Originally posted by ellrosso
.....Reminds me of the Longford drivers meeting at 1968 Longford (mentioned by Ray earlier) where I'm sure Pedro and Piers were very keen to race rather than cancel.....
I have heard two stories of the drivers' meeting (as distinct from 'briefing') and the lead-up to the race, and remember that there were long delays at this event because of the weather and because someone set fire to the King,s Bridge.
The first story was (and it's so long ago I don't remember from whom I heard it but the meeting was in a room and there was a lot of discussion going on. This was, of course, on a Monday and people had travelled from all over to get to the circuit, even though numbers were not like usual.
The factors were the commitment to the crowd, and to the organisers who turned themselves upside down to put on a great event each year, the pointscores in the championship and the everpresent and very intrusive inherent lack of safety on a super-fast circuit lined with trees and wire fences.
The pointscore after the previous week's race (in glorious sunshine) at Sandown Park had Clark on 42 ahead of Amon's 36 (9-6-4-3-2-1 system), Gardner might overhaul Hill for fourth place. It was all about the winning points for either Clark or Amon.
So the meeting went on. Kevin Bartlett was not going to be in the race, Alec Mildren simply forbade that, but Gardner, in Kevn's words, "...was allowed to make up his own mind." Ultimately Denny Hulme and Leo Geoghegan also elected not to run. And as the discussion went back and forth, I gather it was very much against the grain of most to go on with the event.
Through it all, sitting in a corner and not contributing much to the discussion, was Pedro. Finally, it came down to the final decision, they turned to Pedro and asked him. How would he answer?
"We race!" and the event went on.
The report talks of his drive through from fifth on the grid with Geoghegan's withdrawal. He tailed Amon and Clark to begin with, took over second the first time through Newry as Amon slid off to drop to seventh, then, after Gardner headed him, fell to fourth as Courage's storming run towards the front took him to the lead at Mountford on the fourth lap.
It seems that Pedro really got the bit between his teeth after Clark fell back on lap six. He moved up on Gardner at around eight laps, "...putting on a masterful display of graceful slides and holding the BRM in the same perfect attitude lap after lap." Meanwhile, Courage was getting away, 45 seconds up on lap ten.
Driving in Gardner's spray for the balance of the race, they raced on. "Gardner's second place was now extremely precarious as Rodriguez had continued to close the gap and was now within passing range... Courage took the chequered flag almost a minute before Gardner and Rodriguez braked for the last time at Mountford before the short dash to the finishing line.
Then occurred and incident reminiscent of the Brabham-Levis bingle with Gardner, who had the line, being forced wide by Rodriguez steaming through all locked up. Unable to recover in time, an angry Gardner crossed the line in third."
One can see that Neville Fisher has written that section of the report with the help of close-up descriptions from Gardner rather than Pedro, but his description of the 'masterful display of graceful slides and holding the BRM in the same perfect attitude lap after lap' tells how impressed he was with Pedro's drive that day.
A reminder to those who've forgotten and those who never knew, Courage won that race mostly because he had such superior tyres for the heavy wet conditions of the day. I suspect that Gardner's Goodyears were pretty good rainy weather covers too.
Pedro was driving the V12 that day, by the way. Gardner was in the Brabham BT23 Alfa V8.
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Edited by Ray Bell, 01 May 2020 - 22:30.
