Peter Revson: not just a pretty face

Forty years ago this week the racing world was sent reeling following the death of Peter Revson in a gruesome testing accident at Kyalami. It was an era when every other week seemed to bring a tragedy, but the timing of the loss of Revson, a star both in F1 and in Indycars, was cruel indeed.

In 1973 he'd won two grands prix for McLaren, and in so doing he had finally switched the focus from his wealthy, privileged background and convinced the sceptics that he was a force to be reckoned with.

He had joined a young and an ambitious team in Shadow, and felt a level of support he had missed at his previous employer. Off track he was stepping out with Miss World. Life couldn't be better for the 35-year-old jazz fanatic, who had also just finished work on an insightful autobiography.

The path to that dark day in South Africa was a long and convoluted one. As an inexperienced youngster Revson made little impression during a fruitless season in an uncompetitive private Lotus-BRM in 1964, and it took him seven years to recover. When he did eventually return, he was a serious contender.

Born in 1939, Revson started out in sportscar club races in the USA. In 1963 he joined the gypsy band of Formula Junior drivers trekking around Europe in 1963, winning a race in Denmark. At the end of that year he made his F1 debut when he drove a Lotus-BRM for privateer Reg Parnell in the Oulton Park Gold Cup.

That led to a deal for 1964, but after Reg died that winter Revson found himself driving for Parnell's son Tim.

There was no budget to speak of and Peter endured an erratic part-season, although off track he had fun as one of the 'Ditton Road Fliers', sharing a notorious house with team-mates Mike Hailwood and Chris Amon, among others.

Revson's first foray in F1 in 1964 was not a success © LAT

After his F1 disappointment Revson paid his dues over the next seven years, taking a step back to win the 1965 Monaco F3 race and subsequently building a solid reputation in endurance racing, TransAm, Can-Am and Indycars.

The death of younger brother Doug in July 1967 in an F3 crash at Djursland in Denmark did nothing to blunt his ambition.

Revson's big breakthrough came in 1969, when he took an uncompetitive Brabham-Repco from 33rd to fifth in his first Indy 500 start.

The following year he finished second at Sebring sharing Steve McQueen's Porsche 908, and then his career took a turn when long-time friend Teddy Mayer gave him a chance with McLaren at Indianapolis after an unhappy Chris Amon dropped out.

That led to a full-time job with McLaren in 1971. A stellar season saw him win the Can-Am title, and sit on pole and finish second at Indy. At the end of the year he also made a one-off return to F1, driving a third Tyrrell in the US GP.

It was a low-key appearance, but he'd already done enough to convince Mayer to give him a McLaren F1 seat alongside Denny Hulme for 1972. He ran only a part season due to clashing commitments Stateside, but a string of solid podium finishes meant he took fifth place in the world championship, while he also earned a pole in Canada. The unhappy experience of 1964 was forgotten.

"He was a very competent, topline driver," says McLaren veteran Alastair Caldwell. "He was a bit hampered by his looks and his image. He was very conscious of how pretty he was!

"After Bruce and Denny he was our first playboy driver. That doesn't mean he wasn't good, just a different approach. Teddy was in thrall to him. I think he reminded Teddy of his brother Tim, who was killed in Australia in 1964, who was also tall and good-looking. There were echoes of him in Revson."

However, over the course of the '73 season Revson's relationship with Mayer began to unravel. He had doubts about how much support he received relative to Hulme, and felt insecure when McLaren protege and occasional third driver Jody Scheckter muscled his way in.

And he was furious when he was forced to miss the French GP and run the Pocono USAC race to keep sponsor Gulf happy.

Revson made 23 starts for McLaren, but the relationship began to unravel © LAT

"It was in Sweden I first saw it," recalls McLaren designer Gordon Coppuck. "He was very upset because in his mind he didn't think he'd got the same car as Denny.

"He did have a big argument with Teddy there, but soon after that he was on pole at Pocono, mad as hell because Jody drove his car in France. It was a fact that Denny did all the testing."

Revson channelled his growing frustration into proving a point when he scored a superb first F1 victory in the British GP, having passed Ronnie Peterson to secure it.

Now he had to be taken seriously by those who had always regarded him as a rich kid.

"He was certainly very determined when he felt that the situation gave him a chance," says Coppuck. "That led to the pole at Indy, and the same sort of determination led to the British GP win.

"When things weren't quite working he perhaps performed less well, but when it was good and he felt that he had an opportunity to do something special, he could do it.

"He knew what the balance required was, let's put it that way, and working towards that target he was very good. I don't think anybody could have got more out of it at Silverstone. "

Just two weeks after that famous victory Mayer told Revson that there was no place for him in 1974 because a leading driver - who turned out to be Emerson Fittipaldi - was bringing major sponsorship. Hulme would stay on to drive the second car.

"If I'd been given the choice I would have taken Revson over Hulme any time," says Caldwell. "But I wasn't party to that. Revson/Fittipaldi would have been a better ticket for me.

"Emerson wanted Hulme, because he was someone he knew he could beat. By then Denny had lost interest, unless the car was absolutely perfect."

"There was no way that Emerson would consider Peter as a team mate for '74," notes Coppuck. "He definitely had to go..."

With the spoils of victory after his Canadian GP triumph in 1973 © LAT

Frustrated by this snub, he spent the next few months weighing up his options, while also adding to his credibility by winning again in a messy wet race in Canada.

