Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

'Doctor to the drivers,' Prof. Sid Watkins dies

When Prof. Sid Watkins, who died Tuesday in London, wrote the dedication to his book Life At The Limit , Triumph and Tragedy in Formula One in 1996, he included – along with Jackie Stewart and Louis Stanley – the name Hugh Scully.

At the time, Scully was chief of staff and deputy surgeon-in-chief at Toronto General Hospital, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, president of the Ontario Medical Association and founder of the Ontario Race Physicians Association.

Scully and Watkins – who served 26 years as the FIA Formula One Safety and Medical Delegate, head of the Formula One on-track medical team and first responder in case of a crash – were best friends and pals with a passion for motorsport.

Scully got involved in trying to make racing safer after a personal friend, Austrian F1 driver Helmut Koinigg, was killed at Watkins Glen in 1973 shortly after spending a week as a houseguest of Scully’s in Toronto. Watkins, a London neurosurgeon, was approached in 1978 by Bernie Ecclestone to help improve medical facilities at Grand Prix circuits.

Watkins and Scully worked side-by-side for years, along with American motorsport doctors Steve Olvey and Terry Trammell, on the International Council of Motorsport Science to improve safety in racing car design, restraint systems, helmets and protective clothing.

Those men are generally credited — particularly Watkins — with the huge improvements in safety over the last half-century in which world-class motor racing went from a highly dangerous pursuit to one that, today, is relatively safe.

Scully is now president of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame and, in 2011, was instrumental in the decision to induct Prof. Watkins in the International category.

Watkins was unable to attend the ceremony because he was starting to suffer ill health. In recent weeks, his condition deteriorated and he was admitted to hospital in England.

On Sunday night, Scully flew to London to be with his friend. He was just in time.

Watkins was revered by the drivers and the F1 establishment because of his dedication and commitment to their health and safety. His most famous friendship was with the late Ayrton Senna, and the first chapter of his book deals with that awful weekend at Imola in 1994 when Rubens Barrichello crashed violently and both Roland Ratzenberger and Senna lost their lives.

In the book, Watkins writes (after telling Senna that Ratzenburger was dead):

"Ayrton was beside himself; he had not been close to death at a circuit before. . . . He broke down and cried on my shoulder. After all, why shouldn’t he? We had been close friends for many years, we’d fished together, we’d stayed with each other’s families– he was a part of my family – we had talked and worried together over many things common to us both in racing and in life.

"Now his head was on my shoulder and my arm was around him. I felt that I had to tell him what I thought. ‘Ayrton, why don’t you withdraw from racing tomorrow ? I don’t think you should do it. In fact, why don’t you give it up altogether? What else do you need to do? You have been World Champion three times, you are obviously the quickest driver. Give it up and let’s go fishing.’ He was silent. I went on. ‘I don’t think the risk is worth continuing – pack it in.’ He gave me a very steady look and, now calm, he said, ‘Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to go on.’ Those were the last words he said to me."

As the news of Watkins’s death spread, drivers and others in F1 paid tribute, including Barrichello, Martin Donnelly, Mika Hakkinen, Gerhard Berger and team founder Frank Williams who all credited Watkins with saving their lives after they suffered serious accidents.

McLaren chairman Ron Dennis said Watkins was one of Formula One’s "true greats."

"No, he wasn’t a driver," said Dennis. "No, he wasn’t an engineer. No, he wasn’t a designer. He was a doctor and it’s probably fair to say that he did more than anyone, over the years, to make Formula One as safe as it is today."

I count myself most fortunate to have interviewed Prof. Watkins before he was inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame. In an overseas telephone chat that was kind of all over the map, we talked about subjects as varied as safety in F1 and whether Sebastien Vettel is as good as everybody thinks he is.

We were talking about Vettel when he suddenly said: "Wait. Let me tell you about Nelson Piquet. Now, there was a naughty boy."

The context was this: Who, in Grand Prix racing today, is a really good bloke? Who’s got the best sense of humour? Who’s a cut-up?

