Sterling Moss died yesterday of natural causes at the ripe old age of 90. He was a childhood hero, my first childhood hero, and, now, he is gone and I am at a loss for words. Sterling Moss was probably the greatest racing driver to never win a championship and he wasn’t just my hero, he was a superstar. Patrick Stewart said it better than I can in a movie he made about Moss a couple of years ago, “A man I always envied and respected. I was seduced by Sterling’s world of speed and glamor. He was the man teenage boys wanted to be and teenage girls wanted to be with.”
Reading that quote makes me a little jealous, I thought Moss was my hero and now I read that he was everybody’s hero, in England at least. He was young and beautiful and carried himself with a grace that people don’t favor today (it is one of the few things I miss about the 50s). When notices of Moss’s death starting popping up, I kept going to the New York Times to see what they had to say and there was nothing there, but today I see there is an excellent obituary if you are curious.
