Eddie Rickenbacker Quotes

With tennis, you can go pick up a racket, take a lesson, and understand how much talent and skill it takes to be as good as the top pros. Same with golf: pick up a club. But not many can go out and get in a race car and experience a drive at over 200 miles an hour.

I think it's always better to be in an F1 car because, in general, the car behaves itself.

It's like when people talk about driving F1 cars in the rain. I have absolutely no problem with it.

I've tried everything other than jumping out of a plane, but nothing gives you an adrenaline rush like racing a car.

I think you have to feel comfortable with your car. You have to go into turn one, every lap, with confidence. You have to be sure of yourself and your equipment.

I think I've lost that ability to slow things down - that ability drivers have to calculate what's coming by you at tremendous speed. I used to have it.

Cornering is like bringing a woman to a climax. Both you and the car must work together. You start to enter the area of excitement at the corner, you set up a pace which is right for the car and after you've told it it is coming along with you, you guide it along at a rhythm which has by now become natural. Only after you've cleared the corner you can both take pleasure in knowing it's gone well.

It's just fantastic to feel the speed and the braking. It was a hard work - to hold an f1 car on the circuit is a job in itself. To drive quickly is another thing. I enjoyed it.

First you learn to drive fast. Next, you learn to drive fast in traffic. Then, you learn how to do it for 500 miles.

The SUV was the only car moving. Josh had his foot pressed flat to the floor, and the needle on the speedometer hovered close to eighty. He was becoming more comfortable with the controls—he hadn't hit anything for at least a minute.

The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.

To be a racing driver it's essential you have very good eyesight, and that's especially relevant at night. Your senses are heightened, you're travelling over 200mph, you need to focus on that 110-metre braking point and you have to have absolute faith and commitment in your driving.

First time I looked at a Formula One car in person, I just stared at the cockpit, figuring I'd never get in there. The drivers wear the whole car like a tight-fitting suit.

I love driving fast. I grew up in Germany; we have the Autobahn here, where we can drive without a speed limit. And throughout my 20s, I always had fast cars, and I always went to the maximum. Like, my average cruising speed was 250 km/hr.

I drive a car, like an adult. Not brilliantly. I'm not great.

To have some idea what it's like, stand in the outside lane of a motorway, get your mate to drive his car at you at 95 mph and wait until he's 12 yards away, before you decide which way to jump.

One of my greatest pleasures in motor racing is qualifying. You have loads of freedom from pushing a lap the whole way. I've always been very good in qualifying in the past; everything I've done, I've got pole positions.

The more precisely I can drive, the more I enjoy myself.

As a driver, you want to race every lap possible, especially when you've got a good car.

You have to visualize a second or two ahead of your car what line you are taking, what you are going to do, before you get there because it comes too fast.

I am a trained, professional stunt driver. I'm a great driver.

The fact is I don't drive just to get from A to B. I enjoy feeling the car's reactions, becoming part of it.

The GTO is such an important car because it's a racing car and a touring car and that's pretty unusual.

Auto racing is boring except when a car is going at least 172 miles per hour upside down.

Be able to back up a car for a considerable distance in a straight line and back out of a driveway.