Okay, it's my ongoing obituary section, seemingly, but this man was a true motorsports legend, almost on a par with one of my personal heroes, Carroll Shelby. There will never be another like him, that's for certain.
THE FOLLOWING WAS EXCERPTED FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
Phil Hill, a Racing Legend at Odds With the Sport at Times, Is Dead at 81
By BRUCE WEBER
Published: August 28, 2008
Phil Hill, one of the greatest of American auto racers, an introspective and cerebral champion whose celebrated driving career began when he took a neighbor’s new Oldsmobile for a spin as a 9-year-old, died Thursday in Monterey, Calif. He was 81 and lived in Santa Monica, Calif., in the same house in which he grew up.
Phil Hill in Monza Italy after driving his Ferrari to win the Grand Prix of Europe.
His death was confirmed by his daughter, Vanessa Hill Rogers. Hill suffered from Parkinson’s disease and another degenerative neurological disorder, multiple systems atrophy, she said.
A classical music aficionado with an expertise in Italian opera, a collector of antique musical instruments, a master mechanic and a restorer of classic cars, Hill had a wide range of achievements even without his driving fame.
But along with his slightly younger contemporaries, A. J. Foyt and Dan Gurney, Hill was a racing legend. If his name is lesser known than theirs, it is because at the height of his career he was more often racing in Europe and Latin America than at home, and because he never competed in the most famous American race of all, the Indianapolis 500. He did win the Sebring 12-hour race in Florida three times, in 1958, 1959 and 1961, but his other major triumphs were abroad. In 1958, he was the first American to win the 24-hour race at Le Mans, a victory he repeated in 1961 and 1962. He won the Argentine 1000-kilometer race three times; the Grand Prix of Italy twice and the Belgian Grand Prix.
Remarkably, in an era when cars were far faster than they were safe, he made it through two decades of racing without a significant injury. In 1953, 10 drivers died during the grueling Pan-American road race in Mexico; Hill’s car overturned, but he escaped unharmed. Hill’s friend Peter Collins, with whom he shared the driving in a Sebring victory in 1958, was killed shortly thereafter in the German Grand Prix.
And in one of racing’s grimmest calamities, Hill’s teammate and rival, Wolfgang von Trips, died in a crash that also killed 13 spectators during the 1961 Grand Prix of Italy. Hill won that race, and with it the championship of Formula One, the highest class of open-wheel racing. He remains the only American-born driver to do so. (Mario Andretti, a naturalized American, won the title in 1978.)
“The most amazing thing was that he raced at a time when people were dying left and right,” said John Lamm, a friend and the editor at large of Road & Track magazine, where Hill was a contributor of articles and photographs after his racing career. “And the only injury he ever suffered was in the Pan-American race. He was getting out of the car and cut his hand.”
Not that Hill was oblivious to the dangers. In fact, he was known as a ruminative man, and he dropped out of racing more than once after questioning his reasons for competing at high speed.
“He never quite trusted why he did it,” Mr. Lamm said. “He knew it was crazy, but he did it, anyway.”
After the tragedy in Italy in 1961, Robert Daley, a correspondent for The New York Times, asked him if he was going to quit.
“I don’t know,” Hill said. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Mr. Daley recounted the conversation in an article in The New York Times Magazine entitled “Why Men Race With Death.” Hill was then 34.
“A little later he came over and sat down,” Mr. Daley wrote. “He began to talk. ‘There are more don’ts than dos in the business,’ he said. ‘Trips violated a don’t by trying to occupy a space already partially occupied by Clark’s Lotus. It’s horrible in a way. But in another way it’s not so horrible. After all, everybody dies. Isn’t it a fine thing that von Trips died doing something he loved, without any suffering, without any warning? I think Trips would rather be dead than not race, don’t you?’
“ ‘What are you going to do, Phil?’