And Watkins had replied, after thinking for a moment: "Barrichello, I suppose, is the most fun. He’s the one who’s usually up to the most mischief these days. But none of them holds a candle to Piquet."

Nelson Piquet won three world championships but is remembered almost as much for being a practical joker. Watkins remembered two incidents as if they happened yesterday, instead of in the 1980s.

"One time, the FIA president, Jean-Marie Balestre, was making an important speech on safety," Watkins said. "As he was talking, Piquet was standing beside him, emptying a litre of carbonated water into the pocket of his suit jacket.

"Another time, Balestre was standing near the front row of the grid. Piquet was standing behind him. Suddenly, a hand came up between his legs and grabbed him by the presidential balls!

"But Balestre wasn’t angry; he thoroughly enjoyed Piquet because he made people laugh."

I put it to the professor: what is the big difference between racing in the 1950s and ’60s, when many drivers were killed, and today? Is it the HANS device? Circuit design? What?

"There are two factors that you can’t separate," he’d said. "First are the improvements made in the construction of the car. The actual technique and materials used to construct the monocoque — carbon fibre, for instance — have saved many lives.

"The other is the control of fire. When I started in the 1960s, fire was a constant danger. In the Seventies, there was a fire at the Peterson accident (when Ronnie Peterson died at Monza), and Niki Lauda was badly burned (at the Nurburgring).

"There was a fire at the Paletti accident in 1982 (at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal, in which Riccardo Paletti was killed) and then there was a fire at Imola with Gerhard Berger in 1989.

"But since then, we haven’t had a problem with fuel fires and that’s been an enormous step forward."

Watkins made mention of "starting in the 1960s," when he was a surgeon at University Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y.

"I used to go to the Can-Am races at Watkins Glen, the SCCA races there and, of course, the Grand Prix," he said. "The facilities were pretty primitive.

"For the Grand Prix, I used to take a team, just in case we had any bad trouble. I used to take an orthopedic surgeon, a chest guy, a plastic surgeon and an anesthetist. We used to take our own kit, just in case, because there was virtually no equipment in the medical centre at Watkins Glen. You brought your own stuff and you took it away.

"We were put to the test on more than one occasion. It was a good thing we were there."

It was during that period when he would travel to Mosport and Le Circuit-St. Jovite to enjoy the races — "I went as a spectator" — that he met "my great friend," Dr. Scully.

I asked Watkins if it was harder to drive a racing car in the "old days" as compared to today.

"I think it’s different," he said. "In the old days, they had physical demands. There was a general lack of security . . . it was a different level of driving. Nowadays, they’re extremely well protected; there’s so much automatic function on the cars . . . they’re really projectiles.

"In Clark’s and Stewart’s time, the mortality rate was pretty high. You had to have enormous courage to go racing every other weekend, knowing that you might not come back. Since 1994, we’ve been extremely fortunate (there hasn’t been a fatal accident in F1 since Senna died) and I don’t think the drivers even think about that anymore. It’s out of mind."

Watkins laughed when I asked whether Sebastien Vettel is the "real deal," as good as Jim Clark was in his era and Michael Schumacher has been in recent years.

"He’s obviously a wonderful driver, but (the professor’s voice rose here) "he’s also got a wonderful car. If you want to talk about drivers in poor cars, think of Stirling Moss, who drove all sorts of vehicles and drove them extraordinarily well, particularly when they weren’t the fastest.

"It’s a different dimension, really. People like Senna could make a bad car go quick. And so could Jimmy.

"Recently, we’ve seen Michael struggling. If you put Michael in the Red Bull, he’d be away like a shot! So we don’t know about Vettel because we haven’t seen him in a bad car yet."

Prof. Sid Watkins, doctor to the drivers and a friend to many, was 84 years old when he passed. He leaves his wife, four sons and two daughters.

The photo in the article is of Prof. Sid Watkins and Jackie Stewart in 1992 when presented the Labatt's Safety Award.

