RallySport Magazine March 2017

FROM CARRERA PANAMERICANA
FROM PANAMERICANA IT STA
Story:
MARTIN HOLMES
Motor sport has a long tradition
in Mexico. There were
no fewer than 15 Grand Prix
races held in the country, there were
the legends of the racing brothers Rodriguez,
the dusty endurance Baja 1000
off-road race, the 1970 London Mexico
marathon and its 1995 re-run, the
American single-seater championship
races run at Monterrey and Mexico City
- and even an FIA World Production Car
rally champion in Benito Guerra.
Through all this history the Carrera
Panamericana races were the most
emotive. Run for five years from
1950-1954, these events were a crazy
amalgam of glory and tragedy.
It was the occasion the great
competition teams from Europe like
Ferrari, Lancia, Mercedes, Gordini,
Alfa Romeo and Porsche went racing
head-to-head with the top teams from
North America along the open roads in
Mexico.
The event was conceived as a way for
proving to the people of Mexico that,
just like similar events had earlier done
in South America, arterial roads had
now been built to allow people to travel
from one end of the country to another.
Roads were a way to unite the people in
the country - and were there to provide
the chance to race!
Guy Lassauzet, a long time motor
sport enthusiast, recalls how rallying
first started in the country.
“My father Rene was a course official
in the Panamericana in the ‘fifties. It
was quite an international occasion.
Most of the competing cars were
American, but the event also created
considerable interest in Europe.
“My father became friends with Louis
Chiron, the Monagasque Grand Prix
driver who came each year to the race.
Chiron said it was first necessary to
form a club before starting to organise
a rally.
“The first rally in Mexico was called
the Rally Morelos and held in October
1954. It was two days long and the
drivers had to select a preferred
regularity average speed suitable for
the car they drove, even though they
had no idea of the sort of roads they
would have to take!
“Of course the only navigational
instrument in those days was the car’s
standard distance recorder.”
The French had started to influence
Mexican motorsport. Regularity
sections were the foundation of
national rallying until 1988.
One of a group of Frenchman who
emigrated to Mexico was the rally driver
Jean Trevoux, four times Monte Carlo
winner in the days when regularity
sections were the competition style of
the event. He went to Mexico to watch
the Panamericana, liked it and the life
so much that he never went home!
The French were not alone. Swiss
born Franco Soldati, who later became
President of the Mexican federation
FMAD after becoming the country’s top
rally driver, explained:
“Mexico was a poor country and
import restrictions severely limited the
opportunities to import cars. Some
foreign drivers were able to import cars
to Mexico just for the race, if they then
drove them to their home countries,
even as far away as Argentina,
afterwards.
“In 1962 the commercial borders
were completely closed to imported
cars. Only cars made in Mexico
Kristian Sohlberg pushing
hard on the 2007 Rally
Mexico in his Subaru
Impreza. (Photos: Holmes)
52 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017