{"id":71873,"date":"2024-07-09T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T01:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racer.com\/?p=361079"},"modified":"2024-07-09T01:00:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T01:00:10","slug":"new-issue-of-vintage-motorsport-celebrates-the-underrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/new-issue-of-vintage-motorsport-celebrates-the-underrated\/","title":{"rendered":"New issue of Vintage Motorsport celebrates the underrated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are few things more nauseating in life than injustice, and while there are far more important iniquities in the world that have greater bearing on people\u2019s lives than anything inside our motorsports bubble, there are too many times when the matrix goes awry, the picture is distorted and drivers, teams or designers are robbed of their due.<\/p>\n

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For example, take Vintage Motorsport\u2019s cover star for our latest issue, Peter Revson. As a media outlet, it\u2019s sad to admit that folks in our line of business were largely to blame for his talent being perennially undervalued. Search for stories or footage that includes Revson and in the opening sentence or two you\u2019ll likely find some reference to his family\u2019s prosperity. At best it was clich\u00e9-ridden journalism; at worst it came across as a slur from inverted snobs. Either way, it lazily suggested Revson\u2019s background defined him. Well, it did\u2026 but not in the manner implied.<\/p>\n

Just as actors and actresses with model looks can struggle to be taken seriously in their chosen occupation, so racing drivers with family wealth can often suffer \u201crich kid\u201d tags that, intentionally or not, suggest that he or she is in the game for the glamor of it. \u201cRevvie\u201d was emphatically not playing at racing: yes, he came from big money, but he willingly, willfully, shunned that to make it to the top on merit. He worked hard to improve himself \u2013 and succeeded. When he perished at the age of 35, he was one of Formula 1\u2019s aces, perhaps a potential world champion. Our story this month should convince you.<\/p>\n

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While Revson was underrated because of wealth, Frank Williams was overlooked until acquiring wealth. Nothing \u2013 certainly not Jacques Laffite\u2019s highly fortunate runner-up finish at the German Grand Prix in 1975 \u2013 could have prompted anyone to predict that Sir Frank (as he was to become in 1999) had the potential to build an F1 powerhouse. Yet once he had adequate funding, it took just 18 months for Williams Grand Prix Engineering team to win races, and an even shorter timeline to convert that to title glory.<\/p>\n

Our story covers that sharp rise to the pinnacle and how Frank, Patrick Head, Alan Jones, Carlos Reutemann and Keke Rosberg ensured that mountain became a mesa.<\/p>\n

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The reason Ted Horn is underappreciated is simpler to explain, but no more logical: he failed to win the Indianapolis 500, and due to the status of that race, his three National (Indy car) championships and 24 wins at other \u2013 arguably more demanding \u2013 venues can\u2019t make up for that. His nine consecutive finishes in the top four at Indy remain a record, and more than suggest that only ill fortune robbed him of the chance to add his name and face to the Borg-Warner Trophy. As it is, Horn is consigned forever to the ranks of the \u201cbrilliant but unlucky at Indy\u201d drivers, along with Rex Mays and Michael Andretti, and is therefore less well known than some drivers of half his ability.<\/p>\n

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Elliott Forbes-Robinson \u2013 a name seemingly plucked from the pages of Wodehouse \u2013 is another fine racer whose talent was perhaps underappreciated by the public, but was well known among the many folks who hired him. Perhaps the problem was that EF-R was too self-effacing \u2013 an attractive personal quality that nevertheless can undermine a racing career. Maybe his versatility meant he flitted between series too often to become a pillar of any one discipline. But as the man himself points out in our interview, racing was work as well as pleasure and he needed to put food on the table. Then again, possibly the biggest barrier to Forbes-Robinson becoming a household name is that his career was somewhat upside down \u2013 his biggest successes came in his mid-50s!<\/p>\n

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Speaking of versatile drivers, we lost one of the best \u2013 perhaps the greatest of all \u2013 since our last issue. Our Parnelli Jones obituary tries to pack in everything this man achieved, but we could have filled four pages just with a dry list of his accomplishments.<\/p>\n

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Adding to the sad tone of the early pages in this issue \u2013 but aptly sited in an edition celebrating the underrated \u2013 is an obituary for Wally Dallenbach. He\u2019s well known as CART\u2019s even-handed and consistent racing steward for 20 years, and as one of the instigators of Indy car racing\u2019s still superb Safety Team. But in our tribute, we were keen to point out just how fine a racer Wally was.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere in the issue, we take a look back at NASCAR\u2019s dramatic (for good and bad reasons) 1994 season, we report from the Grand Prix de Monaco Historique, look ahead to the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion and discover what F1 and sports car racer John Watson regards as his favorite race.<\/p>\n

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The Aug\/Sept 2024 issue of Vintage Motorsport is now mailing to subscribers and is already available to read in digital format. We hope you enjoy it. And if you\u2019re not a subscriber, you can go to VintageMotorsport.com\/Subscribe<\/span> or call (877) 425-4103. Single copies can be purchased at our online store HERE<\/span>. Vintage Motorsport magazine is also available at Barnes & Noble bookstores nationwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are few things more nauseating in life than injustice, and while there are far more important iniquities in the world that have greater bearing on people\u2019s lives than anything inside our motorsports bubble, there are too many times when the matrix goes awry, the picture is distorted and drivers, teams or designers are robbed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","has-thumb","has-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}