Upcoming F1 movie triggers cinematic memories

Director Ron Howard, a.k.a. Richie Cunningham, a.k.a. Opie, announced this week that his movie about the 1976 Formula One Grand Prix season entitled "Rush" will premiere in September of next year.

The movie's focus is the battle during the 1976 season between James Hunt and Niki Lauda for the world driving championship after Lauda was nearly killed in a crash and fire at the Nurburgring. Lauda's amazing will to live and his return to the cockpit, after which he nearly won the title, is the basis of the plot.

Here's a short video about the film, sent to me by my friend, Rick Morris. I'm getting excited already.

 

When I read that the film will be out a year from September, I immediately wondered if it might possibly make its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, as the documentary "Senna" did a few years ago. Naturally, I contacted my Entertainment department colleagues here at the Star, Peter Howell and Linda Barnard, who do a wonderful job reviewing films and know all about TIFF and movies in general.

 

Replied Howell: "I think it unlikely TIFF would have it. Ron Howard isn't a festival guy. I don't think he's ever had a film at TIFF, or any festival for that matter."

 

Added Barnard: "Interesting, but we won’t know until this time next year (sounds like a movie title!)

 

Okay, if not at TIFF, "Rush" will still open in Toronto in September '13 and the first thing that hit me about it was the title: what does "Rush" have to do with car racing?

 

Greater minds than mine make these decisions but movie titles are just like book titles. You would think the title would tell you what the book is about, wouldn't you? I have a friend, Alec Ross, who paddled a canoe across Canada. He wrote a book about it. The title? "Coke Stop At Emo." I don't think it sold a lot. Same thing with "Rush." I can think of a lot of things when I read or hear the word "Rush," but auto racing ain't one of them.

 

Whatever, I wish Howard and the movie luck. It's about time we got a good movie about racing (presuming this one will be good). There hasn't been a good one produced since 1967 when "Grand Prix" came out. That's a lot of time between cinematic pit stops.

 

A few years ago, I wrote a column about racing movies I have at home - the good ones and the turkeys. Here are a few excerpts from that column; turkeys first.

 

"Stroker Ace," (1983) was with Burt Reynolds and Jim Nabors, "Days of Thunder," (1990) starred Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall, and "Driven," (2001) featured Sylvester Stallone and B. Reynolds (yes, him again).

 

All three were truly awful.

 

"Stroker Ace" was based on a hilarious book, Stand On It, by William Neely and Robert Ottum, which was a satire on all things auto racing. Reynolds and Nabors ignored the satire and went for the cheap laughs and the movie was a bomb, as a result.

 

"Days of Thunder" was a wasted opportunity. NASCAR opened itself up to the stars and the producers and what could have been a wonderful movie makes you cringe half the time.

 

And "Driven?" When Stallone couldn't suck Bernie Ecclestone into letting him build a film around F1, he turned to CART and the finished product illustrates perfectly why Bernie is such a genius.

 

I was at the Toronto premiere at the Yonge and Eglinton Silver City and when it got to the part where the hero turns his car around and starts driving the wrong way on the track to go rescue a guy who'd just crashed, I swear that everybody in the theatre wanted to crawl under their seats.

 

Those were the awful ones. Here are a couple close-to-awful:

 

"Heart Like a Wheel" (1983), with Bonnie Bedelia and Beau Bridges, is the story of Shirley Muldowney and her fight to make it in the man's world of drag racing. It's so-so. The song, which wasn't about racing, is still better.

 

"Bobby Deerfield" (1977), with Al Pacino, has its moments but, for the most part, is a boring art film. If you like the camera gazing into Pacino's eyes while he, a) looks at where he's going, b) looks at a woman, c) looks at a menu, then this film's for you. Me? I fell asleep.

 

Okay, I can hear some of you saying it: What about "Le Mans," with Steve McQueen? I'll tell you what turned me against that movie, which was released in 1971. There's a line that McQueen recites that goes something like this:

 

"Racing is life, the rest is just waiting." That's a pretty good line. The problem with it is that it's stolen.

