About Bernd Rosemeyer
Bernd Rosemeyer (14 October 1909 – 28 January 1938) was a German racing driver and speed record holder. He is often considered one of the greatest racing drivers of his era. == Career == Rosemeyer's father owned an auto and motorcycle garage and repair shop Rosemeyer & Co sur Bahnhofstraße, where young Rosemeyer worked on motorcycles and cars. Having started by racing motorcycles, Rosemeyer became a member of the Auto Union racing team with hardly any experience in racing cars. This was later considered a benefit as he was not yet used to the handling of traditional layout race cars. The Ferdinand Porsche-designed mid-engined Silver Arrows of Auto Union were fast, but hard to drive, and only he, Tazio Nuvolari and to a lesser extent Hans Stuck truly mastered the 500 bhp (370 kW) machines. Rosemeyer was also a very skilled mechanic, so, like Hermann Lang of Mercedes, he was able to give good technical feedback to Dr. Porsche and development engineer Eberan von Eberhorst to further develop the Auto Union cars and set his cars up for races to make them quicker and easier to drive. In only his second ever Grand Prix, at the daunting Nürburgring, Rosemeyer took the lead from the great Rudolf Caracciola and was almost in sight of the finish line when he missed a gear and was overtaken. However, in subsequent years he made up for this mistake by winning three consecutive races at the Nürburgring, one famously in thick fog.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.