September 13,

1932, Grand Prix driver, Mike MacDowel was born in Great Britain.

1953, Monza, The Ferrari versus Maserati battle continued at Monza although Ferrari's Alberto Ascari had already won the World Championship and Enzo Ferrari had announced that he was withdrawing his team from F1 at the end of the year. This did not stop him entering a pair of Type 553 prototypes for Umberto Maglioli and Piero Carini in addition to his usual team of Alberto Ascari, Gigi Villoresi, Giuseppe Farina and Mike Hawthorn. Maserati was still missing Froilan Gonzalez but ran Juan-Manuel Fangio, Onofre Marimon, Felice Bonetto and Emmanuel de Graffenried and a fifth car for youngsters Sergio Mantovani and Luigi Musso.

In practice, Ascari took pole position with Fangio alongside him and Farina completing the front row, the second row of the 3-3-3 grid consisted of Marimon, Villoresi and Hawthorn with Bonetto and de Graffenried being split by Maurice Trintignant's Gordini on row three. Stirling Moss out-qualified Maglioli and Mantovani in his Cooper-Alta but the car was still four seconds off the pace of Ascari.

The race saw Fangio make a poor start and so Ascari took off into the lead with Farina behind him. Halfway around the first lap Marimon took the lead from the two Ferraris and with Fangio catching up quickly a four-car slipstreaming battle developed. This would continue for most of the race although Marimon dropped away just after half distance with an radiator problem. He rejoined the race a long way behind but running with the leaders again. The leading trio and Marimon then came upon the dueling Hawthorn and Villoresi and although Hawthorn dropped quickly away, there were five cars running together on the last lap.

At the last corner, Ascari and Farina were side by side. Ascari spun, Farina went on to the grass to avoid his teammate but Ascari was hit by Marimon who had nowhere to go. Fangio dived through the carnage to win the race. Farina recovered to take second and Villoresi found himself in third place.

1957, Osceola Dragway opened in Indiana.

1959, Monza, In this year, The Ferrari versus Cooper-Climax battle continued at Monza with Ferrari entering five cars as the team helped Tony Brooks in his battle with Jack Brabham and Stirling Moss to win the World Championship. Brooks was joined by Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Cliff Allison and Olivier Gendebien. Cooper ran Brabham, Bruce McLaren and Giorgio Scarlatti in the works cars while Rob Walker ran Moss and Maurice Trintignant as usual. BRM ran the usual three drivers: Harry Schell, Ron Flockhart and Jo Bonnier.

Moss set the fastest time in practice with Brooks and Brabham alongside him, while the second row was an all-Ferrari affair with Gurney slightly faster than Phil Hill. At the start, Brooks went out straight away with an engine failure, which left Moss ahead of Hill, Brabham, Gurney and Schell. Hill took the lead, and further back Gurney overtook Brabham and after that the order remained fairly stable at the front although both Moss and Gurney each led briefly. Hill and the other Ferraris were called in for tires at half-distance, expecting that Moss and Brabham would follow but they did not. Moss was able to win by a large margin while Hill finished second with Brabham third.

1964, The Trofeo Lumezzaine Hillclimb in Italy was won by Edoardo Lualdi driving a Ferrari 250 GTO.

1981, Monza, After a year away at Imola in 1980, the Italian GP was back at its spiritual home in Monza with Nelson Piquet and Carlos Reutemann arriving on equal points in the World Championship. The summer had been seen the emergence as a major force of Alain Prost in the Renault and he too was becoming the threat to the World Championship leaders. The switching around of tires continued with Tyrrell deciding to go back to Goodyear at least for Eddie Cheever's car.

The field was the same as usual with Rene Arnoux on pole in the Renault ahead of Reutemann's Williams and Prost. Jacques Laffite was fourth in his Talbot Ligier and he was clear of Alan Jones (Williams) and Piquet while the top 10 was completed by John Watson (McLaren), Didier Pironi and Gilles Villeneuve in the fast but evil-handling Ferraris and Bruno Giacomelli's Alfa Romeo. The event was significant in that it marked the first start for the Toleman team, Brian Henton having finally qualified one of the Toleman-Hart cars in 23rd position on the grid after a season of disappointment.

At the start, Pironi made an exceptional start and he was fourth at the first chicane behind Prost, Reutemann and Arnoux. By the time the field arrived on the back straight Pironi was second. It did not last long Arnoux moved to second on the fifth lap and on lap six Laffite went to third (having overtaken Jones, Piquet and Reutemann). Villeneuve followed him but disappeared with turbo failure soon afterwards. Then Laffite began to drop back with a slow puncture and it began to rain! Jacques went off.

This left the two Renaults and the two Williams cars ahead but with a gap between them. Arnoux then went off at the Parabolica, swerving to avoid Eddie Cheever's abandoned Tyrrell and so Prost was left on his own.

There was then a huge accident at the Lesmo when Watson lost control of his MP4/1. It spun into the barriers and the engine was ripped from the tub. Watson emerged unhurt but the engine went across the road, causing Michele Alboreto to crash his Tyrrell. The next to arrive was Reutemann, he had to take to the grass, and so he dropped behind Giacomelli. The Alfa driver was not in luck however and on lap 26 his Alfa went into the pits with his gearbox jammed. This put Piquet into third place behind Prost and Jones and it looked like staying that way until the last lap when his engine blew, which allowed Reutemann, de Angelis and Pironi to pass him. He picked up just one point and Reutemann moved three points ahead in the World Championship.

1987, Ernie Irvan made his first NASCAR Winston Cup start, at Richmond, Virginia. He finished 29th.

1987, George Fury and Terry Shiel drove a Nissan Skyline to victory in the Sandown 500 at Sandown Park in Victoria, Australia.

1992, Monza, FISA had decided in the fortnight between the Belgian and Italian Grands Prix that the Andrea Moda Formula team had brought the sport into disrepute and so when the team's transporter arrived it was turned away. Brabham was missing as well, having run out of money, and so the entry was down to 28 cars. Erik Comas was back in action in his Ligier after his huge accident in Belgium while Ferrari had given Ivan Capelli one of the new F92AT chassis. The Ferraris were a lot better than they had been but Nigel Mansell's Williams-Renault was still dominant, although in fact it was Mansell's off-track activities that were dominating the action, the Englishman trying to negotiate a deal to stay with Williams in 1993. The problem was that the team had already signed Alain Prost and Mansell was not keen on having his old French rival as team mate.

Behind Mansell on the grid was Ayrton Senna's McLaren-Honda with Jean Alesi's Ferrari third. Riccardo Patrese was fourth in the second Williams ahead of Gerhard Berger's McLaren, Michael Schumacher's Benetton, Capelli and making his 150th F1 start, Thierry Boutsen in his Ligier-Renault. Martin Brundle (Benetton) and Bertrand Gachot (Venturi Larrousse) completed the top 10 using the latest evolution of the Lamborghini V12 engine.

On Sunday morning, Mansell went to the press office to announce his retirement from F1 racing at the end of the year, complaining that Williams had treated him badly. Having done that, he took the lead and drove away from the field, in search of a record-breaking ninth Grand Prix victory. Mansell built up a lead of 12 seconds and then slowed dramatically and allowed Patrese to pass him. Mansell then made a spectacle behind his teammate to show that he could overtake Patrese whenever he felt the need. On lap 36 this charade ended with a hydraulic failure. That left Patrese ahead with Senna closing in but with four laps to go Riccardo went out with a hydraulic problem similar to that which had stopped Mansell. Senna thus won the race with Brundle second and Schumacher third. Berger finished fourth ahead of the hobbled Patrese. The final point went to the Tyrrell of Andrea de Cesaris. Senna's victory moved him to third place in the World Championship, one point behind Schumacher.

1998, Monza, Michael Schumacher took pole position at Monza, an amazing feat given the poor performance of the Ferrari team at Hockenheim a few weeks earlier. This was put down to better Goodyear tyres. There had been a lot of rain during the practice days which meant that everyone was struggling with set-up during the qualifying session. McLaren found that it had the wrong gear ratios and that the Bridgestone tyres were not working well and this meant that Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard were third and fourth on the grid behind Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve, who once again found that the Williams was very good in high-speed corners. Eddie Irvine was fifth and Ralf Schumacher sixth in his Jordan.

On the day of the race Schumacher made a poor start and was overtaken by both McLarens, Irvine and Villeneuve. Hakkinen had barged Jacques out of the way and this meant that the Williams was behind Coulthard and Irvine as well. Jacques was pushed back to fifth later on the first lap as Schumacher began to charge. On the second lap Irvine let Schumacher up to third.

The McLarens had built a lead of four seconds but suddenly on lap eight Coulthard went ahead and Hakkinen began to drop backwards towards Schumacher. Further back Damon Hill, who had qualified fourteenth on the grid, was able to charge up to fifth place in the course of the first 14 laps having decided on a light fuel load.

Coulthard quickly built a lead of 10secs over Hakkinen but on lap 17, David's engine suddenly blew up. Hakkinen and Schumacher arrived at the second chicane in a cloud of oil smoke and both had to slow down. There was a scramble to get back onto the power and Schumacher managed to get ahead. Once in the lead Michael stayed ahead while Hakkinen faded badly at the end of his first stint. All the leading cars except Hill were on one-stop strategies and, with Schumacher able to stay ahead, there was little hope for Hakkinen to retake the lead. Mika charged hard but then made a mistake and spun. He rejoined but was in trouble with his brakes. Irvine and Ralf Schumacher were both able to pass him before the finish. Villeneuve's race had by then ended with a mistake at the Lesmo Corner.

Ferrari fans celebrated the team's first 1-2 finish at Monza for 10 years and Schumacher left knowing that with two races to go he was equal on points to Hakkinen. The World Championship could go either way.

September 14,

1905, The first Tourist Trophy, a regularity trial based on fuel consumption for autos and motorcycles, was won by John Napier in an Arrol-Johnston, on the Isle of Man, England.

1917, Grand Prix driver at Indy, Mack Helllings was born in the U.S.

1918, Grand Prix driver, Georges Berger was born in Belgium

1944, Robert Benoist, 1927 World Champion and WWII French resistance leader, was executed by the Nazis at the Buchenwald concentration camp.

1950, Grand Prix driver, Masami Kuwashima was born in Japan

1957, Chief Engineer for Visteon/Patrick Racing, Steve Challis born

1957, Indycar and Touring Car driver, Dominic Dobson was born.

1966, "Dyno" Don Nicholson became the first NHRA Funny Car driver to run the 1/4-mile in under 8 seconds when he turns in a 7.96 second pass.

1969, After drivers Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme set fastest times in Saturday morning qualifying session for the next day's Bridgehampton, Can-Am race, Team McLaren goes water skiing instead of running afternoon qualifying session. No one betters their times.

1980, Imola, The Italian GP moved away from Monza in 1980, as a direct result of the multiple-car accident in 1978. Monza had done the necessary safety work but by then a contract had been agreed with Imola. As a result there was a non-championship Dino Ferrari GP in 1979 and the Italian GP in 1980.

There were 28 cars entered and with Jochen Mass still out of action at Arrows, his place was taken by Manfred Winkelhock. His F1 debut was short-lived however as he soon spun and crashed into Nigel Mansell's Lotus. Both cars were destroyed and neither man qualified as a result.

Qualifying resulted in the expected 1-2 for the Renault team with Rene Arnoux beating Jean-Pierre Jabouille. Carlos Reutemann was third his Williams ahead of Bruno Giacomelli (Alfa Romeo), Nelson Piquet (Brabham), Alan Jones (Williams), Riccardo Patrese (Arrows), Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari), Hector Rebaque (Brabham) and Mario Andretti (Lotus). Ligier was in trouble with Didier Pironi 13th and Jacques Laffite 20th. Ferrari appeared with the new 126C turbo car in the hands of Villeneuve (Jody Scheckter had announced that he would be retiring at the end of the year) but the car was not reliable.

In the race, Reutemann jumped into the lead at the start but it ran into clutch trouble almost immediately and so it was Arnoux and Jabouille who led the field away with Piquet third, Giacomelli fourth, Villeneuve fifth, Rebaque sixth and Jones seventh. On the third lap Jabouille and Piquet overtook Arnoux and then Piquet passed Jabouille to take the lead.

On lap six there was a spectacular accident when Villeneuve suffered a tire failure at the corner before Tosa (now known as Villeneuve). The Ferrari hit the barriers nearly head-on and the car was destroyed, the main section of the monocoque bouncing back into the middle of the pack. Villeneuve escaped unhurt but the accident caused the retirement of Giacomelli who ran over some of the wreckage.

Arnoux fell back and was overtaken by Jones (who had previously overtaken Rebaque). The Australian then chased after Jabouille and took second place on lap 29. The pair finished in that order and Piquet moved into the lead in the World Championship by just one point.

Reutemann was able to work his way up third after Arnoux faded and Jabouille went out with a gearbox failure. This enabled Elio de Angelis to finish fourth with Keke Rosberg (Wolf) fifth and Pironi sixth.

1993, Chevrolet announced it was pulling out of CART competition.

September 15,

1888, Antonio Ascari, Alfa Romeo racing great and father of Alberto Ascari, was born in Bonferro di Sorga, Italy.

1916, Grand Prix driver, Antonio Branca was born.

1924, 1922 Indy 500 winner Jimmy Murphy died in a crash on the dirt track in Syracuse, New York.

1943, NASCAR crew chief, Jimmy Fennig was born.

1963, Dan Gurney drove a Cobra to victory in the "Double 500" sportscar race at Bridgehampton, New York.

1985, Spa, On the weekend between the Dutch and Italian GPs there was a World Sportscar Championship race at Spa. Stefan Bellof was sharing a Brun Porsche with Thierry Boutsen but collided with Jacky Ickx's Rothmans Porsche at Eau Rouge corner and was killed. Earlier Jonathan Palmer had crashed his Richard Lloyd Porsche heavily and broken his leg. Zakspeed did not bother going to Monza while Tyrrell decided not to replace Bellof immediately. Andrea de Cesaris had left Ligier and his place had been taken by Philippe Streiff while the new Haas Lola team appeared with a Hart-engined chassis being driven by Alan Jones.

Ayrton Senna took pole position in his Lotus-Renault with Keke Rosberg's Williams-Honda second fastest ahead of his team mate Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW) was fourth with Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG) fifth and Elio de Angelis (Lotus-Renault) sixth. The top 10 was completed by Michele Alboreto (Ferrari), Patrick Tambay (Renault), Marc Surer (Brabham-BMW) and Stefan Johansson (Ferrari).

At the start, Rosberg beat Senna into the first corner and Nigel Mansell quickly went ahead of the Lotus to make it a Williams-Honda 1-2. Senna had Prost right on his tail and Alain soon moved to third place. Mansell's car then hit electronic trouble and he pitted, rejoining almost exactly two laps behind. Prost was second with de Angelis up to third having overtaken the struggling Senna. It did not last long because Niki Lauda was soon moving up the order and he took third on lap 17. The order did not then change until Lauda broke a front wing and had to pit. He was followed in by Rosberg who needed new tires. This left Prost ahead of Rosberg with Senna third, de Angelis fourth and Piquet fifth. Rosberg was soon back in the lead but on lap 45 Keke suffered an engine failure and so Prost was ahead again with Piquet having got the better of Senna to finish second. Senna was third with Lauda fourth and Johansson fifth ahead of de Angelis.

2002, Monza, It was clear that this time the Michelin tires were good and the Ferrari men were worried. They were so worried in fact that on Sunday morning they decided to cover all options and put one driver on one strategy and the other on another - just in case. Traditionally it is the job of Rubens Barrichello to be thrown onto the Ferrari bonfire and so he got the two-stop strategy. Michael Schumacher got the more conventional one-stop.
But as things turned out Williams and BMW took care of themselves. Before the cars had even wandered off on their final parade lap Ralf Schumacher was in the spare, his own racing machine having had an engine problem. Montoya did what one does these days and swerved across the road to make sure that Michael Schumacher was unable to take advantage of this and Ralf found himself looking down towards the Curva Grande with nothing blocking his view. And, being a racing driver, he assumed that it would be a good idea to drive that way. As this was happening his brother was neatly boxed in and had Barrichello beside him. Down they came into the first chicane like animals heading for Noah's Ark: two by two. The Williams boys braked - or at least Montoya did. Ralf tried to make the corner, squeezed Monty, who being a cool, calm individual, tried to get out of the way and remain on the race track. Ralf then realized that he was wasting his time trying to go round the corner and so drove over the chicane. He was in the lead. Of course, he had broken the rules and that meant that he would be getting into trouble from the FIA and he had screwed up Montoya (so he would be getting into trouble from the team). Fortunately, Montoya managed to keep going and even managed to keep the two Ferraris behind him. All this meant that Ralf took off into the lead and Montoya found himself with a Ferrari up his chuff. According to his nearest and dearest in the Williams garage Juan Pablo was what is known as "fuming" at what Ralf had done. The team sent a message to Race Director Charlie Whiting if he thought Ralf would be punished and he replied that Ralf should do the right thing and allow Montoya into the lead at the earliest opportunity, lest he fall victim to official justice. The team had just received the reply as Ralf came steaming into view at the end of lap 4. The problem was that he really was steaming - or perhaps smoking is a better word. In fact, he was blowing up in no uncertain terms. And as he was doing so all that oily smoke was going straight into the path of Montoya. Racing drivers regularly drive into clouds of smoke without knowing what they will find on the other side but Montoya hesitated for a split second. In doing so, he gave Barrichello the chance to jink for the inside, pick up the hint of a tow and then carry that little bit of extra momentum all the way down the road to the chicane where he duly out-braked Monty and took the lead. In a flash Rubens had gone from third to first and Williams's day had turned chilly.

It would get chillier. A couple of laps later Montoya slipped a little wide under pressure from Michael and went for a little bounce across the third chicane. It was nothing too major but give a Schumacher an inch and he will park a car in it and so by the time they reached the Parabolica, Michael was up to second.

By then Barrichello had already disappeared off up the road with such speed that it had become obvious to even the dimmest that he was on a two-stop strategy. As things turned out the two strategies were not that different although it is hard to say for sure because by the end of the race the Ferrari men were only playing about in order to get to the finish line together. When Rubens stopped for the second stop on lap 37 he emerged just ahead of Michael.
In the laps that followed, Barrichello pulled out a gap of 18 seconds and then lost it all again, but the lap times were so bizarre that it was obvious that the two men were just playing. If they had been hard at it they would have broken Peter Gethin's fastest ever average speed in a Grand Prix, which has stood at 150.753mph since Monza 1971. (Which fell today). However, they were not and so crossed the line having managed 149.941mph.

Behind them Williams ended the day as it had begun. Once passed by Michael Schumacher Montoya settled down to run third, but on lap 33 he suffered what the team called "a chassis failure" - one must presume that something had broken when it ran heavily over a curb - and that was that. All that was left to do was to go back to the paddock and have some recriminations... This would have lobbed third place into the lap of Raikkonen (who had survived Coulthard's assault at the first corner) but on lap 30 his Mercedes-Benz V10 went "ker-boom" again and the Flying Finn came in to land, with a trail of smoke worthy of a victim of The Red Baron. Consequently, Irvine wound up third in the Jaguar, though quite aways back.

And Also..

September 15th 1881... In Brescia (Italy)...Birth of Ettore BUGATTI

September 16,

1910, Grand Prix driver, Karl Kling was born in Germany.

1914, Grand Prix driver, Josef Peters was born in Germany.

1938, Capt. G.E.Y. Eyston set a One-Mile Speed Record of 357.5 mph in the Thunderbolt 1.

1945, Hershel McGriff passed George Amick on the last lap to win the first race, a 100-lap event, on the newly paved Portland Speedway in Portland, Oregon.

1947, John Cobb drove the Railton-Mobil Special on the Bonneville Salt Flats to a new World Land Speed Record of 394.2 mph.

1951, Monza, After two consecutive Ferrari wins in World Championship events, Juan-Manuel Fangio hit back at Bari with a win for Alfa Romeo and the stage was set for a fascinating battle at Monza between the Alfa Romeo and Ferrari teams. Alfa Romeo arrived with four cars for Fangio, Giuseppe Farina, Felice Bonetto and Baron Emanuel de Graffenried while Ferrari fielded five cars for Alberto Ascari, Luigi Villoresi, Froilan Gonzalez, Piero Taruffi and Chico Landi. In addition to the usual Talbot-Lagos there were factory teams from BRM, OSCA and Simca-Gordini.

The grid saw Fangio and Farina sharing the front row with Ascari and Gonzalez while Villoresi, Taruffi, Bonetto and Reg Parnell should have been on the second. The BRM driver was withdrawn however because of lubrication problems.

At the start Fangio took the lead but after a few laps had to give way to Ascari. He fought back and took the lead again before coming into the pits for fresh tires. Farina and de Graffenried were early retirements although Farina was later able to take over Bonetto's car, this left Gonzalez in second place. Fangio tried to catch the Ferraris but his car started to misfire and it was left to Farina - in Bonetto's car - to charge up to third, passing Villoresi. He was very quick but his fuel tank was leaking and so he had to make two more stops and ended up third.

The result meant that the World Championship remained open with the finale scheduled to take place in Spain at the end of October.

1959, Kenji Okazaki, the only driver from Japan with a National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) license, was born.

1962, Bob Grossman drove a Ferrari 250 GTO to a class win and 2nd overall in the Bridgehampton "Double 500". The Ferrari TRI /LM 330 with Pedro Rodriguez behind the wheel, finished 1st.

1962, Monza, Graham Hill had a healthy advantage in the World Championship as the F1 regulars gathered at Monza for the last World Championship race of the European season. The BRM driver had 28 points to Jim Clark's 21 and John Surtees's 19. The organizers had given up with the idea of using the banked circuit and so ran the event on the 3.5-mile road track.

In qualifying, it was no surprise to see Clark and Hill battling for pole position, the fight being won by Clark by three-tenths of a second. The 2 x 2 grid featured Ritchie Ginther's BRM sharing row two with Bruce McLaren's Cooper and the third row shared by the two British Racing Partnership Lotuses of Innes Ireland and Masten Gregory (Ireland's Climax-engined car faster on this occasion than Gregory's BRM-powered version). The fourth row saw Dan Gurney's Porsche and Surtees's Lola while the first Ferrari was Willy Mairesse (back in action after his crash at Spa in June) in 10th place. Jack Brabham did not appear with his new BT3 but there was another new F1 car, Alessandro de Tomaso entering a flat-eight engined car for Argentine driver Estefano Nasif.

At the start, Clark beat G Hill away from the line but the BRM's power enabled Hill to get the lead back in the course of the first lap. Ginther in the second BRM was third with Surtees, McLaren, Bonnier, Gurney and Tony Maggs (Cooper) giving chase. On the third lap Clark ran into gearbox trouble and had to pit and this left the BRMs running 1-2, although Ginther had to battle Surtees to hold on to second place. Behind them McLaren battled with the two Porsches. Surtees retired on lap 42 with engine trouble and that left Hill and Ginther to win a dominant 1-2 victory for BRM. McLaren held off all challengers to take third place by a fraction of second from Mairesse.

Hill's win was not enough to clinch the World Championship but it looked like he was in an unassailable position with two races remaining.

1963, Sports car driver, Darin Brassfield was born.

September 17,

1922, Roscoe Sarles died in crash during a championship race at Kansas City, Missouri.

1929, Grand Prix driver Stirling Moss was born in England.

1938, Stockcar driver, Lee Roy Yarbrough was born.

1949, NHRA Funny car team owner, Chuck Worsham was born.

1960, Grand Prix driver Damon Hill was born in England.

1972, Francois Cevert drove a year-old McLaren M8F to victory in the Can-Am race at Donnybrook, Minnesota.

September 18,

1898, Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubet, driving a Jeantaud, set the first World Land Speed Record at 39.24 mph.

1910, Grand Prix driver at Indy, Johnny Mantz was born.

1947, Minardi F1 team founder, Giancarlo Minardi was born in Italy.

1951, F1 and sports car driver, Mark Surer was born in Switzerland .

1953, Charles de Tournaco died. A wealthy Belgian who took up racing encouraged by his friend Jacques Swaters who would later become his country's Ferrari importer. He finished seventh in the 1952 Belgian Grand Prix in an Ecurie Francorchamps Ferrari 500 and took a fourth place in the non-title Grand Prix des Frontieres at Chimay in an HWM. Practicing for the 1953 Modena Grand Prix, he rolled the Ferrari and suffered serious head injuries. There was no doctor nor even an ambulance at the circuit and de Tournaco died in a private car on his way to the hospital.

1963, Trans-Am and sports car driver (and NASCAR ringer), Boris Said III was born.

1966, Jerry Titus drove his Shelby Mustang to victory in the Riverside, California Trans-Am event. This gave Ford their first title in the Trans-Am - Over 2-Liter class.

rdrcr.


1963, Trans-Am and sports car driver (and NASCAR ringer), Boris Said III was born.

What is a ringer I have never heard of that expression-------!

One of the proper definitions is: a contestant that has entered into an event under false pretenses - I think this one has ye old horse racing origins.

.... The definition of a "ringer" in this case is not so fallacious as the above, but is used to describe a specialist road racing driver hired to fill in for a regular NASCAR series driver, that is... well... not too adept at the road circuits.

THANKS ----------------Richard

September 19,

1916, Johnny Aitken won all 3 races held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They are the last races held there until after the end of WWI.

1946, Grand Prix driver, Brian Henton was born in the U.K.

1949, Rex Mays drove an Offenhauser powered midget racer 147.037 MPH on the Bonneville Salt Flats for the U.S. Class E (2-liter, un-blown) record.

1953, F1 driver, Bernard de Dryver was born in Belgium.

1957, IMSA and CART driver, Juan Fangio II was born.

1963, T/F Funny Car driver, Cruz Pendragon was born.

1964, F1 driver, Enrico Bertaggia was born in Italy.

1964, The first British Drag Race festival began at the Blackbushe Airport, a few miles from London.

1971, Mosport, Two weeks after Peter Gethin's amazing victory at Monza, the F1 field gathered in Canada. BRM fielded five cars for the occasion Gethin being joined by regulars Jo Siffert, Howden Ganley, Helmut Marko and Canadian George Eaton. Ferrari was up to three cars again with Mario Andretti joining Jackie Ickx and Clay Regazzoni. McLaren replaced Jack Oliver with US star Mark Donohue (although the second McLaren was owned by Roger Penske and entered in American racing dark blue). There were a variety of extra privateers including Skip Barber's Gene Mason-entered March, Alain de Cadenet's Brabham for Chris Craft and Peter Lovely in an old Lotus.

