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2 weeks ago | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Gordon Cruickshank |Andrew Frankel |Paul Fearnley |Tim Scott
Rivalry is one of the prime tenets of motor sport. But in the case of the long defunct Gnoo Blas circuit in Orange, 177 miles west of Sydney, motor racing was simply the common factor in an intense contest with the neighbouring city of Bathurst, just 35 miles back down the road. Bathurst and Orange had populations of similar sizes, around 18,000 each in the early 1950s, but Bathurst had one thing that Orange did not – Mount Panorama.
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Dec 11, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Gordon Cruickshank |Andrew Frankel
When asked to write an appreciation of someone’s life, I think the trick is to look for and hope to find enough in their character and achievements to make them stand out as someone special, a cut above. It’s what you do. Except when the subject is Gordon Cruickshank. For him no looking was ever going to be required; because the fact he was one of most extraordinary people you could ever have the dumb luck to meet was nose-on-face obvious to literally everyone who got to know him.
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Aug 21, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Richard Williams |David Malsher |Gordon Cruickshank |Chris Nixon
During testing at Barcelona last week, Patrick Head did 27 laps in the Williams Renault FW19, returning a best time of 1min19.15sec, just 0.78sec outside Jacques Villeneuve‘s fastest lap. It never happened, of course, and it never will, because Patrick Head’s remarkable range of skills does not include those of a grand prix driver.
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Jun 4, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Gordon Cruickshank
Brooklands: birthplace of motor sport – and of Motor Sport. For years the Surrey autodrome, first race circuit in the world, was the centre of motor racing in Britain, and in 1924 it duly triggered the launch of this magazine as The Brooklands Gazette. Though we widened our horizons from 1925, every issue until the circuit closed in 1939 contained some news from the Track, on cars, people or races.
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Jun 3, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Gordon Cruickshank
One hundred years ago a man called Oscar Seyd decided that the world of motor racing needed a dedicated publication on the subject. Back then motor racing in Britain was centred on Brooklands’ track, so the title seemed obvious – The Brooklands Gazette.
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May 19, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Gordon Cruickshank |Joe Scalzo |James Elson |Andrew Benson
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a gladiatorial stage like no other – one which has lent itself to some of racing’s most heroic acts. It presents the opportunity for more one-off appearances than many other top-level motor sport events, giving racing stars the chance to write their legend in the most dramatic of circumstances.
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May 12, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Gary Watkins |Gordon Cruickshank
It’s tough being a new kid on the block, especially if you come from somewhere far away. That’s what Lotus found when Colin Chapman decided to tackle Indianapolis. He was doing things a different way, and that didn’t suit the locals. It happened in 1963 – the near miss – and ’64 – the tyre disaster – before the Indy boys had to watch Jim Clark carry off ‘their’ trophy in ’65. And it happened once again in the 1980s – but this time the Lotus contender never even got out of Norfolk.
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May 11, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Gordon Cruickshank |Adam Cooper
The car that caught my attention when I was a youngster was John Cobb’s Mobil Special, partly because my father once sat in it way back when. That car always impressed me. It was very advanced for its time, and very successful. If you look at the record they created, it’s stood for so many years. It was not until they built that enormous gas turbine Bluebird that it was beaten. And that was a huge effort compared to Cobb’s team.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Chris Witty |Gordon Cruickshank |Cambridge Kisby
At the second round of the 1982 F1 season in Brazil, a high-level meeting was held above the pitlane at the Autódromo Internacional do Rio de Janeiro, with F1 team owner Ted Toleman sat at the head of the table. His F1 outfit, which had entered the series for the first time the year before, had failed to qualify for a grand prix for the 16th time in the last 18 races and was quickly facing an uncertain future. It was time to get fast, or get out.
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Apr 15, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Rob Widdows |Gordon Cruickshank
When any racing great leaves the stage, replacing them is no easy feat for any team. While performance is one thing, presence out of the car is crucial in pushing the squad forward too. Tyrrell never truly filled the space left by its three-time champion Jackie Stewart after his 1973 retirement, whose brilliance on track was matched by his idomnitable personality off it.