“He thought a moment and then said: ‘When I love motor racing less, my own life will become worth more to me, and I will be less willing to risk it.’ ”
By BRUCE WEBER
Published: August 28, 2008
Phil Hill, one of the greatest of American auto racers, an introspective and cerebral champion whose celebrated driving career began when he took a neighbor’s new Oldsmobile for a spin as a 9-year-old, died Thursday in Monterey, Calif. He was 81 and lived in Santa Monica, Calif., in the same house in which he grew up.
Phil Hill in Monza Italy after driving his Ferrari to win the Grand Prix of Europe.
His death was confirmed by his daughter, Vanessa Hill Rogers. Hill suffered from Parkinson’s disease and another degenerative neurological disorder, multiple systems atrophy, she said.
A classical music aficionado with an expertise in Italian opera, a collector of antique musical instruments, a master mechanic and a restorer of classic cars, Hill had a wide range of achievements even without his driving fame.
But along with his slightly younger contemporaries, A. J. Foyt and Dan Gurney, Hill was a racing legend. If his name is lesser known than theirs, it is because at the height of his career he was more often racing in Europe and Latin America than at home, and because he never competed in the most famous American race of all, the Indianapolis 500. He did win the Sebring 12-hour race in Florida three times, in 1958, 1959 and 1961, but his other major triumphs were abroad. In 1958, he was the first American to win the 24-hour race at Le Mans, a victory he repeated in 1961 and 1962. He won the Argentine 1000-kilometer race three times; the Grand Prix of Italy twice and the Belgian Grand Prix.
Remarkably, in an era when cars were far faster than they were safe, he made it through two decades of racing without a significant injury. In 1953, 10 drivers died during the grueling Pan-American road race in Mexico; Hill’s car overturned, but he escaped unharmed. Hill’s friend Peter Collins, with whom he shared the driving in a Sebring victory in 1958, was killed shortly thereafter in the German Grand Prix.
And in one of racing’s grimmest calamities, Hill’s teammate and rival, Wolfgang von Trips, died in a crash that also killed 13 spectators during the 1961 Grand Prix of Italy. Hill won that race, and with it the championship of Formula One, the highest class of open-wheel racing. He remains the only American-born driver to do so. (Mario Andretti, a naturalized American, won the title in 1978.)
“The most amazing thing was that he raced at a time when people were dying left and right,” said John Lamm, a friend and the editor at large of Road & Track magazine, where Hill was a contributor of articles and photographs after his racing career. “And the only injury he ever suffered was in the Pan-American race. He was getting out of the car and cut his hand.”
Not that Hill was oblivious to the dangers. In fact, he was known as a ruminative man, and he dropped out of racing more than once after questioning his reasons for competing at high speed.
“He never quite trusted why he did it,” Mr. Lamm said. “He knew it was crazy, but he did it, anyway.”
After the tragedy in Italy in 1961, Robert Daley, a correspondent for The New York Times, asked him if he was going to quit.
“I don’t know,” Hill said. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Mr. Daley recounted the conversation in an article in The New York Times Magazine entitled “Why Men Race With Death.” Hill was then 34.
“A little later he came over and sat down,” Mr. Daley wrote. “He began to talk. ‘There are more don’ts than dos in the business,’ he said. ‘Trips violated a don’t by trying to occupy a space already partially occupied by Clark’s Lotus. It’s horrible in a way. But in another way it’s not so horrible. After all, everybody dies. Isn’t it a fine thing that von Trips died doing something he loved, without any suffering, without any warning? I think Trips would rather be dead than not race, don’t you?’
“ ‘What are you going to do, Phil?’
“He thought a moment and then said: ‘When I love motor racing less, my own life will become worth more to me, and I will be less willing to risk it.’ ”
Philip Toll Hill Jr. was born in Miami on April 20, 1927, but grew up across the country, in Santa Monica, where his father was the postmaster. It was during a party at their house in 1936 that he first drove a car, slipping behind the wheel of a guest’s new roadster and guiding it around the block.