Qualifying resulted in World Champion Jackie Stewart putting his Tyrrell on pole position ahead of Jo Siffert's BRM and the second Tyrrell of Francois Cevert. Emerson Fittipaldi (Lotus) and Chris Amon shared the second row, while Ronnie Peterson (March), Reine Wisell (Lotus) and Donohue (McLaren) were on the third row. The Ferraris were not competitive with Ickx 12th, Andretti 13th and Regazzoni 18th.

There was a fatal accident in the Formula Ford race and the Grand Prix was delayed, and by the time the race started it was pouring with rain. Howden Ganley demolished his BRM in the warm-up period before the race and so could not make the start. At the start, Stewart went into the lead with Peterson second, chased by Beltoise, Donohue, Fittipaldi, Cevert and the rest. On the third lap Graham Hill crashed his Brabham and five laps later Regazzoni did the same in his Ferrari and lucky to emerge unscathed when the car caught fire.

Stewart had a firm grip on the race while Peterson had to fight for second with Beltoise until the Frenchman crashed on lap 16. At the same time Donohue pitted for new goggles but did not lose a place. This left a huge gap between the first two and the rest. Peterson took the lead on lap 18 but on lap 31 Stewart took the lead back while they were going through backmarkers. A few moments later Peterson ran into Eaton's BRM and damaged the front of his car. This upset the balance of the car and Peterson was unable to match Stewart's pace and so the Tyrrell edged away to win by nearly 40 seconds. Donohue finished third on his F1 debut.

1973, CART champion and F1 driver, Cristiano de Matta was born in Brazil

1979, The Prime Minister of Baden-Wurttemberg presented Ferry Porsche with the Grosse Verdienstkrevz mit Stern – the Knight Commander's Cross.

1984, Ferry Porsche received the honorary title of "Professor"

1992, Cory McClenathan, in a Top Fuel dragster, ran the 1/4-mile in 4.799 seconds at Reading, Pennsylvania. Becoming the first NHRA driver to run the 1/4-mile in less than 4.8 seconds.

September 20,

1909, NASCAR founder William Henry Getty France born in Washington, D.C.

1919, Grand Prix driver, Cecil Green was born.

1921, Grand Prix driver, Horace Gould was born.

1926, Libero Liberatti, the 1957 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix World Champion, was born in Italy.

1946, Joie Chitwood won the sprint car feature at Trenton, New Jersey.

1952, USAC and Grand Prix driver at Indy, Bill Schindler, died in an accident during a race at Allentown, Pennsylvania.

1969, Mosport Park, After a year away at Mont Tremblant, the Canadian GP returned to Mosport Park a fortnight after the Italian GP. The usual field was bolstered by third cars being run by Lotus (a four-wheel-drive 63 for John Miles), Matra (a four-wheel-drive car for Johnny Servoz-Gavin) and BRM (for local driver Bill Brack). US driver Peter Lovely had bought a Lotus 49 while Al Pease and John Cordts turned up with an old Brabham and an old Eagle. Ferrari had only one car, which was entered for Pedro Rodriguez by Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team.

Jacky Ickx was in fine form and qualified his Brabham on pole position with Jean-Pierre Beltoise's Matra alongside and Jochen Rindt's Lotus completed the front row. The new World Champion Jackie Stewart was on the second row with Denny Hulme (McLaren) wile the third row boasted Jack Brabham (Brabham), Graham Hill (Lotus) and Jo Siffert (Walker-Durlacher Lotus).

Rindt took the lead at the start ahead of Ickx, Beltoise and Stewart but the Scot moved quickly up to pass Beltoise on the second lap, Ickx on the fifth lap and he took the lead from Rindt on lap six. Ickx passed Rindt two laps later and closed on Stewart and the two began a dice for the lead. Rindt ran third while Beltoise led a pack battling for fourth until he collided with Pease as he lapped the Canadian for the second time.

On lap 33 as the leaders lapped Pease for the fourth time, Ickx challenged Stewart for the lead. The two cars collided and spun. Stewart was unable to restart his car and so Ickx was able to take the lead and won the race, while Brabham came through to second, passing Rindt on lap 60 to make it a Brabham 1-2. Pease was eventually black-flagged for being uncompetitive.

1969, Lola T142s fill the top six finishing positions in the F5000 race at Oulton Park, England. Mike Walker is the eventual race winner.

1970, Mont-Tremblant, It was only three weeks since Jochen Rindt's death at Monza and Team Lotus had decided not to send cars to Canada. Rob Walker was there with a new Lotus 72, which had yet to be raced in a World Championship event as it had not been ready for Austria and had been withdrawn at Monza after Rindt's death. The field was little changed otherwise with Ronnie Peterson back in action in his Antique Automobiles March.

The Ferraris had been the dominant force in the recent races but it was Jackie Stewart in the new Tyrrell who set the pace, beating Jacky Ickx's Ferrari to pole position by a tenth of a second. Regazzoni was third fastest while Stewart's Tyrrell team mate Francois Cevert was fourth fastest in his March. Also showing well was John Surtees, fifth on the grid in his Surtees, ahead of Chris Amon's factory March.

Stewart took the lead at the start with Ickx chasing while Pedro Rodriguez burst through from seventh on the grid to take third place ahead of Surtees, Cevert and Regazzoni. Stewart began to build a lead, demonstrating that the new Tyrrell was going to be a very competitive car but on lap 32 he suffered a stub axle failure. This left Ickx with a lead of nearly half a minute over Regazzoni who had passed Cevert and Rodriguez after Surtees was slowed with a misfire which forced him to pit. Amon had moved up to third ahead of Cevert and the order remained the same until the closing laps when Cevert suffered a rear damper failure and had to pit.

Ferrari had scored another dominant 1-2 and while Ickx had moved to second in the World Championship. He had only 28 points. Rindt had scored 45 before his death and with two races to go Ickx needed to win both to snatch the title.

1975, CART Champion, Indy winner and F1 driver, Juan Pablo Montoya was born.

1987, Estoril, The Coloni team did not reappear in Portugal but Osella continued to run a second car for Franco Forini. Ferrari's progress throughout the summer months was confirmed with Gerhard Berger taking pole position ahead of Nigel Mansell's Williams-Honda, Alain Prost's McLaren and Nelson Piquet's Williams. Ayrton Senna was fifth in his Lotus-Honda and the top 10 was completed by Michele Alboreto in the second Ferrari, Riccardo Patrese's Brabham, Stefan Johansson's McLaren and the two Benetton-Fords of Thierry Boutsen and Teo Fabi.

At the start Mansell took the lead from Berger but behind them Alboreto collided with Piquet. Derek Warwick spun his Arrows to avoid them and then Satoru Nakajima (Lotus) collided with Martin Brundle (Zakspeed) and the rest of the field piled into the wrecks. The result was that Adrian Campos (Minardi), Christian Danner (Zakspeed), Rene Arnoux (Ligier), Philippe Alliot (Larrousse Lola) and Eddie Cheever (Arrows) were also involved. There was a red flag to clean up the carnage.

At the restart, everyone was able to start apart from Danner and Mansell went into the lead again. At the end of the first lap, however, Berger took the lead and with Senna fighting off Piquet for third place the race began to settle down. It took Piquet until the eleventh lap to overtake Senna. Mansell pressured Berger early on but then dropped away as his engine began to misfire and on lap 14 stopped on the circuit. Senna slowed and went into the pits with an electronic problem while Alboreto closed up on Piquet and began to make life difficult for the Brazilian. He eventually got ahead but Piquet soon retaliated. The mid-race pit-stops elevated Prost to second place ahead of Piquet and Fabi, while Alboreto disappeared with a transmission failure. The order remained unchanged until the closing laps as Prost gradually closed on Berger and put the Austrian under pressure. On lap 68 of 70 Berger crumbled under the pressure and spun. Prost was in the lead and duly won his 28th victory, to beat Jackie Stewart's long-established record of 27 Grand Prix victories. A disappointed Berger was second with Piquet third, Fabi fourth, Johansson fifth and Cheever sixth.

1989, Richie Ginther passed away. The Californian grew up in the same bunch of aspiring racers as Phil Hill and the two men would eventually drive for the factory Ferrari team together. Richie made his F1 debut in the 1960 Italian Grand Prix at Monza where he impressed the team with an assured run to second place behind Phil. This clinched his position in the team for '61 and the manner in which he chased Stirling Moss's Lotus home at Monaco really put his name on the map. At the end of the season this shrewd Californian wisely accepted the number two BRM seat alongside Graham Hill, opening a three year phase which saw him joint runner-up with Hill in the '63 Championship. Ginther was a splendid team player and if he lacked the aggressive edge to become a regular winner, he was a test and development driver without peer. These qualities earned him a drive with the Honda F1 team in '65 when he won his sole Grand Prix victory in Mexico City, the final race under the 1.5-liter regulations. Ginther retired spontaneously in '67 as he was sitting waiting to do his qualifying run for the Indy 500. It was a brave and shrewd decision. This popular man was barely 59 when he succumbed to heart failure on holiday in France.

September 21,

1920, Grand Prix driver, Kenneth McAline was born in the U.K.

1933, Indycar driver and owner Dick Simon was born.

1945, NASCAR team owner Richard Childress was born.

1953, Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, Arie Luyendyke born.

1957, The Riverside International Raceway in California opened for formal competition.

1963, Peter Revson made his Grand Prix debut in the non-points International Gold Cup Race at Oulton Park, England. He finished 9th in a Lotus-BRM.

1986, Estoril, The field was as it had been at Monza except that Allen Berg was back in the second Osella after the car had been driven by Alex Caffi in Italy. Pirelli announced that it was withdrawing from Grand Prix racing at the end of the year and Renault said that it too had decided not to continue supplying F1 engines for the 1987 season. Ferrari had also announced that it had signed up Gerhard Berger to replace Stefan Johansson.

Qualifying resulted in another pole position for Ayrton Senna's Lotus-Renault while Nigel Mansell was second fastest in his Williams-Honda with Alain Prost third for McLaren and Berger fourth in his Benetton. Then came Teo Fabi (Benetton), Nelson Piquet (Williams-Honda), Keke Rosberg (McLaren), Stefan Johansson (Ferrari), Riccardo Patrese (Brabham) and Rene Arnoux (Ligier).

At the start, Mansell went into the lead and he remained there for the rest of the afternoon to win an impressive victory. Senna followed him and only dropped from second when he stopped for tires in the mid-race. On the last lap, however, he started to run out of fuel and dropped from second to fourth, promoting Prost to second and Piquet to third. The two Ferraris of Johansson and Michele Alboreto picked up fifth and sixth.

1997, At the A1 Ring, Jacques Villeneuve took 10 points in this years Austrian GP while Michael Schumacher made an uncharacteristic error and gave away the chance of a decent points score. He managed to salvage one point but Villeneuve was now only one point behind - and Williams was ahead in the Constructors' Championship. The star of the show, was F1 new boy Jarno Trulli who drove a brilliant race, displaying a maturity beyond his years.

The 1987 Portuguese GP was exemplary Prost, saving the best for the final part of the race. Fantastic duel between Gerhard and Alain at the end, clearly shown by their fastest laps: http://www.forix.com/asp/gp.asp?z=0&k=0&l=0&r=8712&c=4 . Remember it all to well, being both a Prost and a Ferrari fan at the time.....

BTW thanks for all this effort, rdrcr!

scheivlak, you're welcome... that is in part what it's for, to bring back some of those memories. And to contribute just a bit after all I've plucked from this forum.


September 22,

1907, Grand Prix driver, Philip Fotheringham-Parker was born in the U.K.

1919, Harry Miller submitted a patent request to the US Patent Office for a car design which included 4-wheel brakes, pierced brake drums, flat spoke wheels, and the engine as a stressed member of the chassis.

1921, Grand Prix driver, Ian Raby was born.

1928, Eric Broadley, the founder of Lola Racing Cars, was born.

1934, Leonard Wood, of NASCAR's famous Wood Brothers, was born.

1944, Grand Prix driver, Richard Robarts was born.

1958, F1 driver, Franco Forini was born.

1963, Jim Clark sat on pole in a rear-engined Lotus, but A.J. Foyt who won the 200-mile USAC race at Trenton, New Jersey. In a front-engined roadster, this was Foyt's third of five consecutive wins at Trenton.

1964, Jim Pardue died from injuries suffered in a crash during tire testing at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

1968, Mont-Tremblant, After the successful Canadian GP at Mosport Park the previous year, the event was given a date in the 1968 calendar but the race was moved to the exciting Mont Tremblant circuit at St Jovite, in Quebec. With the final three races being held in the Americas traveling was also reduced. Attention now centered on the battle for the World Championship with Graham Hill still ahead after his early season successes with 30 points by Jacky Ickx with 27, Jackie Stewart with 26 and Denny Hulme with 24. Lotus ran a third car for Canadian star Bill Brack, while Dan Gurney ran in a third McLaren (having given up with his Eagle-Weslake program). An old Eagle appeared in the hands of local driver Al Pease while BRM ran only one car for Pedro Rodriguez. Matra Sports expanded to a two-car operation Jean-Pierre Beltoise being joined by Henri Pescarolo and with Jackie Stewart running alongside Johnny Servoz-Gavin in the Matra International entries, there were four Matras in the field.

In qualifying Ickx's hopes of the World title ended when he crashed after his throttle stuck open. He suffered a broken leg.

Jochen Rindt took pole position for Brabham - the new Repco engine finally beginning to work - with Chris Amon's Ferrari and Jo Siffert's Rob Walker Lotus alongside on the front row. Gurney did well to qualify on the second row alongside Hill, while the third row featured Hulme (McLaren), John Surtees (Honda) and Bruce McLaren (McLaren).

At the start Amon took the lead with Siffert chasing him. Then came Rindt, Gurney and Hill. The order at the front remained stable with Surtees dropping out early from eighth place. On lap 14 Hill managed to pass Gurney and 12 laps later Gurney dropped away with a broken radiator. On lap 29 Siffert disappeared with an oil leak and so Rindt was second but he retired soon afterwards with an engine failure which promoted Hill to second place. That too was short-lived as Hill soon dropped behind Hulme and McLaren because of a serious vibration problem. Hill gradually fell back and was overtaken by Rodriguez and Servoz-Gavin. A few laps later, the Frenchman spun out and so Hill moved back to fourth.

Amon seemed to have everything under control until the 73rd lap when his transmission failed. This gave McLaren a 1-2 victory with Rodriguez grabbing third for BRM. The result put Hulme and Hill on equal points in the World Championship with two races to go.

1974, Mosport Park, The Formula 1 circus arrived in Canada with two races to go and the World Championship finely balanced between Clay Regazzoni on 46pts, Jody Scheckter on 45, Emerson Fittipaldi on 43 and Niki Lauda on 38.

The entry was smaller than it had been in Europe with several of the tail-end teams not making the trip to the Americas but numbers were bumped up by the appearance of two new American teams: Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing and Penske Cars.

Parnelli had the Viceroy-sponsored Maurice Philippe-designed VPJ4 for Mario Andretti while Penske entered Mark Donohue in the Geoff Ferris-designed PC1 which was supported by the First National City bank. Ian Ashley and Eppie Wietzes were entered in private Brabhams, while BRM had dropped both Henri Pescarolo and Francois Migault and was running Chris Amon alongside Jean-Pierre Beltoise. Surtees had Helmut Koinigg alongside Derek Bell and the Yardley McLaren team had replaced David Hobbs with Jochen Mass.

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Fittipaldi's McLaren with Lauda's Ferrari alongside and Scheckter's Tyrrell third. Then came Carlos Reutemann (Brabham), Jean-Pierre Jarier in the Shadow and Regazzoni's Ferrari. The top 10 was completed by Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell), James Hunt (Hesketh), Carlos Pace (Brabham) and Ronnie Peterson (Lotus). Andretti qualified the Parnelli a promising 16th.

Lauda went into the lead at the start with Fittipaldi and Regazzoni in pursuit. Scheckter was fourth but on the third lap, he moved ahead of Regazzoni and set off after the two leaders. The four World Championship contenders were running in the top four positions. The order remained unchanged until after half-distance and it looked as though the teams would go to the last race with three drivers on the same points (Fittipaldi, Lauda and Scheckter would all have had 49 points and Lauda 47 if they had finished in that order) but on lap 49 Scheckter's brakes (which had been causing him problems) failed and he crashed heavily. That moved Regazzoni to third and into the lead in the World Championship again. That order at the front remained the same until the 70th lap when the leader Lauda crashed out after running over debris. Fittipaldi was the new leader with Regazzoni second in the World Championship fight.

Amid the excitement, Peterson was driving an impressive race. he had started 10th but worked his way up to fifth place after Lauda's departure. He then forced his way ahead of Hunt and began to close on Regazzoni. The pair crossed the line separated by less than a second with Hunt just behind them. Depailler finished fifth with Denny Hulme (McLaren) sixth. The stage was set for an exciting World Championship showdown in Watkins Glen a fortnight later.

1991, Estoril, Qualifying was thrilling with an exciting battle between the two Williams-Renaults and the McLaren-Hondas and no-one expected the outcome to be pole position for Riccardo Patrese, driving the spare after his own car had blown an engine. Gerhard Berger was second in his McLaren by two-tenths and then came his team mate Ayrton Senna and Patrese's team mate Nigel Mansell. There was then an appreciable gap back to the Ferraris of Alain Prost and Jean Alesi. The top 10 was completed by Mauricio Gugelmin (Leyton House), Pierluigi Martini (Minardi-Ferrari), Ivan Capelli (Leyton House) and Michael Schumacher, once again quicker than his Benetton team mate Nelson Piquet.

He sliced across in front of Senna, the Brazilian having to jink towards the grass to avoid impact. An irate Senna dived for the inside line at the first corner but Mansell cut him off with another cut-throat maneuver. He then dived to the inside in the second turn and Berger had to swerve to avoid an impact. Patrese was ahead with Mansell second but Williams had planned for such an eventuality and on lap 18 Riccardo let Nigel go ahead. The order was unchanged until the pit stops when things went wrong for Mansell. The mechanic changing Nigel's right rear had a wheel nut cross-thread and as he reached for a spare wheel nut, other team members signaled that Nigel could depart. He went one way, his right rear went another. The car stopped in the pitlane and the Williams team ran to it, put a new wheel on the car and sent him away. But they had worked on the Williams in an illegal area and Nigel was duly black-flagged. He had lost nearly a lap but then charged back up to fifth before the penalty was applied.

This left Patrese ahead of Senna with Berger third but the Austrian soon overtook Senna and went after Patrese. Gerhard's challenge ended soon afterwards with a blown engine. Prost also disappeared with engine trouble and so third place went to Alesi with Martini fourth, Capelli fifth and Andrea de Cesaris (Jordan) sixth.

Senna was unable to attack Patrese and so the Italian came home to win. Alesi was third, Martini fourth and the two Benettons of Nelson Piquet and Schumacher fifth and sixth.

1996, Estoril, Jacques Villeneuve drove a storming - brilliant - race to win the Portuguese Grand Prix. He made a mess of the start but recovered in a remarkable fashion. It was the first time that the Canadian had beaten Damon Hill in a straight fight and it kept his title hopes open. It had included the best overtaking maneuver of the season so far - around the outside of Michael Schumacher in the curling final corner.

September 23,

1930, USAC and Grand Prix driver at Indy, Don Edmunds was born.

1951, Alberto Ascari won the Modena Grand Prix in a Ferrari 500 F2, only three months after its design was first put to paper.

1962, Edoardo Lualdi won the Coppa Fagioli Hillclimb at Ancona, Italy, driving a Ferrari 250 GTO.

1973, Mosport Park, With Jackie Stewart having won the Drivers' World Championship in Italy two weeks earlier, the major interest was over the Constructors' title which was finely balanced between Tyrrell and Lotus. Tyrrell decided to enter three cars for the Canadian race and as Patrick Depailler was out of action after a motorcycle accident Tyrrell decided to run Chris Amon, who had fallen out with Tecno. BRM had hired Peter Gethin to replace Clay Regazzoni, while Ferrari had only one car again as Jacky Ickx had left the team. Tim Schenken made his comeback as Howden Ganley's partner at Williams and Jody Scheckter reappeared in a third McLaren for the first time since he had triggered the big accident at Silverstone.

Qualifying resulted in pole position going to Ronnie Peterson (Lotus) with Peter Revson alongside him on the front row of the grid. Scheckter shared the second row with Carlos Reutemann (Brabham) while Emerson Fittipaldi (Lotus) and Francois Cevert - the pair still fighting over second place in the title - were on the third row. The top 10 was completed by Denny Hulme (McLaren), Niki Lauda (BRM), Stewart and Wilson Fittipaldi (Brabham).

It was raining on race day and at the start Peterson took the lead with Scheckter chasing and then a fast-startring Lauda. Emerson Fittipaldi was fourth ahead of Stewart, Reutemann, Revson and the rest. In the early laps Lauda was the man on the move and he moved into the lead on lap three, leaving Peterson and Scheckter to fight over second, which they did until Peterson crashed on lap 17. By then Scheckter had dropped back behind Fittipaldi and Carlos Pace (Surtees). On lap 20 Lauda pitted for a change of tires and that left Fittipaldi in the lead with Jack Oliver (Shadow) second and Cevert third. There was considerable confusion after Cevert and Scheckter collided on lap 33 after which there was bungled pace car interlude after which things became very confused as this failed to pick up the leader and allowed those ahead to gain almost a lap. All this meant that Oliver ended up in the lead with Revson second and Beltoise third. Of these three Revson had the most competitive car and so eventually moved into the lead and led all the way to the flag while Fittipaldi charged to try to make up for lost ground and overtook Oliver and Beltoise in the closing laps to grab second. For hours after the race confusion reigned but eventually it was confirmed that Revson was the winner - thanks to a lucky break when the pace car came out.

1973, Gordon Johncock won the USAC Championship race at Trenton, New Jersey, in an Eagle-Offenhauser.

1990, Estoril, The big news in the F1 paddock at Estoril was that Jean Alesi had been signed to replace Nigel Mansell at Ferrari after a deal between Sandro Nannini and Ferrari fell through. Alesi was originally expected to move to Williams but a settlement was reached between the parties (which resulted in the British team acquiring an F1 Ferrari).

The field was unchanged as the teams gathered in Estoril. The Life team had finally given up with its W12 engine and had acquired a Judd V8 but it made no difference. Qualifying resulted in a surprise as the two Ferraris were ahead of the two McLaren-Hondas with Nigel Mansell on pole from Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna ahead of Gerhard Berger. Riccardo Patrese emerged fifth in his Williams-Renault ahead of Nelson Piquet (Benetton), Thierry Boutsen (Williams), Jean Alesi (Tyrrell) and Sandro Nannini (Benetton). Eric Bernard was 10th and his Larrousse Lola team mate Aguri Suzuki was 11th.

On race morning, Satoru Nakajima withdrew from the event because of flu, which caused him to have a lapse of concentration in the warm-up and crash heavily.

At the start, Mansell made a mess of it and nearly spun. The pole position car skittered across the road into the path of Prost and the Frenchman had to back off. On the outside Senna, Berger and Piquet all went ahead of Prost but Mansell chopped ahead of Piquet to grab third.

Prost was stuck behind Piquet for the first 13 laps and so dropped five seconds behind the leading trio. By lap 26 he had caught them and passed Mansell when the Englishman had a wild moment. Then the pit stops and tyre changes began and with everyone but Nannini stopping the order was shuffled with Senna leading Mansell and Berger. Mansell then attacked Senna and on lap 50 went ahead by which time Prost had lost sixth gear and was driving to survive. Mansell later had a brush with Philippe Alliot's Ligier, the Frenchman being punted into a wall.

Prost caught and passed Berger on lap 59 and was challenging Senna for second when Aguri Suzuki and Alex Caffi collided and the race was stopped with still 10 laps to go. Mansell won with Senna second and Prost third, then came Berger, Piquet and Nannini. This was Mansell’s first win for Ferrari – his 16th to date. The result meant that Senna was 18 points clear with three races to go.

It was Mansell's first win for Ferrari that season, to be precise - in 1989 he won Brazil & Hungary for the Scuderia.

Thanks scheivlak, I’ll inform that source…

For today, September 24,

1900, Samuel T. Davis won the feature race on the first day of racing at the New Jersey State Fairgrounds in Trenton, New Jersey.

1918, Pre-war driving ace Eddie Rickenbacker was named commanding officer of the US "Hat in the Ring" airplane fighter squadron during World War I.

1931, Grand Prix driver, Mike Parkes was born in England.

1948, Soichiro Honda founded the Honda Motor Company.

1960, AAA and Grand Prix driver at Indy, Johnny Thompson died. Known as "the Flying Scot", drove his first feature at Seekonk Speedway in 1947. A truly versatile racer, Thomson quickly moved to "Champ Cars" and Sprinters. Racing in the Bay State Racing Association, the United Car Owners Association, ARDC and AAA, he won the New England championship in 1948, with 32 wins, then repeated as champion in 1949. In 1952 Thomson won the AAA Eastern Midget Championship, and he captured the Eastern Sprint Car Championship in 1954.

By 1953, Johnny was racing at Indianapolis, and would soon establish himself as a top competitor at that level. In 1955, he raced from last place at the "Brickyard", to an impressive fourth place finish. His top Indianapolis run came in 1959, when he set a record time to take the Indy 500 pole. He finished the race in third, and it looked like the best was yet to come. Thomson won seven Indy Car type events and finished third in the points race three times.

Thomson enjoyed a longtime sponsorship with DA Lubricants. As a tribute to this company that was so important to his racing career, the names of each of Johnny's four sons, Dale, David, Darrell, and Dana, start with the letters DA. Sadly, Johnny Thomson lost his life in a crash at Allentown, PA in 1960, ending an illustrious career.

1967, Gary Congdon died in an accident during a sprint car race at Terre Haute, Indiana.

1967, AJ Foyt drove his Coyote-Ford to victory in the USAC Championship race at Trenton, New Jersey.

