Ari Vatanen-4 time Dakar champ and won the 81 WRC championship. If you have never seen him do Pikes Peak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgeCQGu_ug
Michele Mouton-Broke down many barriers and is the only female driver ever to win a WRC race.
Parnelli Jones
Marcus Gronholm
I still dont think mark donohue gets the credit he deserves.
Will wrote: And am I the only one here who'd pay money to see Kinser try his hand at drifting?
I see that every time he drives around Eldora at over 120 MPH. I'd like to see most of the drivers mentioned above handle an 800 HP 1200 lb car that has no clutch and different size rear tires. WoO cars can flip end-over-end by just mashing the throttle.
I'd rather see Vaughn Gittin Jr attempt 30 laps around Knoxville. Maybe then he'd realize he can't really drive.
Kramer wrote:Will wrote: And am I the only one here who'd pay money to see Kinser try his hand at drifting?I see that every time he drives around Eldora at over 120 MPH. I'd like to see most of the drivers mentioned above handle an 800 HP 1200 lb car that has no clutch and different size rear tires. WoO cars can flip end-over-end by just mashing the throttle. I'd rather see Vaughn Gittin Jr attempt 30 laps around Knoxville. Maybe then he'd realize he can't really drive.
I think we're saying the same thing in different ways. Kinser > any drifter, and I actually have respect for some drift drivers.
Kramer wrote:Will wrote: And am I the only one here who'd pay money to see Kinser try his hand at drifting?I'd rather see Vaughn Gittin Jr attempt 30 laps around Knoxville. Maybe then he'd realize he can't really drive.
For the Drift King (Keiichi Tsuchiya) to say Vaughn is the best American drifter has some weight to it. Vaughn can't be THAT bad. Definately not as good a Rhys or Tanner or even Sammy H., though. I'd put him on the level of Ken Gushi.
Sorry but I like drifting - its kind of like automotive pornography - cool in a very immature, destructive kind of way. Like when people get together to watch a building being blown up.
Notice there were no drift drivers on the list.
I will say one thing - one of the most instinctive hillclimbers in Pennsylvania regularly competes in dirt oval enduros. Seat time - seat time - seat time!
Drifting may be automotive ballet, and yes it is driving.... but it ain't racing.
you guys cant handle the truth,, open cockpit ROADSTERS, with NO sissy rollbars, no stupid front brakes, just a lot of power and a throttle pedal, with a lever hand brake for rears.
men where men!! and dyin was part of livin,, then came WWll.
ronbros wrote: you guys cant handle the truth,, open cockpit ROADSTERS, with NO sissy rollbars, no stupid front brakes, just a lot of power and a throttle pedal, with a lever hand brake for rears. men where men!! and dyin was part of livin,, then came WWll.
Um, no.
Board track motorcycle racers FTW. Those guys had HUEVOS.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=5561686
Skinny tires with 1920's technology. No brakes.
Leather pants, jerseys that look like sweatshirts, leather 'helmets' with NO padding.
80 MPH ( at the end of its popularity nearly 110 MPH; boardtrack ended in no small part due to numerous injuries and deaths) on boards. Imagine the splinters if you went down. 
But back to the thread subject: Pat Moss and Ann Wisdom. They were factory Austin Healey rally drivers way back when. And yes Pat Moss is the sister of the famous Stirling Moss. http://healey.org/content/view/359/245/
Ernest Hemingway was quoted as saying:
"There are only three true sports: mountain climbing, bullfighting, and automobile racing. All the rest are children's games."
NYG95GA wrote: Ernest Hemingway was quoted as saying: "There are only three true sports: mountain climbing, bullfighting, and automobile racing. All the rest are children's games."
I gotta read more Hemingway!
Sports should take both balls - not just one.
seeker589 wrote:NYG95GA wrote: Ernest Hemingway was quoted as saying: "There are only three true sports: mountain climbing, bullfighting, and automobile racing. All the rest are children's games."I gotta read more Hemingway! Sports should take both balls - not just one.
In 1971, I met David Pearson at a local race, and he let me sit in his car. On his steering wheel was a Dymo labelmaker strip that read:
"Balls make the difference"
Still true today, eh?
