Photo: Courtesy Brock Yates Jr.
Brock Yates, one of the most prolific automotive journalists from America, has passed away yesterday, at the age of 82.
Yates is remembered for his long career with Car and Driver, as well as his pit reporting for CBS of NASCAR Sprint Cup events. Mr. Yates was also a TV commentator fo various motorsport events.
In all those years of reporting, Yates also found the time to start a family with his wife, Pamela, and to write multiple books, which turned him into a best-selling author.
The first articles written by Brock Yates were published in Science and Mechanics Magazine, back when he was just 16 years old. However, if you do not remember Mr. Yates for his automotive reporting, be it written or spoken, you might have seen some of the movies he wrote, or maybe the sequels that were inspired by them.
The automotive journalist was the person that came up with the idea of The Cannonball Run. In 1971, he won the first race along with Le Mans and Formula One winner Dan Gurney, Autoweek notes.
They drove a blue Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona from New York To Los Angeles in 35 hours and 53 minutes, a record time at that moment. The race had four sequels until 1979, and the last inspired the 1981 movie “The Cannonball Run,” which was written by Yates, who also participated as a producer.
While the event was not continued in its original form, it was transformed into the Tire Rack One Lap of America in 1983, which is now run by his son, Brock Yates Junior.
If The Cannonball Run has evaded your attention, you should know that Brock Yates was a co-writer of the screenplay for Smokey and The Bandit II, Cannonball Run II, and the 1994 movie Bandit. Eight films credit Yates as a writer, and he even was a character in the 1981 Cannonball Run, where he was playing the part of the race organizer.
Brock Yates is missed by his family, friends, colleagues, and America's automotive community for his unmistakable mark on the industry.
In all those years of reporting, Yates also found the time to start a family with his wife, Pamela, and to write multiple books, which turned him into a best-selling author.
The first articles written by Brock Yates were published in Science and Mechanics Magazine, back when he was just 16 years old. However, if you do not remember Mr. Yates for his automotive reporting, be it written or spoken, you might have seen some of the movies he wrote, or maybe the sequels that were inspired by them.
The automotive journalist was the person that came up with the idea of The Cannonball Run. In 1971, he won the first race along with Le Mans and Formula One winner Dan Gurney, Autoweek notes.
They drove a blue Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona from New York To Los Angeles in 35 hours and 53 minutes, a record time at that moment. The race had four sequels until 1979, and the last inspired the 1981 movie “The Cannonball Run,” which was written by Yates, who also participated as a producer.
While the event was not continued in its original form, it was transformed into the Tire Rack One Lap of America in 1983, which is now run by his son, Brock Yates Junior.
If The Cannonball Run has evaded your attention, you should know that Brock Yates was a co-writer of the screenplay for Smokey and The Bandit II, Cannonball Run II, and the 1994 movie Bandit. Eight films credit Yates as a writer, and he even was a character in the 1981 Cannonball Run, where he was playing the part of the race organizer.
Brock Yates is missed by his family, friends, colleagues, and America's automotive community for his unmistakable mark on the industry.
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