Have Your Say – What Story Needs to be Told in Racing

Next Racing Documentary 01.jpg
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below with any documentaries you’d like to see made to highlight exceptional personalities or events from the world of motorsports.

Often when we live through an era, the historical significance of it is not immediately obvious. Or, if we didn’t experience the story while it happened, it can be exciting to learn more about a given personality or event. In either case, a documentary can be a great way to relive or experience a piece of history.

With that in mind, and continuing a series that your support has been overwhelming toward, we want to hear what motorsports personality or event you feel deserves a documentary like we’ve seen with the excellent Schumacher Netflix doc. This might be your favourite race driver that doesn’t get enough credit, or perhaps a single race or race season that you feel ranks among the best, or maybe even a racing game or sim that needs a cinematic tribute.

The first example that comes to mind would be Lewis Hamilton. The legacy of the most popular driver in the most popular motorsport series will echo long past his retirement. Despite holding numerous significant F1 records, he has remained a divisive figure throughout his career. How history will view Hamilton remains to be seen, but surely his story is worthy of a documentary.

Another example might be Michèle Mouton. The presence of females in motorsports is becoming more commonplace these days, but Mouton began her racing career in a time when it was exceedingly rare. Not only did the French driver build a reputation for her exceptional rally achievements, but she also participated in the grueling Tour de France Automobile, and after her driving days has moved to the office as president of the FIA's Women & Motor Sport Commission.

Or perhaps a virtual motorsports documentary is due. One idea might be a feature on Gran Turismo. Some readers may remember when the original GT was released in the late 1990s and eschewed the flashy brands and unrealistic vehicle performance of its gaming contemporaries in favour of more lifelike racing physics and performance. This spawned numerous sequels which collectively sold over 80 million copies over a quarter century and grew into the biggest international championship series in virtual racing and even became a part of the Olympics.

Let us know what drivers or events from the world of motorsports deserve recognition via a documentary, or if you’ve stumbled upon any great motorsports docs that people should check out.

Image by Toby Parsons from Pixabay
About author
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

Comments

Why not a documentary about Herman Tilke, trying to find out more about him and what drives him into designing highly advanced race tracks?
After all he is the man behind the vast majority of today's F1 circuits, either the ones built from the ground up or those extensively modified to keep up with modern safety regulations.

Or a doc about the tyre war between Bridgestone and Michellin, from 2001 till 2006, focusing on how it affected the regulations, specially in the 2005 season, and why it led to the incidents occurred in that same year US GP, from the tire blow up of Ralf Schumacher in qualifying to the withdrawall of all the Michellin equipped teams in the race.
 
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Is there a good Barney Oldfield documentary? Probably not, I'd love to see a dramatization of that guy's story.

I'd like a Peter Brock story, what he did and meant to Australia and the Mountain.
Is this just open wheel, because I d love the madmen who thought up Truck racing and how it came about to what it is today- of course
 
Sergio Perez - and you may think "why??" well Sergio Perez when he was starting his career being 13 in 2003 karting in Mexico he had a crash with the son of the leader of the Mexican Federation of Motorsports in that time, after crashing with Klaus Schinkel Jr (his rival at that time for the championship) both started to fight, and then their families started to fight, after that the father of Schinkel used his power and contacts to affect Sergio's career, giving a death threat to the race director to give Sergio unjustified sanctions, so the next race Sergio was disqualified from the race, and eventually Sergio was banned from racing in Mexico missing the CART race that was held in the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and the Easy Kart Championship (Which he was also leading), all this led to Sergio and his brother Antonio(Later NASCAR Mexico champion in 2007) to train privately in the "Brothers Gallo" circuit in Guadalajara, Jalisco with Formula cars that were lended by Tomás López Rocha (IMSA Champion in the United States) a Formula Vee, a Formula Reynard and a Formula 3, after that with the help from his brother, his father and Carlos Slim he travelled to Germany alone with 14 years old living in a restaurant that was from a friend of his uncle, after going to the Skip Barber Racing School and the German Formula BMW (Where he was the youngest winner ever) after that he won Formula 3 with 16 years old and got to GP2 and one of the key moments of his career happened, he won the Monaco GP with all his family there with that almost securing a Formula 1 seat, finally after more than 2 decades, Mexico had another Formula 1 driver as Carlos Slim Dommit announced Sergio was going to race for Sauber in 2010, after that we all know what happened going to his first win and the challenges with Red Bull, Sergio raced oficially in Mexico until 2015 in the Mexican Grand Prix, and Klaus Schinkel Jr now races shitty Renaults in Mexico. I think that would make a REALLY cool documental.
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(This just made me think how normal is my life just regular 15 (almost 16 in 1 week) year old guy who wants to be a Formula 1 driver, who finished 3rd in his first championship racing karts with 13 (rental karts rip), but pandemic screwed it all left my dad without job, and just has an Xbox 270° used misaligned wheel with broken paddle shifters which has almost the same age as me and has it since 4 years ago but somehow manages to win Assetto Corsa online races in WSS and RaceU (Wanted to race in SRS but I need to be older of 18 I think) so yeah, I guess I would need a BIG miracle to get 100,000 MXN pesos out of nowhere to get a professional kart and get things going, also maybe it's too late rip so guess Esports are my only hope.)
Wow an amazing story of Sergio that probably should be a movie. Thanks for that. And as for you keep going for that dream!!!
 
