http://www.kansascity.com/sports/motorsports/story/772298.html:Phil Hill, America’s first international racing star,
died Thursday in Monterey, Calif., of complications from Parkinson’s
disease. He was 81.
Hill won the 1961 Formula One title for Ferrari and set the standard for other American drivers who competed overseas such as Dan Gurney and Mario Andretti.
Besides
the Formula One title, Hill was the first American to win the 24-hour
endurance sports-car race at Le Mans, France (1958). He won Le Mans
three times in all and also won the Sebring 12-hour race three times.
His
1961 Formula One championship was won at Monza, Italy, in the
second-to-last race of the season. But the race was marred by a crash
that killed his Ferrari teammate Wolfgang von Trips of Germany and 14
spectators. As a result, Ferrari did not run the season’s final race in
Watkins Glenn, N.Y., and Hill was unable to celebrate his championship
in his home nation.
“Phil was a very special guy and had a love
for the automotive age,” said Gurney, a teammate with Ferrari. “He was
always a potential winner when he sat in a race car. He was both a
competitor and a close friend and a fellow I could look up to.”
“It’s a sad day,” said Carroll Shelby,
a close friend of Hill’s who became a celebrated builder of sports cars
after retiring from racing. “Phil was an excellent race-car driver with
a unique feel for the car, and his real expertise was in long-distance
racing.”
Hill, despite driving with safety gear in his race car
that paled by today’s standards, never suffered a serious injury. He
retired from driving in 1967 at 39.
“I had an amazing amount of
luck to race for 22 years and not a drop of blood or a broken bone,”
Hill once said. Then he quipped: “Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough.”
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/phil-hill-american-racing-champion-is-dead/?hp:
Phil Hill, the only American-born Formula One champion, died today at the age of 81. He died at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. He had suffered from Parkinson’s disease and another degenerative neurological disorder.
In a sport known for its playboy personalities, Mr. Hill was an anomaly. He was “a thoughtful, gentle man,” wrote Robert Daley in his book “The Cruel Sport.”
“I’m in the wrong business,” Mr. Hill once said. “I don’t want to beat anybody, I don’t want to be the big hero.”
But Mr. Hill was the hero — and during the most dangerous era of Formula One. Death lurked around every corner and down every straight, and death played a part in his career, although he never had a serious injury. Along with his Formula One title, with Ferrari in 1961, Mr. Hill also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times and the 12 Hours of Sebring three times.
“I, as well as all employees of Ferrari, are extremely saddened by the news of the passing of Phil Hill, a man and a champion who gave so much to Ferrari and who has always greatly represented the company’s values inside and outside the racing track,” said Luca di Montezemolo, president of Ferrari, in a statement.
Philip Toll Hill was born in Miami on April 20, 1927 to a prominent family. He was raised in Santa Monica, Calif., and studied business administration at the University of Southern California.
He quit school after two years and traveled to England, where he worked as a mechanic and then later as a driver. He landed a seat with Ferrari in 1955 for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And when both Ferrari grand prix drivers, Luigi Musso and Peter Collins, died in separate races in 1958, Mr. Hill stepped into the most coveted seat in motorsports, driving for Enzo Ferrari.
In 1961, Mr. Hill won the Formula One championship by a single point over his Ferrari teammate, Wolfgang von Trips, who died in Ferrari’s final race that season. Mario Andretti, who was born in Italy, is the only other American champion in Formula One.
According to the official Formula One site, Mr. Hill often thought about his chances of surviving the sport. “I became hypersensitive to the danger and wasn’t sure that I wasn’t going to kill myself,” he said. He retired from racing in 1967.
Mr. Hill also worked as a television commentator for ABC’s Wide World of Sports and was a contributing editor for Road & Track magazine.
R.I.P. Phil......
I don't know about you guys, but this was a complete and utter shock to me.
Joseph.
"use more gas, less brake"
-Juan Manuel Fangio