When he was 12, an aunt helped him buy a Ford Model T, and thus began a lifelong passion for cars. His sensitivity to the inner workings of the automobile he was driving was especially helpful in the endurance races that became his forte, contests in which drivers less attuned to mechanics were prone to push a car beyond its capability.
“When it came to the automobile he was a purist,” Hill’s son, Derek, an auto racer himself, said. “He was a mechanic by trade.”
Hill dropped out of the University of Southern California to work on cars and occasionally to drive them. In 1949, a Jaguar dealership he was working for sent him to England to study maintenance in Coventry. His career as a racer began in earnest when he returned; he drove privately owned cars, including several of his own, in sports car competitions.
In the 1954 Pan-American race, he and a partner, driving Hill’s Ferrari, finished second, and the company invited him to drive a factory car in the grueling marathon at Le Mans. Four years later, he and a partner won it, in a drenching rain.
Hill was the first American driver to win at Le Mans. (His co-driver, Oliver Gendebien, was Belgian.) Later that year, the death of Peter Collins created an opening on the Ferrari Formula One team, and Hill was asked to fill it. He drove for the Ferrari team through the 1962 season, finishing his career in sports car competitions for Ford and Chapparal factory teams and retiring in 1967. In 1991, he was among the second class of inductees at the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Ala.
In addition to his daughter, of Phoenix, and his son, of Culver City, Calif., Hill is survived by his wife of 37 years, Alma Baran Hill; a sister, Helen Kellogg, of Essex, N.Y.; a stepdaughter, Jennifer Svendsen Delaney, of Niwot, Colo., and four grandchildren.
In 1962, the year after his Formula One championship, Hill had a near disastrous accident during a practice run for a race in Sicily. His success and survival might well be explained by his reaction.
“The race organizers suggested today,” The Associated Press reported at the time, that Hill “sit this race out after the jolt he received when his Ferrari left a curve yesterday and shot 164 feet through the air.
“Hill agreed with the suggestion.”
When he was 12, an aunt helped him buy a Ford Model T, and thus began a lifelong passion for cars. His sensitivity to the inner workings of the automobile he was driving was especially helpful in the endurance races that became his forte, contests in which drivers less attuned to mechanics were prone to push a car beyond its capability.
“When it came to the automobile he was a purist,” Hill’s son, Derek, an auto racer himself, said. “He was a mechanic by trade.”
Hill dropped out of the University of Southern California to work on cars and occasionally to drive them. In 1949, a Jaguar dealership he was working for sent him to England to study maintenance in Coventry. His career as a racer began in earnest when he returned; he drove privately owned cars, including several of his own, in sports car competitions.
In the 1954 Pan-American race, he and a partner, driving Hill’s Ferrari, finished second, and the company invited him to drive a factory car in the grueling marathon at Le Mans. Four years later, he and a partner won it, in a drenching rain.
Hill was the first American driver to win at Le Mans. (His co-driver, Oliver Gendebien, was Belgian.) Later that year, the death of Peter Collins created an opening on the Ferrari Formula One team, and Hill was asked to fill it. He drove for the Ferrari team through the 1962 season, finishing his career in sports car competitions for Ford and Chapparal factory teams and retiring in 1967. In 1991, he was among the second class of inductees at the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Ala.
In addition to his daughter, of Phoenix, and his son, of Culver City, Calif., Hill is survived by his wife of 37 years, Alma Baran Hill; a sister, Helen Kellogg, of Essex, N.Y.; a stepdaughter, Jennifer Svendsen Delaney, of Niwot, Colo., and four grandchildren.
In 1962, the year after his Formula One championship, Hill had a near disastrous accident during a practice run for a race in Sicily. His success and survival might well be explained by his reaction.
“The race organizers suggested today,” The Associated Press reported at the time, that Hill “sit this race out after the jolt he received when his Ferrari left a curve yesterday and shot 164 feet through the air.
“Hill agreed with the suggestion.”
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