Pedro Rodriguez

[CurtEgerer]

A good article on Pedro's death in 1971. He won the World Championship for Makes in a 917 that year. Although under contract with Porsche thru John Wyer, he was racing a Ferrari 512 (purchased from Steve McQueen after filming of LeMans) on a free weekend against Porsche and others!! Imagine that happening today .....

http://www.autoracing1.com/MarkC/200...Rodriguez1.htm

[John Fusco]

I did a search after watching the Nextel race there and was digusted that even though the track was named for the Hermanos Rodriguez there was no mention of them.
Missed that site - and look foreward to the book.

Thanks Curt;

John

[Chuck Miller]

Curt,

I think I've referenced this book before...
One of the very best auto books I own is 'AMERICAN RACING Road Racing in the 50's and 60's' by Tom Burnside with text by Denise McCluggage. Burnside's black and white photography is breathtaking and McClluggage's inside commentary is wonderful. - Motorbooks International; ISBN: 3895082465

One of my favorite Pedro Rodriguez pictures is on page 238...

Sebring 1959, a 19 year old Rodriguez is kneeling and praying with his ever present mama before the race...

... on the previous page a picture at the same race of Rodriguez and a very tall blond 'friend' and, of course, mama standing over them all...

Sorry for tease... but have not tried to contact Burnside for the rights the post his gorgeous pictures

BUY THIS BOOK !!!

http://tomburnside.com/cat.asp

[gruen911]

Hi Chuck,
I have that book too. It's great. I bought it in a discount bin at a Berlin bookstore last fall while my girlfriend was in town to run the Berlin marathon.
The book cost only $5.00 so I bought a second copy and gave it to a buddy as a present! It was my favorite bathroonm reading for at least 3 months.
As an aside, I was at a mechanic's garage in Zuerich a few months later with my 67 911 and chatting with one of the more arrogant Swiss mechanics telling him how disappointed I was by the lack of early Porsche 911 mechanics in Switzerland compred to the USA. He insisted that the US had little experience and knowledge of European sportscars back in the 50's and 60's, and that all the action took place over on the Continent! I let him borrow the Buirnside book for a few days. It shut him up good. In fact, I had to chase him for weeks to get it back. He wanted me to find him another one - yeah right.
There are some great pic's in there. All of the legends were young and fearless back then, including Sterling Moss, Carrol Shelby. There is a great pic of one of the racers in the garage filling up his gas tank with a big gas bucket in his hands - while he has a lit cigarette in his mouth!
And the cars were amazing. Sadly though no pic's of any early 911's....

[john_cramer]

Great link Curt.

"It is a pity there's no rain. Rain makes driving more fun and more dangerous too"

[John Fusco]

Thanks for the reference Chuck - that makes two books you recomended (the Racing Baron was the other).
Any more must reads ?

John

[Chuck Miller]

John,

You probably have it, but for those who don't...

The Hal Thoms 'Porsche Racing Milestones' is not only one of the best picture books around but also has some of the very best text I've ever read on Porsche racing history...

If you don't have, it get it ... and if you have it, take the time and re-read it...

http://www.motorbooks.com/Store/ProductDetails_8399.ncm

Cheers,

[Cornpanzer]

When Vic Elford was in town last month I had the privilage of shuttling him to and from the airport and taking him to breakfast one morning. I asked Vic what driver, if they had survived "the era", would have gone on to be the most succesful. His answer was simply one word..... "Pedro"

[CurtEgerer]

I'll 2nd the recommendation on 'The Racing Baron'. Very good. Others? I guess 'The Unfair Advantage' is pretty much required reading. For a bit of obscure Porsche history, it's got to be 'Hitler's Grands Prix in England' by Hilton. The story of Auto Union, Mercedes, Dr. Porsche, Hitler and the Nazis with World War II looming in the background. The writing seems a bit disjointed and it requires some concentration to follow all the names and sub-plots. Good stuff though.

As for Pedro - why does he not get the acclaim bestowed on other Porsche drivers? He won the Championship in a 917 2 years in a row for christ's sake. Yet, if one were to think of 70's Porsche pilots, I'll bet Elford, Siffert, Attwood, Bell, Larousse, Donohue, Follmer,and more would come to mind first .... Not saying the others weren't spectacular, but ....

[CurtEgerer]

This is a good piece by Nigel Roebuck on Pedro's most famous race ...

"Pedro and the 917 in the rain at Brands...like you, like everyone else who was there, it remains an unforgettable day for me, too. I guess, in terms of atmosphere, and for the sheer quality of the entry, Le Mans '67 will remain my particular sports car racing highlight, but in terms of a memorable drive, nothing comes close to Rodriguez at Brands in '70. He simply made every other driver look flat-footed, didn't he?
In those days, a World Championship sports car race was a Grand Prix by any other name, so let me take a line or two to go through the entry. In the JW Automotive Gulf 917s were Rodriguez/Leo Kinnunen and Jo Siffert/Brian Redman, and in the Porsche Salzburg cars were Denny Hulme/Vic Elford and Hans Herrmann/Richard Attwood. The works Ferraris were crewed by Jacky Ickx/Jackie Oliver and Chris Amon/Arturo Merzario, with Mike Parkes/Herbert Muller in the Scuderia Filipinetti car.
There was a factory Alfa Romeo for Piers Courage/Andrea de Adamich,
and the Matras were crewed by Jack Brabham/Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Henri Pescarolo/Johnny Servoz-Gavin. There were several Lola T70s for such as Jo Bonnier/Reine Wisell, and a bunch of Porsche 908s, one of which was driven by Gijs van Lennep and a brilliant newcomer, Hans Laine, who would sadly die in the car at the Nurburgring a few weeks later.
Porsche was immensely serious about sports car racing in those days, to the extent that John Wyer's team - which operated the Gulf-sponsored factory cars at the time - had available the 917 for fast circuits and the nimbler 908/3 for tight ones. The latter would have been the thing to have for Brands Hatch, but in April was not ready. Pedro, Seppi & Co had therefore to run the big cars.

