Carroll Shelby

Listing Carroll Shelby as a ‘forgotten’ driver seems a contradiction for such a legendary figure but for the purpose of the group he is included for his involvement in F1 from 1958 to 1959. He suffered from a serious heart problem at the age of 7, which doctors thought he had grown out of by the time he was 14 but it would eventually force him to retire from racing in 1960 and in 1990 he underwent a heart transplant.

Carroll Hall Shelby was born in Leesburg, Texas, on the 11th January 1923, but his heart problem caused him to spend a great deal of time in bed as a youngster. His father was a rural mail carrier and he sometimes accompanied him on his route, urging him to drive faster. His interest in automobiles began at a young age and by the time he had a Willys “I raced everybody who wanted to race. I used to take that Willys down to a railroad yard and drive it over a hump at 70 mph. One night the police caught me. They took me home to my daddy, and after that I didn’t drive for six months.” While attending High School he received many reprimands from the principal for racing his car along the road in front of the school but he admitted “I was a bad student. I was always in his office for skipping school.” He went on to study Aeronautical Engineering at Georgia School of Technology and later enlisted in the US Army Air Corps; while on training missions he would keep in touch with his fiancee by dropping love letters onto her farm. He became a second Lieutenant but although he requested it he never went into combat as it was the practice in WW II of the Air Corps to keep the best pilots in the USA to train others. He was assigned to fly a number of bombers which included B-18s, B-25 Mitchells, B-26 Marauders, B-17 Flying Fortresses and the Super Fortress B-29s. At the end of the War he left the military and began a dump truck business, worked briefly as an oil-well roughneck and later set up on a farm raising chickens but although his first batch earned him a big profit he went bankrupt when his second batch died from disease. In early 1952 he had his first taste of racing with a Ford Model A flathead in a drag race meet at the Grand Prairie Naval Air Station. Some months later while accompanying his friend Ed Wilkins when he was competing with an MG TC in a road race at Norman, Oaklahoma, he convinced Ed to let him have a go. He went on to win both races and told how “It was my first sports car race and I had no idea what to do but just drive. I won it, and another race there, too. I outran all the Jaguar XK-120s with that MG!” He had a drive himself in an XK120 and was twelfth at Elkhart Lake plus took fourth in an Allard J2 in October at a SCCA race at Turner. In further races with an Allard the following year he won at Mansfield, Eagle Mountain and Offutt plus was second at the Offutt meeting with a Ferrari 340 Mexico. During this time, it was said that after working late at the farm he went straight to the track at Fort Worth, Texas, in his work overalls in order to make it on time for practice. This attracted a great deal of attention and he continued wearing them, with striped bib coveralls becoming a racing trademark, even wearing them on the victory dias when he won Le Mans in 1959.

He first ventured abroad in 1954, to race Texan rancher Roy Cherryhome’s Allard-Cadillac in the opening race of the World Sportscar Championship in Argentina and took pole position for the privateer team. The race was won by Giuseppe Farina and Umberto Maglioli in a Ferrari 375 MM but though he and Dale Duncan finished tenth he won the SCCA Kimberly Cup as the highest-finishing amateur in a race of international professionals. During the race the Allard’s carburettors burst into flames during a pit stop and with no fire extinguisher available, Dale put out the fire by urinating on the engine. His drive caught the attention of Aston Martin’s John Wyer, who offered him a works seat at Sebring, though he and Charles Wallace retired after 77 laps with technical problems. Later that month he was third with Guy Mabee’s Jaguar C-Type at Bergstrom plus took two victories with Roy Cherryhome’s C-Type at Eagle Mountain. He joined Donald Healey (whom he had met in England) and his team at the Bonneville Salt Flats in August for speed record attempts and driving a 100S, and supercharged Austin-Healey 100S, he, D.Healey, Captain G.E.T. Eyston, Mortimer Morris Goodall and Roy Jackson-Moore set 70 Class D National speed records, with Carroll himself setting 17. There were four more drives in an Aston Martin DB3S in Europe through May to July and it started with a second place finish to Duncan Hamilton’s C-Type in the Aintree International. He was teamed with Paul Frere at Le Mans though they retired with mechanical issues after 11 hours though sharing with Peter Whitehead they came home fifth at a Supercortemaggiore event at Monza. His final Aston drive that year came in the sports car race at Silverstone’s British GP meeting and he took the flag in third place behind Aston driving Peter Collins and Roy Salvadori. He credited John Wyer in helping refine his racing, “John Wyer made fewer mistakes than anyone I’ve ever seen. He taught me that no wild, crazy-driving fool gets to the top. You have to plan each race and drive as you plan it. He taught me how to plan for myself.” November saw the running of the Carrera Panamericana road race and the organisers were taking no chances, deploying 25,000 police and troops to keep the roads clear, with personnel stationed all along the route. He and R.Jackson-Moores co-drove an Austin-Healey 100S but unfortunately Carroll hit a large boulder, which sent him into a rocky outcrop, wrecking the car and he sustained a broken arm. Recalling the incident he described how on the second day he was running third U.Maglioli and Phil Hill but “I guess I got smart-alecky. I started driving too fast, trying to catch up with the leaders, and flipped on a curve. It was just a lucky thing that I happened to go off at a place where there was a wall along the road, because the mountain went straight down. The wall stopped the car. I shattered my right elbow in the wreck. It didn’t hurt too much at the time; I guess I was in shock. But I had to lie there beside the road for six hours until all the cars went by.” Eventually he was taken by ambulance to a hospital at Pueblo.

