Who is he

[robmarsh]

Hi there does anybody know who the guy on the right is.  I am wearing the leather jacket.  He was Danish I think and had won LMP 2 at Le Mans or had come very high up.  He accompanied me on my drive around Maranello in a Ferrari California.

[Deleted]

Who are they?

[René]

It's the Kyle & Mario show!

Edit: No Richard of course!

[René]

Nov 10, 2017 6:41:57 GMT robmarsh said:

Hi there does anybody know who the guy on the right is.  I am wearing the leather jacket.  He was Danish I think and had won LMP 2 at Le Mans or had come very high up.  He accompanied me on my drive around Maranello in a Ferrari California.

Rob, sorry but I have no idea!

[mikael]

Nov 10, 2017 6:41:57 GMT robmarsh said:

Hi there does anybody know who the guy on the right is.  I am wearing the leather jacket.  He was Danish I think and had won LMP 2 at Le Mans or had come very high up.  He accompanied me on my drive around Maranello in a Ferrari California.

Hi Rob,

His name is Lars Erik Nielsen and he is indeed Danish. He is often referred to in Denmark as Lars Erik 'Hjulspind' -- Hjulspind means wheelspin :-) It is a nickname he got in amateur racing in his young days, as he was the only one who could make a VW (Beetle) do wheelspin!

His family has had the VW import for Denmark since the very beginning (around 1950). He got his Le Mans debut at a mature age (in 2005 I think, when he was in his early 50's) after having become a very wealthy business man.

His daughter Christina Nielsen is actually more famous in motor racing connection: she is a professional driver for Ferrari USA, and she has won the American GTD Championship in the IMSA series for now two years in a row, driving a Ferrari 488 .

Best wishes

Mikael

[Deleted]

I am quite impressed, Mikael.

[Deleted]

Who is he?

[charleselan]

I may be wrong and dramatically so but is that the Andretti family with a young Mario & Aldo. If I am correct I can clearly see a similarity in the looks of Michael Andretti and his grandfather.

If I am wrong put it down to me not being fully up to speed due to the rarified UK atmosphere  .

JC

[Deleted]

You make the difficult look easy, JC! Very well argued.

Their names should be, IIRC, Gigi (Luigi, father), Rina (mother), Anna Maria (sister) and the little bros.

Interesting to see above the "American" Mario - Stetson hat, Blues Brothers-like sunglasses, thick ring at the finger - and the young kid below - classic united Italian family, not too well off after the war but always dignified. That must still be on their land in Istria, before Italy lost it for good (to Tito's Yugoslavia) and they were relocated to a refugee camp in Lucca, Northern Tuscany.

EDIT: Can't possibly say who's who between the brothers, but looking at the one smiling (on the left, in front of his mother) and today's Mario above, one can see these people have exactly the same chin and mouth expression.

[charleselan]

A great bit of additional detail Lucio which is very much appreciated.

I would say you are completely correct about Mario being the boy on the left, it can also be seen in the eyes. Do you agree that there are some strong resemblances between Michael and his grand father?

[Deleted]

Absolutely, Michael looks very much like his grandfather.

I found interesting that Michael's first wife - Marco's mother - is Italian-American too (Spinozzi is the surname) and Mario's daughter, Barbra, is now called Andretti Curto, which is another Italian name, as I discovered last year looking at the people (mainly Italian-Americans who made good) invited at president Obama last state dinner in honour of the Italian PM, which Mario attended with his daughter. Mario is notoriously a Republican and didn't hide the fact that he wasn't going to vote Hillary...

[Deleted]

Forgot to add that the Stetson and the black sunglasses above are most likely Richard Petty's and the two were having a laugh in role playing.

[mikael]

Nov 12, 2017 10:45:27 GMT @lucio said:

I am quite impressed, Mikael.

Thanks' Lucio. However, for a Dane with even just a small interest in motorsport, it's a name that's very hard to miss. He is involved in so much fundraising, promotion, etc., for Danish motorsport.

But there's another reason why I know him (not personally, though). As I told Rob when we initially "linked up" via email, my father had, in the mid-60's, a production of formula vee cars. One of those cars is now at the Danish Museum of Science & Technology in Helsingør (Elsinore), and that particular car was owned and driven (in the early 1970's) by this very person, Lars Erik Nielsen - this I know as a fact. (I believe he presented/gifted it to the museum.)

I wonder if he "helps out" at Ferrari on a regular basis - but I cannot believe that's the case. He is, as a matter of fact, now so wealthy that to work is the last thing he needs to worry about.

Here is a racing home page of his (but it seems to be ten years out of date - but of course, he is also now 66 years of age ...):
www.larseriknielsen.com/contact.html

This is the homepage of his daughter (a pro Ferrari driver!)
www.christinanielsenracing.com/

[robmarsh]

Thank you very much Mikael very impressive.  He was a very nice chap and I am sorry I had forgotten his name.  For some reason I thought it was Johnnie something.  The company he was working for hired out Ferraris and maybe he was just in the area and decided to help out though it definitely felt that he was part of the team and did it often.  If I had been on my own I would have spent all afternoon chatting to them. 

[mikael]

Rob, I hope I'm not mistaken.
The photo on his homepage, is this the man allright?

www.larseriknielsen.com/contact.html