A Forgotten Recording - Jack Webster with Chip Mead (1950-1993)

'Back on September 1, 1975 I did a taped interview with Chip Mead at the old Steak & Ale restaurant and bar in Kettering, Ohio. It was done shortly after I had met Chip (I had seen him at a couple of Formula Atlantic races) and the purpose of the interview was to get Chip's feelings about his racing career and racing in general for an article I was going to do for a magazine. Don't recall if the story was ever published, as the magazine went out of business around this time.

To make a long story short, I have just found the original cassette tape of this interview (which is over an hour long) and am having my son (who is the audio wiz in the family) restore, clean up and digitize it. He tells me that the quality is pretty good and that he was able to clean it up quite a bit. He tells me that near the end of the interview the tape fades away to just a hiss, but that the vast bulk of the interview is very good quality.

I was a 24-year-old budding photojournalist at the time and had already covered Can-Am, Formula Atlantic and Formula One racing. This interview was my first wide ranging conversation with Chip about racing, and I am glad that I both recorded it and saved it all these years. Who could realize that we would be working on the same race team 12 years later?'

• Jack Webster 12/11/11