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Pedro forgot it was raining

26. Dec 2020 
by Ziv Knoll
5548 views

The 1970 1000 km of Brands Hatch was an endurance race held on the challenging, bumpy an undulating Brands Hatch circuit next to London.

Picture above: The Porsche 917K of Rodriguez and Kinnunen (1st) leads the one of Siffert and Redman (ret) and the Porsche 917K of Attwood and Herrmann (3rd) in the pouring rain.

On race day, the conditions were made awful by heavy rain, wind and cold air, as often in April in England. Pedro Rodriguez, a wet weather specialist, was flying in these conditions, in his JWA Porsche 917K.

The Mexican, 12th after a pitstop, charged through the field and was 2nd by lap 15. He then passed Vic Elford in the sister factory Salzburg Porsche and led the race that he kept till the checkered flag.

Rodriguez and Elford drove their cars for 5 1/2 of the 6 1/2 hours of the race in dreadful conditions, a performance unthinkable nowadays, and Rodriguez won the race by … 5 laps.

Rodriguez’ performance was such that the race is sometimes known as “the day they forgot to tell Pedro it was raining.”

Source: DR

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