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The retirement of Hector Rebaque


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#1 theunions

theunions
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Posted 07 March 2003 - 05:10

I've gotten involved in a discussion elsewhere as to why Rebaque retired from racing following the 1983 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. It's been suggested that his accident in the 1982 Michigan 500 involving Foyt, for which AJ heavily blasted him in his autobiography AJ , was a deciding factor. I thought it had more to do with him 1) running out of Carta Blanca money, hence his ride with Forsythe immediately going to Al Unser Jr. at Riverside despite winning the 1982 Road America CART race; 2) he wanted to get back into F1 (see below); 3) his business interests back home in architecture and development were taking off and requiring more of his attention.

From a press conference last August at Road America on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his win:

Q. Hector, you only ran one more race of any kind after winning here.

HECTOR REBAQUE: Well, this was my last race at that time in the CART
series. Then I went back to Europe and I drove one Formula 1 race at the
Race of Champions in '83, and then I retired.

Q. Why did you give up racing?

HECTOR REBAQUE: That's a very long story. I was hoping to get back to
Formula 1. Things didn't work out. After waiting for this opportunity in
'83, there was going to be a new team in which I was going to drive. It
didn't happen. Then I just did this one race in '83 and decided to retire.
It's a long story. I'll make it short (laughter).



Can anyone fill in the blanks?