Stirling Moss Retires From Racing For the Second Time

Last Friday, before the Le Mans 24 Hour race, famed English race driver Stirling Moss announced that he was going to retire, for the second time, from racing.  The 81-year old Moss had come to Le Mans to race his own 1961 Porsche RS 61 in the Le Mans Legend race which takes place on the Saturday morning before the 24 Hours.  During qualifying for this event on Thursday, Moss said that as he was approaching one corner, he realized that if he was going as fast as he should be going, then he would be scared.  At that point he realized that he was no longer a “racer” but a “driver”, so he slowed down and drove the two miles back to the pits, parked the car and got out.

I saw a couple of sentences from a book that I have written by Robert Edwards more than 20 years ago, in 1988, called “Stirling Moss, The Authorized Biography” that are consistent with Moss’ thinking.  In that book Edwards wrote this about Moss: “He remains a racer, a competitor.  To him, there are drivers, there are racing drivers, and there are racers.”  Last Thursday Moss realized that he had become a “driver”, so he decided to quit racing.   I give him a lot of slack – after all, he is 81 years old.

Stirling Moss is one of the greatest all-round racing drivers of all time.  He became a professional driver in 1948, at the age of 18, racing a Cooper 500.  His racing career has spanned more than 60 years, and includes winning the British Grand Prix twice, the Monaco Grand Prix three times, the Mille Miglia, the Targa Florio and the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod.  He finished runner up in the World Driver’s Championship at the Grand Prix level on four occasions.  He also was a great rally driver and has one of two gold cups ever awarded for the Alpine Rally.

Stirling Moss and John Fitch After Winning the 1955 Tourist Trophy at Dundrod in a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR

This is the second time that Stirling Moss has retired.  In 1962 he was forced to retire from professional racing as a result of a bad racing incident.

1962 Accident at Goodwood in a Lotus Ended His Professional Driving Career

This is the second time that he has retired.  The first time was in 1962 when he had a bad crash at Goodwood in a Lotus-Climax 18-21.  In that race, he sat on the pole and set the fastest lap time, but he crashed on Lap 36.  The resultant head injury was too great to overcome in professional racing and be at the level he wanted to be at, so he retired from racing.  Over the years, he has been involved with cars and racing, as well as a successful property business.  Of course, he has been a part of most of the historic racing events around the world.

He remains sharp as a tack and I expect that he will remain part of the racing scene in some capacity.