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Nov 19, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Preston Lerner |James Elson
Logan Sargeant’s recent ignominious exit from F1 – after one point in 36 GP starts – once again left the globe’s most influential country without a driver representing it in the world championship. The last American driver to win the F1 title – and even a race – was Mario Andretti over four decades ago. The last to score a podium was his son Michael over 30 years back.
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
msn.com | Preston Lerner
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Preston Lerner
In the early 1900s, horsepower was almost exclusively for the Gatsbys of the world. Ford’s flathead V-8, introduced in the depths of the depths of the Great Depression, changed all that. But it needed some help from car obsessives, who went on to invent what we now know as hot-rodding. Preston Lerner tells their story. —Ed.This story first appeared in the September/October 2024 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine.
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Jun 6, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Eddy Eckart |Preston Lerner
Parnelli Jones—who died Tuesday at the age of 90—was the avatar of steely-eyed, crew-cut oval-track racing in the 1960s. Yes, he also won a hard-fought Trans-Am championship in 1970, famously outbrawling Mark Donohue, aka Captain Nice. But Parnelli didn’t have much use for road racers back then.
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May 11, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Preston Lerner |Damien Smith |David Malsher
The Penske team was in trouble. Firstly, its PC16 hadn’t worked in the opening rounds of 1987, and now it faced the Indy 500, running year-old March 86Cs. Then, early in practice, Danny Ongais, scheduled for a third Penske entry, put himself into the wall and out of action for the rest of May. In typical Penske style, the Chevy-engined Marches were qualified comfortably by Rick Mears (third) and Danny Sullivan (16th). But who would take the third car? Step forward Al Unser Snr.
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Apr 16, 2024 | 
smithsonianmag.com | Preston Lerner
Six decades—that’s how long they’ve been racing in Reno, Nevada. Six decades of outrageous speed. Six decades of remarkable innovations. Six decades of gut-wrenching calamities. Clay Lacy remembers how it all began. Now 91, Lacy is one of the most celebrated aviators in history, a pioneer in the field of air-to-air photography and the holder of dozens of speed records. In January 1964, however, he was just “flying the line” for United Airlines.
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Mar 21, 2024 | 
motorsportmagazine.com | Preston Lerner |Cambridge Kisby
One way or another, Michael Schumacher was set on securing his first F1 world championship at the 1994 Australian Grand Prix, at the end of a tragic season that left him and Damon Hill in an increasingly bitter battle for the title. So when the crown looked as if it was slipping from his grasp at Adelaide, the Benetton driver made sure he got the job done — and hang the consequences.
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Feb 6, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Preston Lerner
The Volkswagen Thing played many roles during its relatively brief lifespan: proto-SUV, funky runabout, oddball off-roader. But with a Beetle Type 1 driveline and a Transporter Type 2 suspension, VW’s so-called “Thing”—Type 181, internally—was nobody’s idea of a high-performance vehicle. That might have changed this past weekend when a car known as “Lunatic Fringe” debuted in unfinished form at the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, California.
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Jan 10, 2024 | 
hagerty.com | Preston Lerner
Just about everybody knows that the Chevrolet Corvette has been the most successful American sports car in road-racing history, with a trophy case featuring hardware from 125 top-tier race wins—nine of them at Le Mans—since 2000. But most people don’t realize that the factory Corvette Racing program was largely run by an outside vendor. Not that General Motors was trying to keep a secret. Clued-in fans and members of the media knew the score.
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Dec 28, 2023 | 
hagerty.co.uk | Preston Lerner |Bryan Gerould
Film critics will judge the new Ferrari biopic on the basis of the acting, the directing, the writing, the editing. But hardcore car lovers – whose approval will help establish the movie’s credibility – are more interested in the authenticity of the cars and the verisimilitude of the racing scenes. Which is why one of director Michael Mann’s first hires was Robert Nagle.