Although still recovering from his injuries he drove with his arm in a cast in the early races in 1955. When it came to a race he said “I’d have another doctor cut off that cast and put on a lighter one. I’d put my hand on the steering wheel, and then he’d slap on a quick-drying cast made of something like Fiberglas.” His first 3 races came in Allen Guiberson’s Ferraris and in February he was second with a 375 MM at Fort Pierce. Shortly after he co-drove a 750 Monza at Sebring with Phil Hill and they took second to the D-Type Jaguar of Mike Hawthorn and Phil Walters while July saw him back in the 375 MM and he took victory at Torrey Pines. Then came a number of races with Tony Parravano’s Ferraris, taking first and second at Seafair with his 375 Plus though racing in Europe he retired his Ferrari 121 at Oulton Park in the UK. While in Europe he drove a Ferrari 750 Monza with Gino Munaron in the Targa Florio and had his first GP drive while he was on a car-buying tour of Italy for Tony Parravano. He told how “It was him that got Maserati to give me a Formula One. I could’ve driven for the factory, Maserati, in 1956 if I wanted to, but I couldn’t stay over there. You know, I had the kids back in Texas and I couldn’t stay for the whole season.” He raced a Maserati 250F and came home sixth in the Syracuse GP then finished ninth with Masten Gregory in a Porsche 550 in the Tourist Trophy at Ulster. However he luckily survived a nasty accident in the TT, telling how “I took it out first, just moseying around, trying to get the feel of the course. On the second lap I went over the blind hill they call Deer Leap—you take off into the air for a few feet—and it looked like the road in front of me was on fire. I thought, ‘Shelby, there comes a time when you do or you don’t,’ and just kept going. My car hit an engine that had been jolted out of one of the cars that caught fire, but I got through O.K. It just singed my eyebrows a little. I think that was the only time I was really scared in a race.” Besides the ninth place finish, they won the race’s 1500cc. class, but two drivers sadly died during the accident.

In 1956 he remained in America and there was a hectic race schedule in a variety of machinery, starting with victory at Palm Springs in February with Tony Parravano’s Ferrari 410 Sport. In the following month he and Roy Salvadori co-drove an Aston Martin DB3S at Sebring but despite suffering gearbox problems early on they completed the remaining 10 and a half hours using top gear only and brought the car home in fourth place. There were a number of Ferrari drives (in a 750 Monza, 121 LM, 500TR, 410 Sport and 857S) for Dick Hall, R.Cherryholme and John Edgar and besides two second place finishes at Eagle Mountain he had 15 victories at Pebble Beach, Road America, Beverly, Brynfan Tyddyn, Seafair, Eagle Mountain and Palm Springs plus twice each at Dodge City, Fort Sumner, Montgomery and at Nassau. His runs up the slopes of Mt. Washington, Giant’s Despair and Cumberland were the fastest ever and other reports say he was almost invincible in the SCCA schedule, stating he won 40 races (including 18 feature events) and only lost six. Away from the Ferraris, in two races with an OSCA TN he was second at Road America and Eagle Mountain. The following year was another busy one and he was mostly seen in John Edgar’s cars, winning twice at New Smyrna Beach with a Ferrari 410 Sport plus was second with it in the Cuba GP. Soon after Cuba he took victory with an A.D.Logan entered Ferrari 375 MM at Mansfield then took podiums at Palm Springs, Hawaii and Road America in a Maserati 300S plus won with it at Cumberland, Cotati (a US Naval base) and Lime Rock. Switching to J.Edgar’s Maserati 450S he won at Lime Rock, then twice at Virginia and at the end of the year took victories at Palm Springs and Riverside plus second in the Nassau Trophy. In other machines there were drives in an Elva and Ferrari 750 Monza at Mansfield while in a Chevrolet Corvette he had two podiums at Cumberland and another at Hammond. Unfortunately, in the September he suffered a bad crash during practice at Riverside which required three vertebrae to be fused and plastic surgery on his face. Amazingly, he was back at Riverside two months later and despite a first-lap spin, won a classic victory over Masten Gregory, Walt Hansgen, and Dan Gurney.

