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A Jaguar Clubs of North America Affiliate WWW.JDCLI.COM MAY 2020 British Grand Prix at Aintree, Sir Stirling Moss President racing the Mercedes-Benz W196 Story by Steve Becker Mike Carroll Photos by Steve Becker & others Monoposto. In that same year, he [email protected] won the 1,000 mile Mille Miglia road 516-607-6074 received an e-mail today, April race in the Mercedes-Benz 300 Vice President I 13, 2020, from the Lime Rock SLR, with Denis Jenkinson as his Quentin Nieman Historic Festival, announcing the team mate, at an astonishing aver- [email protected] death of Stirling Moss, one of the age speed of 97.96mph on public greatest and most successful race roads; the Targa Florio road race, 2nd Vice President car drivers of all time. again in the 300 SLR, and the Tour- Don Wolf ist Trophy at Dundrod. [email protected] Back in September of 2012, while Concours Chairman at that year’s Labor Day weekend He finished as the Formula One Mike carroll Historic Festival, Kris and I had the runner up four years in a row, his [email protected] opportunity to sit in on a question sportsmanship at the Portuguese GP and answer allowing Chief Judge session with Mike Haw- Rich Moors Sir Stirling thorn to win [email protected] Moss. For the 1958 Membership those of you Champion- Vlad Prutsky unfamiliar ship title by [email protected] with Moss, as half a point, Treasurer if any classic at his ex- Graham Scaife car aficionado pense. [email protected] could be unfa- When Mer- Secretary miliar with cedes re- Maryann dellinger this man, he tired from [email protected] was arguably motor racing the greatest all-round racing driver Social Media Chairman following the 1955 Le Mans trage- of all time, and a true icon of the Eliud Custodio dy, Stirling led the Maserati and motor racing world. [email protected] Vanwall teams. He raced 107 dif- Board Directors Early in his career he had works ferent types of cars, across all Ivan Scarborough drives for both Jaguar and HWM. classes of motor sport, during his In 1955 he was signed by Mercedes remarkable career. Newsletter Editor -Benz, the famed "Silver Arrows", Steve Becker In the late 1950s and early 1960s to partner with the legendary [email protected] he led the changeover to rear en- World Champion, Juan Manuel Fan- gine Formula 1 cars with the Cooper Facebook page gio. That year saw Stirling shadow www.facebook.com/jdcli/ Climax, achieving the first victory the great Argentine in most Grands for such a car at the 1958 Prix, beating him and winning the (Continued on page 2) Page Argentine Grand Prix, and was in a one win in two! class of his own during this period. A near-fatal His victory in the 1961 Monaco accident at Grand Prix, racing a Lotus 18 against Goodwood in the more powerful Ferrari's, was his 1962 ended it third Formula One victory around all. the Principality and is still regarded After his re- as one of the best Formula 1 races tirement he ever. continued to Between 1954, his first year with drive in historic what Stirling considered a proper events, his fa- Jackie Stewart & Stirling Moss Formula One car, the Maserati miliar white hel- 250F, and 1962, he took part in 318 met and blue races of all types, finished in 225 of light-weight race suit being a regular • them, and won 134. feature at historic races across the Professional motor racing has to globe. During qualifying for 2011 Le be dangerous - that’s part of the Stirling drove for Rob Walker from Mans Legends race, thrill of the sport. Stirling made the • Lotus race cars were faster and decision to retire handled better than their com- from competitive petitors, but were more apt to racing. He did, how- lose a wheel or suffer other me- ever, continue to chanical problems if driven to demonstrate the the limit. cars he raced and • take part in car ral- Mercedes cars, like the 300 lies. SLR, were much stronger than they had to be in his day. Some of his com- ments from the in- • In his day the driver was 20 to terview: 25% of the package, compared to maybe 10% today. • He believed that Sir Stirling Moss (right) presents the concours Juan Manuel Fangio • The three cars he choose to award at the 2012 Lime Rock Historic Festival was the greatest own, if he could: 250F Maserati; race car driver of his Fergusson 4-Wheel