Walter Röhrl 

In the 80s, I was confident that our local back roads would sort out Rohrl. 

In reality, Rohrl blitzed the worst that Ulster's roads could throw at him.  Rohrl and the big Quattro was a game-changer moment.  Suddenly, all those RWD Fords were history.  The Quattro was something else, and so was the tall, ascetic German who drove with an urgency that bordered on insanity.  It's as well they pay him for driving; as he'd do it anyway.  He and his wife decided not to have children; as he felt he could only devote himself to driving.  Nutter, you might say; but there's never been anyone quite like Walter.  

I think you can't beat driving on snow for crack - provided your car is old, light, narrow-tyred and with a proper handbrake (to help you steer).  I float about gently on snow and generally enjoy the sensation  of the car constantly moving about.  I'm slow on snow, but I get there and I very much enjoy it.
And then you see how to really do snow - this clip from 1986 is a short test run on the Col de T., Walter with no helmet, talking in an almost-bored manner to his team, relaying information back.

Check how loose and relaxed his posture is and check how much beans he's giving the car.  Then, to your surprise, you realise the hoor is on snow, on a road with a major drop off the right hand side.  Walter der Eisverkäufer!  And you think - if he can be that confident and aggressive on snow, dry road driving must have been a stroll in the park.

Here's Walter again, during his Gruppe B days with the quattro.  Check out the footwork and reflect on your own driving inferiority, frankly.

Arguably the greatest wheel-man who has ever lived.

Joey Dunlop

Mesmerising old 1983 footage of vintage Joey around the Isle of Man on the V4 Honda - pushing 200mph in places, walls, trees, leaning over, no run offs, medics or gravel traps, some parts are dark under the trees - it has an almost dream-like quality and you have to remind yourself that this is not a playstation game.  Makes me smile to hear Joey's matter-of-fact description of how you have to be "careful" - as if the concept of "being careful" and wheelying over yumps at 200mph were somehow compatible(!)  Check also Joey's Antrim accent shining though on the way he says "quick" - click to full size to get the best "on board" effect.

A local UTV documentary on Joey revealed just how highly the Honda top brass thought of him. Some of Joey's own DIY modifications so impressed the Honda engineers that they introduced them on the production bikes.

Joey was never very comfortable around anyone wearing a tie (didn't trust them shiny boys), so the very polite Honda people had a habit of taking off their ties before meeting Joey.

Joey's training methods with his brother Robert on Castlerock beach involved an old Marina van, one of the lads lying across the bonnet and the other doing handbrake turns at speed to practise "falling
off".

After being mis-quoted early in his career, Joey was wary of a certain type of journalist - "tell them boys nothing" was his advice to a contemporary.

His DIY charity trips to Romania were typical of the man - quiet, practical - load up the truck and go deliver it.

In a divided community, Joey transcended both politics and sport.  A genius, a legend and an absolute gentleman.

Ari Vatanen

Known to all petrol-heads as the man who invented left-foot braking, Vatanen, like so many of his country-people, exemplified the old motorsport saying: "if you want to win, hire a Finn".

Check out this clip from the 1983 Isle of Man, serious staging from Ari - check for the wobbly moment half way
through when Ari rescues a major crash when his car has a blow-out going over a cattle grid - when the co driver exclaims "dear God!" - not many atheists in rallying.

Stefan Roser

No available pics of Stefan, the Yellowbird will have to do

So much car stuff on you tube is staged rubbish from imbecilic frat-boy show offs.  But this grainy, un-hyped and un-doctored clip from the early 1980s, of Stefan Roser in the (very unshaven) Ruf-tuned "Yellowbird" 911 (top speed 211mph) is the real deal.  The rule for older 911s is counter-steer like hell continually and no matter what happens, never lift - I've been round the Nurburgring Nordschleife and I'd say most drivers attempting this unrelenting velocity would have crashed at least 20 or 25 times during this lap and literally would have been dead long before it was over.

Michèle Mouton

WRC winner and winner at Pikes Peak - the latter still makes me smile - Pikes Peak, bastion of alpha-male US motorsport.  Then along comes a French woman in a funny German car and kicks all their asses ... 
They talk about female "role models" among the various brain-dead oompa-loompa slebs; but oh that today we had more women in popular culture possessed of the talent and integrity of Mouton.  

Here's another great photo of a group of petrol-head legends - Mouton, with Walter demonstrating something (Hannu Mikkola to the left; Christian Geistdörfer to the right) at, I think, the 1981 San Remo - but when Walter retired with mechanical problems, Mouton won the race.  Mikkola was in p4 I think.