1958 started with a January victory at Miami with Temple Buell’s Maserati 450S followed by third in the Cuba GP the next month in John Edgar’s 450S. In April he drove J.Edgar’s Ferrari 410 Sport to second place at Palm Springs and would have his final victory that year with the J.Edgar/Temple Buell 450S at Palm Springs in November. He and Roy Salvadori retired an Aston Martin DBR1 at Sebring though he was tempted back to Europe by John Wyer and his best results were third in the Goodwood Tourist Trophy (with Stewart Lewis Evans) and with a DBR2 at Spa. He was teamed with Salvadori at Le Mans but unfortunately came down with dysentery and had to be replaced by Stuart Lewis-Evans a few hours into the race. There should have been a drive at Indianapolis but he was prevented from doing his rookie test by USAC rules. After co-driver Jack Ensley took his test in the car, when Carroll went to do his he was told two people weren’t allowed to test in the same car; on being told this he declared ‘I’m going to Belgium.'” While in Europe, he made his F1 World Championship debut at Reims in July, where he qualified seventeenth in the Scuderia Centro Sud Maserati 250F but retired with a blown engine. At Silverstone he qualified fifteenth and brought the car home in ninth place but after qualifying an encouraging tenth in a Temple Buell run 250F at Oporto in Portugal he was running sixth but crashed out on lap 48 when his brakes failed. His final race came at Monza but Masten Gregory took over the Temple Buell car while Carroll was back in the Centro Sud 250F. He suffered a high speed spin during practice when a drive shaft broke but though the team replaced it with another they had brought along but it was only as he sat in it for the first time on the grid that he discovered the cockpit was laid out for someone half his size. Unfortunately his car retired on the opening lap but in the closing stages of the race he was allowed to swap with Masten Gregory and the pair would share a fourth place result.

