Formula Three and Sports Cars
Cliff Allison started his racing career in a Formula Three Cooper 500 in 1953 before being spotted by Colin Chapman. Allison won the performance prize driving a 744cc Lotus in the 1957 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Lotus of Allison and Colin Chapman finished sixth in the 1958 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race for sports cars. Allison came in fourth with his Lotus in the 1958 Grand Prix of Europe at Spa-Francorchamps, more than four minutes behind victor Tony Brooks.
Allison and Dan Gurney shared one of three team Ferrari cars that competed in the June 1959 1000 km Nürburgring race. Seventy-five cars entered the 1000 kilometre race which was a world championship event for sports cars.
Allison was paired with Jean Behra in a Ferrari which finished second in the 1959 12 Hours of Sebring. The drivers received $1,500 in prize money. Allison was credited with the fastest lap of the Sebring race in the #9 Ferrari. He was clocked at 3 minutes 21.6 seconds on the 97th lap of the 5.2 mile course.
In May 1960 Allison skidded off the road during practice for the Targa Florio in Palermo, Sicily. His Ferrari reached a speed of 100 miles per hour when a tyre burst, or so the driver believed. The car crashed into a scrub forest, destroying itself and most of what it touched. When the mishap occurred the Ferrari was nearing the end of a five mile straight by the sea. This was the only very fast stretch of road in the event. Allison escaped from the wreck without a scratch, but his face was ashen and his mouth hung open with an expression of fear.
Read more about this topic: Cliff Allison
Famous quotes containing the words formula, sports and/or cars:
“Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible, not to find a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What’s the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“What our children have to fear is not the cars on the highways of tomorrow but our own pleasure in calculating the most elegant parameters of their deaths.”
—J.G. (James Graham)