Another of the great age of racing has passed on.
No one else brought the perspective Denise offered. She was there when Phil Hill won Le Mans, driving around the track with him the night before while Phil daubed paint on all the apexes he was so worried he’d otherwise miss. She was there when Fangio and Moss were winning Grands Prix across Europe. She was a friend and confidant of the greatest names in racing. Look up pictures of Denise and you’ll usually find her placed in the middle of those greats, everyone smiling.
She won the GT class at Sebring in 1962 driving a Ferrari 250. She took fifth at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix in 1960. She won her class in the Rallye Monte Carlo in a Ford Falcon. It was a rare thing to see a woman driving a race car back in those times, and even more rare to see a woman win.
She won awards, too. Among many other accolades she was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2001 and the SCCA Hall of Fame in 2006. For her writing, she won both the Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism and the Dean Batchelor Lifetime Achievement Award.
Journalist. Race car driver. Sports reporter. Photographer. Intellectual. And friend to about a zillion people. Denise McCluggage has worn all these hats; many of them so very well. If there was ever a woman that defined "cerebral personality," basically someone who genuinely maximizes the potential of their brain and spirit — it's Denise.
Born in Kansas, she attended Mills College in the San Francisco Bay area. While working at The San Francisco Chronicle, her first job out of school, McCluggage recalls being surrounded by what we now call "car people."
She had already been attending indoor sprint car events and other races, and then moved to New York to join The New York Herald Tribune, about 1954.
Throughout the late 50s and early 60s, McCluggage raced with and against the best of them: Stirling Moss, Phil Hill, Peter Collins, Carroll Shelby, Dan Gurney, the Rodriquez brothers and even the great Juan Manuel Fangio. Though many followers of motorsports "Golden Era" hold these names out as legends, for McCluggage, they were her contemporaries, and her friends.
Her professional racing days wound down toward the end of the 60s, but her journalism career really began to take off. She was involved in the genesis of Competition Press, which ultimately became AutoWeek magazine. Today, AutoWeek is the largest weekly automotive magazine in the world, and McCluggage is still Senior Contributing Editor. Her relationship with its publisher, Leon Mandel, goes back some 30 years. According to Mandel, "Denise has always been the spiritual center of AutoWeek. She defined its aspirations. She knew how to interpret and examine the car world for the most sophisticated enthusiasts."
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Very nice tribute Jesse! Too many of the greats are leaving us, it will be a duller world with Denise gone!
ReplyDeletethanks! Yes, it's a certainty that we will not appreciate them until they are gone. And that they will all leave us within the next ten. Shelby, Garner, etc have been in the last 10 years, and the remaining known racers and builders will be gone in the next ten. Andretti, Parnelli, Petty, etc. The glory days are gone, some people remain, but the way they raced is gone. Pikes is now completely paved. Linda, Barris, Gene, Garlits, Ivo and other legends will soon pass... but will anyone realize they are still here and get all the interviews and stories while they can. I told a couple people to get on James Garner. They wasted too much time, and the last of the Hollywood guys to race with McQueen, Balchowski, and to know Von Dutch, is gone.
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