 

The late Karl Wallenda of the Flying Wallendas tightrope act said the same thing, only 10 years earlier: "To be on the wire is life, the rest is just waiting."

 

So I was enjoying "Le Mans" until I heard that line and it just put me right off.

 

Here's why I like the movie "Winning," which leads off my list of pretty good racing movies: It got Paul Newman interested in auto racing.

 

Prior to making that film, he knew next-to-nothing about the sport. But filming it turned him into a fan and then a racer himself and the sport was so much better off because of his involvement.

 

Co-starring Joanne Woodward and Robert Wagner, the story is fun and the racing scenes are excellent. A moment that's magical is when Newman drives his road car around the big speedway at Indianapolis and maintenance people and others at work in the infield wave his way.

 

There's a huge pileup at the start of the Indy 500 (footage from the actual first-lap wreck in 1966 is used) and Newman is shown sitting in his car after the dust settles, eating ice cream while he waits for the restart and we hear his heart beating a million miles an hour.

 

This is poetic licence at work: immediately following the real wreck in '66, TV cameras caught driver Arnie Knepper tucking into a sandwich, moments after a wheel came so close to hitting him in the head that it left a tire mark on his helmet. I suspect Arnie's heart wasn't beating fast. Some of those old timers had ice water in their veins.

 

The special-effects photography plus the gripping musical score are what make "Grand Prix" (1966) a joy. Director John Frankenheimer's masterpiece is best seen in Cinerama in a movie theatre with stereo surround sound - but hey, you can't have everything.

 

The cast is near-perfect and the "race drivers" (James Garner, Yves Montand (left), Antonio Sabato and Brian Bedford) look more like race drivers than real race drivers do (Graham Hill, Richie Ginther, Jo Bonnier, Jochen Rindt and others from that era can be seen lurking in the background).

 

The women (Eva Marie Saint, Jessica Walter and Francoise Hardy) keep the heat turned up, too.

 

An old movie that I love and watch at least twice a year is "To Please a Lady" (1950), with Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck. Gable is a post-World War II midget racer; she's a crusading newspaper columnist who attacks racing as a blood sport. It's good stuff and if you've never seen it, it's available on DVD.

 

An incredible moment comes in mid-movie when he confronts her about her columns. When she gives him some lip, he slaps her across the face. You don't see this scene when the film's on TV these days. It's been cut out, probably because Stanwyck doesn't appear to be too put off about it. 

 

Five more to tell you about:

 

"The Crowd Roars" (1932) stars James Cagney and Joan Blondell. Cagney is a successful driver who cavorts with a succession of available women (hey, it's every man's fantasy) but worries that his younger brother will try to follow in his footsteps and wind up in the Marble Orchard (what old-time drivers used to call the cemetery).

 

"The Roar of the Crowd" (1953) stars Howard Duff and is a hoot because it's done in flashbacks while he's driving in the Indy 500. Some of these old racing movies are a stretch at the best of times but when you've got a guy daydreaming at 140 miles an hour, it's too much.

 

"Indianapolis Speedway" (1939) stars Pat O'Brien and Ann Sheridan. All the wives of the drivers wear fur coats. Enough said. 

 

"The Big Wheel" (1949) stars Mickey Rooney and Mary Hatcher. Against his mother's wishes, Mickey wants to go racing to clear his old man's name(too complicated to go into here). Doesn't win the Indy 500 but they give him the Borg-Warner Trophy anyway (you have to be there).

 

I was 7 years old when I first saw it; when I bought the DVD recently, it was pretty much as I remembered it. One surprising nugget: there's a reference in that movie to my Oswego Speedway - famous, even back then.

 

"The Racers" (1955). Kirk Douglas is an American trying to break into the European sports car circuit in the 1950s. His manager (Lee J. Cobb) wears a fedora in Monaco in May (what is with these people?). The death scene starring Gilbert Roland, after he's been thrown out of his car, is priceless.

