i have been an observer of motorsports my whole life. i grew up watching formula 1, indy car, and nascar. it was harder to follow back in those days, as we only had a few tv stations, and there was not even a dream of the internet. many times racing results would be published several days after the events had already taken place.

it was several days after the 1 august crash at nurburgring, before i really could comprehend how close niki lauda had come to dying in the german grand prix. fortunately, lauda survived and even came back to race in that 1976 season, losing a close driving championship to james hunt. the ron howard film rush does a pretty good job in the telling of that story.

following formula 1 these days is not all that difficult, its just too bad that the cars are no where near what they used to be. i am not a fan of the modern engines, bring back the v12s please.

one of the more interesting drivers in motorsport history was ken miles. miles was english and had apprenticed at a technical school where he learned about automotive engineering. he left to join the army and would end as a tank driver in world war ii. miles was a rarity in the fact that he understood racing but also the engineering aspect of what made a good race car.

all of that said, one has to do some searching to find the endurance races. there is an informal ‘triple crown’ of endurance racing that consists of the 12 hours of sebring, 24 hours of daytona, and the 24 hours of le mans. as of last year there are only 10 drivers that have won all three races, but none have won them all in the same year. throughout the years there have been a lot of rule changes that have prevented some of the best drivers from competing in all three races at once. also, there are three other races that make for an informal big 6 set of enduro races, the petit le mans, nurburgring 24 hours, and spa 24 hours.

but in 1966 ken miles had the chance to win the triple crown in the same season. he had already won sebring with codriver lloyd ruby, and the 24 hours of daytona also with ruby. he was entered into the 24 hour le mans with denny hulme. miles missed out on the triple crown due to ford team orders to cross the finish line in formation. it is still debatable whether ford understood that this would cost ken miles the win or not. bruce mclaren and chris amon were determined to be the winners because their car had started further back than miles car therefore they had traveled a further distance.

Driving ford gt mk ii’s miles and mclaren were the best of the race. the general story is told in the film ford vs ferrari that came out a few years ago. miles was leading the race and would have crossed the finish line first had ford team orders not slowed him down for the photo opportunity that is shown below.

ken miles would never get the chance to win le mans again. he was testing the new model of the ford j car which was to be the successor to the mk ii. the j car had some issues with the aerodynamics and the experimental honeycomb panel design, and during testing on 17 august 1966 nearing 200 miles per hour, the j car suddenly flipped, broke into pieces, caught fire. miles was thrown from the wreckage and killed instantly.