Masten is included...
Give me a few days.
Cheers,

Ron

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Don Capps
I just thought it interesting to go back three years and see what was last posted on that date...

Joe's made a lot of progress since that time, Don...

I wonder if this thread was something of a catalyst?

[Ralliart]

Esquire magazine had a big piece, I think by Ken Purdy, on Gregory in an early '68 issue that included, in a detailed sequence of drawings, him bailing out of a car. I've got the article somewhere but it was excellent and covered his bail-outs in some detail.

[Joe Fan]

Originally posted by Ron Scoma
I have a film called "Pit Pass," about the Camoradi team.
I will check if Jumping Masten is included...
Give me a few days.
Cheers,

Ron

I have that tape and there is no jumping Masten unfortunately. But it is a very good tape nonetheless.

Originally posted by Ray Bell
I wonder if this thread was something of a catalyst?

I guess you could say that.

Note to Doug Nye and Karlcars, get your Masten pics in order.

[WGD706]

In Autosport Online, there is a question asked of Nigel Roebuck about why Masten Gregory did not attain the sucess that he seemed to be so capable of?
His response (for those who don't want to register at Autosport)....
"I quite agree with you about Masten. When I was a kid, I saw him drive many times, and it seemed to me that he had loads of natural ability. He was also abnormally brave. My first recollection of him was in a Ferrari sports car - his own car, in the white and blue colours of America - at an Aintree meeting late in 1954. I was only eight at the time, and don't remember too much about it, but I do recall the sight of that huge car sideways in the rain.

Gregory was very much imbued with 'European style' racing, at his best on fast, open, road circuits, such as Pescara. In 1957 he drove the Scuderia Centro-Sud Maserati 250F with some distinction, and two years later landed a drive in the Cooper factory team, alongside Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren. In fact, this was to be his only 'works' drive in F1, and I never really understood why, because he was invariably very quick, if a little wild.

The 1959 Aintree 200 is a race which sticks in my mind, because I was there, and it was the last win for my great hero, Jean Behra, in a Ferrari. On the pole that day, though, was Gregory, and he led the race until he retired, as far as I remember. His best finish in a Grand Prix that season was second to Stirling Moss in Portugal, the race run that year on the spectacular Monsanto road circuit.

Perhaps his most memorable performance, though, was at Avus, where his Cooper alone ran in company with the three Ferraris of Tony Brooks, Dan Gurney and Phil Hill. This track was no great test of a driver, but the Cooper had far less power than the Ferraris, and Masten was able to run with them - until his car expired - only by hanging on in their slipstream, driving much of the time with one hand, his other being needed to keep his visor in place! It was pure heroism, and typical of him.

Thereafter, Gregory continued in F1, albeit with lesser teams, but the biggest win of his life was at Le Mans in 1965, when he shared a North American Racing Team Ferrari 275LM with Jochen Rindt. That, by coincidence, was the first time I ever went to Le Mans, and I recall that the car had a major problem in the early stages, putting it many laps behind. When the car had been fixed, Masten and Jochen agreed that they would drive absolutely flat out for as long as it lasted, and that they did - eventually winning. Later it was established that the Ferrari lasted just long enough - it literally could not have done another lap - and I remember the truly dreadful noise it made as the drivers did their traditional walking-pace 'cruise' in front of the stands, after taking the flag!

Gregory's career was punctuated by an enormous number of accidents - he was, as I said, uncommonly brave - but he was quick right to the end of his career, and the last car I remember him driving was a Porsche 908.

After he had retired, and I had become a racing journalist, I met him a few times here and there, and always found him delightful. Something of a hedonist, he believed absolutely that life was there to be enjoyed, and he was great company, coming out with his one-liners in a wonderfully slow, deep, drawl, which he never lost, even after years and years of living in Europe. A real character. As a driver, he was way better than his results might suggest, and on his day one of the quickest of all. It must mean something that Jimmy Clark's hero, before he made the bigtime
himself, was Masten Gregory..."

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by WGD706
In Autosport Online, there is a question asked of Nigel Roebuck about why Masten Gregory did not attain the sucess that he seemed to be so capable of?

Any disciple of Jenks would say that Masten was doomed because his eyesight was.... not the greatest in the world, let's say.


pete

[WGD706]

Everything I had ever read about Moss was that he had superhuman eyesight, being able to focus near and far very quickly; Gregory had to wear glasses, so the theory was that anyone with less than perfect eyesight would not be as successful as one who had 20/20 or better vision.
Was Gregory near- or far-sighted and does anyone know exactly what his vision was during the better part of his career (20/100, 20/200)?

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by WGD706
Everything I had ever read about Moss was that he had superhuman eyesight, being able to focus near and far very quickly; Gregory had to wear glasses, so the theory was that anyone with less than perfect eyesight would not be as successful as one who had 20/20 or better vision.
Was Gregory near- or far-sighted and does anyone know exactly what his vision was during the better part of his career (20/100, 20/200)?

http://www.atlasf1.c...00/aut/cox.html

From an Atlas article by Michael Cox:

Masten's nearsighted vision was so poor that he required eyeglasses which, as Carroll Shelby once described, were as thick as "Coke bottles". Masten's older brother, Riddelle Gregory (a racer himself too at one time), confirmed his poor vision by saying, "Once we were driving down to Texas and Masten had me do the night driving through Oklahoma because he couldn't see very well at night. Next thing you know, here he is racing in and winning Le Mans!"

[Joe Fan]

Originally posted by WGD706
In Autosport Online, there is a question asked of Nigel Roebuck about why Masten Gregory did not attain the sucess that he seemed to be so capable of?

Thanks for posting that! However, I take issue to Nige's comment that Masten had an enormous amount of accidents. He had enormous accidents yes but not enormous amounts. If you look over his 20 year career, he really didn't have that many in comparisons to some other top drivers of his time and he raced the vast majority of the time in privateer equipment. He never once crashed out in a World Championship Grand Prix. The only time he crashed out in a Grand Prix car was in a non-championship F1 race when he and his teammate Ireland spun in some oil and got their communications mixed, thereby hitting eachother as they tried to get back going.

The Aintree event he talks about in 1954 was Masten's first European race win. He won against a field comprised as notables such as Peter Collins, Archie Scott Brown, Reg Parnell and Colin Chapman.