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Moss was probably the greatest race driver who never won a Grand Prix championship, although he was runner-up four years in a row. Schumacher is arguably the greatest Formula 1 driver in the history of the sport, but his prowess has been exercised almost exclusively in that branch of the motorsport world. Stirling Moss competed in a wide spectrum of autosport venues, from Formula 1 to Rallying, reflected in the fact that he won the annual BRDC Gold Star, awarded on points across all types of international racing, an unmatched 10 times. He drove for Mercedes, Maserati, Aston Martin, Lotus, and Jaguar, to name just a few.
In 15 seasons of competition, Moss ran in 496 races, finished 366, and won 222, and very likely would have won a Formula One champonship as the British cars he preferred driving whenever possible dominated the sport in the '60s and '70s had a crash at the Goodwood track in England on Easter Monday, 1962, not nearly killed him, left him in a coma for weeks, and prematurely ended his brilliant competitive career in racing.
That was of course nearly 43 years ago. Moss went on to be honored with a knighthood (which he claims is useful for getting good tables in restaurants) and an Order of the British Empire, remained active in motorsport, and, consistent with his appreciation for engineering excellence, he's just switched to a Mac iBook at age 75.
C.F. Gurney of the Race Legends site has posted a chronicle of how he rfecently assisted Sir Stirling Moss in choosing, buying and configuring an Apple iBook.
He notes:
"My father and I have a company that represents these retired racers (see http://www.racelegends.com ) and so I sometimes get involved in their personal matters. In this case, the 75 year old Moss is an life-long gadget monger. While he's been using a Windows laptop for a few years, he has recently become increasingly frustrated with the general care and feeding of it. Many of his friends and colleagues have been suggesting he look at the Apple line up. I happened to run a Mac OS software company during the nineties (CE Software, makers of QuickMail and QuicKeys), so I'm the resident "expert" of sorts, at least in our company.
"This past week, Moss and his wife Susie traveled to Madison, Wisconsin to appear at a sports car club reception. My business partner Richard and I drove up from Des Moines for a private dinner with my family and the Mosses.
"During the course of the evening, Stirling started on the topic of the Apple.
"We agreed that after breakfast the next morning we would go and look at Apples.
"....We focused on the iBook because we thought it offered the best combination of power and value...
"As it turned out the next day, we only had 90 minutes. But that was all we needed to go to the store, look at iBooks, buy and return to the hotel to transfer digital pictures from the Compaq to the iBook. Truly an astounding accomplishment in my experience......
"It's a thing of beauty. This guy has been everywhere, done everything and knows everyone on every continent. And he's groovin' on iPhoto importing his pictures......
"Stirling has to bring the iBook with him. He is too damned excited to leave it in his room. We go down to the lobby and Stirling immediately sits down and starts showing off his pictures. A crowd forms.
"I'm thinking to myself, 'Here's a 75-year-old world motorsports legend, sitting in a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin showing off his pictures on a Apple iBook he bought less than 1 hour ago. How wild is this?'"
As an Apple fan and motor racing buff from way back who remembers when Stirling Moss was still racing, I say pretty cool.
You can check it out (with photos) at:
http://racelegends.typepad.com/
More info on Stirling Moss can be found at:
http://www.stirlingmoss.com/
Charles W. Moore
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I am a great fan of Sterling Moss too. I run an old Healey 100. Didn’t he also race Austin Healeys in ralleys or was that just his wife. I may be imagining but wasn’t she a pretty decent driver too?
Am super glad he switched to Mac. Like my Dad did when he was 86. Still uses his original bondi blue iMac at 93!
dr rw