I think of the list of drivers who showed great talent but injuries held them back: Tommy Kendall, Jeremy Dale come to mind.
One of the finest American road racers ever was Roger Penske. We tend to forget how great a driver he was. When Jim Hall needed a replacement for Hap Sharp in the Chaparral, Roger got the call. At the end of his career, he was scheduled to test for an Indy car team - due to his connections with Chevy, he retired instead to become an owner. Who was his replacement in the Indy car test - Mario Andretti!
+1 on Jim Hall and Mark Donohue. Anyone who doesn't realize Mark's committment as a driver should read The Unfair Advantage.
On Perry McCarthy: at least he got to be the original Stig! His book Flat Out, Flat Broke is a riot!
Also +1 on Tommy Kendall.
RE: John Watson
Wattie was an excellent driver, much like Mansell in that he could drive the wheels off the car in the right conditions - he once won a F1 GP from 23rd on the grid, Detroit, I think. He should have been world champion the year that Rosberg won. But the drive described above is probably Jimmy Clark at the '67 Italian GP at Monza, where he had a puncture, rejoined a lap down, unlapped himself and took the lead (in an era where pit stops were not part of F1 races), but unfortunately DNF, I think out of gas. it was probably Clark's greatest drive.
I think you are right.. my bad...
.... I was remembering the come from behind runs he made... (long time back... memory not as good as once was 
)
Detroit from 17th , passed 3 in one lap... late in the race on a track deemed "impossible" to pass on... then later that yr at Long Beach from 23rd to first, the farthest back anyone (modern history) has won from....
Mark D while he didnt really fit in with AJ or even Mario, could drive and win in any type of car. I have a signed copy of The Unfair Advantage and autographed photo on my book shelf. The definition of "old school" in my opinion.
walterj wrote:seeker589 wrote: In reply to Rusty_Rabbit84: Rubens - absolutely! There are many occasions where he could have won races if it weren't for team orders.Plus he has a vagina making him the most successful woman racer of all time.
Thanks for helping me send ice cream out my nose. I would add Tim Richmond to any list of the greatest drivers of all time. You will never see him anywhere because he died from hard partying instead of a flaming wreck, but he could drive the wheels off anything. Sprint cars, stock cars, indy cars, it didn't matter.
The people that want to see Steve Kinser on Pavement should look up his short lived Nascar career. He crashed more in one week in Daytona than the Mallachi Brothers did in their entire career.
I think pretty much everyone in the WRC doesn't get the credit they deserve. Them fellers know how to drive. Michelle Mouton should top the list, not just for coming this close to winning the championship (damn the unreliability of her car) but for saying, at the top of Pike's Peak after she got the overall win, "if you guys had any balls, you'd race back down"..
Jay_W wrote: . Michelle Mouton ... but for saying, at the top of Pike's Peak after she got the overall win, "if you guys had any balls, you'd race back down"..
That's pure gold!
fastmiata said: Mark D while he didnt really fit in with AJ or even Mario, could drive and win in any type of car. I have a signed copy of The Unfair Advantage and autographed photo on my book shelf. The definition of "old school" in my opinion.
Holy Son of a berkeley. If you ever find yourself in the need of finding someone to remove that book from your possession, please contact me first. I know what it is worth, and I am willing to pay it...
that is all.
Rusty_Rabbit84 wrote: Tommy Byrne...
you could listen to his story...
http://www.formula1blog.com/2009/08/12/f1b-downshift-1-tommy-byrne-f1-formula1/
Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda. Any of the "old Unsers" I remember when Pike's Peak was nicknamed Unser Mountain
+69 for Michelle Mouton
John Surtees the only man to win a world championship on two and four wheels
4eyes wrote: Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda.
Reminds me af a strange event he went through. After his first "retirement", he went back to his farm and worked the feilds, as farmers are wont to do.Now, here's the master of the 4-wheeled vehicle, argueably the best driver in the world, having won several F1 championships.
He fell off of his tractor, and it ran him over, nearly killing him. How's that for ironic?
Mark Donohue
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