(side note to mjb: Now I don't seem to get any mail at all instead of double
messages)
Courage is Often Stupidity
An Interview with Stirling Moss by Kenneth McDougall
(stolen from last week's Diablo Dealer, a car photo-ad paper)
When Stirling Moss retired in 1963 he had been involved in 466 races.
In 194 of the 466 he had come in first. I had met Stirling Moss in London
where he lives in a beutiful home in the heart of London and is proud of
his Japanese Garden. Now we meet again in New York. Actually Moss
commutes between New York and London more than any other person I know.
There was always one question that I wanted to ask of him: "You've
driven 125,000 miles in the Grand Prix and other races; statistics say that
one out of every four drivers get killed. If it's that dangerous nad that
tough, what makes a man want to drive in a race?"
"Well first of all, it really isn't that dangerous and that tough"
he answered smilingly. "There are obviously a percentage of drivers who do
get killed as they do in any sport. But what makes you wnat to do anything
-- exhilaration for competition. I can't think of any way to replace it.
I mean not having to work for a living. Can you imagine doing what is your
sport and making a living at it and meeting people and having exhilaration
for competition every week and traveling? There is no way to replace it.?
I tried to dwell deeper on this issue and said, "I assume that
there is none of the fear then when you get going. You just drive?"
"Seriously it's relative. Yes, of course, there's a certian
apprehension and knowledge that it's a dangerous sport but once the flag
drops the fear is gone. Because to me bravery, which is the overcoming of
fear, and stupidity are very closely related and I like to think I'm no
fool. I never go to a race and drive to a point where I'm feeling really
nervous."
"I thought Jimmy Clark had a great line when he said, 'I don't
worry about myself but if the car goes, that's another thing,'" I
commented.
Stirling Moss in his soft spoken, quiet way analyzed it. "You cna
crash because of your own problems or oil onthe track or mechanical
failures. All of these more or less are out and, of course, your own
mistakes, you can try to guard against them but mechanical failures you
can't. The is the reagedy, I think of Jimmy's death, that could have been
the reason."
"Does it bother you when you see a crash during the race?" I
pursued the subject.
"Yes, if you know the man, for instance, you knew that man well.
Obviously, you are concerned about him. You look to the marshals around to
see if the man is okay and with a bit of luck you see their thumbs up and
you feel alright but if you don't get that, there's obviously a concern
about it because if he's fallen off, you naturally worry about yourself."
"What about concentration?" I asked, "How can you concentrate when
you are driving a car and there's anaccident in front of you?"
"The way to concentrate is to have complete domination of your mind
in other words, if something bad happens, and it does -- you've got to say,
'That is finished.' You've got to think of the future not only the past.
The monent, like if a wheel comes off (I've had eight wheels come off)
obviously, at the monemt it comes off, I'm going past a tree at a 135 mph,
I don't think what happens now if a wheel comes off and its easy to think
of it. Therefore, you control your mind to the extent that as if it could
never happen again. This is very near stupidity. You can call it bravery
-- I don't know what you call it, but the point is yu've got to be able to
do it."
"I guess one has to sppress ones own imagination. I'm think of the
motion picture _Grand_Prix_, one of the lines there was -- if a man's got a
vivid imagination, he probably wouldn't do it." I didn't have to wait long
for Mr. Moss' reaction.
"That film," and he laughed, "well, the film was great but the
rest, I don't know...I think in a way it is true, what is said about
imagination. I like to think what is needed is domination of yourself --
of your mind."
"Well, you say that's raw courage?"
"It isn't courage, no. Courage must never be stupidity. Many
people who do things wht are courageous probably wouldn't ahve done them if
they had time to sit down and think about it. I think it takes a little
piece of madness and driving is madness. You have to keep a cool head, you
have to consider what you are doing and self-preservation is your limiting
factor. Your knowledge helps and your own experience."
"Isn't there a curious reversal of man and machine compared with
aerinautics? Less than 5% of all their tragedies are due to equipment
failures, 95% are due to pilot errors. In race car driving the machine
breakdown is the biggest factor, how come?"
Stirling Moss became serious. With the patience of a teacher he
explained, "The reason for that is because every racing car is a
specialist's job -- you normally only build one, two or three cars.
Therefore, it's built to the finest limit and you get out and you
experiment with that and if something breaks then you modify it. Where
when you go in an airplane -- it is mass production like regular cars. We
do not have this possibility and the is our great problem in race
driving."
"What is the greatest joy?"
"The joy of duty!"
Miq Millman -- miq@sgi.com or {decwrl,pyramid,ucbvax}!sgi!miq
415 960 1980 x1041 work
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