1972, Leo Kinnunen cliched the Interserie Championship when he won at the Norisring, in Germany, in a Porsche 917/10.

1972, Mosport Park, As the Mont Tremblant circuit had been closed down because of a dispute with the local racing authorities the Canadian Grand Prix settled at an upgraded Mosport Park. There was a big field as usual. Team Lotus had replaced Dave Walker with Reine Wisell, while the Swede's drive in the fourth BRM had gone to local hero Bill Brack while Skip Barber turned up in a Gene Mason Racing March 711.

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Peter Revson's McLaren with Denny Hulme alongside, the team having an advantage because of the knowledge of the track gained from CanAm races. The front row was completed by Ronnie Peterson's March. The new World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi was on the second row with his predecessor Jackie Stewart alongside. The third row featured Francois Cevert (Tyrrell) and the Ferraris of Clay Regazzoni and Jacky Ickx while the top 10 was completed by Carlos Reutemann's Brabham and Chris Amon's Matra. The job of being best of the rest went on this occasion to Brabham's Wilson Fittipaldi.

There was a fog on race morning and the start of the race had to be delayed. When the weather cleared a bit Peterson took the lead with Stewart moving up to second ahead of Revson. Hulme dropped right into the midfield.

Peterson stayed ahead until the fourth lap when he made a mistake and Stewart was able to get ahead of begin to pull away. Further back Ickx passed Revson although the American was later able to get the place back as the Ferrari began to lose power. Ickx faded quickly behind Fittipaldi and Regazzoni. The order remained largely unchanged until lap 54 when Peterson was trying to lap Graham Hill. The Brabham driver refused to get out of the way and the two cars collided, the March suffering a bent steering. Peterson stopped not far from the exit of the pits and pushed the car back to the garages. He rejoined but was disqualified. This left Revson and Fittipaldi fighting for second place but a challenge from Emerson resulted in him damaging his front wing and he dropped back and had to pit. This left Regazzoni in third place but he stumbled over Barber in the closing laps and so was overtaken by Reutemann and Hulme.

The McLaren driver managed to get ahead when Reutemann ran out of fuel at the end of the race. Stewart thus ended up on the podium with the two McLaren drivers with Revson second and Hulme third.

1989, Estoril, The big news in the paddock was that Ferrari's John Barnard had been signed to become technical director of Benetton while there was much controversy about remarks made by Alain Prost about Honda not treating the McLaren drivers fairly. There was a change at Onyx where Bertrand Gachot had been ditched by the team for public criticism of the team and had been replaced by Finland's JJ Lehto while Johnny Herbert was back in the Tyrrell as Jean Alesi was again racing elsewhere in Formula 3000.

Ayrton Senna was again on pole position but the Ferraris of Gerhard Berger and Nigel Mansell were between the Brazilian and Prost. Pierluigi Martini was an impressive sixth in his Minardi (showing the competitive of Pirelli qualifying tires) while sixth place went to Riccardo Patrese (Williams) ahead of Alex Caffi (Dallara), Thierry Boutsen (Williams), Luis Sala (Minardi) and Martin Brundle (Brabham).

At the start, Berger took the lead from Senna. The Brazilian held on to second until the eighth lap when Nigel Mansell moved to second and then the order stabilized until lap 24 when Nigel moved ahead of Berger to take the lead. When the mid-race pit stops began, Martini briefly led the race for Minardi while Mansell overshot his pit. He then put his car into reverse and went back to where he should be. It was an offense for which Mansell was disqualified but he chose to ignore the black flags, which were shown to him. Senna and Mansell were soon fighting for second place behind Berger. On lap 49, they collided at the first corner. Both were out and Prost was up to second.

Berger duly won the race with Prost second and Stefan Johansson (Onyx) third. Nannini was fourth, Martini fifth and Jonathan Palmer sixth in his Tyrrell.

1995, Estoril, After flattering only to deceive in Belgium and in Italy, David Coulthard finally won his first Grand Prix at Estoril. David was using a standard FW17, although the team had the new FW17B version - clearly quicker than the original - for qualifying. In the race, the team decided to use the FW17 for the sake of reliability.

Right from the word go in Portugal, Michael Schumacher was struggling to compete. He had some suspension modifications on his car but they made it even more unpredictable than usual and were quickly set aside.

Coulthard took pole after a lively battle with Hill. Schumacher was third fastest but was 0.764s off Coulthard's pole time. Gerhard Berger was fourth for Ferrari and a confident Heinz-Harald Frentzen put his Sauber fifth on the grid.

The disaster of qualifying was McLaren with Mark Blundell 12th on the grid and Mika Hakkinen 13th. The team had a new C-version of the MP4/10 and initially it looked good but quickly the team found itself in deep confusion. The MP4/10B was at least a known entity. The MP4/10C needed a lot more testing, even if the potential was there for better performance. For some reason - probably political - the McLaren management chose to rush through the MP4/10C and, as a result, the drivers and engineers were all over the place. During Saturday night the weary McLaren mechanics built - and wait for this - one MP4/10B; an MP4/10C with a B-spec undertray; an MP4/10C with a B-spec gearbox and rear suspension and a standard MP4/10C.

The race started with drama as Ukyo Katayama cut across the nose of Luca Badoer's Minardi and was flipped, landing upside down before it smashed into the barriers on the outside of the track. Badoer's Minardi was hurled at high speed into the pitwall. Both cars then bounced back onto the track - Katayama's Tyrrell still upside down when it came off the wall. It lurched horribly back across the track - as the Minardi came back the other way on its way to hitting the outside wall - and went into Andrea Montermini's Pacific. The red flags came out stopping the race and Katayama was extracted from his car unconscious.

At the restart, Coulthard led while Hill and Schumacher went head-to-head into the first corner. Schumacher emerged ahead of the pack. From that moment on Hill was always going to struggle. The order remained unchanged until the first pits stops during which Hill was slow because Williams had decided to go for a new strategy. While Coulthard and Schumacher continued on their three-stop pattern, Hill went for a two-stop race. This should mean that Hill should be ahead of Schumacher when the German rejoined after his third pit stop. The risk was that Damon would then be under pressure and would have to hold off Michael with tires that were worn. The longer he could hold Michael the easier the task would become because Michael's tires would deteriorate. This alternative strategy worked perfectly. Damon emerged ahead of Michael - but behind the all-conquering Coulthard who garnering his first F1 win.

As expected, Michael came racing up behind Damon. It should not have been easy for him to get past, but then Damon left the door open and Schumacher dived straight through. Damon had no one to blame but himself.

Further back Ferrari had some drama when Jean Todt radioed Alesi and told him to allow Berger to pass. Alesi ignored the call and so Ferrari gave him a slower pit stop, which put Berger ahead. Alesi was not at all happy. The pair finished fourth and fifth with Frentzen sixth.

1999, 30-year old Kevin Gobrecht was killed in an accident during a sprint car race at I-80 Speedway near Greenwood, Nebraska.

2000, Indianapolis, Michael Schumacher won a dominant victory in the United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis. He was helped on his way by the fact that David Coulthard jumped the start and Mika Hakkinen suffered an engine failure but it was a great victory nonetheless, despite an indiscretion in the closing laps when he had such a big advantage that he lost concentration and spun. Rubens Barrichello came home second to give Ferrari the perfect result and McLaren's only consolation was Coulthard's two points for fifth place. The most important thing for Formula 1, however, was that the fans loved it. The main grandstand was a red sea of Ferrari hats and banners. It was great to see that F1 really is back in the United States...

September 25,

1938, Grand Prix driver, Neville Lederle was born in South Africa.

1942, Grand Prix driver and Endurance entrant, Henri Pescarolo was born in France.

1949, Johnnie Parsons drove a Kurtis-Offenhauser to victory in the AAA sanctioned race on the dirt track at Springfield, Illinois.

1952, Trans-Am champion Dorsey Schroeder was born.

1967, F1 driver, Mika Salo was born.

1982, Las Vegas, Although there were still some outstanding battles over protests, the World Championship decider in Las Vegas as a straight fight between Keke Rosberg and John Watson and with nine points between them Watson's only hope was that Keke would fail to finish and he would win. This would give him the title because Rosberg had won only a single race.

Ferrari decided to keep Mario Andretti for a second race while Jacques Laffite announced that he was moving to Williams in 1983. The entry was the same as at Monza but this time Alain Prost and Rene Arnoux were on the front row in their Renaults. Michele Alboreto was a surprising third for Tyrrell ahead of Eddie Cheever's Talbot Ligier and the Brabham-BMW of Riccardo Patrese. Rosberg was fifth with Andretti's Ferrari alongside and Patrick Tambay behind them, ahead of Watson. The top 10 was completed by Derek Warwick in the new Toleman-Hart TG183.

On race day, it was announced that Tambay would not be starting because of his back problems.

At the start the two Renaults took off in the lead with Prost leading Arnoux, Alboreto and Patrese. Cheever, Andretti, Rosberg and Piquet followed. on the second lap Arnoux took the lead but Prost was back ahead by lap 15 while Arnoux soon disappeared with an engine failure. On lap 52 Prost fell behind Alboreto, the Renault vibrating badly. A Tyrrell was leading a Grand Prix for the first time in years. On lap 56 Watson moved to second but he was a long way behind and as Rosberg was running in fifth place the McLaren driver's hopes of the title were over. As Prost faded back so Cheever moved to third.

Alboreto duly won his first Formula 1 triumph, leading home Watson, Cheever, Prost, Rosberg and Derek Daly in the second Williams.

1983, Brands Hatch, The cancellation of the New York Grand Prix gave Brands Hatch the chance to host a European GP and there was much excitement as Alain Prost, Rene Arnoux and Nelson Piquet disputed the World Championship. Williams decided not to run the new Honda-engined cars at Brands Hatch but entered a third car for test driver Jonathan Palmer. Theodore was struggling and with Mo Nunn having departed, the team dropped to one car with Johnny Cecotto ending up a spectator. The big news was that Patrick Tambay would be dropped by Ferrari in 1984 and replaced by Michele Alboreto while there were hints that Tambay might end up at Renault as Eddie Cheever was rumored to be leaving.

Qualifying produced a surprise with Elio de Angelis on pole in his Lotus-Renault with Riccardo Patrese second in his Brabham-BMW and Nigel Mansell third in his Lotus-Renault. Piquet was fourth ahead of Arnoux and Tambay with Cheever, Prost, Manfred Winkelhock (ATS-BMW) and John Watson (McLaren-TAG) completing the top 10. The dwindling group of Cosworth cars were headed as usual by Keke Rosberg but he was 16th in his Williams.

In the race Patrese took the lead from de Angelis at the start with Mansell third, Piquet fourth and Cheever fifth. Within a lap however, Piquet was ahead of Mansell. Prost was charging and passed Cheever on the ninth lap. On lap 12 de Angelis challenged Patrese for the lead and both men spun. Piquet went through into the lead while Patrese rejoined before Prost arrived. De Angelis also rejoined but he had damaged the engine and retired soon afterwards.

The order at the front remained unchanged all the way to the flag with Piquet leading home Prost. Patrese faded through the field and after the pit stops it was Tambay in third place but near the end of the race he lost all his brake fluid and dropped behind Mansell. The Frenchman then spun out of the race. Mansell duly claimed third place ahead of de Cesaris, Derek Warwick (Toleman-Hart) and his team mate Bruno Giacomelli.

As the F1 circus headed off to South Africa, Prost was still ahead in the World Championship but Piquet was only two points behind. Arnoux could still win the title, but it looked likely as he was eight points behind Prost.

1988, Estoril, After Gerhard Berger's unexpected victory at Monza there might have been hopes of a repeat at Estoril but such ideas were quickly dispelled as Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna dominated qualifying in their McLaren-Hondas, the Frenchman for once beating the Brazilian. On this occasion Ivan Capelli was third quickest in the impressive March-Judd with Gerhard Berger (Ferrari) fourth and Mauricio Gugelmin fifth in his March. Nigel Mansell was back in action and was sixth in his Williams ahead of Michele Alboreto's Ferrari, Nelson Piquet's Lotus, Sandro Nannini's Benetton and the Arrows-Megatron of Derek Warwick.

The race started with a crash as Warwick stalled on the grid and was hit by Andrea de Cesaris (Rial), Luis Sala (Minardi) and Satoru Nakajima (Lotus). The race was red-flagged. This was good news for Riccardo Patrese who had missed the first start because of engine problem.

The field formed up again and Prost got away slightly faster than Senna but the Brazilian dived into the first corner ahead. Prost responded and went to pass Senna at the end of the first lap. Senna swerved to block Prost, forcing the Frenchman to run close to the pitwall. Prost kept his foot down and edged Senna outwards, taking the lead as they went into the first corner. He quickly began to pull away and would not be headed again. After the race Prost was not happy with Senna's maneuver.

Senna had to keep an eye on his fuel and soon fell into the clutches of Capelli and on lap 21 Senna dropped to third. Capelli then began to close the gap on Prost. Berger overtook Senna but went out on lap 36 when he pressed the wrong button in his cockpit and set off the fire extinguisher. This eventually caused him to spin off. Senna then fell back to Mansell and the battled for 20 laps before coming up behind Jonathan Palmer's Tyrrell. As they scrambled to get by Mansell ran into the back of Senna and went off into the barriers. Senna had to stop for new tires.

Prost won as he pleased to score McLaren's 12th victory in 13 races. Capelli was second with Thierry Boutsen (Benetton) third. Warwick was fourth, Alboreto fifth and Senna sixth. The result meant that Prost moved ahead of Senna in the World Championship with 81 points to the Brazilian's 76.

1994, Estoril, The field was as it had been in Italy a fortnight earlier but Team Lotus was now in receivership and so pay-driver Philippe Adams was brought back to partner Johnny Herbert. Michael Schumacher was still banned and so Benetton ran JJ Lehto alongside Jos Verstappen. It was the chance for Damon Hill to win back points in the World Championship battle and he set out to do just that. In qualifying Damon rolled his Williams after making contact with a spinning Eddie Irvine. Gerhard Berger thus took pole for Ferrari ahead of Hill and his team mate David Coulthard. Mika Hakkinen was fourth fastest in his McLaren-Peugeot with Jean Alesi's Ferrari fifth and Ukyo Katayama sixth in his Tyrrell-Yamaha. The top 10 was completed by Martin Brundle (McLaren-Peugeot), Rubens Barrichello (Jordan-Hart) and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Sauber) and Verstappen.

At the start of the race Berger took the lead ahead of the two Williams-Renaults but his Ferrari lasted only until the eighth lap when his transmission failed. Coulthard, who had been running second, thus took the lead until the pit stops. This elevated Alesi to the number one spot for a few laps until he too pitted and so Barrichello had a handful of laps as race leader before he too stopped. Coulthard was then back in the lead until he went wide while lapping a backmarker and Hill moved ahead. One ahead Hill was away and the two Williams raced around in first and second places for the rest of the afternoon. Hakkinen was third with Barrichello fourth, the Brazilian holding of Verstappen in the closing laps. Brundle completed the point’s scorers.

The result meant that Hill had closed to within one point of Schumacher in the World Championship.

1997, Andy "Dead Dog" Green piloted the Thrust SSC to a new Land Speed Record of 714.144 mph in the Blackrock Desert. He was the first person to travel 700 mph on land, “officially”.

September 26,

1909, Vern "Flip" Fritch, racer, journalist, and National Sprint car Hall of Fame inductee, was born.

1943, F1 driver and TIGA founder, Tim Schenken was born.

1956, Champion AMA Supercross rider, Bob Hannah was born in Whittier, California.

1963, NASCAR driver, Joe Nemechek was born.

1971, Denny Hulme drove a Chevy powered McLaren M8F to victory in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Can-Am race.

1975, At 1:05 pm, Vern Schuppan pulled his Eagle F 5000 car onto the streets of Long Beach, California, and ran the first lap around there.

1982, Dave Hoban drove a March to victory in the Libre/FF2000 Challenge at Caldwell Park in England.

1993, Estoril, In the fortnight after the Italian GP Michael Andretti quit McLaren to return to the United States and Indy Car racing. The team's test driver Mika Hakkinen took over the second car. The team also carried out secret testing with Lamborghini V12 engines at Silverstone. At the same time Peugeot had announced its plans to enter F1 in 1994 as an engine supplier and a deal with McLaren made a lot of sense. Elsewhere in the paddock Harvey Postlethwaite left Ferrari to return to Tyrrell. Jordan had hired Emanuele Naspetti to race its second car but a deal was being done for Eddie Irvine to drive in Japan and Australia.

There was no change at the front in Estoril with the two Williams-Renaults dominant as they had been all year. The only difference was that this time Damon Hill was ahead of Alain Prost. Alain had a 25 point advantage in the World Championship and he knew already that he was not staying at Williams in 1994, as Williams was expected to hire sworn rival Ayrton Senna. Mika Hakkinen was an impressive third on the grid ahead of team mate Senna with Jean Alesi (Ferrari) back in fifth ahead of the Benettons of Michael Schumacher and Riccardo Patrese. The top 10 was rounded off by the Ferrari of Gerhard Berger and Derek Warwick's Footwork.

There was drama before the start as Hill's Williams refused to fire up and he had to start at the back of the grid. At the start Hakkinen bid for the lead against Prost. At the same time Alesi and Senna were going around the outside. As things turned out Alesi emerged ahead of Hakkinen and Senna, although the Brazilian passed the Finn in the course of the first lap. Prost was fourth with Schumacher fifth ahead of Berger, Mark Blundell (Ligier-Renault), Patrese and Martin Brundle in the second Ligier. At the back Hill began a charge which took him to 10th place by lap 8.

On lap 20 Senna's engine blew. Almost immediately Alesi and Hakkinen pitted, the Finn getting away ahead. Schumacher also stopped and so Prost was suddenly leading Hill with Blundell third. The Williams-Renaults were on a one-stop strategy. The two men pitted on laps 29 and 30 and so Schumacher was in the lead. Soon afterwards Hakkinen went wide exiting the final corner and hit a bump which launched the car three feet into the air. It spun across the track and thumped the inside wall.

Two laps later Berger pitted. As he rejoined the Ferrari suddenly turned to the left and went across the track in front of Warwick's Footwork and smashed into the barriers.

Schumacher led Prost with Alesi third and Hill fourth. Prost was waiting for Schumacher to stop again but gradually he realized that the German was going to try to go the whole way. He closed right up to Schumacher. Hill also closed up. When they mixed with the back-markers Schumacher used traffic to his advantage and managed to stay ahead all the way to the flag. Prost wanted to win but he also knew that second was good enough to secure the World Championship. Hill was a close third with Alesi fourth, Wendlinger fifth and Brundle sixth.

1996, Camaro driver Ron Fellows won the season ending Trans-Am race in Reno, Nevada. Also in that event, Tommy Kendall in his Mustang, clinched his second straight Trans-Am title.

1999, Nurburgring for the GP of Europe, World Championship hopeful Heinz-Harald Frentzen needed a good result to stay in the running and he took pole position in his Jordan-Mugen Honda, ahead of the McLarens of David Coulthard and a demoralized Mika Hakkinen. Ralf Schumacher confirmed the progress made by Williams by qualifying fourth while Ferrari was in disarray with World Championship challenger Irvine in ninth place and Mika Salo 12th.

At the start Frentzen led Hakkinen and Coulthard but there was a nasty crash in the midfield: when Damon Hill slowed suddenly, Alexander Wurz swerved to avoid the Jordan and tipped Pedro Diniz's Sauber into a roll which tore the rollbar off the Sauber. The Safety Car had to come out to slow the cars down while the debris was removed from the track. After it was withdrawn, Irvine made some progress through the field but then it began to rain. Some drivers pitted and others did not. Amid the confusion, Irvine was left sitting in the Ferrari pit with only three wheels on his car. Hakkinen stopped and rejoined with wet tires. The star in the damp conditions was Ralf Schumacher who overtook Coulthard and challenged Frentzen for the lead. The rain stopped and so Hakkinen had to pit again and then, during the mid-race pit stop sequence, Frentzen's Jordan cut out as he went into the first corner after his stop.

This left Coulthard in the lead but it rained again and David made a mistake and slid off. Ralf Schumacher took over but soon afterwards suffered a puncture. That left Giancarlo Fisichella in the lead in his Benetton but he too made a mistake and spun out, leaving Johnny Herbert to come home for a most unexpected victory in his Stewart-Ford. He was followed by the Prost-Peugeot of Jarno Trulli under heavy pressure from Rubens Barrichello in the second Stewart-Ford. For a while Luca Badoer was fourth in his Minardi but this broke down and Ralf Schumacher took the place while Hakkinen managed to scramble past Marc Gene in the second Minardi to score two points for fifth place. Irvine finished seventh - out of the points.

September 27,

1925, The first stone was laid in construction of the Nurburgring in Germany

1938, F1 and CART Team manager and Engineer, Morris “Mo” Nunn was born.

1945, Sportscar driver, Bruce Leven was born.

1959, Eddie Sachs lead all 100 laps in winning the USAC race at Trenton, New Jersey,

1964, Parnelli Jones won the USAC Championship race at Trenton, New Jersey, driving a Lotus-Ford.

1981, Guy Edwards and Emilio de Villota drove a Lola T600 to victory in the Flying Tigers 1000 World Endurance Championship race at Brands Hatch, England. This was the final race for a Porsche 917, with the Kremer 917K/81 dropping out after leading 12 laps.

1981, Montreal, Between the Italian and Canadian GPs Alan Jones announced that he was retiring for Formula 1 and there were rumors that Mario Andretti would do the same. At the same time Niki Lauda was spotted testing one of the new McLaren MP4/1s at Donington Park and it looked like he would be making a comeback. At the same time Siegfried Stohr decided that he no longer wanted to be an F1 driver and a deal was struck for Riccardo Patrese to be partnered in Canada by Jacques Villeneuve, Gilles Villeneuve's brother.

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Nelson Piquet with his title rival Carlos Reutemann alongside. Jones was third while Alain Prost was fourth in his Renault. Nigel Mansell was an impressive fifth for Lotus while Hector Rebaque was a fine sixth in the second Brabham. The top 10 was completed by Elio de Angelis (Lotus), Rene Arnoux (Renault), John Watson (McLaren) and Jacques Laffite (Talbot Ligier). Gilles Villeneuve was 11th while his brother Jacques failed to qualify along with the two Fittipaldis, the two Tolemans and Beppe Gabbiani's Osella.

The weather had turned wet by race day and at the start Jones took the lead after banging wheels with Reutemann. The Argentine driver had to lift off and he was overtaken by rival Piquet, Prost and de Angelis. Further back Villeneuve tipped Arnoux into a spin, the Renault bashing into Pironi's Ferrari as it went off.

In the laps that followed Villeneuve moved up to take third on lap 7 when Jones spun and Piquet dropped back as he tried to avoid the Williams. This let Prost take the lead with Laffite second. Watson moved to fourth and things began to settle down until lap 13 when Laffite moved into the lead. He was followed through into second place a few laps later by Villeneuve and as Prost faded further he fell behind Watson as well. Watson was then able to catch and pass Villeneuve as well and that was how the race ended with fourth place going to Bruno Giacomelli (Alfa Romeo), fifth to Piquet and sixth to de Angelis. Piquet's two point mean that he and Reutemann headed to Las Vegas separated by a point while Laffite had an outside chance of winning the title.

1987, Jerez Spain, The Coloni team was back in action and with Franco Forini staying on for a third event with the Osella team the field was up to 28 cars. The battle for pole position was between the two Williams-Honda with World Championship leader Nelson Piquet (in an active Williams) on pole ahead of challenger Nigel Mansell (who chose to use the passive car). The two Ferraris of Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto were third and fourth with Ayrton Senna fifth in his Lotus-Honda. Teo Fabi was sixth in his Benetton-Ford with Alain Prost (McLaren), Thierry Boutsen (Benetton) and the two Brabhams of Riccardo Patrese and Andrea de Cesaris rounding off the top 10.

In the race Piquet took the lead but Mansell dived ahead at the end of the first lap and began to pull away from the Brazilian. Senna was third with the two Ferraris and Boutsen chasing. The top five did not change for the first half of the race with Senna at the front of a train of cars.

At the pitstops Mansell was away and gone before Senna arrived but Piquet was slower and found himself stuck in fourth place behind Senna and Prost. He challenged Prost but got it wrong and spun back to sixth place. Senna had decided to go through without a stop and those behind him were left to battle with one another while Mansell drove on to victory. Senna's gamble did not pay off because his tires deteriorated quickly and eventually Piquet, Boutsen and Prost were all able to get ahead. Senna then dropped back behind Johansson as well. Piquet then made a mistake and ran wide but Boutsen also made a mistake and spun and so Prost was second with Johansson third, Piquet fourth, Senna fifth and Philippe Alliot sixth in his Larrousse Lola.

1992, Estoril, In the two weeks between the Italian and Portuguese Grands Prix the promising Fondmetal team dropped out of the action when the team's major sponsor Sgommatutto announced its withdrawal because of economic problems in Italy. Team boss Gabriele Rumi decided not to sink any more of his money into the team and so there were only 26 cars in Portugal. The driver line-up was unchanged and so was the order in qualifying with the two Williams-Renaults ahead, Nigel Mansell taking pole from Riccardo Patrese and the McLarens of Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger. Then came the two Benettons of Michael Schumacher and Martin Brundle followed by Mika Hakkinen's Lotus, Michele Alboreto's Footwork-Mugen, Johnny Herbert's Lotus and Jean Alesi's dismal Ferrari. Ivan Capelli in the second Ferrari was back in 16th place.

On Sunday morning, it was finally announced that Alain Prost had signed for Williams-Renault for 1993 which was not a big surprise. Nigel Mansell had already announced his retirement from F1.

The race finally got underway with Michael Schumacher having to start from the back of the grid after his car was late firing up. Mansell took the lead at the start and drove away from the field to score his ninth victory of the year (a record). Patrese ran second until his pit stop but then there was a problem with the rear jack and Riccardo dropped down the order. Mansell was able to stay ahead at his stop. Patrese charged back and was on Berger's tail when the Austrian decided to pit. Patrese failed to realize this and the Italian's right rear wheel hit Berger's left rear as he swerved to avoid the slowing McLaren. The car went high into the air and did not hit the ground for 100 meters, passing under a pedestrian bridge. Fortunately, it landed rear end first and clattered down the pitwall, showering debris. Patrese was shaken but unhurt. The Williams team protested against Berger after the race but the stewards studied the incident and ruled that it was a racing accident - with no one to blame.

