John Brooks'S BIO

Name: John Brooks

Location: South of London, UK

Previous Locations: More places South of London

Career Path: Bean Counter in Advertising & Design agencies - London. Last 10 years running own photo business, specialising in motorsport and cars.

Notable Projects/Wins: Client list over past few years: Constructors/Manufacturers: Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Creation, Dunlop, Ferrari, Lola, Maserati, Multimatic, Panoz, Zakspeed, Zytek. Magazines: AutoHebdo, Automobil Revue, Auto Motor & Sport, Autosport, Autosprint, Daily Telegraph, European Car, Evo, Motor Classico, Motoring News, Motor
Klassic, MotorSport Aktuel, News of the World, Sport Auto. Books: Automobile Year, Le Mans Annual, FIA GT Yearbook, LMS Yearbook

Car: BMW 740 (known as Das Boot - now with 167,000+ miles)

Previous Favourite Cars: M3, 325, M6, 911, M5.........any fast company car that I could get my hands on......I ran the company car fleet

Car Passions: At an early age (2) I had a peddle car with which I won several races in my imagination, then sometime around the late 60's I started to buy Motor Sport and Autocar............went to my first race at Brands Hatch in 1970 (F1 Grand Prix won by Jochen Rindt), then my first Le Mans in 1978 (2008 will be my 28th race there)...........basically no hope of any recovery.

Personal Style: Well Mannered Decline and Fall

Favourite Band of the Moment: Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Miles Davis..............

Personal Motto: When the Going gets Tough, the Weird turn Pro or It is difficult to soar with the Eagles in the Morning when you swill with the Pigs at Night

 


2,121 Posted Mar 21 2010, 11:31 PM by John Brooks with 8 comment(s)

EVENT>>2010 SEBRING 12 HOURS - RESULTS
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To no one's great surprise Peugeot won the the 58th Sebring 12 Hours testerday in the Central Highlands of Florida. The winning crew, Alexander Wurz, Marc Gene and Anthony Davidson finished 13.817 seconds in front of their sister car covering some 367 laps or 2,185 kilometres. The second place crew of Nic Minassian, Sebastien Bourdais and Pedro Lamy kept up the pressure all the way to the flag, as Alex Wurz said after the race, they were all pushing like crazy. A fine third place went to Aston...

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Posted Mar 20 2010, 01:45 PM by John Brooks with 7 comment(s)

EVENT>>2010 SEBRING 12 HOURS - QUALIFYING
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The Phoney War is over...................the flag has been waved and the engines have stopped and surprise, surprise Peugeot monopolise the front row. 07 put one over on 08 but there is a suspicion that come 10.30pm Saturday that the roles will be reversed. Third fastest was the Lola Aston Martin. The real action is in the GT2 class.........BMW took pole but failed the subsequent technical inspection, promoting The Flying Lizard Porsche to the front. Second place, a fantastic performance for the...

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2,121 Posted Mar 17 2010, 07:01 PM by John Brooks with 21 comment(s)

PREVIEW>>2010 SEBRING 12 HOURS
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March 17th, yes it's St. Patrick's Day when the whole of the USA turns green, drinks Guinness and pretends to have some connection with Ireland. Well, why not, any excuse to have a gargle even if the green wigs do not really go with my complextion. Down in Florida's Central Highlands the date also has a deep significance, it also involves alcohol in industrial quantities but this time a race is tacked on. So in 2010 we anticipate the 58th running of the Sebring 12 Hours, the first round...

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Posted Mar 16 2010, 10:50 PM by John Brooks with 20 comment(s)

EVENT>>AMELIA ISLAND CONCOURS D'ELEGANCE PT2
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MOTOR COOLED DOWN, THE HEAT WENT DOWN THAT'S WHEN I HEARD THAT HIGHWAY SOUND CADILLAC SITTIN' LIKE A TON O' LEAD A HUNDRED AND TEN, A HALF A MILE AHEAD CADILLAC LOOK LIKE IT WAS SITTIN' STILL AND I CAUGHT MAYBELLINE AT THE TOP OF THE HILL Perhaps no one has caught the essence of being a Car Guy like Chuck Berry did some 55 years ago in his first big hit, Maybelline.. "That Highway Sound" is what grips us all to a greater or lesser degree. We find it in many places from the...

