The Calypso Kid
Our hero was a regular visitor to the Bahamas for ‘50% racing and 50% fun’. In an exclusive extract from his new book, Richard Williams takes us back to the sun and sounds of Speed Week
GETTY IMAGES
Le Mans-style start in 1955. Above: busman’s holiday for AJ Foyt and Moss, 1963
Catching some air on the waves at Nassau, March 1955; three days later Moss was racing in the 12 Hours of Sebring
An impressive line-up in 1955. In the foreground (No 39) is American driver James Lowe’s Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica Mark II
‘‘Nassau,” the US journalist turned racing driver Denise McCluggage wrote, “was a string of coloured lights across a tropical night. Nassau was the sharp blip of racing engines on a sun-drenched dock, the soft boiling-fudge speech of the Bahamians selling straw hats along Bay Street. Nassau was an umbrelladrink concoction of star-dipped nights, white sands, conch fritters, a sea rimmed in turquoise (and as clear as gasoline), and racing, racing, racing.”
On Stirling Moss’ first visit, before there was any racing there at all, he fell in love with the place. He enjoyed it so much during the short visit at the end of 1953 that he returned a few weeks later and would pay regular visits in the following years. It was part of the sterling area, which, in the days before the invention of credit cards, meant there were no restrictions on how much cash could be taken in or out, and its climate in the months of the European winter made it an attractive alternative to the popular French Riviera.