Not So Famous Racing Quotes

[RallySnake]

Hey Guys,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was Sterling Moss who said, "It's better to go into a curve slow and come out fast than it is to go in fast and come out dead".

I made my kids memorize it while they were learning to drive.

Feel free to add more!

Paul

[Fullchat289]

Yes, you are correct. Here's a recent photo of "the man".

[excelguru]

When asked by a reporter whether he'd prefer to crash his car into a wall or into the crowd, a famous race car driver answered, "People. They're squishy." I absolutely can not remember the guy's name. Does anyone else know it?

It's better to be "Johnny Smith, late" than "The Late Johnny Smith" (my father-in-law's favorite saying).

[Doug I]

Better to arrive a few minutes late than dead on time.

[petek]

"What's behind me is not important."

(Said while ripping the rear view mirror from a Ferrari...)

[blubyu2]

When a reporter asked Dale Jr. How fast is too fast If they don't use restrictor plates
Dale's responce
I think we should take the plates off and let the guys run.

" They say you start to pass out at around 240 so I guess that would be too fast but we arent there yet"

I thought that was great And I don't even like JR.

[speed220mph]

Another Quote from Stock Car Racing

"You know you're in trouble when the first person to get to you after a wreck is carrying a beer."

NASCAR driver, Jimmy Horton, speaking of his accident at Talladega in 1993.

[nikbj68]

Originally posted by petek


"What's behind me is not important."

(Said while ripping the rear view mirror from a Ferrari...)

? Raul Julia in the Gumball Rally?

[luke-44]

The fastest way to make a small fortune in racing is..... to start with a big one....(original author unknown, but quoted many times)

[luke-44]

"Well, I was goin' down one of them there reverse deals when I just kinda fell off"...

- Richard Petty circa 1976, on explaining how he spun out on Mosport's infamous reverse camber downhill turn 2 corner.....

[ToyCollector]

1999--Earnhardt back to pit when warned he was hurting his tires and told to save them during an early race charge- "I'll apologize to them after they get me to the front!"

There no bigger surprise than to be tooling along at 200 mph and suddenly getting hit from the rear----Darrell Waltrip

"I got in the ambulance and looked back over there and I said 'Man, the wheels ain't knocked off that car yet ... Get out. I gotta go'." -Dale Earnhardt, 1997

I hope my boys make good in racing cause they'll starve to death if they don't---George Elliott(Bill and Ernies and Dans father.)

Why did I take up racing? I was too lazy to work and too chicken to steal--Kye Petty

Second Place is just the first loser-Dale Earnhardt

"It's like when your girlfriend breaks up with you, she has to tell all her girlfriends about what's going to happen, but you don't know. That's the way it is here." Kenny Irwin discussing how the driver is always the last to know he's being replaced.

"I came to a race and a rodeo broke out. That's all I've got to say." Jimmy Spencer on the roughness of the qualifying laps at Daytona.

"Everybody else got by us, but that cue-bald-headed fool can't get by us without wrecking us." Dale Earnhardt, Jr. referring to the follicle-challenged Todd Bodine

"The best way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a big one." Junior Johnson

Drivin a race car is like dancing with a chain saw." Cale Yarborough

There is only one lap you want to lead, and that's the last lap. Ralph Earnhardt's advice to Dale.

"Those boys playing football get their $2 or $3 million up front, and if they don't have a good day, they are not out anything. They still get paid on Monday. If we don't win, we don't get paid on Monday." Richard Petty

Well, he lived in the northern end of the house and I lived in the southern end." Ward Burton on how he and brother, Jeff have such different accents

"Don't hit him! I know you can hear me, and NASCAR said that they are watching you." Ty Norris trying to talk Dale Earnhardt, Jr out of hitting Kurt Busch after Busch had wrecked the #8 earlier "You're breaking up man. I still can't hear you." Dale Earnhardt, Jr's reply

[ToyCollector]

Stirling Moss:

In order to finish first, you first have to finish.

&

It's immaterial which way the nose of the car is pointing, provided the car is traveling in the right direction.
-------------
paraphrasing from memory:
interview w/ Tazio Nuvolari

reporter: "how can you bear getting into a race car when you know you might be killed in it?"

Nuvolari: "how do you want to die?"

reporter: "asleep in my bed"

Nuvolari: "so how can you bear getting into bed at night?"
-------------
The youngster was complaining that the team was giving better car to Fangio than to him, the team thought that they were actually giving him more service than Fangio. Fangio was already on the pole some 3/4 of a second faster than any rival car.

Fangio took the truculent car out (completely againgst team orders) and proceeded to drop his pole position by 0.5 seconds on the second lap.

When he got back to the pits, the youngster ask what did you do to make it run so fast?

Fangio: More gas....less brakes.
--------------

[ToyCollector]

"One of the great things in motor racing is concentration. When I want to go faster I don't drive any faster, I just concentrate harder." - Jim Clark

[JoeLafives]

Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague longing
for something salty. "Peter Egan"

[Mark IV]

...after "kissing" the wall at at Indy at oh, say a buck-seventy-five, some years ago, was being checked out at the infield care center...the Doctors told him he looked OK but they wanted to send him to Methodist for X-Rays. As they wheeled AJ out on the gurney they headed for a waiting medical helicopter. AJ jumped off the gurney and as he bolted was heard to say "Hell, NO, you can get KILLED in one 'o them things!"

I don't remember who after losing it and spinning off a corner was asked "did you run out of brakes?" replied, "Hell no! I ran outta talent!!!"

Rick

[Wayne Maybury]

Jackie Stewart said something like "the bull sh!t stops when the flag goes down" and he also said "you don't want to bend the motor car".

A friend of mine by the name of Francis Afflick said to me one day "You haven't lived until you have gone down the back straight at Daytona at 200 MPH..................backwards". Poor Francis killed himself the next year at that very track.

Wayne

[MidOHasp]

"He did not bump you, he rubbed you. And in NASCAR, rubbin's racin'..."

From Silver Screen Racing.... :-)

[ERA Chas]

Emerson Fittipaldi to interviewer Bill Auberlin; " Beel, d'car, she ezz sheeeet..."

[What'saCobra?]

Not-so-famous McLaren M6B driver, when his car lost traction and moved some Armco barriers on the outside of a rather tight right turn (#10) at Brno, was heard to say, "well, I certainly know what happened; I ran out of road, traction, braking, throttle and ideas all at the same time."

[speed220mph]

"Oh, we're just looing for the ear" - Niki Lauda replying to somebody asking what the former world champion was doing back at the site of the 1976 accident that nearly killed him at the Norschleife circuit.