Motor Racing
- 11 July – death of Pedro Rodríguez, Mexican F1 driver
- Stock car racing –
- 14 February – Richard Petty won the Daytona 500 in the #43 Plymouth for Petty Enterprises
- 22 February – Bobby Allison wins the World 500 in the #29 Mercury for Holman Moody
- NASCAR Championship – Richard Petty in the #43 Plymouth for Petty Enterprises
- USAC Racing
- 29 May – Al Unser, Sr. wins the 55th running of the Indianapolis 500 in the Johnny Lightning Special Colt-Ford. It is Unser's second of four victories.
- Joe Leonard wins the season drivers' championship
- Formula One – John Y. Stewart (Scotland) wins World Drivers' Champion, driving a Tyrrell 001-Cosworth.
- 24 hours of Le Mans – Helmut Marko / Gijs van Lennep win, sharing a Porsche 917
- Rally racing – the team of Ove Andersson / David Stone won the Monte Carlo Rally driving an Alpine-Renault A110
- Drag racing –
- NHRA announces the first Grandnationals, at Sanair, near Montreal, Quebec.
- Hank Johnson wins Top Fuel at the Supernats.
Read more about this topic: 1971 In Sports
Famous quotes containing the words motor and/or racing:
“We disparage reason.
But all the time it’s what we’re most concerned with.
There’s will as motor and there’s will as brakes.
Reason is, I suppose, the steering gear.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)