Bobby Rahal: Once a Racer, Always a Racer

Once a racer, always a racer.

Jaguar boss Bobby Rahal demonstrated that on the eve of the French Grand Prix when rivals British American Racing (BAR) laid on hamburgers and popcorn for the media and screened the 1966 movie "Grand Prix". While many used the film as a backdrop for beers and conversation, Rahal dropped by the paddock hospitality area and sat quietly absorbing the sights and sounds of Formula One's Golden Age.

"I guess I looked at that movie as a fan," he recalled in London this week. "I saw that movie when I was 13 years old, when it came out. My dad raced as a hobby but I just thought 'Man, that's what it's all about you know.' Grand Prix racing in Europe. That's why I came to Europe, 20 something years ago, because I just thought that's what it was, that's the place to be," he added.

Rahal is a racer, a triple CART champion who twice competed in Formula One in 1978 without success and whose enthusiasm is evident. At the weekend, he attended the Goodwood Festival of Speed and drove his 1986 March CART car up the hill past the stately home and the thousands of fans.

"It was somewhat innocent if you look back but there was something special to see," he said of the film, which features the likes of Jack Brabham and Graham Hill racing at circuits such as Zandvoort and Clermont Ferrand. "The shots of the cars in the rain at Spa, the actual shots and you have nothing but the greatest admiration and respect for those guys.

"They weren't just driving a race, they were hanging it out and putting it on the line. I think it just added a dimension to it that you don't really see today."

La Mamma

"And that's why I say to people that its important that the Monzas and the Silverstones and the Hockenheims and the Monacos of the Formula One world remain, irrespective of who's going to put down however much money," said Rahal. "I think a sport's past is what gives it credibility in the present. I don't think we can ever get away from that."

It will certainly be difficult to do so at Silverstone this weekend. Ferrari's Michael Schumacher could equal Alain Prost's record of 51 Formula One wins but the tide of nostalgia is unavoidable whatever happens.

Schumacher may be the modern hero, but 78-year-old Argentine Jose Froilan Gonzalez will be a focus of attention as Formula One marks the 50th anniversary of Ferrari's first Grand Prix victory there in 1951. Old photographs will be reprinted, showing the corpulent "Pampas Bull" squeezed into the cockpit of his car with his elbows jutting out, manhandling his car around the hay bales on the old airfield track.

Schumacher will meet the veteran, who beat the Alfa Romeo of Juan Manuel Fangio into second place in that race and prompted Enzo Ferrari to send one of the more remarkable telegrams in the annals of Formula One. Ferrari had been dismissed by Alfa 13 years earlier and Silverstone marked an emotional end to the quarrel.

"I wept with joy, but my tears of happiness were blended with tears of sadness for I thought that day 'I have killed my mother," he wrote years later. His telegram, sent to Alfa's managing director after the race, declared: "I still feel for our Alfa the adolescent tenderness of first love, the immaculate affection for La Mamma."

Ferrari, so often cold and calculating in later years, provided the passion but perhaps the more prescient comment came from the founder of Autosport magazine in his post-race editorial.

"The defeat of Alfa Romeo by the unsupercharged 4.5 litre Ferrari may alter the entire outlook of Grand Prix racing," wrote Gregor Grant. When Michael Schumacher meets his fellow racer Gonzalez at Silverstone, he may want to thank him for what he started.