Riding With Steve McQueen, King of Cool

“One race McQueen ran several times over the years was the Elsinore Grand Prix, a real open-terrain hare-and-hound-style off- and on-road motorcycle event; ten laps around an uber-challenging ten-mile course just north of San Diego, California.”

“Son Chad McQueen recalls, ‘My old man wasn’t stupid. He probably looked at what he could make as a race driver, even under the best conditions, and what he could earn as an actor, and it was pretty clear.’ As demonstrated throughout the 1960s, and especially in 1969–1970, McQueen found other ways to feed his high-speed addiction, even if he had to form his own production company and build an entire film around motorsport to do so.”

“Here in his late forties, McQueen wears a beard and a few well-earned wrinkles around his famous blue eyes but was still trim, handsome, and easily recognized anywhere he went.”

Filming On Any Sunday: “The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, although it did not win the Oscar.”

A few years ago, Bruce Brown made the classic film about surfing, Endless Summer. Now, he’s made a new film about my favorite sport, motorcycle racing. It’s called On Any Sunday. It shows, for the first time, what the sport is really like, and I’m proud to have a little ride-on in the film. It wasn’t much, but it gave me a chance to work with some real stars. Whether you ride or not, I think you’ll enjoy On Any Sunday.”

“Billy Graham once asked what my religion was and I told him, ‘It’s the desert, the grass, the sun in the sky—and my wheels.’”