Pedro Rodríguez might not be well known in Australia and New Zealand, since he only raced 8 times there, the Tasman Cup in 1968. But for Mexicans, Pedro is the cunning tactician Jack Brabham was plus the decisive speed man Alan Jones became, all in one....yes, that big, and in the wet we are talking maybe the best ever.

You’d be excused if you think Mexico produces burro drivers not car drivers, but Pedro and his brother Ricardo, widely regarded as the best of the two but dead in 1962 at 20 in the first Mexican GP changed that perception long ago, precisely in Riverside, late 1957 when the Americans laughed at the two kids (Pedro born 1940 and Ricardo 2 years later) arriving to battle with them in their cars, but the Mexicans did the laughing last, Ricardo defeated all comers. Of course they didn’t know the kids were already several times national champions in both bicycles and motorcycles, and were already beating all their countrymen in cars, and Ken Miles wasn’t there to warn them.

At Nassau later that year, nobody laughed and although at Le Mans Ricardo would not be allowed to race since he was only 16, by next year they would drive together in an OSCA and by 1960 Ricardo was in the podium with three Belgians. Next year he and Pedro gave Ferrari a run for their lives with a NART Testa Rossa 250 dicing with and often leading Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien one of the top pairings ever in Sports cars up till the 22nd hour when they had to retire. The next year they were in a Scuderia Ferrari car, albeit one giving a 1.6 liter advantage to ‘Feel Heel’ and ‘Jellybean’ and still led the race until the car cried enough.

Ricardo died late that year, in a Lotus when he was a contracted Ferrari driver and had already amazed the world by becoming the youngest driver ever in F1 and the youngest point scorer too. When his brother died Pedro thought things over and came back to Daytona in 1963 to see how it affected him and people suddenly found new speed in him, and he won first time out alone (brotherless), a victory he would repeat in 1964, 1970 and 1971.

He was not yet a professional driver but he started getting into racing more fully, never forgetting his annual date with Le Mans, where he would lead almost every year and win in 1968, which prompted him to say: “It would have been sooner had Ricardo lived”. But those were the times when about one fourth of the grid in the first race of the year would not be around by the end of the year. Dangerous time for brave men, and the Mexican was one of the bravest. He would bank on his superb physical condition acquired by a life of sports bicycling, motorcycling, horse riding, diving, water skiing and driving when driving meant hauling heavy cars without power steering or automatic gearboxes, or perish the thought traction control, and all these with skinny tires, not slicks. Also Pedro was one of the kind who didn’t complain if there wasn’t enough run-off or if the straw bales were few and far between. He came to race and he raced every single time.

By 1967 he won in his ninth GP, at Kyalami, South Africa, in a year-old Cooper with a heavy Maserati V12 engine and he lost second gear after passing both Black Jack and Big John but he couldn’t touch Hulme. Finally Hulme had trouble and Pedro, who adjusted his driving to forget second gear, was there in second place behind John Love, well knowing John couldn’t finish without stopping for fuel, and the tactician was ready when the Rhodesian stopped. People would call him lucky, but luck certainly favors the prepared one in the right place at the right time. That was his ticket to a full contract with the team and he persevered with the old car, the new one was for his teammate Jochen Rindt, and the results show him ahead of Jochen often once the race started. He finished his first full season (8 GPs in 4 years before 1967 hardly count as a season) sixth and he missed a few races after an F2 accident, and was offered a drive by BRM, winningless since 1965.

The contract included racing at the Tasman Cup after the South African GP, and Pedro went there, not as team leader, but as second fiddle to Bruce McLaren who’d be driving some rounds because BRM loaned him some engines for his McLarens the previous year. Bruce would complain about the cars preparation bitterly, he had to hold a fuel gauge in his lap among other things, but Pedro was there to race and he raced. He didn’t know the tracks and he didn’t know the Countries, but he enjoyed new cultures. He was well groomed, Doña Conchita (Mom) was always ready to point out how they should behave money or no money, manners are manners everywhere and Pedro was a good learner. He traveled around in a close fraternity of anglo drivers – Jimmy, Graham, Chris, Frank, Bruce, Jack, Piers, Denny plus the BRM manager Tim Parnell and although he would mingle he sometimes stayed aloof, watching them, finding out who they were, and how they would react on the track according to their behaviour off-track. They were very informal in everything, but he had always been told to dress properly and he would. They would play Cricket but he only knew Baseball so they had to allow him to take a baseball stance to bat since he couldn’t come to terms with the “bat”. Later he would tell his kid brother Alex of this “funny game where the bat is flat not round, and you swing as with a golf club not like a true baseball bat above your head”. They would organize campfires and cook outs at the beach, barely dressed, and Pedro was there with Italian leather shoes but ready to take them off if there was a ball to be found and a good game of soccer to be played. He relaxed a bit as the days went by but he still was probably the only one who could have greeted their Prime Minister without causing embarrasment for the dress code (or lack of it). He enjoyed particularly Jimmy who was a bit shy too and a great driver, maybe the only one he thought was a bit better than him, although not in the wet. And again, he’d be the only one at Mass early on Sunday after the race, no matter how hard he partied after the race.