And here's a great clip of Mouton, now retired, being interviewed by a journalist as she does some light-hearted practice for an upcoming classic.  Some pensioner ...

And here she is reminding us how much we need noise in motorsport - top woman.  She is of course correct.  If, on a Summer's day, you heard the distant bellowing that told you the 'rally was coming', the buck-mad Minotaur quality of it made the hairs on your neck stand up - you dropped whatever task you were doing and legged it to gain a vantage point. Go back further, to the early 70s, and you had this sort of full-fat noise on tracks - the 917 (that's 'nine-seventeen' folks, not 'nine one seven' : ).

Stefan Bellof

Nurburgring lap records are two-a-penny. Every manufacturer, especially Japanese ones, seems to have some caveated version of a Nordschleife lap record.  Basically, anything under 8 seconds is very quick.  

Of course, all these years of desperate big-budget attempts to shave a few seconds here and there for some production class ‎record (usually secretly running bespoke race rubber and funny petrol, but that's another, murkier, story), there only ever was one true record - the insane 6m11s record set by the late, great Stefan 'sideways' Bellof in 1983 in the Porsche nine fifty-six.

For over 35 years, nobody has gotten within an ass' roar of Bellof. 

Until 29 June 2018, when Porsche itself, in the nine nineteen hybrid, knocked nearly a minute off Bellof's time.  

If you've ever been round the Nurburgring, you'll appreciate ‎the unfathomable nature of that 5m 19s time - and just how surreally-scary that sort of double-ton pace would have been through Flugplatz!  I looked at the footage. Car seems to have a sequential box with cut gears and the suspension is so extreme he avoids all kerbing, even through Karussell, where the driver is usually glad of the kerbing.   About double the power Bellof had and obviously different-league aero, but still an astonishing feat.

In the balls-like-watermelons stakes though, there's still only one winner for me.  It'd be interesting to see how many of those boys would get close to Bellof's insane time, if they had no electronic traction aids, no modern rubber and no modern aero ...  

Michael Schumacher

The complete professional, with an unbelievable competitive spirit, and the most successful F1 driver of all time.  Which pretty much says it all, really.  Let's hope we see Michael back on his feet reasonably soon.  And best of luck also to Mick Jr in his racing career.

Juan Manuel Fangio

El Chueco! Arguably, his performance as a 46 year old at the 1957 Grand Prix at the Nurburgring was the most outrageous comeback of all time.  Fangio popularised shuffle steering and feathering the wheel, whereby you don't apply a constant radius, but take the corner in a series of small "bites", turning in slightly and then straightening away from the curve and then immediately repeating etc.  The benefit is that you can carry more speed - the micro-straightening regains traction and then you immediately attack the turn again. Cf throttle feathering, where you continually adjust the inertial mass of the car in fast sweeping bends.  That is, in a front drive car on a fast long corner, lift off and the car will tuck in towards the centre of the road; apply and the car will move towards the apex.  You can essentially steer the car on motorway curves with little or no inputs from the steering wheel. Channeling your inner Fangio : ) There is a statue to the great man in the centre of Monaco, much beloved of tourists.

Ayrton Senna

I was in St. Andrews in Scotland in 1994 when I heard the bad news.  People stood around, staring at TV screens, in disbelief. Senna had that aura of invincibility that you also associated with Joey Dunlop. A probable future Brazilian president; honoured with a 3-day state funeral.  See the extract from the book about his funeral. He reportedly was a formidable commercial negotiator and as uncompromising off the track as he was on it.  An outrageous talent, Senna was even better in the wet - soaking tracks and spray allow the true artists to display their abnormal levels of finesse and courage.  Intense, driven, honourable and often difficult; famously, after he moved to England, he split up with his then girlfriend who reportedly was fed up with his refusal to socialise.  Apparently, he preferred to stay in and read the bible ... His tussles with his fellow-genius, the laid-back Prost, were the stuff of legend - see the excellent documentary, Senna.

James Hunt

And then you have a bloke who almost certainly didn't waste too much time reading the bible : )  Hunt was a swashbuckling exemplar of the irreverent decade that was the 1970s. A posh playboy and party animal whose champagne-filled nights and boudoir antics just before races gave rise to the "sex - the breakfast of champions" - adage; James nonetheless was a fantastic natural talent and a ferocious competitor. And there's never been anyone like him in F1 ever since.

Alain Prost

A genius racer and every bit Senna's match on the track.  Nicknamed "the Professor" for his thoughtful, dispassionate and analytical racing style.  Easy on his cars and on himself.