The incident overshadowed the rest of the race - demolishing the midfield, which ran across the debris: there were punctures and pit callers and bits of driveshaft jammed through monocoques. Chief among those to suffer was Schumacher who had to make two stops.

Mansell was long gone now and when Senna began to have handling troubles Nigel pulled further and further away. By the finish Senna had stopped four times and was still third; Berger was second with an exhaust sounding terrible, while Brundle, Hakkinen and Alboreto finished off the points scorers.

1995, Howard Millican, ace Indycar fabricator, machinist, and general innovator passed away after a long illness.

1998, Nurburgring for the Luxembourg GP, Having made a real mess of qualifying and the race at Monza, the McLaren team was hoping to have a rather better time at the Luxembourg Grand Prix but the cars did not perform well in qualifying and Mika Hakkinen found himself behind both Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine in the two Ferraris. Hakkinen tried to disguise his disappointment but there was no doubting that he was around a second a lap slower than he should have been and six-tenths behind Schumacher.

David Coulthard was in even worse trouble, lining up fifth on the grid behind Giancarlo Fisichella's Benetton, which was behaving very well on its Bridgestone tyres. Behind Fisichella was Ralf Schumacher's Jordan and Heinz-Harald Frentzen in his Williams.

When the race began Schumacher made his customary bad start and so it was Irvine who led into the first corner with the two McLarens giving chase and Fisichella under threat from Alexander Wurz, up from eighth on the grid. Irvine's moment of glory was short-lived. At the end of the first lap he made a mistake at the chicane, bounced wide and in a flash Schumacher was through and into the lead. With Irvine holding up Hakkinen Michael was then able to build up a lead of five seconds.

After 14 laps running behind Irvine Hakkinen made his move at the chicane and eased ahead of the Ulsterman. Mika then set off after Schumacher and closed rapidly. When Schumacher pitted Hakkinen put on a burst of speed until his stop four laps later. He emerged just ahead of the Ferrari. Further back Coulthard was able to get ahead of Irvine, leaving the second Ferrari to fight for fourth place with Frentzen's Williams.

For 10 laps Hakkinen and Schumacher dueled but gradually the Finn began to edge away from the Ferrari. The order was unchanged at the second pits stops and Hakkinen maintained a comfortable five second lead until the closing laps when he let Schumacher close. Hakkinen was back as the favorite to win the title. By finishing third Coulthard moved McLaren to within one point of the Constructors' title.

1997, Rookie, Mike Borkowski won the Trans-Am race at Pikes Peak, Colorado, capturing his first Trans-Am win.

September 28,

1937, Drag racer Gene Snow was born

1958, Rodger Ward drove a roadster to victory in the USAC race at Trenton, New Jersey. Jimmy Reece died on the way to the hospital after crashing on the final lap.

1959, Pre-war Grand Prix great, Rudolph Caracciola died of cancer.

1963, F1 driver, Eric Comas was born.

1968, F1 driver and WDC Champion, Mika Hakkinen was born in Finland.

1969, Team McLaren drivers, Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme finished 1-2 in the only Can-Am event ever held at Michigan International Speedway.

1975, Brian Redman drove a Lola-Chevy to victory in the inaugural Long Beach Grand Prix, an event for F5000 cars. As was the norm, prior to F1 setting a tire print on a new circuit, it must have first hosted another event.

1980, Montreal, With Alan Jones and Nelson Piquet separated by one point in the battle for the World Championship, there was much excitement in Canada. There were some changes in the driver lineup as well as Vittorio Brambilla had announced his retirement and the Alfa Romeo team had decided to sign up a youngster called Andrea de Cesaris. In addition there was a rainbow-colored RAM Williams entered for Kevin Cogan and Arrows had Derek Warwick with the team in case Jochen Mass was not fit to race. In addition, Mike Thackwell was entered in a third Tyrrell. The second Unipart Ensign was missing and so Geoff Lees was out of work and Team Lotus decided not to run a third car for Nigel Mansell.

The two World Championship contenders were first and second on the grid with Piquet ahead of Jones while Didier Pironi (Ligier) qualified third, Bruno Giacomelli (Alfa Romeo) fourth, Carlos Reutemann (Williams) fifth and Keke Rosberg sixth in his Fittipaldi, The top 10 was completed by John Watson in the McLaren, the impressive de Cesaris, Jacques Laffite (Ligier) and Hector Rebaque (Brabham). The Michelin cars were all in trouble with the Ferraris and Renaults off the pace. Jean-Pierre Jabouille was 13th and Rene Arnoux 23rd while Gilles Villeneuve was 22nd and reigning World Champion Jody Scheckter failing to qualify.

At the start Jones made the better start but Piquet refused to give way and the pair collided. Jones was able to continue but there was chaos behind as car after car became involved in the shunt. In the end eight cars were damaged, including two of the three Tyrrells, both Fittipaldis, Andretti's Lotus, Villeneuve's Ferrari and Jochen Mass's Arrows. The race was stopped. Piquet, Emerson Fittipaldi, Villeneuve, Andretti and Mass were all able to restart in spare cars, while Jarier took over Thackwell's car, leaving the New Zealander and Derek Daly unable to take part. Rosberg started from the pitlane in a repaired car.

Jones took the lead again with Pironi also jumping ahead of Piquet. The Brazilian soon overtook the Ligier and then Jones to go into the lead. As Piquet drove away, there was lots of action behind him as Giacomelli spun out of fourth place. Watson was up to fourth.

On lap 24 Piquet suffered an engine failure. This left Jones in the lead and if he finished he would be World Champion as the scoring system meant that Piquet could not add enough to his points total at Watkins Glen to beat Jones. Now Pironi began to close up on Jones, despite suggestions that he was about to penalized one minute for jumping the start. Further back down the order Prost overtook Laffite and began to close up on Reutemann. But on lap 26, Jabouille’s Renault suffered a suspension failure and smashed into the barriers. Jabouille suffered serious leg injuries and had to be cut from the wreckage of the car. Prost overtook Reutemann and was chasing after third-placed Watson when his suspension failed. Pironi's penalty was confirmed and eventually Jones let Pironi go into the lead and began to nurse his car to the finish. In the closing laps Watson had a spin and dropped from third to fourth. Thus, Pironi won on the road but with his penalty added he dropped to third. Williams had a 1-2 and Jones was World Champion.


1990, The first 4.8 second pass in NHRA Top Fuel history was made when Gary Ormsby ran the 1/4-mile in 4.881 seconds at Topeka, Kansas.

1997, Nurburgring for the Luxembourg GP, There was plenty to celebrate for McLaren and Mercedes-Benz: it was McLaren's first pole position since Ayrton Senna's last race with the team back in Australia in 1993 and Mercedes-Benz 's first since the Italian GP of 1955.

Race morning saw the warm-up completely dominated by McLaren with Mika Hakkinen over a second clear of Coulthard. It no doubt impressed the visiting Mercedes-Benz top brass. The race start was much the same as Villeneuve came away slightly slower than he hoped. Behind him, Fisichella had a clutch problem and was quite slow away while Coulthard made an amazing getaway from sixth to grab second position as they all braked for the first corner. As they turned into the corner Villeneuve banged wheels with Frentzen, who knocked off his ignition switch by accident. By the time Heinz-Harald realized the problem he had dropped back to 13th position.

But this was nothing compared to the chaos that was going on behind them as Michael Schumacher and the two Jordans came thundering into the corner. On the run down from the start Michael Schumacher had got alongside Fisichella but he then found his brother Ralf going faster on the outside of both of them. Wisely Michael decided to get out of the Jordan sandwich and switched to the outside, leaving Ralf to continue his charge towards the apex. This was not bright because Fisichella had nowhere to go when they arrived in the corner. So the two Jordans collided and Ralf was lobbed across the track and landed on his brother Michael's Ferrari, destroying not only his race but any real hope he had of winning the World Championship. While all this was going on Gerhard Berger had to take to the sand to avoid the crash and in the dust and sand Ukyo Katayama plowed into Fisichella's car and ripped a wheel off his Minardi. It was not a good day for Ferrari as Irvine, who was trolling around in the midfield, retired on lap 22 with an engine failure.

The team to gain most from all this was Stewart, Rubens Barrichello found himself in a miraculous fourth place - from ninth on the grid - with Jan Magnussen sixth (from 12th). The pair were split by an equally lucky Jean Alesi.

It was total McLaren domination until the end of lap 42 when David suddenly slowed as he came past the pits and the car trickled down past them. David shook his head in disbelief.

Moments later Mika Hakkinen's birthday and the Mercedes rule ended in another cloud of smoke as Mika's Mercedes engine digested itself. This and the demise of both the Stewarts left Jacques with an enormous advantage. The Benettons pitted for their second stops and he was suddenly nearly a minute clear of Alesi. Frentzen was behind him. The two Williams men had to pit again, of course, but this was executed without drama, although Heinz-Harald was just a little too slow to get ahead of Alesi. He was ahead of Berger and that was how they stayed all the way to the flag.

It was thus a Renault 1-2-3-4 finish which in Mercedes-Benz country, is just about as good as it gets... But McLaren had sent a message to the opposition. The fact that there were grumbles in the paddock afterwards about the team's electronic systems was, more than likely, just sour grapes.

The decimation at the start and the mid-race self-destruction of the McLarens and Stewarts meant that there was not much running at the end but Pedro Diniz was a worthy fifth in the Arrows, holding off Olivier Panis (Prost), Johnny Herbert (Sauber) and Damon Hill (also in an Arrows).

Richard - can't believe you mentioned Trenton and missed this one on the same day!

September 28, 1958

Jo Bonnier in a Maserati 250F won an historic victory at Watkins Glen in the International Formula Libre race at an average speed of 97.75 mph for the 300 Kilometer distance. He fought a near race-long battle with Phil Hill who was driving a 4.1 liter Ferrari Testa Rosa. Ultimately Dan Gurney finished 2nd in a 3 liter Ferrari and Bruce Kessler was 3rd in a 3.8 liter Ferrari.

Why was this an historic event?

This was the first in a series of three international formula libre races at Watkins Glen between 1958 and 1960. These races introduced top level Grand Prix cars and racing to America and paved the way for the United States Grand Prix to come to Watkins Glen in 1961 - where it had a successful 20 year run!

It was the first time an American road circuit had been lapped at over 100 mph - Bonnier's fastest lap was 103 mph.

It was the last win for a Maserati 250F at "a fully accredited international event." The quote is from Robert Edwards' "Managing A Legend." But Robert credits the feat to the ex-Moss 250F at Teretonga Park, New Zealand in February of that year. (That's the only mistake I have noticed in that fine book - if you don't have that one in your collection you should!) Oh, by the way, Bonniers' winning car at Watkins Glen was the same 250F Fangio drove to his historic 1957 German GP win.

September 29, 1946- the Colombo designed Ferrari V-12 bench tested for the first time.

From MOTOR ITALIA, Ferrari Story #3, Le Origini: Ferrari 125

Well Mike, that may be, because I’m not that knowledgeable on many aspects of motor racing history. Evidenced by the conspicuous absence of many pre-war events... However, your reference is certainly history making and is well worth the inclusion in this thread ~ Thanks!

Also, thanks for the addition Paul…


September 29,

1927, Sportscar driver Sherwood Johnston, who drove for Briggs Cunningham, was born in New York City.

1957, Pat O'Conner won over Johnny Thompson by .99 seconds in the first 100-mile USAC Champ Car race on the newly paved, 1-mile oval at Trenton, New Jersey.

1962, In a Ferrari 250 GTO, Mike Parkes won the Daily Mirror Trophy race at Snetterton, England.

1969, CART driver, Memo Gidley was born to American parents in Mexico.

1977, Sandro Munari drove a Lancia Stratos to victory in the Monte Carlo Rally. This was the third straight Stratos rally win.

1981, Ayrton Senna de Silva, announced, due to a lack of sponsorship and the fact that his father needed help on his farm in Brazil, he would retire from racing. That retirement would only last until the start of the next racing season.

1991, Catalunya, The Formula 1 circus arrived at the new Circuit de Catalunya for the first time, Jerez having fallen from favor after Martin Donnelly's accident in 1990. The big news was that Max Mosley had been elected President of the FIA, taking over from Jean-Marie Balestre, and everyone waited to see what changes would result from the election. There were changes in the entry as Johnny Herbert was back in Japan for a Formula 3000 race and so Michael Bartels tried to qualify the second Lotus for the fourth time (and was unsuccessful for the fourth time). There had been a switch-around in the small teams with Olivier Grouillard having been dropped by Fondmetal and replaced by Gabriele Tarquini from AGS. Grouillard had moved to AGS. Pedro Chaves had decided that he was wasting his time with the Coloni team and withdrew and as no-one else wanted to drive the car it stayed in the garage. Roberto Moreno had been dropped by Jordan in favor of rising star Alex Zanardi.

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Gerhard Berger in his McLaren while Nigel Mansell, who still had a slim chance of the World Championship, was second in his Williams-Renault. Ayrton Senna was third in his McLaren after an engine failure in qualifying while Riccardo Patrese was fourth in the second Williams. Michael Schumacher was fifth in his Benetton with Alain Prost sixth for Ferrari, ahead of his team mate Jean Alesi, Ivan Capelli of Leyton House, Emanuele Pirro's Dallara-Judd and Nelson Piquet in the second Benetton. Nigel Mansell had twisted his ankle playing football but, while he made a big thing of the injury, it did not seem to affect his performance much. The track was wet at the start but it was drying and Alain Prost wanted to use slicks. Ferrari refused to let him and he went out on wets.

At the start, Mansell made an awful beginning and was overtaken by Senna who took second place behind Berger. Schumacher also overtook Mansell to run third. Further back Capelli and Pirro tangled at the first corner. Ivan retired on the spot and Emanuele had to pit and this dropped him to the back of the field.

Mansell retook third place from Schumacher early on and he then closed on Senna. They both went down the main straight side by side, with an inch or two between their wheels. In the end Senna backed down and Mansell went ahead. As the track dried so there were pit stops and during these Berger was delayed more than he should have been and so Senna was in the lead when the stops finished. Then came Prost who had pitted earlier and then Schumacher, who had a spin and a pit stop! On lap 12 Berger passed Senna again and Mansell closed up to the Brazilian for a second time. At the same time Schumacher blew past Prost. It began to rain again and Senna had a big spin which put Mansell and Schumacher into second and third. Then the track began to dry again and so Mansell caught and passed Berger while Schumacher also made a bid for the lead and spun off. This left Prost third, Senna fourth and Alesi fifth although he would soon drop back because of 10-second penalty for a false start. Both Benettons dropped back with a pit stop and Piquet lost more time as he arrived when Schumacher was there. On lap 33 Berger's engine failed him and so Mansell was left ahead of Prost. Senna was third but would be overtaken by Patrese and Alesi before the end of the race while Schumacher picked up one point for sixth place.

The World Championship was still open but with only two races to go and 16 points between Senna and Mansell.

2002, Indianapolis, It was an unfortunate end to what would have been a pretty good afternoon. The two Ferraris were dominant again. No-one was going to accuse Formula 1 of being as exciting as USAC Midget racing but the fans - around 150,000 of them - would go home having seen the best of the best. And on this occasion they had been racing all afternoon. The Ferrari team had made it clear before the event that the two drivers would be allowed to fight. And fight they did. The problem was that Rubens Barrichello is just not quite as fast as Michael Schumacher. And so he was stuck behind him for most of the afternoon.

At the final corner Michael donned his Mother Teresa gear and went out wide. Rubens went down the inside. It was a formation finish. Or was it? Was Michael letting Rubens through? Rubens did not know. He was not sure what to do. The two cars crossed the line together. Not even the drivers were able to say who had won. But the Formula 1 timing transponders can reveal the tiniest of secrets and when the names flicked up on the screen, you could almost hear the groan. Barrichello was ahead of M Schumacher. Down at the back of the Media Center you could hear the bad guys kick-starting their Conspiracy Theories. This was bad for Formula 1. This was a scandal. This was the worst thing to happen in the history of the sport. This would sell newspapers... This is the way of the media in the modern age, and Michael Schumacher should be bright enough to know that.

Anyway… The Ferrari cause was aided by the fact that David Coulthard - who ran third all afternoon - was worried that his engine might blow up as Kimi Raikkonen's did. They were also helped by the fact that the BMW Williams team made a spectacular mess of its challenge. The look of absolute horror on the face of Williams's technical director Patrick Head said it all. He was literally pulling his hair out as he watched his two cars pirouetting at the end of the main straight at the start of lap 2. Ralf Schumacher had spun and punted into Montoya. Both kept going but their races were both ruined. Ralf spent the rest of the afternoon wondering how to explain himself and hoping that somewhere between parc ferme and the Williams pit he might be able to find a tin helmet to protect him from the gunfire that Head would be aiming in his direction.

Montoya did what he could for the rest of the afternoon but there was further disaster ahead when in the mid-race he misheard a radio call and came in early. The team handled it well but the strategy was ruined. The best he could have hoped for was third but he had to settle for fourth place.

The misadventures of Ralf and Kimi Raikkonen (who was, literally, firing on only nine cylinders) allowed others to pick up points and Jarno Trulli duly droned around to pick up fifth place for Renault. The team had planned for a light fuel-load at the start and a short fast first stint. Jarno made up some places at the start, jumping ahead of Jacques Villeneuve and Raikkonen but that was it. Before too long he headed for the pits and took on a tanker-load of fuel to get him home.

The final point went to Jacques Villeneuve who drove a typically Villeneuve kind of race. He had gone for an aggressive two-stop (he had no real choice because of the tires) but a less than perfect start made the task a little more difficult than planned. The Williams disaster and Raikkonen's blow-up helped him out and the reward was sixth place.

Richard - my comment was meant in a light hearted way. The fact is that this is one of my favorite TNF threads and I learn something new (and sometimes even better - remember something long forgotten!) every day I read it. Thanks for your efforts in making this a great thread!

Oh I know.... I should have stuck one of those *shrug* emoticons in there ... I was in a hurry this am.

still am.

thanks for the kind words......

bye!

September 30,

1919, Grand Prix driver, Roberto Bonomi was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1941, Grand Prix driver, Reine Wisell was born in Sweden.

1946, Grand Prix and Sports car driver, Jochen Mass was born in Germany.

1955, Actor James Dean, while driving his new Porsche 550 Spyder, was killed in a road accident on his way to participate in what would have been his fourth sportscar race.

1961, F1 and Sports car driver, Eric van de Poele was born in Brussels, Belgium.

1973, Dick Johnson raced in his first Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panarama, Australia.

1980, Six-time IMSA champion, Al Holbert was killed in a plane crash near Columbus, Ohio.

1984, Peter Brock and Larry Perkins drove a Holden Commodore to victory in the James Hardie 1000 at Mount Panarama, Bathurst, NSW, Australia

1979, Montreal, The weeks between the Italian GP and the race in Canada were filled with the non-championship Dino Ferrari Grand Prix at Imola which was won by Niki Lauda. And it was the Austrian in the news in Canada, Lauda announcing in the middle of practice that he no longer wanted to be a Formula 1 driver, after completing a few laps in the all-new Brabham-Cosworth BT49. Brabham boss Bernie Ecclestone decided to put Argentina's Ricardo Zunino in the car.

The other changes to the field were a third Tyrrell for Derek Daly and a second Fittipaldi for Alex Ribeiro. The Alfa Romeo team appeared with two 179 chassis for Bruno Giacomelli and Vittorio Brambilla but the organizers refused to let them practice if they did not pre-qualify and the team refused to pre-qualify.

After qualifying Alan Jones (Williams) was on pole position with local hero Gilles Villeneuve second in his Ferrari then came Clay Regazzoni (Williams) and Nelson Piquet in one of the new Brabham-Cosworths. Fifth on the grid was Jacques Laffite (Ligier) with Didier Pironi (Tyrrell), Jean-Pierre Jabouille (Renault), Rene Arnoux (Renault), the new World Champion Jody Scheckter (Ferrari) and Mario Andretti (Lotus) completing the top 10. Zunino qualified 19th and Hector Rebaque put his own HR100 chassis 22nd.

There were political battles over whether or not Alfa Romeo would be allowed to run and eventually a compromise was reached with Brambilla allowed to run but Giacomelli being refused an entry.

In the race Villeneuve took the lead at the start with Jones and Regazzoni chasing him. Piquet ran fourth but then moved ahead of Regazzoni to take third. Jones shadowed Villeneuve for the early part of the race and eventually slipped ahead at the hairpin, the two cars banging wheels. Jones was then able to stay ahead but Villeneuve was only a second behind him at the finish. Piquet ran third until the closing laps when he dropped behind Regazzoni again and retired soon afterwards with a gearbox problem. Scheckter finished fourth with Pironi fifth and John Watson (McLaren) sixth.

1990, Jerez, Spain, The battle for the World Championship and Alain Prost's critical comments about Ferrari and the humor of pre-qualifying (which was scheduled to start when it was still dark) paled into insignificance on Friday when Martin Donnelly's Lotus crashed with enormous violence after a suspension failure on Friday. The Lotus hit the barriers nearly head-on and exploded into pieces. Donnelly was left lying on the track, his legs badly broken and the remains of his seat still strapped to his back. Amazingly he was still alive. In the circumstances Ayrton Senna's extraordinary pole position (his 50th) was a remarkable achievement and exhibited frightening commitment.

In his McLaren Senna was four-tenths of a second faster than Prost's Ferrari with Nigel Mansell third in the second Ferrari. Jean Alesi was fourth in the Tyrrell with Gerhard Berger a frustrated fifth having been blocked on his fastest lap for McLaren. The top 10 was rounded off by the two Williams-Renaults of Riccardo Patrese and Thierry Boutsen, the two Benetton-Fords of Nelson Piquet and Sandro Nannini and Derek Warwick in the one surviving Lotus.

Senna took the lead from Prost at the start with Mansell third. Behind them there was some wild action as Berger tried to drive through the field between Alesi and Patrese. Alesi spun.

Attention centered on Senna and Prost, running nose to tail at the front with Mansell keeping with them. Berger was clearly in trouble, having started the race on harder compound tyres than most, and behind him there grew a traffic jam, consisting of the two Williams-Renaults and the two Benettons.

Those early laps were exciting since Prost was pressuring Senna, looking for a way through. Overtaking at Jerez is not easy and it gradually became clear that Prost was going to have to settle for second until the pit stops and tyre changes which began on lap 20 when Mansell dived into the pitlane. He was followed by Patrese, Berger and Nannini. On lap 25 Prost and Boutsen headed in and a lap later in came Senna. He rejoined as Mansell was pulling over to let Prost ahead. Realizing that he must not get caught behind Mansell, Senna dived ahead of the second Ferrari. Piquet, who had not stopped, was a second in front but on lap 29 Nelson went off at the back of the track and immediately Prost and Senna were ahead of him. Then Senna began to drop back. Piquet disappeared with electrical trouble and Senna dropped back into the clutches of Mansell. Later it was discovered that some wreckage had pierced a radiator and it was leaking fluid onto the rear tyres. Eventually this put him out as temperatures rose. This left the two Ferraris circulating first and second with Nannini third but dropping back. Boutsen and Berger were disputing fourth. The two cars tangled wheels on lap 57 and the McLaren went off into a sandtrap.

Prost and Mansell duly scored a Ferrari 1-2 with Nannini third, Boutsen fourth, Patrese fifth and a charging Aguri Suzuki sixth.

2001, Indianapolis, Those who thought that the United States Grand Prix was going to be run with empty grandstands were proven to be wrong as Indianapolis was heaving with people. The Speedway does not give out official numbers for spectators but the experts looked around and said that the crowd had to 185,000 and one could never call that a failure — particularly in the wake of what happened on September 11.

Formula 1 was the first major international sporting event to take place in the United States since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and there was one banner in the grandstands which said it all: "F1 — Thanks for coming". Victory went to Mika Hakkinen, with Michael Schumacher 11 seconds back in second. Mika’s teammate, David Coulthard, finished third with the Jaguar of Irvine capturing valuable points in fourth. Heidfeld in the Sauber and Alesi in his Jordan grabbed the last two points paying positions.

October 1,

1912, David Bruce-Brown, the first American to win an international Grand Prix, died in a crash practicing for the American Grand Prize race in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1928, Grand Prix driver, Willy Mairesse was born in Belgium.

1930, Grand Prix and sports car driver, Frank Gardner was born in Australia.

1942, F1 driver, Jean-Pierre Jabouille was born in France.

1962, Kalman von Czasy won the Tyrol Grand Prix at Innsbruck, Austria, in a Ferrari 250 GTO.

1963, Jean-Denis Deletraz was born in Switzerland.

1967, Richard Petty won his tenth straight NASCAR Grand National stockcar race, at North Wilksborough.

1967, Watkins Glen, With the Brabham-Repco team having won the Constructors' title at Monza, it was down to Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme to sort out which one of them was going to win the Drivers' crown. Brabham was after a fourth World Championship title but Hulme was three points ahead and wanted his first title.

The field was bolstered with a third Lotus for Moises Solana and Jean-Pierre Beltoise in a Formula 2 Matra which had been sent along as part of the French company's preparations to enter Formula 1 in 1968.

The two Lotus 49s of Graham Hill and Jim Clark qualified 1-2 while the second row was shared by Dan Gurney's Eagle-Weslake and Chris Amon's Ferrari. On the third row were the two World Championship contenders with Brabham just quicker than Hulme while the fourth row featured Solana and Jochen Rindt in the Cooper-Maserati. John Surtees, the winner at Monza three weeks earlier, was down in 11th in his Honda.

Hill took the lead at the start with Clark giving chase but Gurney was soon up into second and stayed there until the end of the eighth lap when Clark reasserted himself. Gurney dropped back to retire on lap 24 with a rear suspension failure. This left third place to Amon who had emerged ahead after an early battle with the two Brabhams. Hulme had got the better of Brabham was was running fourth. Up at the front Clark overtook Hill (who was having gear trouble) for the lead on lap 41. Hill dropped back and fell behind Amon on lap 65. Brabham had been forced to drop back with a puncture and so was no longer a threat. Amon and Hill fought over second place until lap 85 when Amon's engine failed.

