Young Fangio Proves to Be as Driven as His Uncle

Fangio . . . Gurney . . . Brabham.

Those magical names from the past tend to kindle memories of epic Formula One races of the 1950s and ‘60s, when Grand Prix racing at the Nurburgring, Monaco, Monza and Reims riveted the attention of the world’s motor sports enthusiasts.

Juan Manuel Fangio, the Maestro, is the five-time world champion from Argentina. Dan Gurney, the apple-pie American, built his own car and drove it to victory in Belgium. And Jack Brabham, Black Jack from Australia, won three world championships.

Those same racing families, though in different generations or circumstances, have helped make this year’s International Motor Sports Assn. season one of the most intriguing in its 19-year history.

Fangio is Juan Manuel II, nephew of the Maestro. Gurney is Gurney, but at 58 is a team manager, not a driver. Brabham is Geoff, son of Jack, and the defending champion in the exotic Camel GTP (Grand Touring Prototype) classification.

Fangio, 33, drives for Gurney’s Toyota GTP team. He started out in the all-new, Gurney-built Eagle, but later switched to the Japanese-built Group C car for his first full season on the sports car circuit.

Brabham, 37, has dominated GTP the last two seasons in his Don Devendorf-prepared Nissan, winning nine of 14 races each year.

One race remains this year, the Camel Grand Prix of Southern California Sunday at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego County. The championship will be decided between Brabham and his Nissan teammate, Chip Robinson, who holds a four-point lead.

Although this is Fangio’s first full year with Gurney, he has been driving in long-distance races for the team since 1986.

“The minute I heard someone with that name was racing, it piqued my interest,” Gurney said. “His uncle had been maybe my all-time favorite driver, a truly legendary figure in racing.”

Young Fangio apparently felt the same about Gurney.

In 1984, when he was in Southern California to drive a Can-Am car at Riverside International Raceway, Fangio stopped by Gurney’s All-American Racers shop in Santa Ana for a social visit.

“We talked a bit about his racing future, but nothing specific,” Gurney recalled. “We kept in touch and the next year, in a celebrity race in Miami, I saw him drive for the first time. He impressed me. Here was a guy relatively inexperienced and he beat some strong drivers. What impressed me most was that he found himself in some awkward situations and drove his way out of them.”

The race was the Mazda Inter-American Challenge. Fangio won for the second straight year, and among the also-rans were Emerson Fittipaldi, Roberto Guerrero and Willy T. Ribbs, now Fangio’s teammate.

“Later on, when an opportunity arose, I asked him to drive for us at Riverside (in 1986) in The Times six-hour race,” Gurney said. “When I watch him, I feel the echo of his uncle in many respects. I mean, he has that tender, finesse kind of touch with a car, but beneath it there’s a man of steel, a driver with resolve.”

Fangio earned his full-time ride with Gurney after successful campaigns in the Corvette Challenge and the American Racing Series for Indy car hopefuls. He won an ARS race at Mid-Ohio in 1987, and at Cleveland and Elkhart Lake last year, and he won Corvette races at Riverside, Portland and the New Jersey Meadowlands in 1988.

“I scouted Juan in the ARS race last year at Laguna Seca and signed him for this season, and we expect him to be in the Eagle next year, too,” Gurney said.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Juan likens the atmosphere around Gurney, his mentor, to that around his uncle, the great Fangio.

“They both give me space,” young Fangio said. “They are always there when I need them, when I want information or guidance, but neither is bothersome. It was the same way with my father. He knew I wanted to drive a race car, but even though he was in the business, he never pushed me. Far from it.”

Gurney and the elder Fangio never raced against one another in a Grand Prix. Fangio retired in 1958 after driving in the French Grand Prix at Reims. Gurney drove in a preliminary race the day before Fangio’s final race, but he did not drive in Formula One until 1959--the year of Brabham’s first world championship.

“I have watched the Maestro on rare occasions,” Gurney recalled. “Once, in particular, was at Donington, England, where he drove a pre-World War II Mercedes-Benz. He was already in his 70s, but on the very first lap, when he reappeared, he came out in opposite-lock attitude and brought tears to my eyes.

“The spirit was there and he still had the touch. There he was, gassing that very old, very famous car. It was a moment I’ll never forget.”

Ruben (Toto) Fangio, Juan’s father, was a car builder in Balcarce, a farming community about 300 miles from Buenos Aires, when his son was born.

He named him Juan Manuel, after his brother, at the request of the attending doctor at little Juan’s birth.

Little Juan was 2 when his uncle retired, so he had no association with his driving as he grew up.

“I guess it was in my genes because as far back as I can remember, clear back to when I was barely 3, I had an addiction for speed,” Juan said. “I loved anything that would go fast. It was like an obsession. I have always enjoyed the sensation of speed. My idea of the ultimate feeling is the one I get when I’m in a race car, driving it at its limits.

