'I started a campaign to stop the Nürburgring and Spa. I got death threats, I got people coming into my house...throwing stones to try and get through the windows.' An exclusive interview with three-time World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart. ✍️ samcooper_
Sir Jackie Stewart On Life, Love And Losing Friends: ‘In Those Days We Drove Through The Fire’Monday 19th December 2022 11:00 AM, author Tom Wolfe describes the men who would go on to form NASA’s fledgling space endeavours in the early 1960s. The men were almost all test pilots and the book has been hailed as the truest reflection of what life for them was like.
“In those days, we never even stopped the race,” Sir Jackie Stewart tells PlanetF1.com. “We drove through the fire.” “We spent a lot of time together and really we had a great group of people and sadly of course so many died.” “We didn’t know any better,” Stewart says with a smile as he answers what it was like to race in the 1960s and ‘70s era of Formula 1.
Stewart had a personal point to prove as well. He was born with dyslexia but not diagnosed until he was 41. In the movie, he reveals he was called “dumb and stupid” by his teachers, fearing having to read aloud far more than he ever feared a race track and left school at the age of 15 to work in his family’s factory.
But, a recurring theme throughout the movie is the dark undercurrent that flows through the sport. The spectators have come for a show but the drivers know that in the quest to achieve it, today could be the day their name is plucked out of the hat. As the death toll kept rising – 14 Fprmula 1 drivers died in the 1960s, 12 in the 1970s – little was done to make the sport safer. Drivers continued to race in cars with minimal protection around circuits with no barriers, no run-off areas and with few safety marshals.
In 1976, there were huge concerns about the safety of the track but drivers continued to race. Two laps into the grand prix, Niki Lauda lost control and crashed into the barriers. He bounced back on the track before his car burst into flames and was then hit by two other drivers. “But both racetracks should never have been allowed to be raced on. There were telegraph poles and cattle and god knows how many of those things but that was the time.
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