As a kid and growing up, the name and voice I associated most with motorsports was Chris Economaki; he passed away today aged 91.  I especially remember him covering all sorts of events on ABC Wide World of Sports – Indy500, Daytona 500, Formula 1, and Le Mans.  He later switched to CBS and covered similar events including the IROC series.

A couple of years ago, I came across a DVD of the 1965 LA Times Grand Prix at Riverside with Chris doing lots of trackside interviews with the greats of the time like Bruce McLaren and Dan Gurney.  You can still get it here over at The Motorsport Collector along with lots of other cool stuff. Again, as a kid, I loved Riverside from afar. Unfortunately I never saw it in person – it was long gone by the time I landed in California.  You can see a little bit of Chris Economaki as the pit reporter in this video of the 1965 race hosted by a younger Dave Despain:

Chris Economaki did so much for racing in the US – beginning with his first racing column as a 14 year old! His many contributions will be long remembered.  You can find his great book on auto racing as seen from his eyes over the course of many years here.

Update: I came a cross a nice article about Chris Economaki on the MotorSport Magazine website.