Generation of Heroes
They were born too late to fight in World War II, but they survived an era when racing was deadlier than combat.They were born too late to fight in World War II, but they survived an era when racing was deadlier than combat. Back then, racing was still just a sport rather than a marketing vehicle, and drivers were hired on the basis of skill and nerve, not how many sponsors they brought or how well they played with the media. Television coverage was rare and tape-delayed, and magazine reports dribbled in months after races had been run, so drivers didn't become pop-culture celebrities in the modern sense. Remote and somehow mythic, they were lionized as heroes, and their feats became the stuff of legend rather than the ephemeral fodder for endless highlight loops on ESPN. Many of these drivers are gone now, dozens killed in wrecks so ghastly that they would inspire universal opprobrium if they occurred today, in the age of YouTube and twenty-four-hour news cycles. And none of them are getting any younger, of course. So we sent photographer Rick Dole across the country to document some of the remaining icons of this bygone era. His portraits -- and their stories -- will run in an ongoing series that we call Generation of Heroes.
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Generation of Heroes - Automobile Magazine
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Generation of Heroes