By 1970, the 917 was relatively civilised, if not the natural vehicle for Brands Hatch on a wet day. Amon must have groaned on race morning for he had little relish for racing in the rain. In the dry he had Put the Ferrari on pole position, a couple of tenths faster than Ickx's sister car and the Elford Porsche, with Brabham, Siffert and Servoz-Gavin also faster than Rodriguez. But Pedro will have rubbed his hands. Never a man much to concern himself with qualifying, anyway, he loved the wet.
In absolute terms, the crowd - around 20,000 - was middling for a World Championship sports car race in those days, but in light of the weather it was astonishing. Cars were towed into the parks that morning, among them my Lotus Elan. Had it not been for Rodriguez, I might well have spent much of the afternoon worrying about getting out again. Had it not been for Rodriguez, come to think of it, I'd have left long before the end.
As it was, Pedro made that impossible. It is easy, quite commonplace, to add layers of folklore to a day, to let hindsight amplify; but only rarely do you appreciate something of legend as it happens before you. That day, sodden and cold, the crowd stayed. This owed nothing to a close race, for it was hardly that. I can speak only for myself, but that afternoon I waited simply for the pleasure of enjoying Pedro's victory.
Elford led at the end of the first lap, tailed by Ickx, Siffert, Amon, Brabham, Pescarolo and Rodriguez. In their stead, back in the pack, a T70 spun coining out of Clearways, finishing up near the start/finish line, bits of bodywork all over the road. Nowadays, they would stop the race in these circumstances, and you couldn't argue with them. Back then, they waved yellow flags, and hoped everyone would see them through the murk.
Pedro didn't - at least, he always claimed so, and John Wyer, for one, believed him: "He would never have gone through the accident scene flat out if he'd been able to see the flag. There was so much spray from the cars in front that he simply missed it. I never doubted him."Whatever, next time around Rodriguez was shown a black flag, and this one he did see . A lap later the Porsche was into the pits, and while the Clerk of the Course bawled him out, Pedro impassively sat there, steely eyes straight ahead. When the lecture was over, he let in the clutch with some vim, and hurtled away down pit lane. By now he was going on a lap down on the leaders - yet by lap 20 he was on Amon's tail, past the Ferrari and into the lead.
Rodriguez's driving that afternoon beggars description. In the course of catching Amon, he had first to deal with such as Siffert, his own team mate, whom he outbraked into Paddock in a move which left everyone stupefied and shaking their heads.
I can still see those two pale blue 917s blasting through the spray down the main straight, still recall the amazement that Pedro was up with Seppi already, and next time around would be by him. Into Paddock Siffert braked where a very brave man would brake, but Rodriguez still kept coming, and on an impossibly tight line aimed inside the other Porsche. In the dip there was the merest shimmy from the back of the car, and then it was gone, seeking out Elford and Amon.
They, like Siffert, were sacrificial lambs this day, nothing more. "That old joke," Chris said, "about why doesn't someone tell Pedro it's raining...it wasn't a bloody joke that day! I remember the way he came past us all, the things he was doing with that car. It was like sleight of hand..."
After that, it was really a matter of waiting out time. There was no race, as such, yet there was something hypnotic about the afternoon, the watching of one man, one car. We were soaked and frozen, yet curiously unaware of it. Until mid-race, anyway. At that point Pedro came in to hand over to Kinnunen, his new team mate. It seemed a good moment to seek out a cup of tea and a sandwich. Even at Brands Hatch.
An odd fellow, Kinnunen. He had made his name in Finnish rallying, and would prove shatteringly fast at the Targa Florio, where presumably he felt in his element. But at a slippery Brands Hatch he was clearly not so, and in the pits Rodriguez began to fret. He had built up a lead so substantial there was little chance of their car being caught, but he worried that Kinnunen might stick it in the fence. After an hour he could stand no more, and asked Wyer if he could take over again.
It was done. In dry overalls, now, Pedro resumed his rhythm, continued on his flawless way. Behind him, Redman crashed the other Gulf Porsche out of second place, and Amon was in and out of the pits with a recalcitrant fuel pump. Ickx, the one man who might have kept Rodriguez alert on a day like this, had stopped countless times for attention to his windscreen wipers... Ferrari electrics had struck again.
The Hulme/Elford 917, though, continued without major problem save that of having covered five fewer laps than the Rodriguez car. At 6.45 Pedro emerged from the gloom of Clearways for the last time, and took the flag. On South Bank spectators plodded through the mud to their cars, sounded their horns in the time-honoured salute of the day.
On the rostrum Rodriguez looked untouched by his work. The black hair was immaculately swept back, as ever, and there was the faintest of smiles. What was there about this Mexican - this Latin born to dust and heat - that put him at such ease on so English an April day? Siffert, sometimes a match for him on sheer pace, had been dominated, along with everyone else.
"Finesse," said David Yorke, Wyer's team manager for so many years. "In terms of speed, there wasn't usually much between them, but you always had the impression that Seppi did the job with arm muscles flexed, while Pedro sat there resting his thumbs on the wheel. His precision and sensitivity were fantastic. A day like that was made for him."
Those days, though, are gone. Do I think we will ever see their like again, that sports car racing can ever regain its previous heights? Not for a second, sadly. Just rejoice that you knew it in its glory days.