With two laps to go Clark's suspension suddenly bent alarmingly but he was able to keep the car going to grab victory by six seconds from Hill and Hulme, Denny extending his lead in the World Championship to five points, although Brabham would have to drop two points if he finished above fifth place. This was Clark’s third victory at the USGP.

1969, The Lancia Fulvia 1.6 was homologated for rallying.

1972, Leo Kinnunen won the year's final round of the Interseries at Hockenheim, Germany, in a Porsche 917-10.

1978, Watkins Glen, The death of Ronnie Peterson three weeks earlier after an accident in the Italian Grand Prix had caused much controversy. Riccardo Patrese was blamed by the members of the Grand Prix Drivers Association and they asked the organizers at Watkins Glen to Refuse his entry. Patrese then tried to get an injunction to stop the race happening. Patrese's injunction was refused he was unable to race but for years there was bitterness between those involved (particularly between James Hunt and Patrese).

Team Lotus was required to enter a second car and so hired Jean-Pierre Jarier to replace Peterson. Vittorio Brambilla was also still out of action and his place at Surtees was taken by an Italian youngster called Beppe Gabbiani. Rupert Keegan was still out of action and so Rene Arnoux drove the second car, Martini having given up on its F1 plans.

Brett Lunger had fallen out with BS Fabrications and so appeared as Derek Daly's team mate at Ensign (replacing Harald Ertl) while Keke Rosberg had finally given up with Theodore and was driving for ATS while Walter Wolf was fielding a second car for rising star Bobby Rahal. Nelson Piquet had been signed by Brabham for the 1979 season and was due to join Niki Lauda and John Watson but as no car was ready he missed out so there were 27 entries. With a 26-car grid only Gabbiani missed out.

The new World Champion Mario Andretti was on pole by a whole second, with Carlos Reutemann (Ferrari) second, Alan Jones (Williams) third and Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari) fourth. The third row featured perennial rivals Lauda and James Hunt (McLaren) while the fourth row featured Watson and Jarier. The fourth row was all-French with Jean-Pierre Jabouille (Renault) alongside his brother-in-law Jacques Laffite (Ligier) and the top 10 was completed by Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell) and Jody Scheckter (Wolf).

Andretti had a sizable accident on Sunday morning and so started in Jarier's car, while the Frenchman drove a new chassis which arrived on race morning. At the start Andretti went into the lead with Reutemann, Villeneuve, Jones and Jarier chasing. Neither Lotus driver was very happy with his car, however, and Andretti soon fell behind Reutemann and Villeneuve while Jarier was pushed back by Hunt, Watson and Depailler. On lap 21 Jones overtook Andretti for third place and two laps later this became second when Villeneuve went out with engine failure. Andretti and Lauda both disappeared with similar problems and so third place fell to Jabouille until the closing laps when he ran into brake trouble and slipped behind Scheckter and Jarier, who was charging hard after a tire stop. As a result the Frenchman was able to pass Scheckter and grab third but he ran out of fuel with four laps to go and so Scheckter, Jabouille, Emerson Fittipaldi (Fittipaldi) and Patrick Tambay (McLaren) completed the points scorers.

1989, Dick Johnson and John Bowe drove a Ford Sierra to victory in the Toohey's 1000 at Mount Panarama in Bathurst, Australia.

1989, Jerez, There was a much controversy going on in the week between the Portuguese and Spanish Grand Prix as the FIA had decided that Nigel Mansell should be given a one-race suspension for having ignored a black flag and then run into Ayrton Senna, taking the Brazilian out of the race. Mansell was threatening to retire if the ban went ahead. He backed down.

Elsewhere in the paddock Christian Danner had been dropped by Rial in favor of Gregor Foitek, who had been dropped earlier by the EuroBrun team. In qualifying the young Swiss driver had a sizable accident but emerged unhurt. Qualifying resulted in pole position for World Championship challenger Ayrton Senna ahead of Gerhard Berger's Ferrari and the likely champion, Senna's team mate Alain Prost. Fourth place went to the Minardi of Pierluigi Martini, which was using Pirelli's quick qualifying tires while Philippe Alliot was fifth fastest in his Larrousse Lola Lamborghini. Riccardo Patrese was next for Williams followed by Nelson Piquet's Lotus, Martin Brundle (Brabham), the impressive Jean Alesi (Tyrrell) and Emanuele Pirro in the first of the Benettons.

Senna took the lead at the start and led from flag to flag with Berger behind him all the way and Prost apart from on one lap in the middle of the race when he pitted for new tires. Alesi finished fourth with Patrese fifth and Alliot sixth.

Senna victory meant that he closed up on Prost in the World Championship but Alain was 16 points ahead with two races remaining, Senna needed to win both.

1988, Robert and Carolyn Yates buy Harry Ranier's NASCAR Winston Cup stockcar race team.

1991, Richard Petty announced that he will retire after the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup season.

1995, Ernie Ervan returned to racing, 14 months after a very serious accident, at North Wilksboro, North Carolina.

1995, Nurburgring for the GP of Europe… With only a week between the Portuguese and European events it was no surprise that David Coulthard set the pace in qualifying with team mate Damon Hill joining him at the top of the timesheets. But then qualifying was disrupted by the weather and so therre was never really had a decent showdown. Schumacher was third on the grid with the Ferraris fourth and sixth, split by Eddie Irvine - who would be driving for Ferrari next season. It was pretty much business as usual with McLaren-Mercedes a distressing ninth and tenth, despite the fact that this was Mercedes country.

Race day was damp and, on the recognition laps before the cars go to the pre-grid, Coulthard screwed up again, spinning off and stalling. The crestfallen Scotsman had to hurry back to the pits to take the spare car. His race, however, was of course compromised before it even began because the spare is never quite as good as the race car.

Despite that, David made a good start and as Hill floundered on the dirty side of the track, Schumacher slotted into second place. Everyone, except Ferrari and McLaren, had chosen to go on wet tires and in those early laps the slick runners dropped back, notably the McLarens, which were embarrassing as they were passed by Pacifics and Fortis. The Ferraris only dropped to sixth and ninth.

Out front Coulthard led Schumacher and the recovering Hill and that order would remain the same as the track began to dry. As it did so the Ferraris began to speed up and pit stops began for slick tires. When this was done, Alesi had a 20 second advantage over Coulthard, Schumacher and Hill.

Hill was tried to pass Schumacher in what was clearly - at that moment - a faster car. Michael defended as he had done in recent races - like a man who has nothing to lose. There was one particularly ruthless and vicious chop, which nearly sent Hill off as he locked up trying to avoid the German. It was one of those manouevres guaranteed to start an argument between observers. Damon did not give up and a few minutes later managed to get past thanks to sheer balls and determination which left Schumacher unable to react. But at the last corner Damon blew his advantage when he nearly spun. Schumacher got ahead again and this time began to pull away. Coulthard began to have trouble with the handling of the spare as the fuel load burned off and soon David was behind both Schumacher and Hill.

No-one was even close to Alesi - ahead now by half a minute before he came in for a pit stop. Jean kept the lead and with Schumacher also stopping quickly, it was left to Hill to challenge Alesi. It ended with Damon minus his front wings, heading for the pits. Hill now began charging but he would make a mistake and crash heavily. Up ahead, realizing that he could win the race, Schumacher attacked Alesi's advantage in a brilliant display of driving. The pressure was such that Alesi went off the road at one point. With a few laps to go Jean and Michael were nose-to-tail. And then Michael made the decisive move, going around the outside of Alesi into the chicane. It was a risky move but Michael was prepared to take it. The Benetton went ahead and Michael reeled off the closing laps as the crowd began celebrating. Alesi came home second with Coulthard a distant third.

At the end of the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, Damon Hill stepped out from behind the barriers where his Williams was at rest and joined the thousands of German fans applauding a great drive from Michael Schumacher in his Benetton.


EDIT: Thanks Mike, correction noted and made to Clark's record, I'll inform the source...

It was his third victory at the USGP at Watkins Glen (1962, 1966 and 1967) but not his third straight! Graham Hill did win three straight - 1963-64 -65.

October 2,

1919, AAA and Grand Prix driver at Indy, Pat Flaherty was born in the USA.

1921, Grand Prix driver, Giorgio Scarlatti was born in Italy.

1921, USAC and Grand Prix driver at Indy, Mike Nazaruk was born in the USA.

1927, USAC, Grand National and Grand Prix driver at Indy, Paul Goldsmith was born in the USA.

1940, Sports car and Grand Prix driver, Nanni Galli was born in Bologna, Italy.

1946, F1 WDC Champion, Alan Jones was born in Australia.

1946, The first post-WWII road race in the United States was run through the streets of Watkins Glen, New York. The 6.6-mile circuit ran through the village streets, starting and ending in front of the Schuyler County Court House. To close the public roads for the event, it was necessary to have permits from six governmental entities; the state, county, village, Town of Reading, Town of Dix and the New York State Parks Commission. It was also necessary to have a permit from the New York Central Railroad to stop the trains during the race, as the course crossed the tracks. This circuit was used for races from 1948 through 1952.

That first race was held on this date at 12 Noon, a 4 lap-qualifying race with a standing start. Subsequently, 15 cars started the 8 lap, 52.8 mile Grand Prix, and 10 finished. The winner was Frank Griswold, of Wayne, Pennsylvania, in a pre-war Alfa Romeo 8C2900 coupe, closely followed by Briggs Cunningham in his infamous Bu-Merc.

Other prominent entrants included William Milliken, the noted Aircraft and Race Vehicle dynamics expert-to-be (who rolled his Bugatti 35 on the last lap of the qualifier, giving "Milliken's Bend" its name), Charles Addams, the cartoonist who created the Addams' Family, and Miles and Sam Collier, major figures in the early history of US Road Racing

1949, F1 driver, Michael Bleekemolen was born in Holland.

1966, Watkins Glen, The Formula 1 World Championship had been settled in favor of Jack Brabham at Monza a month earlier but the US GP still attracted a good entry with Jim Clark and Colin Chapman deciding to race the BRM-engined Lotus 43 despite the fact that his engine failed in the final minutes of qualifying and Lotus had to borrow a spare engine from the BRM factory team. Clark was just a tenth off Brabham's pole position but only a few hundredths ahead of Lorenzo Bandini's Ferrari. Fourth on the grid was John Surtees in his Cooper-Maserati while the BRMs of Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart shared the third row of the grid.

At the start, Bandini got off the line better than the others and so took the lead while Ritchie Ginther managed to get his Honda up to third from eighth on the grid. The order began to sort itself out with Bandini under threat from Clark with Brabham and Surtees getting back in front of Ginther. The battle then saw Clark drop to fourth behind Brabham and Surtees and on lap 10 Brabham took the lead. On lap 17, as the leaders were lapping Peter Arundell's Lotus, Surtees tangled with the slower car and both spun. An irate Surtees pitted but was able to rejoin in 13th place. Bandini dropped out of the race with an engine failure on lap 35 and Brabham gradually managed to pull away from Clark and built his lead to nearly 15secs while the midfield thinned out with the retirement of both BRMs. And then on lap 56 Brabham went out with engine trouble and Clark was left with a lead of almost 30secs over Jochen Rindt's Cooper-Maserati.

No one else was within two laps of the leader although Surtees was charging hard as he tried go make up positions. He was able to pass both Jo Siffert and Bruce McLaren (who was back with Ford engines after his brief interlude with the Serenissima V8) to claim third place by the finish - a lap behind Clark. Rindt ran out of fuel on the last lap but was still classified second. It was Clark's first win of the year and the first for the H16 BRM engine.

1977, Watkins Glen, The entry was slightly smaller than had been the norm with 27 cars vying for 26 places on the grid. ATS had decided not to make the trip to the United States and most of the privateers were gone as well. The major addition to the field was Danny Ongais in an Interscope Racing Penske PC4.

Ferrari had already announced that Niki Lauda's replacement at Ferrari would be Gilles Villeneuve and as Ferrari and Lauda were becoming increasingly estranged it looked more and more likely that Lauda would not even both to finish the season. Team Lotus also announced that Gunnar Nilsson would not be retained and that Ronnie Peterson would be returning to the team in 1978. There was a change at Shadow as well as Riccardo Patrese was busy with a Formula 2 race in Estoril and so his place was taken by Jean-Pierre Jarier who had been released from his ATS contract.

Qualifying resulted in another pole position for James Hunt with Hans Stuck showing well to qualify second in his Brabham-Alfa Romeo. Then came John Watson in the second Brabham and Mario Andretti in the Lotus. Peterson was next up in the Tyrrell and shared the third row of the grid with Carlos Reutemann's Ferrari while Lauda was seventh alongside the second Tyrrell of Patrick Depailler. The top 10 was completed by Jody Scheckter (Wolf), Jacques Laffite (Ligier), Vittorio Brambilla (Surtees) and Nilsson in the second Lotus.

At the start, the track was damp and Watson gambled on slick tires. Stuck went into the lead with Hunt second, Andretti third ahead of Reutemann, Peterson, Lauda, Scheckter and the rest. Watson dropped quickly to the tail of the field. Stuck continued to lead in the early laps while Scheckter passed Lauda, Peterson and Reutemann to take fourth. Stuck however spun off on lap 15 and as he had no clutch he was unable to rejoin. The order at the front then remained unchanged all the way to the flag with Hunt winning from Andretti, Scheckter and Lauda. Clay Regazzoni (Ensign) was able to overhaul Reutemann to take fifth place.

1988, John Force became the first NHRA Funny Car driver to run the 1/4-mile in less than 4.8 seconds when he clipped off a 4.787 second pass at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas.

1988, Jerez, There was only a week between the Portuguese and Spanish GP and the story was much the same as it had been all year with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost ahead in their McLaren-Hondas. Nigel Mansell was third quickest in his Williams-Judd with Thierry Boutsen fourth in his Benetton. Then came Sandro Nannini in the second Benetton, Ivan Capelli's March and Riccardo Patrese in the second Williams. The Italian was given a $10,000 fine for giving Tyrrell's Julian Bailey a brake test in qualifying after the Englishman got in his way. Bailey ran into the back of the Williams and flew over it, losing any hope he had of qualifying. The Ferraris were not very competitive with Gerhard Berger eighth and Michele Alboreto 10th, the pair split by Nelson Piquet's Lotus.

Prost took the lead at the start while Senna went away rather more slowly than usual and he was overtaken by Mansell. Prost set off to build a lead while Senna found himself stuck behind Mansell. Senna was in difficulties with his fuel computer which insisted that he drive slowly and so he soon found himself trying to keep Patrese and Capelli behind him. Ivan finally got ahead of Patrese on lap 36 and within three laps he was ahead of Senna as well. A few laps later the March went out with engine trouble. While this was happening Nannini was getting ahead of Patrese and Senna and so claimed third place at the finish behind Prost and Mansell. Senna finished fourth with Patrese fifth and Berger sixth.

1996, NASCAR team owner and race car builder, Banjo Matthews died at age 64 after a long illness. After moving to Miami from Ohio, he ran his first race at age 15 in a Ford Roadster at Pompano Beach Speedway in 1947, and won. After five years of racing and working on cars, Matthews decided he wanted to race for a living, and moved to Asheville, NC in 1952. He raced both dirt and asphalt, building a reputation as one of the best modified drivers around, and he was ready when NASCAR went to the Superspeedways in the early 1960's. Banjo raced 50 times on the Grand National circuit, with a second at Atlanta being his closest encounter with victory lane.
In 1963, he left the driving to others, joining the Ford factory team building cars for Parnelli Jones, A. J. Foyt, Donnie Allison, Pete Hamilton and Bobby Isaac. When the factories pulled out, Banjo opened his own shop, and the legend began. He made a deal with John Holman of Holman-Moody, and built kit-type Fords in 1971. Matthews built the body and framework, and H-M put in the motors. After that, he built cars for Chevrolet.

Cars owned by Matthews won nine races and 14 poles in 160 starts, including three Firecracker 400's at Daytona. But he decided to turn all of his energies to building cars for others to own, and that is when he really made a name for himself. Those he built, won 262 of 362 NASCAR Winston Cup races from 1974-1985, including all 30 races in 1978, and four consecutive Winston Cup championships (1975-78). On many occasions, cars built by him comprised over half the field, Not only did he build them, he also repaired them. In addition to Winston Cup cars, he built Limited Sportsman, Modifieds and IROC cars.

It was said that his greatest joy was helping someone else, and his goal was to build each car as competitive and safe as the one before it. Despite not seeking the glory that comes with driving, Matthews still has a room frill of recognition from various groups. In the months before he died of heart and respiratory disease, he was honored by being awarded the Buddy Shuman Award, the Smokey Yunick Award for lifetime mechanical achievement, and has been inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame at Darlington.

1998, Olivier Gendebien passed away. Olivier was best remembered as a sports car ace of international repute, winning Le Mans for Ferrari on four occasions (1958, 1960, 1961 and 1962), this former wartime resistance fighter came from an aristocratic background. It was during a four-year spell in the Belgian Congo, clearing virgin forest for what would become the residential area of Stanleyville, that he met a friend who introduced him to the ways of motor sport as a rally navigator. Gendebien's handful of Ferrari Formula 1 outings were regarded as a reward for his prowess at the wheel of the Scuderia's sportscars. In 1958 and 1961 his works Ferrari ran at Spa carrying the Belgian national yellow racing livery under the Equipe Nationale Belge banner. At the end of 1962, he retired from racing.

...might as well throw the rest of these up here - I'll be at the Glen and probably be rather busy...


October 3,

1941, F1 and sports car driver, Andrea de Adamich was born in Trieste, Italy

1948, Ted Horn won the sprint car race on the 1-mile dirt oval at Trenton, New Jersey. He also set a 1-lap record of 40.13 seconds.

1965, Watkins Glen, The penultimate round of the Formula 1 World Championship took place at Watkins Glen and the field was much as normal although Ferrari was missing team leader as John Surtees had been seriously injured when he flipped a Lola-Chevrolet T70 Can Am car at Mosport Park when he suffered a suspension failure. The accident left him with multiple injuries, including a badly broken left leg. Lorenzo Bandini thus became the team leader while Pedro Rodriguez and Bob Bondurant who was starting his first Grand Prix, were entered by Luigi Chinetti's NART. Team Lotus entered a third car for Mexico's Moses Solana but otherwise the field was the same as usual. In qualifying Graham Hill took pole in his BRM while Jim Clark was second in his Lotus. Ritchie Ginther put his Honda F1 car third on the grid alongside Mike Spence's Lotus on the second row while Bandini shared the third row with Jackie Stewart's BRM. Jack Brabham and Dan Gurney shared the fourth row in their Brabhams.

Hill took the lead at the start with Clark chasing him while Stewart pushed his way up to third in the course of the first lap. Hill ran wide at one corner on the second lap and Clark pounced, taking the lead, but the BRM was back ahead at the end of lap five. Stewart disappeared quickly with a throttle problem leaving Bandini in third place although he fell behind Gurney and then Brabham. The weather became increasingly treacherous but Hill's position was made rather more secure when Clark went out with engine failure after just 12 laps. Gurney and Brabham then traded second place until Gurney moved ahead. Hill made a mistake on lap 38 and lost most of the advantage he had built for himself but Gurney pushed too hard and lost time, falling behind Brabham again. Brabham then made a mistake and so Gurney went ahead again. Hill then set about building up an advantage again and he won by just over 12 seconds with Gurney second and Brabham third. Bandini was fourth but he was a lap behind, while Rodriguez did a good job to finish fifth.

1969, F1, IMSA and CART driver Massimiliano “Max” Papis was born in Como Italy.

1971, Watkins Glen, There had been a considerable amount of safety work done at Watkins Glen with a new pit complex and an extension to the track. The field was much as it had been in Canada two weeks earlier although Rolf Stommelen was out of action because of a jaw problem. The second Surtees (a third was being run for Mike Hailwood) was entered for Sam Posey and Gijs van Lennep, the faster of the two (Posey) getting into the race. Tyrrell expanded to three cars with Peter Revson returning to F1 after seven years away. BRM continued to run five cars but George Eaton was replaced in the fifth by Formula 5000 driver John Cannon. Mark Donohue was again in the second McLaren but was sharing the car with David Hobbs as he had to fly backwards and forwards to Trenton, where a delayed USAC race was taking place. Mario Andretti decided not to bother and so Ferrari ran only two cars.

Jackie Stewart took pole position for Tyrrell with Emerson Fittipaldi's Lotus and Denny Hulme's McLaren alongside. The second row featured Clay Regazzoni in the fastest of the Ferraris and Francois Cevert in the second Tyrrell. Jo Siffert (BRM), Jacky Ickx (Ferrari) and Chris Amon (Matra) shared the third row.

Stewart took the lead from Hulme at the start with Cevert jumping up to third place, followed by Regazzoni and Siffert. Fittipaldi made a poor start and was eighth. On the seventh lap Cevert was able to pass Hulme for second place and on lap 14 he moved ahead of Stewart, who was suffering from bad oversteer. Hulme was also having handling problems and he began to drop back, being overtaken by Ickx (who had passed Siffert). Stewart also fell victim to the Ferrari and then Siffert as well. Ickx stalked Cevert until lap 40 when the Ferrari began to fall back with an alternator problem, which led to the Belgian's retirement. This moved Siffert to second place and Peterson (who had passed Stewart) to take third. Howden Ganley (BRM) was fourth with Stewart fifth.

It was Cevert's first World Championship victory and with the Mexican GP having been canceled, it was the last World Championship

1976, Mosport Park, With three races to go in the World Championship Niki Lauda (Ferrari) and James Hunt (McLaren) were 17 points apart (Hunt's disqualification from the British GP having been confirmed after the Italian GP). Hunt was not giving up, however, and took pole position in dominant fashion. The McLaren team decided to concentrate on the old M23s rather than continue to develop the difficult M26. Ferrari had left Carlos Reutemann out of the lineup and ran only two cars for Lauda and Clay Regazzoni while there had been a change at Brabham with Larry Perkins having been hired to stand in for Reutemann. Williams turned up with Chris Amon in a second car but after a spin he was hit by Harald Ertl's Hesketh and both cars seriously damaged. Amon suffered bruising to his legs and Ertl to his back. Otto Stuppacher appeared again but he was well off the pace and failed to qualify.

Alongside Hunt on the front row was Monza winner Ronnie Peterson (March) with his team mate Vittorio Brambilla third ahead of Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell). Mario Andretti (Lotus) shared the third row with Lauda while Jody Scheckter (Tyrrell) and Hans Stuck (March) were on row four ahead of Jacques Laffite (Ligier) and Carlos Pace in the Brabham-Alfa Romeo. Clay Regazzoni was a disappointing 11th in his Ferrari.

At the start, Peterson made a better start than Hunt and took the lead while Depailler beat Brambilla into the second corner to grab third. Andretti was fifth with Scheckter and Lauda behind him. By the end of the first lap Brambilla had been pushed down to fifth by Andretti and on the fourth lap he fell behind Scheckter as well.

On the ninth lap Hunt took the lead, while further back Lauda moved ahead of Brambilla to get into sixth place. Peterson was unable to keep up the pace and dropped behind Depailler, Andretti, Scheckter, Lauda and Jochen Mass in quick succession. he would finish a distant ninth. The order remained unchanged until lap 59 when Lauda began to suffer handling problems and he let Mass, Regazzoni and Pace pass him.

Hunt's victory was thus complete and the World Championship gap closed to just eight points. Depailler finished second with Andretti third, Scheckter fourth, Mass fifth and Regazzoni sixth, just ahead of Pace.

1993, Jim Epler became the first man in NHRA history to break 300 mph in a Funny Car when he ran 300.40 mph at Topeka, Kansas.

1993, Penske teammates Paul Tracy and Emmerson Fittipaldi started 1-2 and finish that way in CART race at Laguna Seca, California. Tracy led that race from flag to flag.

October 4,

1927, Grand Prix driver, Roberto Bussinello was born in Italy.

1928, Grand Prix driver, Bob Scott was born.

1955, The first shakedown of the prototype Bugatti 251 Grand Prix racer occurred at ?

1964, Watkins Glen, With John Surtees having won the German and Italian GPs and Lorenzo Bandini having won in Austria, Surtees was suddenly in with a chance of winning the World Championship for Ferrari. Graham Hill was leading the championship with 32 points (despite having won only one round) while Jim Clark was second with 30 points (including three wins). Surtees had 28 points.

Enzo Ferrari was in dispute with the Italian national automobile club over the homologation of the 250LM sportscar and so the Ferrari team appeared at Watkins Glen in the blue and white colors of the United States rather than Italian red, the entry having been made by Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team. The field was much as normal with the addition of a number of local drivers including Hap Sharp in a Rob Walker Brabham and Walt Hansgen in a third factory Lotus. AJ Foyt was entered in a third BRM but decided not to take part.

Clark was fastest in practice and shared the front row of the grid with Surtees while Dan Gurney's Brabham was just ahead of Hill's BRM. The third row consisted of Bruce McLaren in his Cooper and Mike Spence in the second Lotus.

At the start Surtees went into the lead while Spence made a great start from the third row to take second place with Clark third and G Hill fourth. On the fifth lap Hill managed to pass Clark for third and then took Spence as well. Clark took advantage of this to pass his team mate on the next lap and Hill soon afterwards. Clark then went after Surtees and on lap 13 he took the lead, leaving Surtees to battle with Hill and Gurney, who had moved past Spence.

Clark was in dominant form until lap 40 when the Lotus began to misfire with fuel injection problems. He dropped quickly back through the field. Team Lotus decided to call in Spence and the two drivers switched cars. Clark could not score points but hoped that he could take them away from his rivals. After Clark disappeared Hill moved clear of the battle he had been having with Surtees and Gurney while Clark (in Spence's car) closed in. Gurney retired with oil pressure problems on lap 70. Clark's efforts to catch and pass his title rivals were ruined by fuel pump trouble which dropped him right back int he closing stages of the race and so third place was inherited by Jo Siffert.

The result meant that Clark's hopes of winning the World title were slim while Surtees moved to within five points of Hill and had the advantage that whatever he scored in Mexico would count for the title. Hill would have to drop three points if he finished in the top three as drivers could only count six scores in the title race.

1970, Parnelli Jones drove a Ford Mustang Boss 302 to victory in the Mission Bell 200 Trans-Am race at Riverside, California. This was the final race as a driver for Dan Gurney. Bert Everette won the Under-2-Liter race in an Alfa GTA.

