Stirling Moss

Born in London in 1929, Stirling Moss' love of auto racing ran in the family - his father, a dentist, had been a race car driver and had, in fact, raced at Indianapolis in 1924 and again in 1925. Interested in cars virtually from childhood, Moss began racing in earnest at 17. Two years later he took fourth overall and first in his class driving a Cooper Formula 3 at the prestigious Bugatti Owner's Club Hill Climb. By year's end he had won six more races. He soon switched to sports car racing, where he earned his greatest fame. In the 1950s he won every important auto race there was, with the exception of LeMans. In 1950 the World Driving Championship circuit was created, and Moss was considered a shoo-in to take it, but Argentine driver Juan Manuel Fangio wound up capturing the title. However, Moss consoled himself by winning the British, New Zealand, Monaco, Moroccan and Italian GPs, and the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix race is generally considered to be his greatest accomplishment. He drove a Lotus-Climax - a car vastly underpowered compared to the snarling Ferraris it was competing against - but through sheer skill and technique managed to overtake the field and crossed the finish line, taking the race by an incredibly tight 3.6 seconds. In 1962 Moss was badly injured in a horrific crash while driving in Goodwood, England. He lay in a coma for some time, and when he finally came out of it, his left side was partially paralyzed and his reaction times were vastly slower. However, after several months, he had recovered sufficiently to where he wanted to drive again. On May 1, 1963, he strapped himself into a race car at the Goodwood track - where he had had his near-fatal crash - and drove several laps around the track. When he pulled up after finishing, he stepped out of the car and said, "I am retiring." He realized that his body and reactions were no longer what they were before the accident, and rather than using his years of experience to react instinctively to situations as he had done, he would have to think about everything he would be doing, and to Moss that was unacceptable. So he left the sport he loved and to which he had devoted virtually his entire life - if he couldn't be the best at it, he wouldn't do it at all.