Alan Stacey (29 August 1933 – 19 June 1960) was a British racing driver.
He began his association with Lotus when he built one of the MkVI kits then being offered by the company. Having raced this car he went on to build an Eleven, eventually campaigning it at Le Mans under the Team Lotus umbrella. During the following years he spent much time developing the Lotus Grand Prix cars, most notably the front engined 16 and then the 18. He participated in 7 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 19 July 1958. He scored no championship points. He also participated in several non-Championship Formula One races. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
A farmer’s son, Alan Stacey started racing with a MkVI Lotus which he built from a kit and from this went on to race a hand built Lotus X1. After a very successful season in which he took victories at Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Silverstone and Goodwood, he was offered a works drive with Team Lotus for 1957. Due to a motorbike accident when he was seventeen he had an artificial lower right leg, and used a motorcycle style twist-grip throttle mounted on the gear lever to speed up down shifts.
1957 saw him with the Madgwick Cup and a race at Goodwood and as a member of the works B team, with Peter Ashdown and Keith Hall, the three had a good season. Alan and P.Ashdown were due to drive at Le Mans in the 1100 cc class but they had to step down when the 1500cc Lotus Eleven of the American drivers Mackay, Fraser and Jay Chamberlain, failed in practice.
Peter Ashdown told of times when they would be in be in a hotel or bar and he would undo some of the screws so his foot revolved 360 degrees. Also, when the racing season was finished they would ride motor bikes in trials and eventually got to know John Whitmore and they rode together in the grounds of his family’s estate. A friend of John Whitmore’s, a young actor (by the name of Steve McQueen!) joined them on these rides; this was before he became famous and at the time he was living in one of the estate’s cottages.
In 1958 there were several good results in sports cars and a second place finish at Silverstone’s Daily Express Trophy Meeting was followed by victory at the Crystal Palace Trophy Meeting. During the year he entered the 3 Hour race at Rouen but was worried about passing the medical examination so took his friend, journalist Jabby Crombac, with him. Once the doctor had tested his good leg, by tapping it below the knee, Jabby distracted him so that Alan could cross his leg and back again, enabling his good leg to be tested again. In the race he finished third after winning the 1100c class. At Le Mans, he shared a Lotus 11 with Tom Dickson and they finished seventeenth, the last of the runners and made his Formula 1 debut at the British Grand Prix, though retired on the 19th lap with overheating problems. Alan also took a number of wins in sports cars including the Farmingham and Rochester Trophies at Brands Hatch, the Crystal Palace Trophy, the International Gold Cup Meeting at Oulton Park plus national events. There was also a third place finish in a Tojeiro in the National Benzole Trophy at Snetterton plus second in an F2 Smith Climax in a Libre race at Brands Hatch.
There were two further Grand prix drives in 1959 in a Lotus Climax, finishing eighth at Aintree though he retired from the US GP at Sebring. Driving an X1V in sports cars he won at Oulton Park in April, had a class win at the British GP meeting plus took third place at Crystal Palace and the Farmingham Trophy at Brands Hatch.
Following Graham Hill’s move from the team Alan was promoted to number two driver behind Innes Ireland. His prosthetic leg had a holes in it to lighten it but one of Innes’s jokes would be to push a screwdriver into one of them, through Alan’s overalls, in front of unsuspecting people. He started the season driving a 250F Maserati in a non-championship Buenos Aires Grand Prix, though failed to finish but back in Europe he finished fourth in a Lotus Climax in Silverstone’s International Trophy. He also shared a Lotus Elite with John Wagstaff to take a class win in the Nurburgring 1000km. In F1 there was a retirement at Monaco though at Zandvoort he had a strong race and had been running third before suffering transmission failure on lap 57. Then the teams travelled to Spa in what would turn out to be a traumatic, tragic race.
The weekend started badly when Stirling Moss crashed badly and sustained a broken nose, three broken ribs and both legs and Mike Taylor also crashed and his car plunged into the trees. In the race the next day, Chris Bristow was killed when he crashed, and his car rolled several times. But, the tragedy wasn’t over as only a few laps laps later, as Alan raced on the Masta straight and approached Burnenville, he lost control, and the car climbed an embankment and went through ten feet of thick hedge before landing in a field. Although the cause of the crash was unclear, Innes Ireland was told by spectators that a bird had struck Alan’s visor before the car crashed.
