Press Release
Official launch on day of his death 43 years ago
Classic Dutch Grand Prix hero Carel Godin de Beaufort honoured by website
Rotterdam/The Hague/Halfweg, August 2, 2007 – Legendary Dutch racer Carel Godin de Beaufort, the aristocratic free spirit who starred in the fifties and sixties driving his own Porsches, has been honoured by a tribute website on his life and achievements. The site was officially launched today, on the 43rd anniversary of his death in a Cologne hospital, having succumbed to the injuries sustained in a heavy practice crash at the Nürburgring.
According to its editors Marcel Visbeen, Dennis Drenthe and Mattijs Diepraam, all from the Netherlands, the website called dB (at www.carelgodindebeaufort.nl )pays homage to one of the most colourful Grand Prix drivers of the era. The brash Godin de Beaufort, known for his lanky frame, became famous for taking up the fight to the established factory teams as a brave privateer. While not competing to win but taking his craft very seriously all the same, he became respected by his peers by sticking to his values and essentially remaining his own man. That is why he is usually seen as the last true gentleman Grand Prix driver.
Carel Godin de Beaufort died at the age of thirty, but even today his life doesn’t just capture the imagination by his being the underdog hero. The nobleman was unsurpassed in his enjoyment of life and women, and a great practical joker at that. His post-race parties at his family’s Maarsbergen estate were a huge hit with his many friends in the motor racing community of the time. Moreover, the stories told about him are manifold and often hilarious to the bone.
His fame still stretches beyond Dutch borders, as the happy-go-lucky aristocrat continues to be in the hearts of many motor racing nostalgics in Britain, Germany and elsewhere. That’s why Visbeen, Drenthe and Diepraam decided to create an English-language website, enabling people all over the world to get acquainted with this Dutch Grand Prix and sportscar hero of old.
The website allows visitors to get a full grasp of de Beaufort’s life by covering the people who surrounded him, and the important places in his life. It also features his cars and teams, and endeavours to give full account of all of his races. Finally, it reports on what’s keeping people focused on Carel to this very day. The editors invite everyone to share their knowledge to separate the website from a standard biography, as they hope the site will continue to be unfinished business for a long time to come.