Peter Ryan driver profile!

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Bobby Doorknobs
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Peter Ryan driver profile!

Post by Bobby Doorknobs »

Hello all,

With Lance Stroll being one of the talking points going into this season, I thought about writing something about the man who became Canada's first F1 driver. Peter Ryan.

Although actually an American citizen, Ryan lived in Canada for his whole short life, specifically Mont Tremblant, site of the same circuit now owned by Lawrence Stroll, and where Ryan's father owned a famous ski resort. After giving up skiing for reasons not fully understood (conflicting sources and all that) he took up motor racing and was immediately competitive in local events.

Within two years he was attracting the attention of European marques and it was Colin Chapman in particular who saw something special about this kid after his win in the inaugural Canadian Grand Prix in 1961 (then a sportscar race, not F1). Chapman had an old F1 Lotus shipped over from England for Ryan to drive in Watkins Glen and after that he put him on a three year contract with Team Lotus, the first two of which would be spent in Formula Junior.

Sadly, Ryan wouldn't last one of these years and was killed in a high speed accident at Reims, robbing Canada of its best chance of an F1 champion until Gilles Villeneuve arrived on the scene 15 years later.

Anyway, read and enjoy!

Cheers,

Anthony
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Ataxia
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Re: Peter Ryan driver profile!

Post by Ataxia »

Terrific work as usual!
Mitch Hedberg wrote:I want to be a race car passenger: just a guy who bugs the driver. Say man, can I turn on the radio? You should slow down. Why do we gotta keep going in circles? Man, you really like Tide...
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dinizintheoven
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Re: Peter Ryan driver profile!

Post by dinizintheoven »

Top banana. He wasn't someone I was aware of before. At some stage, I am going to have to raise my game and dedicate some time to one of these profiles myself...

How long did this take, incidentally, with the unofficial word limit?
James Allen, on his favourite F1 engine of all time:
"...the Life W12, I can't describe the noise to you, but imagine filling your dustbin with nuts and bolts, and then throwing it down the stairs, it was something akin to that!"
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Bobby Doorknobs
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Re: Peter Ryan driver profile!

Post by Bobby Doorknobs »

dinizintheoven wrote:How long did this take, incidentally, with the unofficial word limit?

It was actually written well before I was ever aware of one! Well, the initial draft was anyway, which took only a week to knock together, and that was back in November! In the time since then it was basically just bits of research here and there, the end result being a piece just shy of 4000 words.
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girry
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Re: Peter Ryan driver profile!

Post by girry »

A great piece on a driver I always was curious to know more about, well done.
when you're dead people start listening
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