1970, Stockcar driver, Curtis Turner was killed. Turner began "real" racing in 1946 at a small track in Mount Airy, NC, finishing last in a field of 18 cars. But he won his second race and began to build a reputation as perhaps the best dirt track driver of them all.
Turner raced almost from the inception of NASCAR. He was a star of Oldsmobile from 1950 through 1954, when he switched to Ford. He was originally billed as the Blond Blizzard from Virginia but he quickly picked up the nickname Pops for the way he routinely popped competitors off the track with great abandon.

He won 22 races in NASCAR's old convertible division in 1956 and added 17 and the Southern 500 in the Grand National division for good measure. With his free for all style, Turner won 360 races, in NASCAR and out. Perhaps, though, one of his most memorable races was one he didn't win. In the Rebel 300 at Darlington, SC. Turner and Fred Lorenzen started the last lap fender to fender. What had started out as fender banging evolved into a minor demolition derby around the 1-3/8th mile track. Lorenzen got in the last bash and won the race but on the extra "cool down" lap, Turner plowed into Lorenzen, smashing the front end of his own car to bits. He walked back to the pits.

Away from the track, Turner added to his Bunyanesque reputation. He made and lost and remade fortunes buying and selling timberlands. In 1960, he conceived Charlotte Motor Speedway and somehow, with hardly enough money to pay for the property, he got it built only to lose it soon afterward. After a view from the business side, he was convinced the drivers were getting a shabby deal from NASCAR. He attempted to organize the drivers as a local of the Teamsters Union, which failed utterly and caused him to be banished from NASCAR for life. But, by 1965, NASCAR President Bill France Sr. rescinded the banishment.

Turner made his return to competition in the American 500 at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham, NC. Despite a broken rib, Turner started fourth in a Ford owned by Glen Wood. He was a contender from the beginning. He fought off drivers whose fathers had once been his rivals. Finally it was between Turner and the idol of the young, Cale Yarborough. Lap after lap, Turner held off every Yarborough probe and went on to score his most lucrative victory. His great driving talent never left him. He came back to win the Permatex 300 in a Late Model Sportsman car at Daytona Beach, FL, the following year. Then he and Smokey Yunick collaborated on a Chevelle. But Turner crashed heavily in Atlanta and Yunick withdrew, saying, "I will not build the car that Curtis Turner was killed in."

After that, Turner raced infrequently, coming out of retirement when the price was right. He had intended to come out for the National 500 at Charlotte in 1970 when his plane crashed against a mountainside near Punxsutawney, PA, on October 4, killing him and a passenger, golf professional Clarence King.

Turner's passing marked the end of an era in automobile racing, for today's professional is committed to the proposition that driving race cars requires complete dedication, with which parties cannot interfere. Turner was a different breed and his success earned him his lofty perch in motorsports history.

1970, Watkins Glen, A month had passed since World Championship leader Jochen Rindt had been killed at Monza. Jacky Ickx was the only man capable of taking the World Championship away from the Austrian and he needed to win both at Watkins Glen and in Mexico City. The Ferraris, however, were the dominant force with Ickx and his teammate Clay Regazzoni having won the previous three races.

Team Lotus had missed Canada but reappeared to defend Rindt's position and the Constructors' title. Emerson Fittipaldi was now team leader and John Miles had been dropped to make way for another rising star, Sweden's Reine Wisell. Several other teams had made changes as well with Surtees running a second car for Derek Bell and BRM adding a fourth for hillclimb champion Peter Westbury. The entry amounted to a healthy 27 cars, 24 of which were allowed to start. Westbury, Peter Lovely (private Lotus) and Andrea de Adamich (McLaren-Alfa Romeo) failed to make it.

Pole position went to Ickx by over half a second but Jackie Stewart was on the front row in his new Tyrrell, while Fittipaldi shared the second row with the BRM of Pedro Rodriguez. Chris Amon's factory March was on the third row with Regazzoni while Jack Oliver (BRM) lined up on row fourth with John Surtees (Surtees) alongside. Wisell shared the fifth row with the Rob Walker Lotus 72 of Graham Hill.

Stewart took the lead at the start with Rodriguez grabbing second ahead of Ickx and Regazzoni. Behind them came Amon, Surtees, Oliver and a slow-starting Fittipaldi. Surtees soon disappeared with mechanical trouble and Oliver followed on lap 15, soon after he had passed Amon. On lap 16 Ickx overtook Rodriguez and a lap later Regazzoni was also ahead of the Mexican. Amon was fifth and Fittipaldi sixth. Stewart was well clear of Ickx and Regazzoni was five seconds behind his team leader when the second Ferrari headed for the pits to change a tire. On lap 48 Amon also had to stop for a new tire and so Fittipaldi moved to fourth place. On the 57th laps Ickx headed for the pits with a fuel leak. His World Championship hopes, gone.

At the front, Stewart seemed in total control until lap 83 when an oil leak forced him to retire. Rodriguez went into the lead with a 20 second lead over Fittipaldi. Then on lap 101 of 108 the BRM ran out of fuel and coasted into the pits. Fittipaldi took the lead to win his first Grand Prix victory. Rodriguez rejoined to finish second while Wisell's F1 debut ended with an impressive third place finish.

1980, IRL driver, Sarah Fisher was born.

1983, Richard Noble drove the Thrust 2 LSR car to a one-mile Land Speed Record of 633.47 MPH.

1987, Peter Brock, David Parsons, and Peter McLeod drive a Holden Commodore to victory in the James Hardie 1000 at Mount Panarama in Bathurst, N.S.W., Australia.

1992, F1 and Sports car driver, Denny “The Bear” Hulme died. The son of a New Zealand mystic, water diviner and fortune-teller who won the Victoria Cross when fighting with the ANZAC forces in the Battle of Crete in 1941, Hulme grew up on a tobacco farm owned by his grandparents at Moteuka on South Island. After the war the family moved to Te Puke on North Island where Clive Hulme started a trucking business. Denny went to work in garage when he left school and having saved up enough money bought an MG TF and started to take part in hillclimb events in 1956.

He made steady progress in racing and eventually acquired a Cooper-Climax with which he began to win races. This resulted in in him being chosen as the New Zealand Driver to Europe for 1960 along with another youngster called George Lawton. Hulme bought a Cooper-BMC Formula Junior and began traveling from race to race in Europe. Lawton was killed in an accident at the Roskildering in Denmark but Hulme went on. The following year he helped to make ends meet by working as a mechanic in Jack Brabham's garage in Chessington and gradually worked his way up the racing ladder.

An early break was a factory Abarth drive at Le Mans in 1961 and then in 1962 Ken Tyrrell asked him to race in Formula Junior. That led to an invitation to become a Brabham works driver in Formula Junior. In 1963 he won half the Formula Junior races he entered and that resulted in an invitation from Jack Brabham to join the Brabham Formula 2 team in 1964. Brabham and Hulme won most of the races that year and finished 1-2 in the European Championship.

Brabham gave Hulme the occasional runs in non-championship F1 events in 1964 but as he had Dan Gurney signed up and was racing the second car himself there was no room for Denny. Hulme made his World Championship at Monza in 1965 and scored his first points later in the year. When the Formula 1 regulations changed in 1966 Gurney left the team to start his own operation and Hulme became the team's second driver in F1. The Repco engines proved to be very competitive and Brabham won the 1966 World Championship while Hulme finished fourth. In 1967 he won the Monaco and German GPs and a string of strong finishes took him to the World Championship.

He also competed in Can Am with McLaren and finished second in that series and he was fourth in one of Gurney's Eagles at the Indianapolis 500. At the end of the year he had little choice but to leave Brabham but he was happy to join McLaren. He raced not only in F1 and Can Am in McLaren machinery but also took part in British sports car events in a Sid Taylor Lola T70. That year he won the Italian and Canadian GPs and the non-championship International Trophy. He won the Can Am title with victories at Elkhart Lake, Mosport and the Stardust Raceway and in Britain he won the Tourist Trophy.

The Can Am success continued in 1969 but this time Bruce McLaren beat Hulme to the title while in F1 Denny was only able to win one race - the Mexican GP. In 1970 Hulme showed his mettle. He suffered serious burns to his hands when his car caught fire in Indianapolis and then McLaren was killed in a testing accident at Goodwood. Hulme proved to be one of the mainstays of the team and despite his injuries he won the Can Am title again and finished fourth in the World Championship after a string of good finishes but no wins.

The 1971 season was not a great success as the F1 cars were not competitive and in Can Am Hulme was beaten by his new team mate (and friend) Peter Revson but in 1972 Hulme was back in his winning ways in F1 with victory in South Africaand some other good results taking him to thrid place in the World Championship.

He was winning again in 1973 with victory in Sweden but he was overshadowed by Revson. At the end of that year Revson left to join Shadow but early in 1974 was killed while testing at Kyalami. Hulme was there are tried in vain his save his friend's life. After the accident he decided that he would complete the season and then retire. He won the Argentine GP that year and was second in Austria but otherwise made little impact and retired quietly at the end of the season. For a while he led the Grand Prix Drivers Association's campaign for better safety standards, but bureaucracy and Denny Hulme did not mix well and he retired to New Zealand. He returned to racing touring cars in the early 1980s, notaably as a member of Tom Walkinshaw's Austin Rover team in the European Touring Car Championship. When he was not racing he loved to tinker with a collection of steam engines and an old McLaren F1 car which he acquired. He even traced and bought his MG TF and had it restored.

On this date, in 1992, he suffered a fatal heart attack while at the wheel of a BMW M3 during the Bathurst 1000 in Australia. He was only, 56 years old.

October 5,

1912, Caleb Bragg drove a Fiat to victory in the American Grand Prize race held Milwaukee Wisconsin. Also in that race, Barney Oldfield made his road-racing driving the repaired Fiat that David Bruce- Brown died in four days earlier.

1922, Grand Prix driver, Froilan Gonzalez was born.

1962, CART, IMSA, F1 driver and now IRL team owner, Michael Andretti was born in Nazareth, PA.

1964, Art Arfons drove his Green Monster to a new World Land Speed Record of 434.02 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah.

1967, Top Fuel drag racer, Doug Herbert was born.

1969, Mark Donohue drove a Chevrolet Camaro to victory in the Mission Bell 250 Trans-Am race at Riverside, California.

1969, Watkins Glen, All the teams traveled to Watkins Glen from Canada, while some of the drivers went to Michigan for a Can Am race on the intervening weekend. Others flew back to Europe for the Paris 1000 sportscar race which was won by Matra's Jean-Pierre Beltoise with Pedro Rodriguez second in a similar car. Matra's third driver Johnny Servoz-Gavin flew to Rome, won an F2 race and then flew back to the US.

The field reassembled at Watkins Glen with the field largely unchanged. Mario Andretti was back in the four-wheel-drive Lotus 63 while Bill Brack had been replaced in the third BRM by George Eaton. There was still only one Ferrari, entered by NART for Pedro Rodriguez.

Rindt was fastest in qualifying in his Lotus, beating Denny Hulme's McLaren by 0.03s while World Champion Jackie Stewart was third on the 2 x 2 grid alongside Graham Hill's Lotus. Jo Siffert was fifth with sixth place on the grid going to Bruce McLaren, although the New Zealander failed to make the start because of mechanical problems during the reconnaissance laps before the race.

Rindt took the lead at the start with Stewart and Hill in pursuit while Hulme dropped back to ninth during the first lap and pitted soon afterwards. On the third lap Siffert managed to pass Hill and he was soon overtaken by Beltoise and Piers Courage in the Frank Williams Brabham. Siffert retired soon afterwards and as Courage had passed Beltoise (who was in trouble with gears), it was the Englishman who was running third. On lap 12 Stewart overtook Rindt to go into the lead. Nine laps later Rindt was in the lead again. Rindt was able to pull away this time and Stewart's Matra began to trail smoke and he retired with engine failure on lap 36.

This left Courage in second, 40 seconds behind Rindt, although he was battling for the position with Brabham and Ickx. Eventually both the factory Brabhams hit trouble, Ickx retiring with engine failure and Brabham being forced to pit for more fuel and so Surtees moved into third place in his BRM.

Hill was running in sixth place in the mid-race. He had a spin and had to push-start his car. As a result he was unable to do up with seat belts and on lap 91 he spun again. This time the car overturned and Hill was thrown out, breaking both his legs.

1975, Watkins Glen, There was a gap of a month after the Italian Grand Prix before the teams gathered at Watkins Glen. The Maki, BRM and Surtees teams did not make the trip and Hill and Ensign sent only one drivers each. Chris Amon had hurt his leg in a road accident at the Long Beach Formula 5000 event. March decided to run only two cars for Hans Stuck and Vittorio Brambilla and so Lella Lombardi moved to the second Williams. Wilson Fittipaldi was back in action in the Fittipaldi, having overcome his hand injuries, while Brian Henton was back in the second Lotus in place of Jim Crawford. Tyrrell entered its third car for Elf protégé Michel Leclere while Surtees driver John Watson had been taken on to drive for Penske.

It was no surprise that the new World Champion Niki Lauda took pole position in his Ferrari. Alongside him on the front row was Emerson Fittipaldi's McLaren while the second row featured Carlos Reutemann (Brabham) and Jean-Pierre Jarier (Shadow). On the third row Mario Andretti (Parnelli) lined up alongside Brambilla while Tom Pryce (Shadow) shared the fourth with Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell). Jochen Mass (McLaren) and Jody Scheckter (Tyrrell) completed the top 10. James Hunt was surprisingly off the pace in his Hesketh, lining up 15th on the grid.

Lauda won the race to the first corner and the Ferrari and Fittipaldi then drove away from the rest of the field, leaving Jarier to lead the hunt ahead of Brambilla, Reutemann, Andretti and a charging James Hunt. The order remained unchanged at the front from flag to flag with Lauda winning by five seconds. Jarier retired on lap 19 with a wheel failure but as Reutemann and Andretti had both gone out with mechanical troubles it was Hunt who emerged in third place at the head of a battling group consisting of Mass, Ronnie Peterson (Lotus) and Scheckter. Mass managed to pass Hunt in the mid-race to take third place. On lap 50 Hunt was overtaken by Peterson but the Englishman reclaimed fourth place on the final lap. The pair finished with Scheckter right on their tail.

1980, Watkins Glen, The US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen came just a week after the Canadian GP, where Alan Jones had won the World Championship, and as a result the entry was much as before. Jean-Pierre Jabouille was missing, having suffered serious leg injuries in an accident in Montreal and the French team decided to run just one for Rene Arnoux. Kevin Cogan had given up with the second RAM Racing Williams and the car was entrusted to Geoff Lees instead.

In qualifying Bruno Giacomelli surprised everyone by taking pole for Alfa Romeo with Nelson Piquet (Brabham), Carlos Reutemann (Williams), Elio de Angelis (Lotus), Jones (Williams), Arnoux, Didier Pironi (Ligier) and Hector Rebaque (Brabham) filling the front four rows. The top 10 was completed by John Watson's McLaren and Andrea de Cesaris's Alfa. Further back Alain Prost qualified his McLaren 13th but decided to miss the race because of a bang on the head he had received when he suffered a suspension failure (his second in two events).

At the start Giacomelli went into the lead while Jones tried a little too hard and went bouncing off at the first corner, being followed through the sand by de Cesaris and Arnoux. On the race track Piquet was second with Reutemann third. Then came Pironi, de Angelis and Rebaque.

Jones was soon fighting back while Piquet, under pressure from Reutemann, made a mistake and spun off. By lap 28 Jones had climbed back up to third place by overtaking Pironi and a couple of laps later he took second from Reutemann and began to chase after Giacomelli. On lap 32, however, the Alfa Romeo cut out and rolled to a stop. Jones was in the lead and with Reutemann behind him, it was an easy run to the flag. Pironi was third with de Angelis fourth, Laffite fifth and Mario Andretti sixth. Jody Scheckter finished his last race in 11th place. This would be the last time the F1 circus would visit the Glen.

October 6,

1918, Grand Prix driver, Max de Terra was born in Zurich, Switzerland.

1918, Grand Prix driver, Andre Pilette was born in Paris, France.

1941, Grand Prix driver, John Nicholson was born in Auckland.

1944, F1 driver, Carlos Pace was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

1946, Bema Eli "Barney" Oldfield died in Beverly Hills, California, at age 69. His first love was bicycling and by 1894 he had won silver medals and a gold watch from bike races. In 1896, he was being paid handsomely by the Stearns bicycle factory to race on its amateur team. Six years later, a man lent him a gasoline-powered bicycle to race in salt Lake City, where Oldfield had emigrated. This association led to a meeting with Henry Ford, who had prepared two race cars in 1902. Oldfield was asked if he would like to drive one and he agreed, heading East on his own money. When he got to Grosse Point, MI, to test the cars, neither would start. Ford sold both to Oldfield and Tom Cooper, his partner, for $800.

After much work, the car - "No.999" - was driven for the first time in the Manufacturer's Challenge Cup, where Oldfield beat defending champion Mexander Winton by a half mile. It was Oldfield's first-ever experience in auto racing.

On Memorial Day in 1903 in New York, Oldfield drove a mile in a minute flat in another match-race victory. Two months later, he powered the car to a mile run in 0:55.8 and that was enough for Winton to hire Oldfield, complete with salary, expenses and free cars.

Oldfield's career then spiraled upward. He crisscrossed the country in a series of match races and speed runs. In one year, driving for Peerless, lie competed on 20 different tracks in 18 weeks. He made four exhibition runs and won 16 straight match races. His showmanship came to the forefront. Oldfield delighted fair-goers with interminable record-breaking. He even appeared on stage in a play about racing in which he portrayed a poor mechanic who saves the day.

In 1910, Oldfield bought a Benz with which he broke all existing speed records for the mile, two miles and the kilometer in special runs at Ormond Beach, Fla. After that, he was able to charge a whopping $4,000 for personal appearances, something he didn't mind at all.
Once suspended by the American Automobile Association, the sanctioning body of the day, because of his "outlaw" racing activities, much of Oldfield's legitimate racing career was lost during his prime. However, he competed at Indianapolis after being reinstated and his best finishes were fifth in 1914 and 1916.

Additionally, he ran the first 100 miles per hour lap in Indianapolis history.
But speed records, match races and exhibitions made up most of Oldfield's career. The cigar-chomping speed merchant was such a star he was in almost constant demand. He knew how to make use of his position, as well. He helped put Firestone on the map with the Oldfield Tire, which became the cornerstone of the company's racing division.

He retired in 1918. However, he didn't drop out of sight. He toured, made movies and tended to racing business. His legacy was such that even today, his name conjures up the image of a fearless, brash individual who is the absolute master of speed.

1951, F1 driver, Manfred Winkelhock was born

1963, Watkins Glen, Although the World Championship was already settled there was a good field for the US GP with Team Lotus running an extra car for F1 debutante Pedro Rodriguez. Chris Amon was still out of action after his crash at Monza and his place in the Reg Parnell Racing Lola was taken by Masten Gregory. Parnell rented out his two Lotuses to Rodger Ward and Hap Sharp.

Qualifying resulted in Graham Hill taking pole position in his BRM with Jim Clark alongside in his Lotus. John Surtees's Ferrari shared the second row with Ritchie Ginther's BRM and Brabham drivers Jack Brabham and Dan Gurney were together on row three. Before the start of the race Clark ran into trouble with a battery problem and was left behind on the dummy grid. This meant that at the start Hill was able to lead from his BRM team mate Ginther. Surtees was strong, however, and after seven laps he had worked his way through into the lead. Gurney shadowed Surtees past the BRMs and Brabham was able to pass Ginther as well. Hill fought back against Gurney and retook second place and on lap 32 he took the lead. Surtees fought back and retook the lead. Hill would later drop back because of a broken rollbar while other challengers dropped out with mechanical trouble, notably Gurney. On lap 80 however Surtees fell victim to an engine problem and so Hill was back in the lead and there he stayed until the finish, leaving home Ginther in the second BRM with Clark third after a great comeback drive from the back of the field.

1968, Watkins Glen, There were some additions to the usual F1 field at Watkins Glen with Team Lotus running a third car for Mario Andretti (who had practiced but not raced for the team in Italy) and Bobby Unser who has suffered a similar fate at Monza in the second BRM. McLaren again ran a third car for Dan Gurney while Ferrari replaced Ickx (who had broken his leg in practice for the Canadian GP) with Derek Bell.

Things did not begin well for Unser who did serious damage to his BRM in the first session. On Saturday, however, Mario Andretti gave everyone a surprise when he put his Lotus on pole position, ahead of Jackie Stewart's Matra. On the second row was Graham Hill in his Lotus and Chris Amon's Ferrari while World Championship hopeful Denny Hulme (who was equal on points with Hill after his win in Canada a fortnight earlier) was on the third row alongside Jochen Rindt's Brabham. Jack Oliver suffered a wheel failure and crashed the second Lotus heavily. Henri Pescarolo was also a nonstarter when his Matra V12 blew up.

A big crowd gathered in the hope that Andretti would be able to beat the F1 regulars and at the start Mario edged into the lead although Stewart overtook him before the end of the first lap. Amon was able to get into third ahead of Hill while Hulme moved quickly up to fifth place. The order remained stable for the first few laps and then Amon spun and dropped back. On lap 14 Andretti's Lotus was dragging part of the bodywork and he was forced to pit and dropped to the tail of the field. He began to fight back but eventually retired with clutch failure. More significantly, however, Hulme spun on oil and had to pit to have a damaged brake pipe fixed. He eventually rejoined, aiming to pick up points but suffered a driveshaft failure in the closing laps and crashed.

This left Stewart and Hill untroubled at the front and Gurney running third. He dropped behind Surtees after a spin but recovered to retake the position. In the final minutes of the race Gurney had a puncture and so Surtees took third place after all.

The result was a boost to Graham Hill who moved six point clear of Hulme in the World Championship race although Stewart's win put him only three points behind Hill. so it would be a three-way fight for the title in Mexico a month later.

1973, Francois Cevert died. The son of a Paris jeweler, Cevert was linked romantically with Brigitte Bardot during his F1 career, enhancing his image as one of the most colorful and dashing of contemporary Grand Prix competitors. A strong contender from F3 and F2, Cevert was catapulted into the limelight when

Ken Tyrrell selected him to join Jackie Stewart in his Grand Prix lineup from the summer of 1970. Francois spent the next three seasons as a loyal and devoted pupil, learning everything he could from the Scottish driver whom he came to idolize. Cevert won the 1971 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen thanks to a combination of luck and fine driving.

He had reached the peak of his development as an F1 driver by the summer of 1973 when Stewart, who had secretly planned to retire at the end of the year, realized that on several occasions the young Frenchman had simply been quicker than him.

Poised to take over the Tyrrell team leadership from Stewart in 1974, Francois was killed battling for pole position during qualifying for the 1973 US Grand Prix.

1974, Watkins Glen, It had been only a year since the death of Francois Cevert and the retirement of Jackie Stewart and yet the new generation of drivers had made that seem like ancient history. The World Championship had been a four-way battle between the Ferraris of Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni, the McLaren of Emerson Fittipaldi and the Tyrrell of Jody Scheckter but there had been seven different winners.

The World Championship had boiled down to three men: Fittipaldi with 53 points, Regazzoni with 52 and Scheckter, the outsider with 45. In pre-race testing Regazzoni had a huge accident and bruised his leg and Ferrari had to fly a new chassis out from Italy. Scheckter too needed a new car having demolished his at the Canadian GP. The only changes in the driver lineup were that Jose Dolhem had been brought back at Surtees after Derek Bell's failure to qualify in Canada, Eppie Wietzes did not reappear in a the Brabham he had raced in Mosport and Tim Schenken was being given a run in one of the troublesome Lotus 76s, while regular drivers Ronnie Peterson and Jacky Ickx concentrated on the ancient 72s.

Practice began with another big accident which left Jean-Pierre Beltoise with a cracked bone in his foot after he demolished one of the recalcitrant BRMs. He played no further part in the activities.

Pole position was taken by Carlos Reutemann (Brabham) with an impressive James Hunt taking second position in his Hesketh. Also impressive was third-placed Mario Andretti in the new Parnelli while Carlos Pace underlined Brabham's challenge with the fourth fastest time. Then came Lauda, Scheckter, John Watson (Hexagon Brabham) and Fittipaldi with his championship rival Regazzoni right behind him. The top 10 was completed by Jean-Pierre Jarier in his Shadow while behind them Jacques Laffite did a good job in the Iso-Marlboro to qualify 11th. More impressive was Chris Amon's 12th place in the only BRM. Further back Denny Hulme was starting his last Grand Prix from 17th on the grid and Peterson was a depressed 19th.

At the start Reutemann led Hunt into the first corner while Andretti's hopes ended with electrical troubles. This left pace third ahead of Lauda, Scheckter and Fittipaldi. Regazzoni was next but the Ferrari was handling terribly and in the laps that followed the Swiss driver dropped slowly back behind Watson and Arturo Merzario (Iso-Marlboro). All Fittipaldi had to do was to keep an eye on Scheckter. On the tenth lap Helmut Koinigg crashed his Surtees-Cosworth head-on into the barriers. The car split the rails and the Austrian was killed instantly. Surtees withdrew Dolhem from the race when the news reached the pits. But the race went on and at the front Reutemann still leading Hunt and Pace.

Then came Scheckter and Fittipaldi. Regazzoni went into the pits to change tires but rejoined and found his Ferrari to be no better. He would continue to run for the rest of the afternoon but his World Championship hopes were over. Even if Fittipaldi retired he was unlikely to win the title. In the mid-race Lauda began to suffer from handling trouble and dropped behind Scheckter, Fittipaldi and Merzario. He retired on lap 39. Hunt was in trouble in the closing laps and Pace closed up and took second place with four laps to go to give Brabham a 1-2. Hunt finished third while Fittipaldi's World Championship was secured when Scheckter retired on lap 45 with a fuel leak, leaving the McLaren driver to collect three points. Merzario also disappeared and so Watson took fifth and Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell) sixth.

1985, Armin Hahne and John Goss drove a Jaguar XJS to victory in the James Hardie 1000 at Mount Panarama in Bathurst, N.S.W. Australia

1985, Brands Hatch for the GP of Europe, With Niki Lauda out of action with a wrist problem, McLaren took on John Watson for the European GP weekend. Tyrrell had expanded to two cars again with Ivan Capelli joining Martin Brundle but otherwise the field was unchanged from the Belgian GP three weeks earlier, except that the Williams-Hondas had been reworked in B-specification.