January 1959 saw him down under for the New Zealand GP at Ardmore and he came home fourth with the Maserati 250F, behind the Cooper T45s of Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren. The following races proved disappointing, in a Maserati 450S at Pomona, then with Bill Krause and Lloyd Ruby at the Daytona 1000km and he and Roy Salvadori retired a DBR1 at Sebring in March. His first win came in May at Langhorne in a Cadillac Special and there was a drive the next month in a Porsche 718 RSK with Wolfgang Seidel at the Nurburgring 1000km. However the year brought a highlight with victory for him and Roy Salvadori at Le Mans, despite both drivers suffering through the race. The pair drove to Le Mans in an Aston Martin DB MKIII while Jack Fairman took a Lagonda Shooting Brake packed with spares for the race. Unfortunately, in the race the heat generated in the DBR1, through its aluminium bodyshell and the position of the clutch pedal above the exhaust pipes, caused Roy to suffered burns to his feet which caused permanent scars and he said later that “I used to wear boxing boots..those boots weren’t up to the job. It was very painful throughout the race, but you just had to get used to it. You had to cope.” Carroll did not have that problem as he wore asbestos driving shoes but he suffered with a stomach bug from the sixth hour of the race to the finish and to keep going said “I just drank Coca-Cola all through the race.” Aston Martin entered F1 with the DBR4 that year and he was teamed alongside Roy Salvadori for five races. The cars made their competition debut at Silverstone’s non-Championship BRDC International Trophy and he posted some fast lap times to start in sixth place. He initially ran well but his race ended when his oil pump failed two laps from the finish though he was classified sixth, four places down on his second placed team mate. The car’s World Championship debut came at the Dutch GP at Zandvoort and Carroll qualified thirteenth (to his team mate’s 10th) but both cars succumbed to engine problems in the early laps and failed to finish; the mechanical failure on lap 25 caused his Aston Martin to lock up solid and spin down the track, luckily without hitting anything. The next outing came in the British GP at Aintree and things looked promising with a sixth place qualifying position. Unfortunately, he struggled during it as a magneto had a sheared drive and he eventually retired when the other magneto drive sheared. At the Portuguese GP at the challenging Monsanto circuit both cars managed to finish, with Roy classified sixth while Carroll was eighth, after starting thirtenth. At Monza, which proved to be his last GP, the cars were down on power for this high speed circuit and could only qualify seventeenth and nineteenth but though his team mate retired with engine failure Carroll took the flag in twelfth. There was a three car squad entered for Goodwood’s Tourist Trophy and he was paired in one of the DBR1/300s alongside Jack Fairman. During the race the Salvadori/Moss car caught fire during a pit stop, with Roy having to jump from the car and roll on the ground to put out his burning overalls but the blaze also set the pits well alight. After the fire was brought under control, Stirling was transferred to the Shelby/Fairman car and the trio went on to victory. His final races that year saw him back at Nassau and he took a podium result in the Governor’s Trophy with a Maserati 450S. Worryingly, Carroll had had the first hint of heart pains in 1959 and these got more serious in 1960, and during that year he raced more than once with nitroglycerine pills under his tongue. In a later interview he told how “It knocks the top of your head off. It dilates your arteries and veins and gives you a headache for 30 seconds. You don’t want to do it in a race car” but it was said he took five hits during a race at Laguna Seca. The year started with Camoradi though he retired at the Cuban GP in a Porsche while in two drives in their Maserati Tipo 61 he and Masten Gregory retired at Sebring though racing alone he won at Riverside. There was a sixth place at Vaca Valley with a Porsche 718 RSK and in June he took victory with a Meister Brauser entered Scarab Mk 11 at Continental Divide. Also in June, a revival Vanderbilt Cup Race was held at Roosevelt Raceway (New York region) with the course laid out on the paved parking areas of the harness race track facility. The race usually fielded amateur drivers but this running was granted special event status and professional drivers were allowed to enter. With all drivers in Formula Junior racers, alongside Carroll the field included Jim Rathmann, Rodger Ward, Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez, Lorenzo Bandini, Jim Hall and Walt Hansgen. The event had two qualifying heats of five laps to determine the pole positions for the main race but though 33 racers started only 14 finished. There were several drives in Max Balchowsky’s Ol’ Yeller Mk11 at Road America and Santa Barbara and rounding off the year in Frank Harrison’s Maserati Tipo 61 he was fifth and second at Riverside and Laguna Seca. The races on December 3rd and 4th would be his last and he retired from racing, finishing the season as overall USAC driving champion.

His retirement would start a new chapter in his life and make him even more famous than he had been as a driver. His achievements after racing would require a further chapter to be added but in a condensed version he would develop the British AC sports car into the Shelby Cobra and went on to form All-American Racers with Dan Gurney. He was involved in the program that would turn around Ford’s GT40 effort and produce the first all-American win at Le Mans. He established Shelby American Inc. in 1962 to manufacture and market performance vehicles, as well as Carroll Shelby Licensing in 1988 which grew into Carroll Shelby International. In 1956 and 1957, he was named Sports Illustrated ‘Driver of the Year’ and his autobiography ‘The Carroll Shelby Story’ was published in 1967. In 1990 he underwent a heart transplant and his post op memory was of seeing a tall, bearded man wearing a hat and a long coat. Carroll said “I thought I was getting the last rites. So I told this fella ‘I’m really a little more Protestant than Hebrew.’ He said: ‘I’m not a rabbi. I’m an immunologist just figuring out what to do. You’ve got pneumonia and a temperature of 105.’ ”

He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1991, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1992 then in 2008 was awarded the Automotive Executive of the Year Award and inducted into the SCCA Hall of Fame in 2013. He also established the Carroll Shelby Children’s Foundation to pay the medical bills of children who have heart disease but cannot afford to pay for treatment. During his racing day, Sports Illustrated magazine named him their ‘Driver of the Year’ in 1956 and 1957.
Carroll sadly passed away on May 10th, 2012, at the age of 89 and he had said at one time “I’ve approached life and lived it pretty damned well just like I wanted to because I didn’t think I’d live very long.” Jay Leno hosted the memorial service to him, where a young woman spoke not only about receiving a transplant from the charity but of how Carroll kept in touch with her the rest of his life.