The Great Stirling Moss.

Everyone remembers great Stirling Moss, a great racer from London, who change the way everyone see today the racing, he won so many awards, and developed his career more than other racers, but a tragic accident occurred in 1962 stopped his brilliant future, and forced him to retire and leave what he loved the most after his family. With more than 529 races and 212 awards he said good bye to the racing cars forever.

But even the great Stirling Moss never won a world championship during his career all his peers took him as benchmark, and always they compared and judged their own performances with his.

A brief history of the great Stirling Moss’ life and career

The great Stirling Moss was born in London on September 17th, 1929. His both parents were competitors, his mother Aileen Moss won the Ladies Experts Trials in 1936. We can say that his careers started when he was just 9 years old, his father bought him an old Austin Seven, which Moss ride all day, every day. He loved the horses and he went of so many horse show competitions with his sister.

When he became a young adult his father expected that his son could follow him in his career and become a doctor or something related to the medical profession, but the young Moss didn’t want to do that instead he wanted to become a professional racer, he dreamed with cars and the possibility to be part of this great world.

The great Stirling Moss tried hard to enter in any possible way to the racing world, so he decided to look for a job and save money to start his own career, one of his first jobs were in a hotel trade as a waiter and porter, but later own he left that job.

His first car was an MG, and followed for a BMW, which was a very sophisticated car, the great Stirling Moss was one of the first customer for John Cooper, buying a MK II he started driving for showrooms with his father as his passenger. It was difficult for him to save money and buy the car he needed, he sold his possessions and worked hard and as a 18th birthday present his parents made up the difference.

In the beginning there wasn’t a real circuits for Stirling so he just made some showrooms and appearances in a few places. In 1949 he went on a professional racing tour, which took off in mainland of Europe with 500cc racing slower. He raced with a new Cooper Mk III LWB chassis in different places. In 1950 Moss worked in his first team, which has as a leader to Lance Macklin, it was a great opportunity to learn from this great racer, he became friend of Villoresi, a veteran Ferrari driver, who was very impress with all the great skill of the young Moss.

The great Stirling Moss was in demand and even he got a contract with Ferrari for special events, but after some misunderstandings he decided to leave them, and in the end the owner of Ferrari admitted that letting go Moss was the worst mistake ever. In 1951 he stared to win so many races, especially the three more important ones, so he became more and more famous and recognized.

In 1953 Moss left the Kieft marque and continued racing the Formula 3 in a lot of Coopers. By 1954 the great Stirling Moss was well-known as the best racer in England, he won one of the most important races called the Earl of March Trophy at Goodwood with his Cooper Mk VIII.

In 1955 Moss got a partnership with Fangio at Mercedes, and he won his first Grand Prix victory, by 1962 he had already 318 races, winning 134 of them. He drove a Ferrari 14 times, winning 12 of them.

The tragic accident that stopped Moss’ career

By 1961 he was one of the best and favorite racer in the world, but a tragic accident on 1962 injured him badly in the Glover Trophy race. He was on coma for one months and for more than six months his left side was paralyzed. It was a very hard time for the great Stirling Moss, so after a personal medical exams he decided to retire from the race with all the pain of his heart.

He came back but it wasn’t the same any more, but he did a great contribution for more than ten years to the racing career.