“Neither my father nor my uncle encouraged, nor discouraged, me to become a racer, but the family preferred me to work at my studies, to think about school before racing. I took up engineering because I thought it might help me build my own car. Racing was always in my mind, though, and I didn’t apply myself very hard to school.”

When Juan was 21, his father built a race car for him, but when Juan took it to the track to drive for the first time, his father said he wanted to ride along.

“I was quite surprised, because that wasn’t like him, but I was not about to protest,” Juan said. “I did my first lap, then picked up speed on the second lap and was about to take the third lap when my father said to drive to the pits and let him out.

“ ‘I feel a lot of confidence in you now,’ he said. ‘I see that you are driving very relaxed and seem to know what you are doing.’ From that moment on, he helped me in every way he could.”

Uncle Juan, now 78, rarely sees his nephew race but he is always waiting for a phone call at the end of the race to find out from his namesake how things went.

“It’s not that my uncle doesn’t want to watch me, it’s that when he is at a race he attracts such attention that it can be a distraction to the team, and he does not want that. He also watches on TV whenever he can. It is incredible, to me, how strong he feels about my career.

“Actually, all of Argentina is watching closely my career. It is a small country, only about 30 million people, and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. And everybody is waiting for someone from Argentina to become a top driver in the world again. Right now, they are watching closely myself in the United States and Oscar Larrauri (a Formula One driver) in Europe.

“Athletes are national heroes in my country. Maybe the heroes should be doctors, or inventors or statesmen, but the country needs someone to look up to, and the ones they look up to most are sports figures.

“There is a feeling in my country that life without sports is like a garden without flowers.”

At first glance, this year has not been a good one for Gurney’s team, since it has not won a race. Still, cars from All-American Racers have won two poles, finished second once and third twice--not bad for a team in its first season against the tried products of Nissan, Jaguar and Porsche.

Fangio has been the bad-luck driver of the team. His season has turned into a comedy of errors--although he isn’t laughing about it.

When Toyota entered the top-of-line GTP for the first time, Gurney named Fangio and Ribbs to drive the prototype Eagle, and veteran Chris Cord and Drake Olson to drive the C car, which was campaigned in foreign Group C endurance races.

But when the season started, the Eagle was not ready so Fangio and Ribbs had to sit out four of the first five races. Then, in midseason, Cord retired and Rocky Moran was named as his replacement. However, Moran’s 210-pound frame was too big for the C car, so Fangio switched from the Eagle to the older car, to drive with Olson.

Fangio had three strong races in the C car--at Watkins Glen, N.Y.; Portland, Ore., and San Antonio.

Watkins Glen was his first ride as Cord’s replacement and after qualifying fourth, Fangio and Olson led most of the first 70 laps before a confusing pit stop and a drop in turbocharger boost dropped them to third place.

“I was leading when I suddenly felt a loss of turbo boost,” Fangio recalled. “I radioed in that I was going to pit, but the crew didn’t understand and wasn’t ready when I came in. Drake (Olson) wasn’t suited up because he didn’t expect me for another couple of laps so I had to stay in the car. Then the air jack didn’t work and before we got back out, Brabham was a minute ahead of us.”

At Portland, Fangio was dicing with Robinson and the Nissan for third position late in the race when he tried to sweep past on the outside--and got knocked off the course.

“I had tried for three laps to pass him on the inside, but couldn’t find room, so I went to the outside and that didn’t work, either,” Fangio said. “I had to pit to change tires and we fell all the way back to 11th.”

As Gurney saw it: “Juan found out that it’s better to be the cue ball (that does the hitting) than the other one.”

Fangio did receive the race’s “hard charger” and rookie-of-the-year awards for his efforts.

He and Olson posted their best finish at San Antonio, where the white and yellow No. 98 Toyota finished second behind Robinson, who drove solo in the Nissan, in a two-hour race.

Two weeks ago, in the World Challenge of Tampa, both of Gurney’s cars crashed in the same treacherous spot on the circuit, a turn that claimed eight cars during the race.

“It was a particularly deceptive turn and for some reason it generated a lot of marbles (loose dirt and gravel) that were hard to see,” Gurney said. “It was so bad that one driver crashed when he was following the pace car. Both our cars were really beat up.”

With only one race remaining--Del Mar--the Toyota team decided to repair only the Eagle because the C car will not be raced next year.

So Fangio is out of a ride again, although he will be at Del Mar in case anything happens to Ribbs or Moran.

“It is one of those unfortunate things that happen in racing,” he said philosophically. “The team will run two Eagles next year, so there was no reason to work around the clock to repair the old car. I enjoyed driving it, but I will enjoy more driving the second Eagle when it is ready to test.”

When it’s ready, Uncle Juan will be waiting for his call.