 

And now you know what I do all winter . . .

What was F1 driver who lost her eye even doing in the car?

Marussia F1 Racing’s news release - announcing that an internal review of the accident that saw test driver Maria de Villota lose an eye found nothing wrong with the race car - raises more questions than it answers.

You’ll recall that the Spanish driver had completed a straight-line test at an English airfield several weeks ago and was returning to a staging area when the car suddenly accelerated and crashed into the back and underside of a team transport truck.

De Villota suffered severe head and facial injuries in the incident and lost her right eye. Although still seriously injured, she is reportedly recovering in hospital.

There were initial suspicions that the car’s anti-stall device had kicked in and caused the acceleration but Marussia’s investigation seems to reject that (although a separate English Health and Safety Executive investigation has yet to report).

If that’s the case, and it turns out to have been driver error, the question has to be asked: why did that team allow someone as inexperienced as Maria de Villota to get into that racing car in the first place?

It’s been my understanding that modern F1 cars are so powerful that if someone who doesn't know what they're doing ever tries to drive one, they're going to immediately spin out.

De Villota, the daughter of an F1 driver from the 1970s named Emilio de Villota (I never heard of the guy; he had two starts), had raced in a number of series – Grand Am and Formula Palmer, etc. – but a close examination of her record indicates that she was very much like her father -- she entered races but actually only got into a couple of them.

And she had never driven anything that even approached the power of a Formula One Grand Prix car.

But she is very attractive. She is one of two good-looking woman who were signed to testing or development driver roles by F1 teams this season; Susie Wolff, under contract to Williams, being the other.

Did somebody get it into their head that a knockout female racing driver would prove to be more intriguing to prospective sponsors and other well-heeled guests than the eye-candy hostesses usually found around F1 paddocks?

If so, that idea backfired -- big time.

The FIA mandates that a driver must have a superlicence before being allowed to race an F1 car. If Maria de Villota had a superelicence, the FIA must investigate how she got one.

If she didn't, then it's time for the FIA to legislate that anybody who gets into an F1 car to race or to conduct any kind of test must have one, or there will be the risk that de Villota's accident won't be the last to happen but potentially the first. 

Bernie Ecclestone in jail is no laughing matter

PRECEDE: Terrible news from Europe this morning.

Spanish driver  Maria de Villota, recently signed to test drive for the Marussia F1 team, is in hospital in England after a crash during a straightline test at Duxford airfield on Tuesday.

Local ambulance officials says her injuries are "life-threatening."

De Villota's Duxford outing was her first test for Marussia. She was set to give the major upgrade package that the team is introducing for the British Grand Prix its first run.

The daughter of ex-F1 racer Emilio de Villota, she is a former World Touring Car Championship driver. At age 32, she first drove an F1 car at the Paul Ricard circuit last year.

She was testing what Marussia described as a major upgrade to be introduced at next weekend's British Grand Prix.

Here's a link to the latest story.

Earlier:

It bothers me that so many people apparently think the possibility of Bernie Ecclestone going to jail is something to laugh about.

I suppose it’s human nature to be jealous of success, of good fortune, and of success gained through great risk and very hard work, as is the case with Ecclestone.

It’s a pity his critics didn’t work as long or as hard or else they might have success of their own and not be so jealous.

The really difficult thing to comprehend is that all these people say they’re fans of Formula One racing . What they fail to understand is that if it wasn’t for Ecclestone, there wouldn’t be F1 racing as we know it.

The fact of the matter is that the guys who were F1 racing in the Sixties, the Ron Dennises and the Ken Tyrrels and the Frank Williamses were, like most road racers of the time, content to play pretty much in their own little world.

They disdained commercial involvement; they really were, in the true sense of the phrase, independent contractors and if a country wanted to promote a Grand Prix, the national motor racing authority had to deal with the drivers and teams on an individual basis just to get them to show up.

Most of the participants lived hand-to-mouth. The drivers and mechanics were often so hard up they frequently shared flats or apartments and when they went racing they lived in tents at the circuits.