Drive; 300 time SLR from the Mille Miglia 1958 to 1962, taking part in 93 rac- es, finishing 70 of them, with 46 • The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR he • Thoughts on the Lotus 18 first places, and also drove a Mase- drove in the 1955 Mille Miglia Formula One car: Wheels fell rati in 72 races, finishing in 50 with was the greatest car on the off; fastest car in its day; Chap- 25 first places and 31 lap records. greatest circuit. man was a brilliant designer; Out of the 375 competitive races in Slower drivers had fewer prob- • The modern driver he’d most like which he finished during his profes- lems because they didn’t stress to compete against was Ayrton sional racing career, he won an the car as much. Senna astonishing 212, which is more than • The BRM H-16 Formula One car was the worst he ever drove. It had no torque below 8,ooo RPM and all the power was at the red line. Moss was an interesting man, a great race car driver, and a credit to the Brits! Page 2 Toward the end of July, Editor’sconditions per- Notes mitting, Kris and I expect to be travel- ing to Knoxville, TN, in the X1/9 to take part in this year’s Fiat Freakout, the annual gathering of the Fiat faithful. The attraction this 1. year is to drive the Tail of the Dragon, a section of US 122 that is 11 miles long and has 318 turns, many of them hair- that we did not have space to publish ay has arrived and, with the pins, along the edge of a mountain- here. virus keeping most of us con- side. We drove this with the Lotus M And, finally, there is a story about a fined to our homes, the sports car about ten years ago (see the photos modified XK-E that is for sale at season is being postponed until. .who on this page) on the way home from Hymanltd.com. This is a much modi- knows when! I hope this issue of the the Lotus Owner’s Group meet in Bir- fied “semi-lightweight” designed to Jag Mag will at least help you to keep mingham, Alabama. If you have never in touch with the sport. driven this piece of road, you have Easter brought sad news for fans of missed an exciting classic racing, with the death of Stir- ride! You WILL be ling Moss at the age of 90. This man passed by motorcy- was the definition of a race car driv- clists while climbing er, with a great history in numerous up the mountain!! types of vehicles. Kris and I met him at Lime Rock in 2010, at the Labor Also in this issue is Day Weekend Historic Festival. I a great story, and wrote a story about Moss back then photos, by Don and have included it in this newslet- Wolf describing his ter. In addition, there are two other recent trip to Eng- Moss stories – one from Lime land. After reading Rock.com, and another from the this, you can go to Goodwood website. They are great the website listed, where you will mimic the original factory XK-E light- tributes to this great man. find many more photos of this trip weight race cars from the early 1960s. Jaguar folks, a few of whom, I understand, read this newsletter, may find this piece interesting!! So, please enjoy this issue, and hope- fully we can soon return to meeting at the diner and taking advantage of all the events listed elsewhere in this newsletter. Till then, hope all of you stay safe. Steve Becker 516-247-1558 [email protected] Page 3 GOODWOOD REVIVAL 2019 pictures again). That Story & Photos by Don Wolf was set up by the host of our Saturday his year I went on the best car morning cars and cof- T guy trip possible. 10 of us got fee (coffee, bagels together and went to England, pri- and lies). In the af- marily for the Goodwood Revival. ternoon we went to The weather was sunny (really) for Brooklands Museum. the full week we were there. 6 of us The museum is in the are vintage racers and the other 4 infield of the race- Classic Delage at the are enthusiasts. The 6 racers have track that was built British Motor Museum British cars from the 40’s and 50’s. around 1900. It was a The trip was organized by one of the high bank dirt speed- racers from New Jersey. We flew way and there are still some sec- large crowd, of which about 95% overnight to London Heathrow and tions of the old track on the were in clothing from the 50’s and an early morning rendezvous (no grounds. Some of the old buildings 60’s. Almost half the crowd were sleep). are on the infield and display some ladies.