Stirling 'honoured' by Mallory unveiling.

Sir Stirling Moss has admitted to being affected by the welcome he received at the unveiling of a life-size bronze statue commemorating his achievements at Mallory Park this week.

The monument was unveiled in his presence by the son of Chris Meek, the owner of the circuit, in front of an invited audience that included peers and rivals such as John Surtees, Raymond Baxter, Charles Morgan of Morgan Cars, Tim Parnell, the BRDC's Roger Lane-Nott and Meek himself. Also present were 20 race cars representative of those which Moss drove during his racing career - including his first, a 2.5-litre Cooper Alta, a number of Lotuses amongst which was his most famous, the Lotus 18 which he drove to victory in the 1961 Monaco GP, and examples of Jaguars, Ferraris, Vanwalls and Maseratis.

The afternoon saw Stirling, along with Lady Moss, taking time to talk too as many of the guests as possible, before going on to sign his latest book, the 1961 Stirling Moss Scrapbook, which includes many unseen images from his personal collection.

"I have to say thank-you to everyone who turned out at Mallory Park the day after the grand prix," he told Crash.net, "I think it is enormously honouring to have a statue unveiled in recognition of your career, and it was very daunting, the thought of going up there with all those people who have taken their time out and spent their money and came.

"I was very honoured to be there, and the guy did a tremendous job on the statue. The amount of people who were there, and who they were, was tremendous. Thank-you."

And, if anyone was afraid that, having reached the landmark of having a monument unveiled to commemorate a career, Moss intended to disappear, they can rest assured that that will not be the case. Among the sentiments expressed, was that he should 'continue to compete in historic racing as he inspired others to take part in motorsport'.

"I will race for the foreseeable future," Stirling replied, "so long as Lady Moss does not object!"