Off the top of my head:
-Dan Gurney
-Richard Burns
-Peter Revson
-The 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup season (focusing primarily on Alan Kulwicki, Davey Allison and Bill Elliott)
-Mark Donohue
-The unraced rally cars of Group S
 
Premium
I'd like a Peter Brock story, what he did and meant to Australia and the Mountain.
There have been a couple of Peter Brock efforts over the past few years.
One on a commercial network which was not just bad, it was bloody bad, and a far more accurate version on the National network, very good but incomplete. Most people know the basics but never the full story, such as Brock's venture into ANF2 in a year old Birrana which he ran against the top open wheel drivers and beat them until Harry Firth delivered an ultimatum: "Either drive for HDT or drive for yourself in F2, but not both".
The rest is history.
Brock's private life was turbulent and it needs to be known as it shows him as a normal human being with normal human flaws.
Another legend needs an in depth 'story', Alan Moffat, the long time protagonist and the polar opposite of Brock, but a great driver in the same vein and central to Australian motorsport and Bathurst.
;)
 
Probably a movie ala Ford vs Ferrari about the Mazda 787, or documentaries about promising starting racers on lower races, seeing which one will become a major name years later.
 
Wouldn't that just be

Race - "I know what I'm effing doing"
Party, smoke, drink vodka, get drunk
Race - "Leave me alone"
Party, smoke, drink vodka, get drunk
Race - "Where's my effing steering wheel"
Party, smoke, drink vodka, get drunk

And so on?
That's what we all want to see anyway
 
Achille Varzi! There are so many angles to explore.

Started on motorbikes and regularly raced in the Isle of Man TT. Then later transitioned to cars. Raced in bugattis, alfas, auto unions, moving onto each successive manufacturer with impecably successful timing. Won races on sealed and unsealed roads. Witnessing the death of so many racing contemporaries. Height of success at across a period of immense technological advancement. Each of the famous and tortuously long public road circuits he raced on probably deserve their own story told for that matter.

His enduring rivalry with Nuvolari and their contrasting style on and off the track. The almost customary falling out with Ferrari, moving to race with a German team betraying Italian nationalist spirits in the era of fascism. Period of troubles. Affair with a teammates' wife. I also once read that his prolonged addiction to morphine might have been a response to the psychological rather than physical trauma of one of his big accidents?

Though he never consistently returned to form after that, there were just a couple of races where it seemed as though he would. 1936 when the Mercedes wasn't very competitive but Rosemeyer was mastering the rear engined Auto Union.

Disruption of the war and what it must have been like for an entire generation of racers to have to park it for over a decade. Some fade into obscurity. Others join the resistance. Later attempts to restart his racing career and his death at Bremgarten.
 
Why not a documentary about Herman Tilke, trying to find out more about him and what drives him into designing highly advanced race tracks?
After all he is the man behind the vast majority of today's F1 circuits, either the ones built from the ground up or those extensively modified to keep up with modern safety regulations.

Or a doc about the tyre war between Bridgestone and Michellin, from 2001 till 2006, focusing on how it affected the regulations, specially in the 2005 season, and why it led to the incidents occurred in that same year US GP, from the tire blow up of Ralf Schumacher in qualifying to the withdrawall of all the Michellin equipped teams in the race.
Herman idea is something I would watch.
 
As you can guess i would love a big documentary about Sauber Motorsport. Starting with the C1 and having a lot of up and downs for the swiss racing team. And there is still the chance to interview Peter himself
I like underdogs, and hope one day Sauber wins a championship (as Sauber!)
 
Crash and Burn about Tommy Byrne was the sort of thing I like to see rather than rehashes of famous stories.

A Motogp GP doc that was more like Rick Broadbent's book 'Ring of Fire' would be good. Something that really got under the skin further than the obviously Rossi fanboy 'Faster/Fastest/Hitting the Apex' series.
 
D
How the hell Codemasters get the F1 and license from the FIA every year would make a story in itself
 
I was told by an old Matra engineer that in the 70s, some Porsche mecanics while racing the 24h of le Mans, were stilling some body parts on the parking lot after a crash when they were short on official body parts...
I don't know if there is some archives about that, but I thought it was a funny topic

Cheers
 
This one is pretty good:

There is one: Road (see the shop of the IOM TT)
I have it on DVD and it is good. It is from October 2014, so it is not totally up to date. It is extremely emotional as triumph and tragedy are very close.

Thank you, Gents. That did indeed fill a void for me, It covered the family and some close friends very well. A doco that any two wheeled fan could appreciate.
 

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