Off Their Rockers

At 70, Newman drove for the winning team at Daytona Rolex 24, setting a Guinness World Record as the oldest driver on the pro circuit (1995). He repeated the feat at 75, and again at 80. At 81, he was injured in a test-car flameout. His racing life imitated fiction and vice versa: playing a racer in the 1969 flick “Winning”; then becoming one; playing another racer in Road to Perdition (2002); after that, becoming a car (1951 Hudson) in a Disney flick.

Oldest to win on the Indy circuit? Italy’s Mario Andretti–at age 53 in Phoenix (1993). The last hurrah for a guy who won 111 times in 879 races over four decades, Indy winner, AP’s “driver of the century”, Racer Magazine’s “greatest ever”.

In 1998, Bob Shetterly left Baja, California in his 20-foot sloop, Vaja, and sailed the globe single-handed, setting the age record: 73. He tried to break his record six years later, injured his leg in the Philippines, flew home to Edmonton.

http://qwertyranch.blogspot.com/2005/09/around-he-goes-bob-shetterly-oldest.html 

At 77, Canadian Jack MacKenzie skied 62 miles in five days over snow, slush and ice to stand at the top of the world, where Admiral Peary once made tracks. A pilot, banker, family man, and conventional traveler, MacKenzie turned to extreme adventure in his 70s, after his wife died. Reached the pole in 1999. Source: Guinness, Wikipedia.

I’m not talking the Senior Olympics, where everybody’s over 50; a quarter-million of us have competed (my rough guess) in those biennial clashes since 1986. I’m talking about seniors in the Olympics that opened in 100 AD, that’s seen on TV, that limits itself the lesser maturities: 20s, 30s, the occasional teen, a smattering of 40s, over 50 almost unheard of. The “almost” is Scott Baird. The pesky Baird was 54 when he made the U.S. Olympic curling squad. As an alternate, but who cares? He’s a bronze medalist with the rest of the team, on the ice in Torino, 2006. Besides skating with his broom, Baird sells insurance in Bemidji, Minnesota, the U.S. curling mecca. All the women and five men on the Olympic team came from Bemidji.

Male: Bob McKeague, 80

Finished the sadistic Hawaii event in 2005. Born in 1925, raised on Depression rations (”onion sandwiches and sardines”), fought in Germany WWII, McKeague became an accountant, took up running at 57, lightened his load, (135 pounds on a 5′6″ frame). “Fanatical” (his wife says) about Ironman: completed three, passed out on his bike while prepping for a fourth, banged his head, didn’t let concussion stop his training, beat the prior age record: Jim Ward, at 77. Avoids red meat, enjoys “bashing Father Time”. 

www.signonsandiego.com/sports/20051013-9999-1s13ironman.html

Female: Madonna Buder, 76

Born 1930, 200 triathlons on her resume, speed records at Ironman Canada and Hawaii, in her 70s, outraced all the 55-59 year olds. 

Kathmandu (ANTARA News/Reuters) - A 76-year-old Nepali man has become the oldest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest, a government official said on Sunday, beating a record set last year by a Japanese man.

Min Bahadur Sherchan reached the summit on Sunday along with four other Nepali climbers, said Ramesh Khatri Chhetri, a tourism ministry official. “He is in good health and coming down the slopes of the mountain,” Chhetri said. Sherchan breaks the record set last year by Katsusuke Yanagisawa, who was 71 at the time of his ascent.

More than 3,000 people have climbed to the summit since it was first scaled by New Zealander Edmund Hillary, who died in January, and Nepal`s Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953.

The sherpa broke the prior record set two years prior by a Japanese climber, 71. “I didn’t think I would make it,” Katsusuke Yanagisawa told the AP after he descended. “No more high mountains”. Given the Sherchan eclipse, maybe he’ll change his mind.

Jeff King. Moved to Alaska in 1975, began racing in 1980, one of four mushers to win Iditerod 4 times. At 50, in 2006, King became the oldest winner in Iditerod history. Operates a kennel near Denali National Park, tinkers with sled design, added a seat belt, heated handlebars, invented a sit-down frame dubbed the Iditerod Barcalounger.

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_King_(mushing)

Elsie McLean, fourth hole, par 3 (100 yards), Bidwell Park, Chico, CA, in 2007. “For an old lady, I still hit the ball pretty good”. Harold Stilson, 16th hole, par 3 (108 yards), Deerfield Beach, FL, 2001. Stilson, a hacker for 80 years, leaves this longevity tip: “a lot of popcorn and beer”.