Pole position went to Ayrton Senna in his Lotus-Renault with Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW) second ahead of the Williams's: Nigel Mansell beating Keke Rosberg. Fifth was an impressive Philippe Streiff (Ligier-Renault) with Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG) looking to tie up the World Championship from sixth on the grid. This looked like being easier because the Ferrari of Michele Alboreto was off the pace and qualified only 15th. The top 10 was completed by Marc Surer (Brabham-BMW), Derek Warwick (Renault), Elio de Angelis (Lotus-Renault) and Jacques Laffite (Ligier-Renault).

At the start, Rosberg had a problem and was slow away. This meant that Prost had to go onto the grass and while Rosberg's engine suddenly took off Prost found himself down in 14th. His World Championship rival Alboreto made a good start to run ninth. At the front Senna led Rosberg, Piquet and Mansell with de Angelis fifth and Surer sixth. Warwick disappeared early and on lap seven there was a big moment at Surtees when Rosberg challenged Senna for the lead and spun. Piquet hit the spinning Williams. The Brabham was out and while Rosberg rejoined with a puncture Mansell moved to second and began to challenge Senna. He was helped considerably by Rosberg who rejoined just ahead of Senna (but a lap down) and blocked the Lotus, allowing Mansell to catch up. On the ninth lap Mansell went ahead. Four laps later Alboreto went out with a turbo failure. Prost, who had charged back to sixth place by the ninth lap, needed to finish only fifth to clinch the World Championship. Prost was soon pushed back to seventh by Laffite but he hoped that attrition would play into his hands. Laffite's charge took him past Johansson and de Angelis and into fourth place behind Mansell, Senna and Surer and that order was not changed until lap 35 when Surer overtook Senna for second. A lap later Ayrton was fourth behind Laffite. Jacques had to stop for new tires on lap 51 and he dropped to eighth but began to charge again until his engine blew seven laps later. Surer's second place looked to be secure but then his turbo blew on lap 63 and so Senna regained second ahead of Rosberg while Prost was fourth having dealt with de Angelis and been aided when Johansson retired with an electrical problem. Fifth went to de Angelis with Thierry Boutsen sixth in his Arrows-BMW. Mansell had finally won his first Grand Prix - and Prost was France's first World Champion.

1996, Butch Leitzinger and John Paul Jr. drove a Ford powered R&S MkII to victory in the final IMSA race of the year at Daytona, Florida. However, it was Wayne Taylor and Oldsmobile that won the drivers and manufacturers championships.

October 2 :

1964
Tom Green on board of the 'Winged Foot Express' reaches 413.20 mph (664.98 km/h)
New world Record

http://members.lycos.co.uk/simonlewis1/wingfoot1.html

While these dates are well remembered internationally for those Watkins Glen races, here in Australia they are more familiarly known as Bathurst weekends...

I don't know what date the first of these events was held, but whatever date fitted with the first Monday in October of 19 would have been the one...

The reopening of the circuit in 1946, on October 1(?), saw the NSW Grand Prix won by Alf Najar in his smart TB Special from John Nind's TB Special and Johnson's TC.

In 1947 the race of the day on October 6 was the Australian Grand Prix, which was won by Bill Murray's TC from Dick Bland in a Ford V8 Special and Lex Davison in the 38-250 Mercedes Benz. Thereafter the race meetings at Bathurst moved to Easter.

In 1948 there was a race meeting at the Mount Druitt airstrip on October 4... winners on the day included George Reed, Arthur Rizzo and Jack Murray.

1949 saw no race meetings on this weekend, but in 1950 October 2 was the Bathurst date and the main race win went to Warwick Pratley in the Monoskate Ford V8. Doug Whiteford was second in his Ford V8 Special, 'Black Bess', and Harry Monday's Ford V8 was third.

1980: Bruno Giacomelli got his first and last pole position!

Thanks everyone for your contributions!

As we press on through the ends of the seasons....

October 7,

1930, Grand Prix driver, Bernard Collomb was born in France.

1956, F1 and Sports car driver, Jonathan Palmer was born in Great Britain.

1962, Watkins Glen, Ferrari did not bother to send its cars to the United States as none of the drivers were in the running for the World Championship and so it was down to BRM, Lotus, Lola, Cooper and Porsche to scrap over the event. Graham Hill was in a strong position in the World Championship and so his rival Jim Clark had to aim for victory. Jack Brabham arrived with a revised version of his own BT3 while the field was bolstered by a number of local drivers with Tim Mayer in a third factory Cooper, Roger Penske in a British Racing Partnership Lotus 24, Jim Hall in Brabham's old Lotus and Bob Schroeder in one of Rob Walker's cars which had been rented to US entrant John Mecom.

Clark set the pace in qualifying with Ritchie Ginther second fastest in his BRM, just a tenth faster than Graham Hill. Dan Gurney was fourth fastest in his Porsche and then came Brabham in the Brabham and McLaren's Cooper. John Surtees was down at the back of the grid after his Lola suffered a steering arm failure and he crashed heavily. Surtees took over Roy Salvadori's car for the race.

At the start, Clark took the lead with Hill beating Ginther away. Brabham grabbed fourth ahead of Gurney and McLaren, although Gurney was soon able to get his Porsche past the Brabham. He also managed to get ahead of Ginther to run third. On lap 12 Hill took the lead but Clark fought back and moved ahead again on lap 19. Further back the Gurney-Ginther battle for third continued until Ginther went out with engine trouble on lap 35. Gurney then came under pressure from McLaren and fell behind the Cooper on lap 57. In the closing stages Gurney also fell victim to Brabham. The result meant that Hill and Clark would go to South Africa in December with the World Championship still open and if Clark won with Hill second the Lotus driver would snatch the title with equal points but four wins to Hill's three.

1962, The Ford Mustang concept car was introduced to the press and public by having Dan Gurney turn laps in the car at Watkins Glen, during the USGP weekend.

1965, F1 driver, Marco Apicella was born in Italy.

1973, Watkins Glen, There was much speculation as the F1 circus gathered in upstate New York that the event would be World Champion Jackie Stewart's 100th and last Grand Prix. The only other interest was focussed on the battle for second place in the title race between Stewart's Tyrrell team mate Francois Cevert and Team Lotus's Emerson Fittipaldi. Several teams were running third cars with McLaren's Jody Scheckter being joined by a third Tyrrell run for Chris Amon; a third Shadow (Brian Redman) and a third Surtees (Jochen Mass). John Watson appeared in place of Rolf Stommelen in the third Brabham while Clay Regazzoni was back in action for BRM having not been entered in Canada and Jacky Ickx joined the Iso-Marlboro team. Ronnie Peterson's weekend began with an accident in his Lotus on Friday morning but he was still fastest on the first day.

On Saturday, Cevert crashed in the final minutes of the morning session, going into the barriers in The Esses at high speed. He was killed instantly. Tyrrell immediately withdrew his two other cars - although this meant that he gave up the chance of winning the Constructors' title - and there was little enthusiasm from the rest of the field for further qualifying.

Peterson was therefore on pole position from Carlos Reutemann's Brabham, Fittipaldi's Lotus and James Hunt's Hesketh March.

In the race, Peterson took the lead at the start and after four laps Hunt passed Reutemann to take second place. Denny Hulme made quick progress to pass Mike Hailwood and Emerson Fittipaldi to run in fourth place. Peterson and Hunt ran nose-to-tail at the front with Reutemann remaining a constant threat but Emerson Fittipaldi had to pit when he flat-spotted his tires avoiding a spinning Scheckter and he had to pit. In the closing laps Hunt challenged for victory but Peterson held him off and they crossed the line separated by only six-tenths of a second. Reutemann was third with Hulme and Revson fourth and fifth in their McLarens and Fittipaldi sixth.

1979, Two AMC Spirit AMXs, running on BFG street tires, finish 25th and 43rd overall but first and second in class in the 24 hour endurance race on the 14.1 mile Nurburgring in Germany. Who won overall?

1979, Watkins Glen, The final race of the season saw a field of 30 cars fighting for 24 grid positions. There were no driver changes and after qualifying Alan Jones, winner of four of the previous five races, was on pole position again. The main interest of the event was whether or not Jones would finish runner-up to the new World Champion Jody Scheckter or whether his Ferrari team mate Gilles Villeneuve would be able to hold him off. Second on the grid was Nelson Piquet in the promising new Brabham-Cosworth BT49, which had appeared at the previous race. Villeneuve was third in his Ferrari with Jacques Laffite (Ligier) fourth, Clay Regazzoni (Williams) fifth and Carlos Reutemann (Lotus) sixth. The top 10 was completed by the two Renaults of Rene Arnoux and Jean-Pierre Jabouille, the Brabham of Ricardo Zunino and Didier Pironi's Tyrrell.

It was raining on race day but it stopped before the race, although the track was still wet and so the cars started on wet tires. Villeneuve made the best start and took the lead from Jones, Reutemann, Laffite and Jabouille. Laffite and Reutemann both went off early on and so Regazzoni was able to take third place ahead of Scheckter. Both men later pitted for slicks and so Jabouille moved to third again but his engine failed and so the place went to Arnoux. On lap 31 Villeneuve pitted and Jones led but when the Australian went into the pits to get slicks the stop went wrong and a wheel came off after he had rejoined.

This left Villeneuve with a commanding lead over Arnoux. Pironi was third with Elio de Angelis fourth for Shadow, Hans Stuck fifth in the ATS and John Watson sixth for McLaren.

1984, At the Nurburgring for the GP of Europe, there was a gap of a month between the Italian and European GPs and much was happening with the new Zakspeed F1 car unveiled. Michelin announced that it would be withdrawing from F1 at the end of the year and McLaren announced a deal with Goodyear and Brabham with Pirelli but Renault, Ligier and Toleman were without tires for the 1985 season. BMW decided that it would not be supplying ATS with engines in 1985 and team boss Gunther Schmid then fired Manfred Winkelhock leaving Gerhard Berger to be the team's driver in the final races of the year. Carl Haas also announced plans for a big new F1 team in 1986.

The return of Formula 1 to the Nurburgring was not greeted with much joy as many of the drivers found it to be not very challenging. The entry was slightly different than normal with Spirit having taken on Mauro Baldi again, Ayrton Senna back in the Toleman alongside Stefan Johansson. Tyrrell was missing as the team had been barred from competing in the World Championship.

Qualifying resulted in the familiar result of Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW) ahead of Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG). Then came Patrick Tambay's Renault, Keke Rosberg's Williams-Honda and the Ferraris of Michele Alboreto and Rene Arnoux. Seventh on the grid was Derek Warwick (Renault) with Nigel Mansell (Lotus-Renault), Riccardo Patrese (Alfa Romeo) and Teo Fabi's Brabham-BMW completing the top 10.

At the start Prost and Tambay got ahead of Piquet but in the first corner Senna collided with Rosberg and Berger ran into Marc Surer's Arrows-BMW. Fabi and Piercarlo Ghinzani also collided and so six cars were effectively out, although Fabi was illegally bump-started.

Prost led Tambay and Piquet with Warwick fourth and the two Ferraris, Alboreto ahead of Arnoux. Lauda soon began his customary charge through the field and overtook Arnoux on the fifth lap. The order then remained unchanged until lap 43 when Tambay dropped back with electrical trouble. Warwick too ran into engine trouble and soon dropped behind Alboreto and Lauda. He eventually retired with a turbo failure. Piquet ran out of fuel on the last lap and so lost second place to Alboreto while Lauda finished fourth ahead of Arnoux and Patrese.

As the F1 trucks headed to Portugal Lauda was ahead in the World Championship by four and a half points.

1995, Dorsey Schroeder drove a Mustang to victory in the final Trans-Am race of the year, at Sears Point, California. Fellow Mustang driver, Tommy Kendall won the Trans-Am driving title.

October 8,

1904, Grand Prix driver, Yves Giraud-Cabantous was born in France.

1904, George Heath drove a Panhard to victory in the first Vanderbilt Cup Race, on Long Island, New York.

1910, AAA and Grand Prix driver at Indy, Spider Webb was born in the USA. (great name)

1919, AAA and Grand Prix driver at Indy, Jack McGrath was born the USA.

1954, Huub Rothengatter was born in Holland.

1955, NASCAR champion, Bill Elliott was born in Dawsonville, Georgia.

1961, Watkins Glen, Having won both World Championships Ferrari decided not to bother with the United States GP, which was being held at Watkins Glen in upstate New York for the first time.

Both Jack Brabham and Stirling Moss had the new Climax V8 engine on this occasion but Moss decided after practice not to race it. The field was joined by a number of local stars, notably Hap Sharp and Roger Penske in Coopers and Jim Hall and Ken Miles in Lotuses.

Brabham took pole position with Graham Hill alongside while Moss shared the second row with Bruce McLaren in the second factory Cooper.

At the start Moss took the lead from Brabham while Innes Ireland charged through from eighth on the grid to take third place. For the first half of the race Moss and Brabham dueled for the lead, switching places several times but on lap 45 Brabham had to stop with overheating problems. Moss led for the next 12 laps but then he too was forced out with mechanical trouble. This left Ireland in the lead in the factory Lotus but he was in trouble with fuel pressure problems. His chasers were out of luck, however. Graham Hill had to stop when his magneto came loose and Roy Salvadori looked like being a possible winner until a few laps from the finish when his bearings failed. Ireland survived to the finishing line, chased home by Dan Gurney's Porsche and Tony Brooks in his BRM. This was Brooks’ last drive behind a wheel of a Grand Prix car.

1972, Watkins Glen, There was a huge field of 31 cars for the final race of the year with many teams entering third cars. Team Lotus had Dave Walker and Reine Wisell alongside Emerson Fittipaldi, while Tyrrell ran a third car for Patrick Depailler. McLaren ran its spare car for a youngster called Jody Scheckter. Surtees loaned out one car to Sam Posey while running Tim Schenken, Mike Hailwood and Andrea de Adamich. John Surtees himself briefly drove a fifth car but did not race. BRM had four cars as in Canada but Bill Brack was replaced by Brian Redman.

Qualifying saw Jackie Stewart fastest for Tyrrell with Peter Revson and Denny Hulme alongside him on the front row in their McLarens. Francois Cevert shared the second row with Carlos Reutemann's Brabham while Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari), Chris Amon (Matra) and the impressive young Scheckter were on the third row. Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti (Ferrari) completed the top 10. On Sunday morning Amon ran into trouble and so decided to start from the back in a spare car, leaving his grid position vacant.

At the start, Stewart went into the lead with Hulme second but Regazzoni ran into Reutemann and Revson. This enabled Fittipaldi to grab third place with Scheckter fourth, a fast-starting Jacky Ickx (Ferrari) fifth and then the recovering Regazzoni. Both Revson and Reutemann had to stop for repairs. On lap five Fittipaldi had to pit because of a slow puncture and so Scheckter moved to third place. Cevert now began to charged and after passing the Ferraris he was able to catch and overtake Scheckter for third place. At half distance Cevert caught and passed Hulme to give Tyrrell a 1-2. When rain started to fall Scheckter made a mistake a spun, dropping down the order and so fourth place went to Ronnie Peterson's March with Ickx behind him.

1978, Montreal, With safety at Mosport Park not being good enough and a French-Canadian driving for Ferrari, it was decided that a track should be laid out on the roads on the Ile de Notre Dame, which had been the site of Expo 67. The man-made island was then transformed for the 1976 Olympic Games and featured a rowing basin. The work was completed hurriedly and most drivers complained that it was too narrow and that overtaking was very difficult.

With the grid restricted to 22 starters there was intense competition in qualifying as 28 cars had appeared. Ensign had decided not to run Brett Lunger and so Derek Daly had two cars to himself, while Brabham had a third car available for Nelson Piquet and Riccardo Patrese was back in action after the controversial ban which meant he could not race at Watkins Glen.

The lap times were very close indeed with Jean-Pierre Jarier (Lotus) taking pole by one-hundredth of a second from Jody Scheckter's Wolf with Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari) two-tenths behind them. Then came John Watson (Brabham), Alan Jones (Williams), Emerson Fittipaldi (Fittipaldi), Niki Lauda (Brabham), Hans Stuck (Shadow), Mario Andretti (Lotus) and Jacques Laffite (Ligier). Carlos Reutemann was not competitive in his Ferrari, qualifying 11th, while Piquet was an encouraging 14th. At the back of the grid Clay Regazzoni (Shadow) and Beppe Gabbiani (Surtees) missed out by a tenth of a second as Keke Rosberg (ATS) and a troubled Jean-Pierre Jabouille (Renault) scraped onto the back row of the grid. It had rained intermittently throughout practice but the weather was cool and overcast on race day as thousands of fans crammed onto the island to see Villeneuve in action.

At the start, Jarier made the best start to lead Scheckter, Jones and Villeneuve into the first corner. Stuck and Fittipaldi went out almost immediately when the German spun into the Brazilian and this dropped Laffite to the back of the field as he had to take avoiding action. Further around on the first lap Scheckter drifted wide and Jones dived into second place. But Jarier was in the lead and pulling away.

Further back Andretti and Watson engaged in a lively battle for fifth place, the American keen to get ahead of the Brabham. On the sixth lap Andretti made a move and the two cars collided and spun. Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell) moved to fifth but he soon had to pit for new tires and so Reutemann took the place. On lap 18 Jones began to drop back with a slow puncture and he was soon overtaken by Scheckter and Villeneuve and the Canadian then moved to second. But Jarier was almost 30 seconds ahead and Villeneuve had little chance of catching him. But on lap 50 Jarier went into the pits with no brakes. A hole was found in the system and the car was retired.

Villeneuve was thus left in the lead and duly won his first F1 victory, to the delight of the local crowd. Scheckter followed him home with Reutemann third, Patrese fourth, Depailler fifth and Daly sixth.

2000, Suzuka, Michael Schumacher won a glorious victory after a race-long battle with Mika Hakkinen in treacherous conditions at Suzuka. For most of the race, it was what motor racing is all about, a fabulous demonstration of two men going head-to-head in evenly matched machinery. After 21 years Ferrari has finally done it.

Real name was Travis Webb, but of course, that's half as ...

While it's debatable if he ever was a Grand Prix driver, he certainly never was a USAC driver: he died Nov 6, 1955, and the first USAC-sanctioned event was Fort Wayne on Jan 8, 1956!

Precisely, fines...Jack McGrath died in the last AAA sanctioned Championship race (which was at Phoenix on the Arizona State Fairgrounds mile dirt oval).

McGrath was born in (depending on sources) : Pasadena, South Pasadena or Alhambra, California.

I have read that his father ran a butcher shop in South Pasadena and Jack started out working in his father's shop before getting into "hot rodding".


Jim Thurman

Thanks Michael… I suppose I should have written “Grand Prix driver at Indy for McGrath”. Though is there still a bit of contention that the Indy race, while on the calendar of the era, wasn’t a true GP? I’ll delete the USAC reference as well.

And I found another for October 8th ~ James Weaver and Butch Leitzinger in a Ford powered R&S, won the IMSA Acxiom Grand Prix du Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana. However, Ferrari 333SP driver Fermin Velez, with a fourth place finish, clinched the season's WSC driver's championship. Irv Hoerr won the GTS-1 title with a fifth place finish (first in class) and Jose Trejos was the GTS-2 champion (in a Porsche I’m guessing).



October 9,

1909, George Robertson drove a Simplex "90" to victory in the 200 mile AAA Championship race in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1937, Sports car, F1 driver and Can Am constructor, David Prophet was born

1955, Dewayne "Tiny" Lund raced in his first NASCAR sanctioned race, at Lehi, Arkansas.

1961,F1 driver Julian Bailey was born in Woolwich, England.

1966, John Mulligan, at Carlsbad Raceway, Carlsbad, California ran the 1/4-mile in 6.95 seconds in his Top Fuel dragster. This was the first sub-7 second Top Fuel run in NHRA history.

1966, F1 driver, Vincenzo Sospiri was born in Italy.

1975, A.J. Foyt won the USAC Championship race at Phoenix, Arizona, in his Coyote-Foyt.

1977, Mosport Park, There was only a week between the United States East Grand Prix and the race at Mosport Park but there was significant change with the World Champion deciding that he was fed up with Ferrari. He declined to race. The team had been planning to run a third car for Gilles Villeneuve and so he merely took over. The only other change was the return to Shadow of Riccardo Patrese. There were worries about safety over the Mosport Park bumps and in practice Ian Ashley's Obex Oil Hesketh flipped after cresting one of the brows. It somersaulted over the barriers and collided with a television tower. Ashley (who had suffered nasty leg injuries in a crash at the Nurburgring in 1975) was seriously hurt again and rescue operations were inefficient and time-consuming. The lack of safety of Mosport was underlined when Jochen Mass spun into the guardrail later that day and it was flattened.

The grid consisted of Mario Andretti on pole by six-tenths in his Lotus with James Hunt second fastest in the McLaren. Then came Ronnie Peterson (Tyrrell), Gunnar Nilsson (Lotus), Mass (McLaren), Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell), Alan Jones and Riccardo Patrese (both in Shadows), Jody Scheckter's Wolf and John Watson's Brabham-Alfa Romeo. The Ferraris were not competitive with Carlos Reutemann 12th and Villeneuve 17th.

In the race Andretti took an early lead with Hunt and Mass in pursuit and the order remained unchanged at the front until the 60th lap when the two leaders were coming up to lap third-placed Mass. Hunt scrambled ahead of Andretti and then there was a misunderstanding and the two McLarens collided and spun off. Andretti went back into the lead but on lap 78 the Lotus stopped with an engine failure and so Scheckter took the victory with Depailler second and the recovering Mass third after Brambilla crashed on oil from Andretti's engine and smashed into Patrese's Shadow which had gone off a lap early. Jones finished fourth with Patrick Tambay fifth for Ensign with Brambilla being classified sixth.

1983, Richard Petty won the NASCAR Miller High Life 500 at Charlotte. However, NASCAR fined Petty $35,000 and striped him of 104 points for using an illegal engine and tires.

Just going back to October 6 briefly...

1958... Bathurst, NSW. Despite the best efforts of Stan Jones (Maserati 250F) and Lex Davison (Ferrari), Ted Gray stroked away in the lead of the Australian Grand Prix in the Chevrolet-powered Tornado.



Just a three years after his disastrous crash in the car's predecessor on Conrod Straight, Gray was the master of the event and set fastest lap at 2:45.4 during his run. The Chevrolet engine, which had replaced the Tornado ohv-converted Ford V8 shortly after the new car was built, was to play a major part in motor racing in Australia some 22 years and more later, but this day should have shown that it was the engine to use in the prevailing Formula Libre conditions.

Alas, a rear suspension bracket collapsed and the car was retired. Stan Jones also retired, his Maserati engine giving up on Conrod Straight.

So Lex Davison inherited a win in the Ferrari to add to the win he was gifted (it seems) the previous year and the one Jones had lost to him when the Maybach's chassis broke in half in 1954.

Today Gray is remembered almost fiercely by those who saw him drive. Ted Parsons Jr at Wangaratta extols his virtues endlessly, Tim Hocking raves about him (nothing new to Tim, but still...), John Cummins et al. He finished his days in an apparent state of disdain for the sport he loved and lived for so long.

His racing, IIRC, went back to 1939 or so, and he'd proved tremendously adept at wringing the best out of cars. He also set some extremely rapid town to town times, including the Wangaratta to Melbourne record in the Alfa V8.

Lou Abrahams, the man who built and owned the Tornado, and the Tornado ohv conversion for the side-valve Ford V8, went yacht racing. The name came from the boat into which he put the engine, but it was too much for the hull... sinking, as I recall, in Albert Park Lake during an early run.

As racing was to surround the lake a few years later (and fast driving was always there if the police were absent!), it was appropriate that the engine should next be tried in a racing car. Later it went into a road car, but ultimately it was stuck under a bench at his factory... to be discarded when somebody decided to clean up.

Feel free to jump back at any point in time Ray...

Those recollections are very cool. My knowledge of racing on the other side of the globe, is just now imerging from the dark ages.



For October 10,

1901, Henry Ford drove a car he designed and built to victory in a race in Grosse Point, Michigan.

1930, Grand Prix great, Eugenio Castellotti was born in Lodi, Milan, Italy.

1933, It had been raining in Milan overnight and the Autodromo Nazionale at Monza was damp as the grid drew up for that Italian Grand Prix, a 50 lap race over the 10km combined road/oval course in Monza. This was a favourite with the fans who were able to see the cars not once but twice every lap, the first time as they passed the pits and thundered away onto the banked North Curve of the oval and then again when they came off the South Curve and passed the grandstand before heading out into the woods by way of the Curva Grande.

This was to be a special day for Italian race fans, as the Reale Automobile Club Italia had hit upon the new idea of staging not one, but two big races on the same day in an effort to bring in the biggest possible crowd. The Italian GP would take place in the morning on the combined course, and the Monza GP - comprising three heats and a final - would take place on the oval in the afternoon.

The races were billed as a grudge match between Maserati and the Scuderia Ferrari Alfas and there was plenty of needle between the two which dated back to the start of the year when Alfa Romeo unexpectedly withdrew from racing. It left Enzo Ferrari with a string of old Alfa Monza 8Cs, but locked up the marvellous P3s which had dominated the 1932 season.

As a result the Ferrari drivers struggled to be competitive with the Maserati and Bugatti teams and this came to a head just before the Belgian GP in July when Ferrari's star driver Tazio Nuvolari and his close friend Baconin Borzacchini quit to join Maserati. Ferrari was furious and sought revenge. He poached his old friend Giuseppe Campari, who had just won the French GP for Maserati. And added another Maserati driver Luigi Fagioli to his roster. Finally he signed up Monaco's Louis Chiron, who had been out of a drive since the CC Racing Alfa team had been disbanded, following Rudi Caracciola's thigh-breaking accident at Monaco.

