Motorsport: Grey power in driving seat for bit of nostalgia

Riccardo Patrese (left), Hans Stuck (centre) and Nigel Mansell in South Africa for the masters race. Picture / Reuters

Hans Stuck reckoned it was one of the best days of his life and he came only sixth in the inaugural Grand Prix Masters race in South Africa. So is there a glittering future for the latest extension of sporting glory for the older man?

Nostalgia plays well in sport. The over-50 golfers in the United States and Europe earn much more than they ever did in their prime.

The players may not be relying on Viagra and Cialis for their drives, but the advertisers recognise the importance of the grey market.

And nobody is allowed to look too old. No wives shown on screen look over 30 and they clearly share their beauty secrets with their husbands.

Jim Colbert, one of the most successful players in the 1990s, appeared to have his hat surgically attached to his balding pate and rug.

But golf is a game for all ages, while single-seater motor racing at the top level has in recent years been getting younger and younger.

Michael Schumacher is 37 next month and critics are saying he should have retired. The new world champion, Fernando Alonso, is 24.

Former world Formula One champion Nigel Mansell, who won that first Grand Prix Masters race at Kyalami, knows a thing or two about golf.

After bowing out of Formula One 10 years ago, he devoted himself to golf with the same single-mindedness that marked his career on four wheels. He owns his own course in England where he has staged - and played in - European senior tour events.

A couple of years ago he made a determined effort to earn a playing position on the senior tour but failed to make the cut at the qualifying tournaments in Spain.

So now he is spearheading the attempt to replicate the seniors' tour in motor racing.

In golf the seniors are allowed motorised carts to get around 18 holes. The Grand Prix veterans are piloting 300km/h single-seaters on a world championship-standard racetrack.

The minimum age was set at 45. After all, Juan Manuel Fangio was world champion in 1957 at 46 and Luigi Fagioli won the French Grand Prix in 1951 at 53. Jim Richards won the Bathurst 1000 at 55 and Kenny Smith will be contesting the New Zealand Grand Prix next month in his 65th year.

But putting together more than a dozen over-45s, some of whom have not been driving competitively for a while, seemed a recipe for disaster.

In the event 52-year-old Mansell won, 58-year-old Emerson Fittipaldi was second and 51-year-old Riccardo Patrese was third. There was minimal overtaking but the drivers were enthusiastic and 68,000 turned up to watch.

The only casualty was 59-year-old Aussie former world champion Alan Jones, who underestimated the fitness required and retired with neck pains after the first practice session. Commentator Murray Walker, who is in his 80s, was there to call the action.

The talk immediately afterwards was of setting up a world series. But would it really work?

Fans appreciated the ready access to the drivers - such a contrast to the sealed world of Formula One (and it was no more accessible when these old blokes were racing).

Yet unless the racing was for real and some of the old rivalries were rekindled, it would become a very expensive signing session.

Still if people - or their firms - are prepared to pay good money to watch elderly tennis stars work out at Stanley St, anything is possible.