Motor Press Guild Names 2004 Dean Batchelor Award Winners

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 10, 2004 -- The Motor Press Guild presented its Dean Batchelor Award to Phil Hill and John Lamm during the organization's annual Holiday Awards Dinner on December 7, 2004 at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

Hill, a legendary race car driver and automotive writer, and Lamm, a respected automotive photographer and writer, were recognized for their book entitled, Ferrari: A Champion's View.

"It combines deeply personal human experiences with technical facts and rare insights, plus ravishing photographs. Dean would have loved this book," remarked John Retsek, co-host of The Car Show and a judge on the 2004 Dean Batchelor Award panel. Award presenter and Motor Press Guild Board Member, Eric Dahlquist stated "The book offers closure on why these events happened the way they did and why the personalities, places and automobiles have become classic and are worthy of our attention."

Hill still holds the honor of being the first, and only American born driver to win the Formula One World Championship. In Ferarri: A Champion's View, Hill illustrates his ten year career as a Ferrari factory driver. Starting in 1952, Hill competed in 88 races, won 25 of them, and placed in the top-three an impressive 51 times. During that time, Hill also won both the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 12 hours of Sebring three times. In the book, Hill places the reader in the cockpit, explaining the complex mechanics and the driving experiences behind the wheel of his many race cars.

John Lamm worked with Hill on the 190 color and 30 black and white photographs in the coffee-table sized book. For Lamm, a successful published author himself, this is his second Dean Batchelor Award, having last won it in 2001 for a feature in Road & Track magazine.

The Dean Batchelor Award was established in 1995 and annually recognizes outstanding achievements by automotive writers, photographers and broadcasters. It was named in honor of one of the icons of automotive journalism, Dean Batchelor, whose passion for automobiles led him to many positions at various magazines in the industry and also to author several definitive books. In addition, Batchelor was actively involved in motorsports, designing and building the "So-Cal Special" race car that was used as inspiration for the award.