Goodwood - Hope For The Elderly

People of Blogville, I give you hope for all of us as we get old.
The man himself - his iconic, open-faced white helmet with earflaps and goggles, his skull rebuilt from metal like something out of Terminator, last weekend celebrating his sixtieth year of competitive motor racing, the world's fastest seventy-nine year old, Sir Stirling Moss.

Here he is at last weekend's Goodwood Revival Meeting, sawing away at the wheel of his 1955 C-Type Jaguar as he fights to control it and drifts slide-ways around the double apex of Lavant Corner at full throttle.

You've seen him in every year's Goodwood Revival post; you've seen him this summer, racing his '59 Aston Martin DB3 up the hill at the Festival of Speed.
You haven't yet seen him sitting and chatting with Phil at Mc.Laren's race headquarters because that photo stands beside Phil's computer but you've seen him scattered across this blog for years.

Here are some Stirling facts:

His dad raced for Ford in the 1924 Indianapolis 500.

His little sister Pat was a great rally driver.

He's been around a bloody long time. To give you some idea of just how long, after successfully racing in various classes for years he was signed up by the Mercedes Benz Grand Prix team in 1955 to partner the legendary Fangio. That very first year he beat Fangio into second place to win the British Grand Prix and he hasn't stopped since.

He has won sixty-six Grands Prix for Mercedes, Maserati, Vanwall, Cooper and our very own Lotus from the mid fifties on into the sixties until a near fatal accident here at this very Goodwood circuit ended his Grand Prix career in '62, leaving him smashed up and paralysed.

But they rebuilt him (his skull now goes clang if he bumps his head) and he continued to race in just about every other category and during his professional career raced in more than 80 different types of car.

Since "retirement" he seems to have stepped up a gear, which is why we find him still tearing up the tarmac at seventy-nine and showing no sign of slowing down yet.

This year at Goodwood, as well as racing all weekend he was celebrating another great Grand Prix driver, Tony Brooks, seen here acknowledging the acclaim of the crowds in his 1952 Connaught A-Type.

Here is quite a rarity: Sir Stirling in a sweet '58 Aston chauffeuring another great racing legend Jack Brabham, who came over from Australia especially for the weekend's celebrations.

Later on that day, in the classic touring cars race, Stirling drove (like a madman) Rowan Atkinson's 1952 Jaguar M.VII.
Yes, Mister Bean is an enthusiastic classic car owner and racer. You can see him in older Goodwood posts monstering the circuit in his Ford Galaxy.

Overseeing the weekend's events is the man who owns the circuit and who has built up the Revival meeting over the past ten years to become the greatest vintage car racing event (and the greatest fancy dress party) on the planet, Lord March himself, here waiting for the start of a parade of classic supercars between two of the competitive races.

Also racing here at the weekend - among many great names such as Jackie Oliver, Bobby Rahal, Patrick Tambay, Christian Horner, Andy Rouse, Tony Dron, Jochen Mass, Martin Brundle, Anthony Reid, Stefan Johannson and celebs like Rowan Atkinson and Pink Floyd's Nick Mason (that was him is his GTO in the earlier post) is notorious curmudgeon and ex. Grand Prix world champion Jackie "I'll never race again" Stewart.

Here's Jackie going back on his word (the board tells us he's already on lap seventeen). Hee hee. A welcome return.

Before I go, I can't resist re-posting that glorious shot of Sir Stirling squeezing past the Aston on the outside of Lavant.
Woohoo!

The average age of competitive racing drivers in this country is forty-five (Sir Stirling is by no means the oldest at seventy-nine - one Argentine Count is still racing here in his nineties). More and more people (women as well as men) are taking up the sport as they get older and their kids leave home.
There's hope for us all yet in our sunset years.