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2,121 Posted Mar 13 2010, 03:28 PM by John Brooks with 16 comment(s)

EVENT>>AMELIA ISLAND CONCOURS D'ELEGANCE PT1
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A week in racing, as well as politics, is a very long time. From the frozen wastes of the Var and Le Castellet, I am now pitched into the very agreeable surroundings of the Ritz Carlton, Amelia Island for the 15th edition of the Concours d'Elegance. The show is actually tomorrow but keen as mustard me, I ventured onto the Golf Course to see what is in store when the Sun rises in the morning. Straight out of the Weissach version of Rowan & Martin's Laugh In was the Martini Racing Porsche...

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Posted Mar 13 2010, 07:50 AM by John Brooks with 13 comment(s)

PREVIEW>> LMS 2010
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"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley". Rabbie Burns' take on the essential futility of making any kind of plans struck a chrord this week. Yes even here, on SpeedHunters. The traditional LMS Test held in early March at the High Tech Test Track is usually a crisp, bright affair with the Mistral blowing and keeping us on our toes. It is an event that we all look forward to as a way of chasing the cobwebs out of our brains and our cameras after the winter hiatus...

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2,121 Posted Feb 06 2010, 10:12 AM by John Brooks with 15 comment(s)

NEWS>>2010 LE MANS 24 HOURS INVITATIONS
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Winter is finished and hibernation is over, whatever Punxatwany Phil has to say on the subject. At least in my world that is. This week down in Spain the Grand Prix Circus set out their stall for 2010. In Florida the Rolex 24 has been and gone, next up is the beginning of the NASCAR season. Best of all is the news in from the city some 120 miles West of Paris, Le Mans. This week they have announced those lucky devils who have been invited to the 2010 edition of the French classic. Andy B posted a...

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Posted Jan 27 2010, 10:30 AM by John Brooks with 10 comment(s)

EVENT>>RETROMOBILE 2010
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Another week another Show, this time I got up before I went to bed to jump on the first Eurostar to Paris and onto the 2010 Retromobile. What a contrast to the gruesome NEC and not just the Show itself. Alighting from the cab at Porte de Versailles the scene could not more different from the horrors of the charmless Birmingham. The cast was not made up of the dog eared and shop worn UK motorsport fraternity but instead there were legions of tall, slim young women. Everywhere you looked there were...

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2,121 Posted Jan 25 2010, 08:39 AM by John Brooks with 12 comment(s)

RETROSPECTIVE>>JAGUAR ON THE DAYTONA BANKING
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Twenty Years.............roughly a third of most people's adult life and yet it seems to have flashed by in the twinkling of an eye. Back in 1990 I had just left the advertising world and was working in Covent Garden for a design agency, we were so hip and so cutting edge or so we thought. Actually it was pretty good time for me, I seem to recall getting a new company car early in the year, a convertable 325 BMW, leather, flash wheels, The Full Monty. The pay and perks were pretty good too, so...

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Posted Jan 23 2010, 09:25 AM by John Brooks with 13 comment(s)

EVENT>>AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL PART FIVE
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Is anywhere safe these days? Can you have a car culture event without someone slapping a SpeedHunters sticker on a car? Well not from the evidence accrued at the Autosport Show International. Someone, probably Ross, got to the Gobstopper earlier in the year. Seems kind of appropriate. Arguably the most outrageous Subaru in existance with up to 850 bhp on tap is a suitable recipient of the legendary SpeedHunters stickers. Some things at the NEC are constant, like the Dunlop stand greeting you as you...

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2,121 Posted Jan 21 2010, 07:38 AM by John Brooks with 16 comment(s)

EVENT>>AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL PART FOUR
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Autosport is renowned for its Formula One coverage, some folks think that it follows this pinnacle to the exclusion of other branches of the sport. I suppose that the casual fans DO want to read about the expoits of Jenson and Lewis, plus it must be good for the bottom line. Certainly the company motto is "Follow The MONEY!" but if you want to know what is going on read it and the sister publication F1 Racing . So it was no surprise to see a display of current Grand Prix cars on their stand...

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Posted Jan 18 2010, 04:13 PM by John Brooks with 22 comment(s)

EVENT>>AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL PART THREE
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One of the biggest drawbacks of an event like the Autosport Show International is that it tries to illustrate a dynamic sport in an passive manner. Cars parked are cars parked, it is not what they were designed for. Perhaps the best/worst example of this would be rally cars. In our mind we associate them with being anything but static; sideways, jumping, even on the roof, yes....but not static. So observing other photographers trying to capture the essence of these wild machines was illuminating...