One person changed all that: Bernie Ecclestone.

After Colin Chapman, because of his experience at Indianapolis, introduced Gold Leaf tobacco sponsorship to F1, it was Ecclestone who saw the potential for the whole of F1, not just one team.

Anybody who’s paid attention knows that Ecclestone, who owned Brabham, then got the teams to form the Formula One Constructors Association, with him as its head, and the rest is history.

From a small-thinking, low-buck (for the times) bunch of blue-collar auto racers came the licence to print money that we know today. And each and every one of them is filthy rich – all thanks to Bernie.

And, yes, he took a big chunk of the cash that came in up front because it was his initiative, his bargaining, his vision that got that series – and auto racing in general – to where it's at now.

Because of Ecclestone's scheming and chutzpah, Dan Gurney, Roger Penske, Jim Trueman and Pat Patrick were inspired to break away from the U.S. Auto Club (stuck in the same small-town mindset that F1 was in the mid-Sixties) and formed CART. And they all got rich, too.

And from F1 and CART on down, through F2 (now GP2) and F3 (GP3/Indy Lights), racing entrepeneurs created a world-wide industry that generates billions in economic activity and employees hundreds of thousands of people.

And it’s all – all – because of Bernie Ecclestone.

What?

Don’t believe me?

Tell me who, then? Who else did it?

It wasn’t Frank Williams or Ron Dennis or Jackie Stewart or any of the rest.

And it wouldn’t have "just happened," either.

No, it took the little genius, B. Ecclestone, to chart the way.

If he’s broken the law, either in England or Germany or wherever, the charges will be laid and the chips will fall where they may.

But before any of that happens, laughing at the possibility of someone – anyone – going to jail is repulsive.

It is most undignified, and people should be ashamed.

Weekend Racing:

– The scary thing about the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Kentucky Saturday night – won by Brad Keselowski, with Kasey Kahne second and Denny Hamlin third – is that there are only nine races left before the Chase for the Championship starts.

Where has the time gone.

If Kahne hadn’t had to stop Saturday night because of a botched pit stop (a loose wheel), he might have given Keselowski a run for this money. He was on the charge the last 10 laps; another couple of laps and he would have caught the leader.

Matt Kenseth, who will likely drive for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 20 Home Depot-sponsored car from 2013 on, leads the Sprint Cup standings with Dale Earnhardt. Jr. second and Jimmie Johnson third.

The NASCAR stars now go to Daytona for the Firecracker 400, now known, of course, as the Coke Zero 400, which just doesn’t have that July 4 ring.

In the Nationwide Series, Austin Dillon won the Kentucky race Friday night by cheating. Kurt Busch was second and Kevin Harvick was third.

Dillon was dominant in his win but in post-race inspection, NASCAR found the team to have been cheating (actions detrimental to stock car racing, among other infractions) and fined the crew chief $10,000 and docked the owner, Morgan Shepherd, and the driver, Dillon, six points each.

It’s hard to tell why anybody wouldn’t cheat in NASCAR. If you win the race, or finish second or third, you get to keep the position. It’s there in the record book and you get the payoff – in this case, $97,000. So you pay the fine and you’re still $87,000 ahead. Where’s the deterrent?

– Joao Barbosa and Toronto-born Darren Law won the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series at Watkins Glen, N.Y., on Sunday. In GT, Robin Lidell and John Edwards won the class and took the points lead in their Chevrolet Camaro.

Up next for Toronto race fans: the Honda Indy Toronto. James Hinchcliffe, Dario Franchitti, Marco Andretti, Scott Dixon, Graham Rahal, Alex Tagliani and the rest of the IZOD IndyCar Series warriors will do battle on the streets of Toronto Friday (Free Friday practice),  Saturday (qualifying) and Sunday (race) next weekend.

Plus there will be a full lineup of supporting class races, including the Firestone Indy Lights (David Ostella of Maple driving).

More information and tickets at www.hondaindytoronto.com