Ferrari was a serious possibility, although ultimately the deal fell apart over money. Luca di Montezemolo would instead hire BRM's Niki Lauda.

Mayer eventually came back with an offer to drive a third McLaren, run by a separate crew.

Revson initially agreed, but he changed his mind when he had doubts about the treatment this extra entry would receive. By now he had completely lost faith in Mayer.

"I only had three heroes when I was a kid: AJ Foyt, James Hunt, and Peter," says Teddy's son Tim, who was eight at the time. "And all for the same reason - they all frustrated the hell out of my dad!"

Talks with Dan Gurney about an Eagle F5000/F1 programme fizzled out due to lack of funds, and in the end Revson signed with Shadow, encouraged by the fact that American owner Don Nichols was so keen to hire him.

"Peter was great," recalls Shadow designer Tony Southgate. "He was a very debonair Hollywood-type, and he was fine to work with. As soon as we put him in the old car he was immediately quick in testing. He was just what we needed.

"He said, 'It's not bad, this,' and of course it was nice to get that sort of feedback. He was technical enough, and if you'd got a problem you could talk it over with him and so on. And he worked at it."

The new DN3 proved to be very competitive, and first time out in Argentina Revson qualified fourth, only to retire after a first lap collision. He retired again after starting sixth in Brazil, and then finished in the same position in a wet Race of Champions at Brands Hatch.

Next stop was South Africa, and as usual a week before the race the teams gathered for testing.

A move to Shadow beckoned in 1974 © LAT

"Obviously the car was new, so there were a few teething problems," says Southgate. "We were still just dialling it in. And that was the plan for Kyalami, just do a bit of sorting out.

"He was going very quickly. He said the car was feeling really good. We made a few adjustments, and the last thing he said to me was, 'I'll go for a quick lap now.'"

Shortly after Revson took to the track the black car speared off the road, twisted under the inadequate guardrail, and caught fire.

Fittipaldi, Graham Hill and local privateer Eddie Keizan were among those who stopped to help, joined by Hulme, who arrived from the pits. There was nothing they could do.

"Normally you'd get away with it, but the car went off on a quick corner," says Southgate. "The DN3 was a very, very low wedge shaped car, and he just went under the barrier, and it kept going until the structure stopped it.

"It was all a bit grim, to say the least. It was just me and Pete Kerr, who was chief mechanic, and two or three other mechanics. We just got in our rental car and drove around, and by the time we'd got there, they had already put him in the ambulance.

"I was rushed to the hospital for identification, and that sort of thing. Peter had clobbered his head on something, because there was a big bump on his head."

"The saddest thing was at the Kyalami Ranch," recalls Scheckter. "I remember someone taking his briefcase out. It came home to me then - these things are so important when you are alive, and all of a sudden they have no importance at all."

Meanwhile Southgate had to examine the wreckage for clues to what happened, and confirmation that the cause was a mechanical failure was devastating for him.

"We had lots of titanium on the car in those days," he explains. "It was all well within its life capacity at that stage, so there was nothing much to worry about.

"Although we'd been using titanium a little while, it was a very fussy material to machine, and of course in those days everything was made by hand, we didn't have the sophisticated machines they have nowadays.

"Basically with titanium you need a high-quality finish, like a mirror, you didn't want any marks or grooves. If you did, then it would dramatically change the fatigue life, and that's what I put it down to.

"A ball-post which attached the front wheel to the lower wishbone appeared to have a premature failure. There was a mark on the track part way through the corner, where you could see something had rubbed on the ground, like the end of the wishbone.

"Immediately we threw all those bits away and replaced them with normal steel bits. I was pole axed and out of action mentally for a long time - for 10 or 15 years, or something."

Revson in the monstrous McLaren M8F. He won the '71 Can-Am title © LAT

Coming so soon after the Roger Williamson and Francois Cevert tragedies of the previous year, the loss of Revson hit the paddock hard.

"This season was going to be Revvy's year," a distraught Hulme wrote in his Autosport column.

"He was determined to win the world championship, and on the occasions when his car was running properly this season he was turning in really good times. What a damn shame..."

It's impossible to predict how Revson would have fared with Shadow in what was a highly competitive era, dominated by names such as Lauda, Regazzoni, Peterson, Fittipaldi, Scheckter, Reutemann and Hunt.

However, the 1974 title battle proved to be wide open, and Southgate suggests that the American would have pushed the team forward faster than his rookie replacement rookie Tom Pryce and the laid-back Jean-Pierre Jarier.

He would have forced owner Nichols to find more funding for R&D, and lifted the team out of what became its traditional rut of being quick at the start of the year, and fading later on.

"We had no development programme as such, and of course the same people were working on Can-Am and F5000, which would detract from F1. Every year as the season went on we'd drop back and would have to inject some money from somewhere.

"Tom oozed talent, but he was on a rapid learning curve, and Jarier was lazy, and wasn't technical at all. Peter would have forced us to do more development - in other words make sure Don released enough of the cash to make whatever we wanted. That was always the problem."

It's worth recalling too that Revson had also signed to run the '74 Indy 500 for old pal Roger Penske, and that relationship could have borne fruit over the years to come.

Perhaps the most tantalising prospect is what might have happened in 1974-'75-'76 had he either stayed at McLaren, or swallowed his pride over his salary and joined Ferrari.

"I have no doubt that if he had stayed with us in '74 he would have won more grands prix," says Coppuck. "When the car was really right he certainly could drive quicker than most."