Tony Mcguiness

San Diego, USA @tonymcguinessgt3rs

Model 997.2 GT3 RS Year 2011 Acquired FEB 2011 Model 991.1 GT3 Year 2015 Acquired DEC 2014

For the past 17 months I have had the honour of interviewing former Porsche factory driver,

Brian Redman. I can’t recall how many actual interviews we had; if I was to guess, probably somewhere around 26 or so. What started as a 25-minute interview between us, over time quickly grew to 1 hour and 15-minute sessions, sometimes longer.

My first conversation with Brian took place only several days after I had finished 14 months of interviewing Porsche legend Vic Elford. That was way back in January 2020. Regular Total 911 readers will know this month’s edition of the magazine contains the 17th and final in my series of interviews with Brian.

I am not sure I will ever find another person as humble as Brian. Born in Burnley, Lancashire in 1937, only 41 miles from my home city of Liverpool, Brian raced during a time when driver deaths were common. As he eloquently states in his book, “It was as if an unseen sniper haunted the tracks and picked off random victims without warning, unsparing of veterans and legends”.

Between 1965 and 1975, one in three top-level drivers of world championship sports prototypes were killed. The odds were worse for drivers like Brian who also drove in Formula 1. Safety simply was not a priority in those days. Race cars were built without driver protection nor were they equipped with radios. There was little in the way of protection for competitors and spectators.

Track marshals support was woefully inadequate. Amazingly, there were no onsite medical support or capabilities.

Brian shared with me that the night before races he would often have difficulty sleeping. Spa-francorchamps was one of those races that affected his sleep. Drivers like Brian were racing on tracks like Spa that had been constructed decades earlier. Created in the 1920s for cars that were capable of less than 100mph, the 8.7-mile circuit was virtually unchanged; yet cars were now over 600hp and reaching speeds of over 200mph.

When Brian first arrived at Spa he couldn’t believe how fast it was. Every time he ran at Spa he thought he would be killed. At the 1968 F1 race at Spa, he came very close and nearly lost his arm in an horrific accident when the suspension on his Cooper-brm failed at 160mph. The car burst into flames and slid along the guardrail with Brian’s arm trapped between the rail and the car’s chassis. Three wheels had come off the car with one hitting a marshal. When the car came to a stop, a marshal appeared with a cigarette in his mouth, he tried to undo Brian’s belts, igniting the spilled fuel and causing the car to once again burst into flames.

Counting the accident at Spa in 1968, Brian had three very serious accidents including the 1971 Targa Florio. He’d won the Targa in 1970 but unfortunately, in ‘71 the steering broke in his Porsche 908/03 causing his car to hit a stone marker, rupturing the fuel tank leading to the

Porsche exploding into flames. As Brian struggled to get out, he caught on fire.

Brian had another encounter with death in Canada in 1977 when driving the Haas/hall Lola T333. The front end of the car was caught by the wind causing it to backward somersault. After the terrible accident in Canada where the car was sliding upside down with his helmet scraping on the track, he astonished everyone by coming back into racing and taking the overall win at the 1978 12 Hours of Sebring in a Porsche 935.

Brian’s stories have had a massive impact on me. I was very touched by his willingness to share his great memories of his victories as well as the difficult times he experienced. Times when he thought he might not race again but did.

Apparently in the past some have said Brian is underrated. I have no idea why anyone would say that. It doesn’t make sense as he is unquestionably one of the greatest drivers of his generation. He won the Targa Florio, 24 Hours of Daytona (three times officially), Nürburgring 1,000km (twice), 12 Hours of Sebring (twice) and Spa a total of five times.

Brian feared the 917, as did many other drivers. However, after the aerodynamics of the car were resolved, he came to grips with it and was fastest of all at Spa. To quote Brian from our final interview, “Looking back, I remember how each time I stepped out of the car at the end of a race, especially at Le Mans, Spa and Monza, the grass was greener, the sky was bluer. I was happy I had survived. Better to be lucky than rich!

A massive ‘thank you’ to Brian

Redman for being so extraordinarily generous with his time. They are memories I shall never forget.

I share much more details about Brian’s life and career beginning in the April 2020 issue of Total 911.