Ferrari's next step was to convince the Alfa Romeo factory that it had made a mistake and should allow him to race the P3s. Alfa agreed and on August 20 Fagioli raced a Ferrari Alfa P3 at Pescara and beat Nuvolari's Maserati. A week later Fagioli raced at Comminges in France and scored another victory over a field of Alfa 8Cs. On September 3 Chiron pitted his Alfa P3 against Nuvolari's Maserati at Miramas. Nuvolari led but retired and Ferrari had another win. Monza would be the showdown and there would be added excitement because this would also be Campari's last race because, at 41, he was ready to retire and make a new career as an opera singer.

Campari was a larger than life character. The same age as Nuvolari he had been a top line driver since finishing fourth in the 1914 Targa Florio. In 1920 on the Circuito del Mugello he scored Alfa Romeo's first racing victory and had twice won the Mille Miglia and the Italian GP and was a three-time winner of Pescara's Coppa Acerbo.

His fame was matched by his popularity and racing exploits were as celebrated as his idiosyncracies. Like evry good opera singer he weighed in at 16 stones. He had sung professionally at the Donizetti theatre at Bergamo and admitted to three great passions in life: racing, singing and cooking.

But before Campari's curtain call, there would be the Italian GP, a mighty battle between Fagioli, Nuvolari, Piero Taruffi (in another Ferrari Alfa) and Chiron. After much excitement it was Fagioli who emerged the winner after Nuvolari pitted in the closing stages of the three-hour race.

After lunch, with drizzle in the air, the first heat for the Monza GP was won by wealthy Paris-based Polish aristocrat Count Stanislas Czaykowski, driving a privately-entered Bugatti Type 54. He was chased home by French Algerian Guy Moll, who recorded a record lap of 122mph. It was Moll who reported to the organisers that there was a patch of oil on the South Curve, dropped it was said by a Scuderia Ferrari-run Duesenberg, driven by the company president Count Carlo Trossi. The American car had been bought by Ferrari in a desperate search for a car to compete with the Maseratis.

Moll's warning was heeded and the South Curve was brushed as the cars for the second heat waited on the grid. This promised to be a showdown between Campari's Alfa P3 and Borzacchini's Maserati 8C 3000. Borzacchini was another popular figure. Thirty-four years old and a close friend of Nuvolari, who had worked his way to stardom from working class beginnings. He was named Baconin after the Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin and he had an unusual problem after Mussolini's Fascists took power. A Russian name did not suit the Fascist ideal of a racing driver hero, so Borzacchini was bullied into becoming Mario Umberto Borzacchini.

The Campari-Borzacchini showdown began with a dramatic standing start as the field hurtled away onto the North Curve. Neither driver came back. Going through the South Curve they were wheel to wheel when they hit the oil. Borzacchini lost control and spun wildly in the oily water. Campari swerved to avoid him, went up the banking and into the trees. At the same time Borzacchini's Maserati flipped over. Behind them Ferdinando Barbieri and Count Luigi Castelbarco also went off and both rolled.

Campari was dead, and for Borzacchini there was little hope and he would die later that day in a Monza hospital. It was a terrible blow for Enzo Ferrari. Scuderia Ferrari had been in operation for just four years and Campari's death was the first in a Ferrari car. That day Enzo Ferrari hardened his attitude towards his drivers. It was a blow too for Nuvolari who had lost his closest friend and a team mate and rival of many years. He spent most of the night at Monza hospital, with the grieving families.

Despite the crash the show had to go on. There was a drivers' meeting before the third heat and the south curve was cleaned more effectively. French Algerian Marcel Lehoux won the heat and was part of a stirring battle in the final with Moll and Czaykowski.

But that grim day was not over yet. On the eighth of the 14 laps, Czaykowski's engine blew up, a fuel line broken and burning petrol sprayed back onto the driver. Unable to see, he crashed - at the same spot where Campari and Borzacchini had met their fates - and the Polish count was burned to death in the accident which followed.

The motor racing world was stunned. It had lost three top drivers in one afternoon. Today, many racing historians conclude that the events of Monza 1933 mark a watershed - notably for Enzo Ferrari. It was the end to the joyful era of racing and the beginning of a harsher new age.

1952, Grand Prix driver, Siegfried Stohr was born in Rimini Italy.

1976, Donnie Allison won the NASCAR Winston Cup race at Charlotte, North Carolina.

1976, Watkins Glen, There was only a week between the Canadian and United States East Grand Prix and so there was little time for much change. Guy Edwards had stood down from Hesketh with Brazilian Alex Ribeiro taking over while Wolf Williams was without Chris Amon (who had hurt himself in Canada) and so Australian Warwick Brown was given the drive in an old Hesketh.

The World Championship gap between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was down to just eight points and Hunt was looking strong as he set pole position, ahead of Jody Scheckter (Tyrrell), Ronnie Peterson and Vittorio Brambilla (March) ahead of Lauda and their team mate Hans Stuck. The top 10 was completed by Patrick Depailler (Tyrrell), John Watson (Penske), Tom Pryce (Shadow) and Carlos Pace (Brabham-Alfa Romeo).

In the race Scheckter made the best start and took the lead with Brambilla grabbing third from Peterson. Lauda followed. In the early laps Scheckter and Hunt were able to pull away while Lauda worked his way ahead of both Peterson and Brambilla to take third position. Towards half-distance Hunt closed up on Scheckter and took the lead but Hunt made a mistake and Scheckter got ahead again and it was not until the 46th lap that Hunt took the lead again.

Further back the action was more intense with fourth place passing from Peterson to Depailler and then to Laffite.

On lap 15, there was nasty accident when Ickx crashed the Ensign, head-on into the guardrail. The car split in two and caught fire but amazingly, Ickx was able to hobble away with only a broken ankle and a few minor burns.

Later Laffite went out with a puncture after running over debris. Moments later Brambilla did the same and so Mass found himself fourth with Stuck fifth and Watson sixth.

Hunt's victory closed the World Championship gap to just three points as the F1 circus headed off to Japan for the first time.

1996, Jim Chapman, onetime PPG Racing Director, passed away.

October 11,

1911, Grand Prix driver, Nello Pagani was born in Italy.

1928, Grand Prix and Sports car driver, Don Alfonso Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton, 17th Marquis de Portago (sorry, I couldn’t resist)was born in Spain.

1933, The assets of the bankrupt Miller Engine Company were sold at auction.

1962, Ferrari 250 GTO chassis #3987GT was sold to Luigi Chinetti. John Mecom, Otto Zipper, Alan de Cadenet, and Ralph Lauren will later own this car. Does anyone know the particular significance of this chassis? ...Besides being owned by a bunch of famous guys…

1964, Graham Hill and Jo Bonnier drove a Ferrari 330P to victory in the 1000 Km de Paris at Montlhery, France. Pedro Rodriguez and Jo Schlesser won the GT 3000 class in their N.A.R.T. Ferrari 250 G.T.O. Ben Pon and Gerhard Koch took 1st in the GT 2000 class with their Porsche 904 GTS, Herbert Demetz and Anton Fischhaber won the GT 1300 class in a Abarth-Simca 1300 Bialbero. Tragedy struck that race as Peter Lindner and Franco Patria died, along with three French commissaries, when their cars collided.

1972, Indy car engine designer, C.W. Van Ranst died.

1975, Don Garlits ran the 1/4-mile in 5.636 seconds at 250.69 mph in his T/F dragster. This elapse time record would stand for another six years and the top speed record for 9 years.

1987, Lynn St. James set a new woman's national closed-course speed record of 212.577 mph. At Talledega, I presume?

Found a couple more for the 11th

1970, The Ferrari 512M made its debut.

1995, Todd Parrott became the crew chief for Dale Jarrett's Robert Yates owned, Ford Thunderbird. It was to be a very successful pairing.



October 12,

1906, Grand Prix and Sports car driver, Piero “The Silver Fox” Taruffi was born in Rome, Italy

1918, Grand Prix driver at Indy, Frank Armi was born in the USA.

1936, The inaugural George Vanderbilt Cup race held at Roosevelt raceway in Westbury, New York, on Long Island. The 400 mile race was won by Tazio Nuvolari in a Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo.

1937, Grand Prix driver, Paul Hawkins was born in Melbourne, Australia

1943, Grand Prix driver and Driving School operator, Bertil Roos was Born in England.

1969, Bruce McLaren won and Denny Hulme was second, both driving McLaren M8B-Chevrolets, in the Laguna Seca, California, Can-Am race. It was the seventh 1-2 finish by Team McLaren during that season.

1978, Australian Touring Car team owner, Bryan Byrt died.

1985, Grand Prix driver at Indy, J Carlyle “Duke” Dinsmore died at the age of 71.

1986, Mexico City, It had been 16 years since the last Mexican GP and the autodrome had been completely rebuilt with a shorter circuit than the original but despite resurfacing work it was very bumpy. The only change from the field at the Portuguese GP was that AGS had not made the trip to Mexico. Qualifying was a familiar story with Ayrton Senna on pole in his JPS Lotus-Renault. Then came Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell in their Williams-Hondas with Gerhard Berger fourth in his Benetton-BMW. Next up was Riccardo Patrese (Brabham-BMW) ahead of Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG), Derek Warwick in the second Brabham, Patrick Tambay in the Haas Lola, Teo Fabi's Benetton and Philippe Alliot in the Ligier-Renault. The Ferraris were not competitive.

Mansell was in the position to win the World Championship if he could score a good result but at the start, he made a mess of it and was left at the back of the field. Piquet and Senna were running first and second. Berger was third with Prost fourth. On the seventh lap, Prost got ahead of Berger.

Mansell charged up through the backmarkers but then had to pit for new tires. The only man not to do so was Berger, who reckoned that he might be able to go the distance on his Pirelli tires. When the other front-runners returned to action they were not able to close on Berger because the Goodyears were blistering in the heat.

Berger thus took his first Formula 1 victory, followed home by Prost and Senna, Piquet and Mansell were fourth and fifth while the final point went to Alliot.

As the F1 circus headed off to Australia Mansell was still in a dominant position in the World Championship six points clear of Prost and seven ahead of Piquet.

1990, Darrell Alderman set an NHRA Pro-Stock 1/4-mile elapse time record of 7.184 seconds in Dallas, Texas.

1997, Suzuka, After the first several minutes of qualifying, the fans started to witness the first attempts at more serious lapping - but it was not until 18 minutes into the session that Villeneuve bounced Hakkinen to second and then Eddie Irvine pushed the Finn back to third only to be knocked out of second slot by his team mate Michael Schumacher. The track temperature had shot up as all this was going on and for the rest of the session everyone struggled to set a better time. It was building up to a big climax when Gianni Morbidelli made a mistake in the fast Esses behind the pits and smashed his Sauber backwards into the barriers, turning his rear wing into little bits of carbon composite which were spread liberally across the circuit, like confetti after a wedding.

The red flags came out, signaling a break in proceedings. It was a shame: many of the top men had been out and running at that moment and so their tires were ruined. Still, we had five minutes left and, after 15 minutes cleaning up Morbidelli's confetti, there was a rush of cars, ending the session as it had begun. No-one achieved a thing and Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher kept everyone guessing up until the very last minute when Jacques set off for a final run - and Michael did not bother. Jacques was too late anyway and turned into the pitlane as the final seconds of the session ticked away.

This, of course, was assuming that Jacques would actually take part. In the Saturday morning session he had done something very silly, accelerating past waved yellow flags after Jos Verstappen had stopped his Tyrrell at the exit of the Spoon Curve. The rules are quite clear on these matters; when a yellow flag is waved: "Slow down. Do not overtake. Be prepared to change direction or follow an unusual line". Jacques has developed a habit of ignoring waved yellow flags and the FIA has not been impressed. He arrived at Suzuka with a one-race ban suspended for eight races for repeatedly ignoring waved yellow flags.

When Patrick Head saw on a TV screen what Jacques had done he showed signs of exasperation. The team knew that there would be trouble, and so there was. As dusk fell on Suzuka it was announced that Jacques was being excluded from the race. The pole man would not be sitting on pole. The team decided to appeal but the resulting flack over Villeneuve and the yellow flag lasted until late into the evening. A pile of cameramen besieged the Williams office in the paddock. In the end, it was decided that Williams would appeal - a dangerous move - but it was decided that it would be better to race and lose the points later, rather than not race at all. Even without Villeneuve the team hoped to be able to wrap up its ninth Constructors' World Championship with Frentzen, who had qualified sixth on the grid after making a mistake on his fastest lap.

The big surprise in qualifying, apart from the yellow flag business, was the performance of the two Ferraris, which were conveniently quick again after several races of being completely off the pace. When you consider that six weeks ago at Spa - a track quite like Suzuka - the Ferraris were not competitive in qualifying, with Schumacher third on the grid but eight-tenths down on Villeneuve and Irvine 17th, the result at Suzuka seemed very strange.

Second-on-the-grid Schumacher was only six-thousandths slower than Villeneuve and Irvine was third quickest just three-tenths slower than Michael. Everyone reckoned that it must be down to some fancy electronic throttle control system.

There was not time to consider the implications of the yellow flag business on the race strategies but on Sunday morning the paddock was buzzing with stories. What would the Williams strategy be? At the start it was clear that Jacques wanted to be ahead of Michael: he signaled this intention by coming across the road to make sure that Schumacher did not get ahead.

It quickly became clear that the plan was to hold up Michael. "He drove that way to make things difficult for me so others could overtake," Michael suggested after the race. The computers suggested that this was the case with Jacques' lap times being remarkably slow. Behind Jacques and Michael, Irvine had made a poor start and had dropped behind Hakkinen, while Frentzen made a better start than Berger and was able to take fifth place.

On the second lap Irvine passed both Hakkinen and Schumacher in what looked like a brilliant move going up through The Esses - an unusual place for overtaking maneuvers. In fact, it had been pre-planned. "We had discussed it before the race," Michael confessed. "He said it was a possibility and he did it and I let him through." When the opportunity presented itself Eddie went outside Hakkinen and Schumacher in one move. "Michael had a good idea I was going to try it," said Eddie, "and he assisted me." Immediately Eddie was attacking Villeneuve. A lap and a half later, as they were braking for the chicane, Eddie made his move. "Jacques tried to block me," Irvine said, "so I sailed around the outside."

Once ahead Eddie showed just how slow Jacques had been going. His first lap free of Villeneuve gave him a 5.3secs advantage and within three laps he was 12secs ahead of the Williams. Jacques did not attempt to give chase, preferring to stay where he was, ahead of Schumacher. All the curious fluctuations in the normal pace of the front-runners had completely obscured the likely pit stop strategies. It looked as though Irvine was on a three-stopper: in fact Eddie was going for two stops. The pit stops began on lap 13 with Hakkinen and Berger coming in. On the following lap Coulthard and Alesi came in. It looked as though both Benetton and McLaren were going for a three-stop strategy but McLaren was boxing clever and was in fact going for only two.

On lap 16 Irvine came in and handed the lead to Villeneuve. Two laps later Schumacher stopped and on lap 20 Villeneuve himself came in. Michael rejoined behind Johnny Herbert and for two laps the German ran behind the Sauber. Johnny was not holding up his old team-mate but Ferrari, keen to know what Sauber was planning, sent a man down to the Swiss pit to ask. When one supplies a rival with engines one has such power. The Sauber folk replied that Ferrari need not worry because Johnny was coming in shortly and the Ferrari man scurried back to tell his troops.

When Villeneuve rejoined Schumacher was belting down the main straight towards him. Jacques pulled across into the fast lane but was not going quickly enough to really justify such a move. Michael was not about to stand on the brakes and dived for the inside line, sweeping past the Williams before it was up to speed. While this was happening Frentzen was in the process of leading for a lap but then he too pitted. He was now ahead of Hakkinen but still fourth behind Irvine, Schumacher and Villeneuve. Irvine knew that his moment of glory would soon be over. "I was waiting for the phone call," Eddie reported.

It came on lap 23 and Irvine slowed down, allowing Schumacher to catch him up. As soon as Michael was past him, Eddie pulled in front of Villeneuve and began blocking. After the race he made no bones about it. "They said slow down and let Michael through and then try to slow Jacques down," Eddie reported. "It is not difficult to do here. I had three years of practice here when I was in Formula 3000."

In the end, this would work against him - and against Ferrari - but it worked great for Michael Schumacher. Michael was able to build a lead of 7.2secs before his second pit stop. On lap 30 Jacques came hurtling into the pits intent on getting past Irvine during the pit stops. It would probably have worked as well, but there was a problem getting the fuel hose onto his car and he lost six or seven vital seconds. He would rejoin in seventh position. Irvine pitted on lap 32 and Schumacher on lap 33 but Frentzen stayed out longer and did not stop until lap 37. Irvine's blocking had lost him time and Frentzen was thus able to get into second place when he stopped but it was close. "Heinz came straight out across onto the line," Eddie complained later, "which you should not do when you come out of the pits."

If Eddie was an angel when it comes to driving behavior there might have been some sympathy for him, but he is not and there was not. Frentzen was second and, as a result, Williams was in a winning position for the Constructors' Championship.

Frentzen went after Schumacher but it was a hopeless chase, despite the best efforts of Damon Hill who made his Arrows very wide when Michael came upon him at the end of the race. One can hardly blame Damon for making life hard for Michael. One must not forget that Damon would have been World Champion in 1994 if Michael had not driven into him in Australia... It was actually surprising that Damon did not take him out of the race. Damon cost Michael 2.9secs to Frentzen but he crossed the line 1.3secs ahead of his fellow-countryman. Irvine made it home just ahead of Hakkinen but Coulthard's eighth place evaporated on the last lap when an engine seizure caused the rear axle to lock up. He was pitched hard into the wall. "A bad end to a terrible weekend," he complained. He was classified 11th. Villeneuve was fifth, having looked rather unconvincing in the final stint. He seemed to know that he will lose the two points when he would go to the FIA Court of Appeal in Paris and there was no point in pushing too much. Jacques was chased home by Alesi but the Benetton strategy had not been a success. Berger made even less of an impression and ended up 10th.

The result meant that Villeneuve was one point ahead of Schumacher as they headed for the final race at Jerez - although the FIA Court of Appeal rejected Villeneuve's appeal and he lost his two points.


Hmmm, I don't know what happened to Todd's post below, But he did mention that earlier today, besides the rather thrilling race at the Suzuka circuit ~

EDIT: 2003,Michael Schumacher made it a record breaking sixth World Drivers Championship by virtue of scoring a single point in today's Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka - passing the mark he shared with the late Juan Manuel Fangio, who won his fifth World Championship in 1957.

His Ferrari team mate Rubens Barrichello helped to ensure Schumacher's title by winning the race decisively in damp conditions from title rival Kimi Raikkonen in second. David Coulthard finished in third in his McLaren-Mercedes. Barrichello's win clinched for Ferrari a record 13th World Constructors' Championship - and their fifth in a row - over Williams-BMW, McLaren-Mercedes and Renault.

It was an action filled race for Schumacher, who started in 14th, when on the seventh lap he clipped the rear end of Takuma Sato's BAR-Honda, and needed to pit to change his front wing - sending him to the back of the field. After working his way back up, in the closing laps of the race, Michael attempted a pass on Cristiano da Matta, but locked up his brakes, causing a chain reaction which saw his brother Ralf breaking his front wing by hitting Michael's rear tire. But Michael continued on to the finish in eighth place, clinching the championship.

Juan Pablo Montoya took the early lead over polesitter Barrichello, but dropped out after nine laps with a mechanical problem and dashing any real hope for Williams-BMW to overtake Ferrari in the WCC battle.

Finishing in fourth place, narrowly missing a podium finish once again, was Jenson Button in his BAR-Honda - his new teammate Takuma Sato finishing in sixth place. The strong results for the BAR-Honda team leaped them up to fifth place in the Constructors' Championship, in front of Sauber-Petronas, Jaguar-Cosworth, Toyota and Jordan-Ford. Fifth place went to Jarno Trulli, who had a strong race - having started the race from the back of the field. Seventh place went to Cristiano da Matta - whose race pace did not live up to his promising third grid position.

October 13,

1899, Grand Prix driver, Piero Dusio was born.

1918, Barney Oldfield, driving the "Golden Submarine" for Will Pickens, raced in his last competitive event, an IMCA sanctioned race on the dirt track in Independence, Missouri.

1949, Grand Prix driver, Patrick Neve was born.

1957, The Jaguar Factory withdrew its cars from motor racing.

1962, Both Carrol Shelby's Cobra and the Corvete Stingray Z06 made their race debuts at Riverside, California. Dave MacDonald, Bob Bondurant, Jerry Grant, and Doug Hooper drove Z06s and Bill Krause the lone Cobra. At the end, it was Hooper who won the race.

1964, Craig Breedlove drove his "Spirit of America" on the Bonneville Salt Flats to a new World Land Speed Record of 468.719 mph.

1981, Grand Prix driver, Philippe Etancelin died. A wealthy farmer and wool merchant Etancelin bought a Bugatti Type 35 in January 1926 and took part in local hillclimb events until the middle of 1927 when he entered the Grand Prix de la Marne and won. He raced mainly in France, winning four races in 1929 but having a big accident in the French GP in 1930 at St Gaudens when an axle broke. In 1931 he started the year with a Bugatti but then switched to an Alfa Romeo 8C which he would run for the next couple of years. In 1934 he bought a Maserati 8C but in the summer he won the Le Mans 24 Hours sharing an Alfa Romeo sportscar with Luigi Chinetti. At the Italian GP the following year had a very big accident and rolled his car and although he won at Pau in 1936 he did not win any more big events that year and decided to retire. He returned in 1938 when Anthony Lago asked him to drive. After the war, "Phi-Phi" started racing again and won the 1949 Paris GP at Montlhery in a Talbot Lago. When the World Championship began, he managed a couple of fifth places in 1950 before retiring after the 1953 Rouen Grand Prix, a non-championship event which took place practically on his doorstep. That year he was awarded a Legion d'Honneur for his services to the sport. He was a very active member of the Anciens Pilotes blue blazer brigade right up to his death.

1989, Grand Prix driver at Indy, Freddie Agabashian died. Agabashian was a 3 time San Jose, Midget Champion in 1946, ‘47 and ’48, he sat on the Pole at the 1952 Indy Race at a record average 138.010 mph in the No. 28 Cummins Diesel. His best finish in the 500 was 4th a year later after starting second.. Were just a few of his many accomplishments in his career.

1991, Nissan's Geoff Brabham captured an unprecedented fourth consecutive IMSA GTP title.

1996, Suzuka, Damon Hill, dominated the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, leading from start to finish to win his eighth victory of the year and the World Championship. His challenger Jacques Villeneuve had taken pole position, but he made an awful start and was never in the hunt. He went out mid-race when a wheel fell off his car and he skated into a sand trap. British fans everywhere cheered the victory - Damon has done it!

In his moment of victory Damon - always the gentleman - had nice things to say about Villeneuve. "Jacques has been an outstanding newcomer to F1 and I am certain he is a future World Champion. He has taken to F1 like a duck to water and I have been impressed with him all season. He's been a great team mate."

Michael Schumacher came home second but the gap of 1.8s at the finish did not give a true impression of his competitiveness. Hill had cruised the final part of the race, while Michael held off Hakkinen's McLaren. "He was pushing as hard as he could and I was pushing as hard as him," explained Michael. "On one occasion when a Minardi got in our way I had to be careful, otherwise I don't believe there was much chance of him getting past me." Hakkinen reckoned that he would not have lost his place in the first pit stop but for a late message from the team for him to come into the pits. It meant he lost time and second place. His only chance to pass Schumacher came when they stumbled upon Lamy's Minardi a few laps from home. "It was a really exciting moment," said Mika later, "but it was too risky. We could have both gone off and that would have been boring." And so he settled for third place. He was just 3.2s behind the winner.

1997 Less than three weeks after breaking the elusive 700 mph land speed barrier, British fighter pilot Andy Green set a new land speed record in the Thrust SuperSonic vehicle, jet-powering through the sound barrier along a one-mile course in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Coached by previous land speed record-holder and Thrust team leader Richard Noble, Green roared across Black Rock Desert at 764.168 mph, or 1.007 percent above the speed of the sound.

An hour later, Green flashed across the dusty desert floor again, moving 1.003 percent faster than the speed of sound. The second run was required before the feat could be officially entered into the record book, a requirement that may have prevented past records.

In 1979, at Edwards Air Force Base, American Stan Barrett reached 739.666 mph, or Mach 1.0106, in a rocket-engined three-wheeled car called the Budweiser Rocket. But that attempt at a new LSR was unsanctioned by the United States Air Force, and the official record remained unbroken until Green's historic run. Appropriately, the first official breaking of the sound barrier by a land vehicle came on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the first supersonic flight, achieved by American pilot Chuck Yeager in 1947.

2002, Suzuka, The outcome of the race was settled at the first corner although by the time Michael Schumacher got there he was already well ahead of the rest. Rubens Barrichello was slower off the line but still managed to stay ahead of David Coulthard, Ralf Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn having been beaten away by the German. Behind them the action a little more exciting with a fair bit of switching going on. The big victim of this was Jacques Villeneuve who went off and dropped back from ninth on the grid to 14th. Giancarlo Fisichella was well into a bad afternoon, having suffered an engine failure before the race had even began. He switched to the T-car but this was not the same at all. It was set-up for Takuma Sato and had a less powerful engine than his race car. He dropped back from eighth to 11th. Still the two Honda teams were doing rather better than Toyota which had only one representative because Allan McNish had been told by Professor Watkins that it would not be a good idea to race with his knees as bruised as they were from his qualifying crash. McNish did not want to agree but one does not argue with St. Sid.

From then on, it was a case of watching the red men running away with the game. Barrichello was no match for Schumacher and no-one else was even in the same ballpark. Things got worse early on when David Coulthard's McLaren went wrong because of an electronic problem which left five cylinders working and five not maximizing their potential. That put Ralf Schumacher up into third place. The Ferraris were doing so well that when Michael stopped after 20 laps he was still able to rejoin ahead of his brother. The following lap Barrichello tried the same trick but he was not quite far enough ahead. At the second pit stops it was all academic. The Ferraris came and went and stayed ahead. Michael and Rubens stayed under 10 seconds apart until the last lap when Michael slowed down so that the two men crossed the line close together but this time there was no silliness. Michael was the winner for the 64th time in his career.

A contemporary account in Canada Track & Traffic 62-12, seventh and eighth displayed pages.

Congrats Richard, for hitting the 1000!

Well done


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Michael Ferner

In a week in which Neil Postman dies, and Arnold Schwarzenegger gets elected, you do wonder where we're headed...