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2,121 Posted Jan 17 2010, 10:05 AM by John Brooks with 19 comment(s)

EVENT>>AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL PART TWO
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Good news on the GT1 horizon. Just before the endless Christmas break, stories surfaced that Gigawave Motorsport would close its doors. They had been the development partner with NISMO on the 2009 GT1 Nissan GT-R project and were going to represent the Japanese as European agents in 2010 for sales and spares. Now all that was finished. It did not come as a total surprise, as some of us had picked up vibes towards the end of the season. Thursday morning I was just leaving the hotel bound for Autosport...

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Posted Jan 14 2010, 05:22 PM by John Brooks with 16 comment(s)

EVENT>>AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL PART ONE
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Autosport, the magazine, will be 60 years old in 2010. So at the Show that uses its name, the Autosport International, it seems appropriate to celebrate this anniversary. So to kick off the SpeedHunters coverage of ASI I thought I would have a quick look round that particular stand. Of course being Autosport the majority of the cars that make up the exhibition are from Formula One, just look at the intricate arrangement at the front wing of the Renault. But it is not all F1 as this iconic Lotus Cortina...

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2,121 Posted Jan 07 2010, 07:31 PM by John Brooks with 10 comment(s)

RETROSPECTIVE>>THE OVAL OFFICE
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misfit n [ˈmɪsˌfɪt] 1. a person not suited in behaviour or attitude to a particular social environment 2. something that does not fit or fits badly In our continuing look and mavericks and misfits it is perhaps appropriate to consider the definition of such terms. The first decade of this century saw the steady growth of endurance and sportscar racing, there have been a few hiccups I'll grant you but the prevailing trajectory is upwards. The ALMS has been part of this success, not as much depth...

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Posted Jan 04 2010, 10:06 AM by John Brooks with 16 comment(s)

RETROSPECTIVE>>BERNIE & BRABHAM - THE GRAND PRIX PIRATES
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Bernard Charles Ecclestone.............OK most of you might have heard of him, he's that rich guy who effectively runs Formula One's business and has done for the past 35 years. The Brits amongst you might also know him as the Bad Guy who has made the British Racing Drivers' Club jump through hoops just to keep a British Grand Prix on the calendar and at Silverstone. Those who have to toil in the outdated facility might take a different view. Actually this only tells a small part of the...

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2,121 Posted Jan 02 2010, 07:20 AM by John Brooks with 22 comment(s)

RETROSPECTIVE>>COLIN CHAPMAN - A WAYWARD GENIUS
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Misfits and Mavericks? Sounds like most of us involved with SpeedHunters...............but it set me thinking and there at the top of the list was a man who died 28 years ago but whose legacy still shapes motorsport today. Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman founded Lotus Cars and ran a motorsport team like no other, a brilliant engineer and innovator, summed up by my old pal, Mike Lawrence in his biography of the man as A Wayward Genius. Chapman was an aeronautical engineer by training and used the theories...

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Posted Dec 31 2009, 09:10 PM by John Brooks with 6 comment(s)

RETROSPECTIVE>>DYSON RACING - AMERICA'S SPORTSCAR TEAM 2
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1994 saw the return of sanity to sportscar racing around the globe after the excesses of the final season of Group C and IMSA GTP. We all loved the Eagles, Nissans, Peugeots and Toyotas but their costs were not sustainable for the factories and their performance and budget levels had driven out the privateers, even Rob Dyson. In Europe the BPR Challenge would lead the way, creating the platform to enable Le Mans to maintain its place as the world's greatest race. We have looked at how this evolved...

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2,121 Posted Dec 31 2009, 03:35 AM by John Brooks with 6 comment(s)

RETROSPECTIVE>>DYSON RACING - AMERICA'S SPORTSCAR TEAM
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Motorsport at the highest levels is a global activity, Formula One, Moto GP, World Rally, and in North America, NASCAR, all make headlines on TV and in the newspapers. Endurance racing is not at that global level but is dependent for success on a few events that have achieved classic status, Le Mans 24, Nuburgring 24, Sebring 12 Hours, something of a pattern there. There are also individuals who have been responsible for keeping the flame burning since the demise of the glory days of IMSA GTP and...

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Posted Dec 29 2009, 08:15 AM by John Brooks with 11 comment(s)

INTERVIEW>>TANNER FOUST AT THE ROC
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It is said that there is a new Great Wall of China, this time to keep the virtual barbarians on the internet out of the People's Republic. Well, such technical matters are way beyond a humble scribe such as I, but if such a thing does exist then Tanner Foust may have brought it home with him after his visit to Beijing last month. How else would you be able to explain the time it has taken for this interview to reach SpeedHunters Towers in Vancouver? Never mind as ever he is worth listening to...

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