The first race was at Pukehoke, the NZGP on January 6^th. He qualified third among the 22 drivers, he certainly was their match but the BRM quit after 30 laps because of a gearbox problem. At the Rothmans International he was fourth in his heat but the fuel system acted up in the final and he retired after 44 laps, although he led the race after a great start which lasted until he spun in lap 66. Then at the Lady Wigram Trophy he was sixth in both the preliminary race and the final. And in the final New Zealander round at Teretonga he was third in his heat, it was raining and he could overcome many problems with his wet driving skill. In the final the engine expired after his mate Bruce hit a stone which punctured Pedro’s car radiator and the Mexican retired after 21 laps.

There was a break in the schedule, one week to take the cars to Australia, and Bruce would call it quits there, but Pedro used the time to go to Daytona to race the 24 Hours, the first round of the World Endurance Championship for Sport cars. He was a racer, even if took him one day to cross the Pacific and a few more hours to cross America from side to side. And the France family were his friends, they liked him to race with them and he was running a NART Ferrari for Luigi Chinetti, his pal, how could he miss it? Sadly, the Ferrari was not ready and he had to race an old 206S with Charlie Kolb and he got it into the class lead fighting with the 3 liter cars but the Dino lasted only 2 hours. Fly a million miles to race less than 2 hours? Crazy? No, Pedro. He was a racer, and then he flew back to the South Pacific to race in the Aussie rounds, another million miles.

Back in Australia he now could choose either the BRM 126 with a 2.5L V12 engine or the 261 with a 2.1L V8 engine. Like chosing between Scilla and Carybdis maybe but he was racing, he was getting to know other lands, and the girls were pretty too, what more could he ask for? First came Surfers Paradise, on February 11^th, his car not pulling all the revs so he ended 10^th, just another spectator in the Clark vs. Amon battle. A bit better at Warwick Farm, he ended sixth. Then the Australian Grand Prix at Sandown Park, where he retired after 10 laps. One round to go and a puny harvest for the BRM team leader in F1, the one who caused a legal battle between John Cooper and Louis Stanley. But then came the South Pacific Trophy at Longford, a track which had, among its many quirks, a couple of wooden bridges, and a rail line crossing the track, the latter causing practice to be interrupted to let the train go by. Race day a burning bridge caused the race to be postponed by two hours while the local firemen dealt with the fire. Rain helps them but the drivers aren’t very happy, Longford is very fast and dangerous, in the dry, not precisely the place to run fast in the wet, and Clark had already got the championship sown up at Sandown. They all sat in a room waiting for the rain to cease but the organizers need to start the race or it will be too dark. The drivers have no decision yet after being asked a few times by the organizers. Finally when someone asks “Do we race?” Pedro stands up, he sticks his head and hand out into the light rain and answers “We race!” strolling out helmet in hand. The rest follow and there’s a race. After all, what’s a little rain for the best drivers in the world, he will say many times. He came to race and race he did.

Pedro will fight against everyone and at the end he loses only to Piers Courage whose old McLaren has some Dunlop extra narrow tires which work very well in the wet and although Pedro tries he can’t make up that advantage, not in this BRM, yet he beats everybody else, Lotus and Ferrari included. That will give him seventh place in the championship, but his performance at Longford shows the rest that the Mexican is some driver but the BRM is not exactly world class. At the end of this race, when the podium ceremonies have finished, Pedro comes back to thanks his mechanics and they ask if he liked the 6 gears box. Pedro asks “Six?” and they all laugh when they discover he only used second to sixth since he never found first. But he came to race and race he did.

That year he will win Le Mans, and he will become one of the best in the world, taking the next victory for BRM in 1970 and dominating the Makes Championship in a Porsche 917 with which he would win twice the drivers’ championship plus gives the team championship to the John Wyer Automotive Engineering like he did with his Le Mans victory in 1968. On July 11^th, he will race an easy Interseries race. He will use a Ferrari, although he has a BRM and Porsche contract, and like his brother in 1962, he will meet fate a sunny day when he changes brands. It is the Norisring, a track with no technical problems, but the Ferrari 512 is too old and battered and something in the front will break causing him to crash and break his skull at the base while he is in the lead going away after 11 laps. The Ferrari will burn for ages but nobody can save him and Pedro will be declared dead at the Nuremberg hospital later that day. We Mexicans and racing fans still mourn the man who came to race, no matter what.