Driving Force : Matsushita Broke Tradition by Opting to Race Cars Rather Than Help Run Family’s Electronics Company

Hiro Matsushita was born into one of Japan’s wealthiest families.

His grandfather, known as the father of Japanese electronics, founded Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp. His father is chairman and an older brother is a director of the billion-dollar conglomerate that owns Panasonic.

As an heir to that fortune, Matsushita never had to worry about financial security and could have settled comfortably into the family business.

Instead, he climbs behind the wheel of an Indy car that roars down the straightaway at more than 200 mph, knowing that an error, or even a touch of bad luck, could mean serious injury or death.

“Everyone has to be their own person,” Matsushita said.

Racing has been alluring since he first slipped away to compete in a motocross race without his parents’ consent at 16, keeping his first motorcycle hidden at a friend’s home nearby in Kobe.

Matsushita, 35, worked in marketing in the family business after graduating from Kohnan University but quit after two years and began driving rally cars in Japan in the early 1980s. Success and his desire for a higher level of competition led him to American racing in 1986.

“For me, it was very important to be able to compete with the very best drivers in the highest horsepower cars,” Matsushita said.

That passion led him to the United States, and eventually a home in San Clemente, where he also has a car-engineering business.

He began racing formula Fords in the United States in 1987, and in 1989 won the Toyota Atlantic Pacific championship, finishing first in four of the nine events he entered. A year later, he became the first Japanese driver on the Indy-car circuit.

His results have been mixed in six years in Indy cars. He has won more than $2.8 million, but his best finish was sixth at Michigan International Speedway in 1994. He was 26th in the final point standings last season.

Matsushita wants to do better.

“To me, it’s a business, a very serious business,” he said. “I have business blood, so maybe that’s why I think of it so much that way.”

Matsushita began the PPG Indy season in March with a new racing team, a Lola-Ford/Cosworth car owned by former Indy driver Dale Coyne and pro football Hall of Famer Walter Payton. He finished 18th in his first 1996 race, the Grand Prix of Miami. The Payton-Coyne team ran into mechanical problems in Rio de Janeiro in IndyCar Brazil, dropping out after 53 of 133 laps but came back with a strong performance in IndyCar Australia two weeks ago. Matsushita was 10th, tying his career-best finish on a road course.

Matsushita is hoping for continued improvement this weekend at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Qualifying continues today with the race Sunday afternoon. Matsushita was 19th at Long Beach last year in a race won by Al Unser Jr. for the sixth time in eight years.

Matsushita says he’s beginning to feel comfortable with the new racing team, particularly after the good showing in Australia. “We still have to develop our performance,” he said. “We just need more driving time. But we have a good crew and they’re working hard.”

He drove last season for Arcerio-Wells, but they parted company amicably when that team had to cut back to one driver.

Coyne said he and Payton have been pleased with Matsushita’s start. “We’re really enjoying having Hiro with us this season,” Coyne said. “And I think we can help get him up higher in the point standings than he’s been.”

Matsushita says it has taken a lot of effort just to get to this point. The fact that Panasonic-USA is a chief sponsor of Matsushita’s race car doesn’t mean an unlimited budget. Far from it. And budgets often are a major factor in Indy-car success.

“We’re still not one of the top-budget teams,” Matsushita said. “We’re more medium budget.”

Matsushita says it has taken considerable work to obtain all his sponsors, even if some of that money comes from one of the companies in his family’s vast business galaxy.

“Sure, some people may talk about the financial support he has, but the bottom line is that when they drop the green flag, you still have to be competitive as a driver, and Hiro has shown he can do that,” said driver Robby Gordon of Orange. “Everyone has to get their first ride somehow, and he’s certainly not the only one in racing who has been helped by a family name.”

Matsushita believes he has continued to improve.

He thought he might have driven overly cautious for a while after three frightening accidents. Each of his legs was broken in crashes in 1992, one in Australia and another at Indianapolis. A 1994 collision in Phoenix could have been much worse. His car, disabled along the wall after a minor mishap, was hit by Jacques Villeneuve and virtually ripped in half. Miraculously, he walked away with only a shoulder separation.

In the Indianapolis 500 last May, he was alongside his friend, Stan Fox, when Fox’s car suddenly veered and ran almost head-on into the outside wall, breaking apart and sending Fox hurtling down the track in a shattered remnant. Fox suffered severe head injuries, was in a coma for five days, then spent 10 weeks in the hospital and in rehabilitation.

Matsushita nods uneasily while recalling how close he was to that first-lap crash: “I could tell it was going to be a very bad accident. He was next to me, but his car went the other way, and I went past.”

Matsushita finished 10th after qualifying 10th, his best effort at Indianapolis in four tries.

“I think I may have been a little confused after the 1992 accidents, but since last year, I feel I’m getting back to where I want to be,” he said.

Any complaint against Matsushita by other drivers centered on his occasional failure to make room for faster cars.

Away from the track, Matsushita’s lifestyle in not ostentatious, his associates say. He has an expensive sports car, but much of the time he drives the family van back and forth to his office.

At first meeting, he appears somewhat cautious. But the more he chats during an interview, the more relaxed he seems to become. His racing associates say he’s usually more reserved around those he doesn’t know well.

Matsushita says he hasn’t gone out of his way to be overly friendly with the other drivers. “To be too friendly probably isn’t good for competition,” he said.

His friendship with Fox, he said, grew mostly out of a relationship that developed at Indianapolis between their two young sons. “They’re buddies,” he said.

His accidents and Fox’s horrifying crash haven’t diminished his commitment to driving, much less his desire to finally win an Indy car race.

For Matsushita, driving is an important ingredient to developing his car engineering business. He also has a real estate development business, satisfying another of his interests.

Swift Engineering is chiefly involved in developing and testing prototypes for car manufacturers and recently landed a testing contract with a leading Formula One car builder. The San Clemente company has a state-of-the-art aerodynamic research facility with a wind tunnel. With it, engineers can determine the potential speed and performance of a car.

The engineering company, he said, is demanding more of his time.

“I think that company will need me more in the future,” he said. “When I stop, I will miss the driving, but the engineering business will be one of the main things for me in the future.”

But he says it’s not a matter of family pressure building for him to give up driving.

Matsushita says his wife, Akiko, worries about him more when he’s racing on the ovals, in contrast to the road courses where speeds are not nearly as high. He says his father still occasionally will ask: “When are you going to finish?”

Having a son, Takayuki, 5, has given him a different perspective on his father’s concerns.

“I guess nobody really wants their children to be doing risky things,” he said.