World Championship Sidecar racers Ben and Tom Birchall were honoured to be invited to the London home of motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss OBE FIE recently, spending time with him chatting and sharing their racing experiences.
Tom & Ben Birchall with Sir Stirling Moss
After welcoming Paul Gibson of T4 Design on board as a sponsor Ben was told the company had recently done work for Sir Stirling who had expressed an interest in the brothers and the meeting was arranged.
Ben said: “We are pleased to welcome T4 Design on board and for Paul to enable us to meet up with such an icon of British Motorsport is an absolute bonus.””
Sir Stirling Moss OBE is arguably the greatest all-round racing driver of all time and a true icon of the motor racing world. Known during his career as ‘Mr Motor Racing’ he became a professional driver in 1948, at the age of 18, racing a Cooper 500.
He drove for Rob Walker from 1958 to 1962, taking part in 93 races, finishing 70 of them with 46 first places, and also drove a Maserati in 72 races, finishing in 50 with 25 first places and 31 lap records. Out of the 375 competitive races in which he finished during his professional racing career, he won an astonishing 212, which is more than one win in two!
Ben Birchall commented: “We were both thrilled to be invited to meet Sir Stirling and we spent the afternoon sharing our racing experiences in the two different disciplines of motor racing. We were amazed at his knowledge and interest of sidecar racing and learned that his keen interest in our sport came from his motor racing days with Denis Jenkinson who was his navigator during the 1955 Mille Miglia. The link is that Jenkinson was passenger to Eric Oliver with whom he became world sidecar champion in 1949.”
The Mitchells of Mansfield supported racers begin their 2014 World Championship campaign at Aragon in Spain on April 13.
