Rolf Stommelen - Career

Career

Stommelen won the pole position for the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Porsche 917 a year after finishing third in a Porsche 908. In this year, he became the first man to reach speeds exceeding 350 km/h (217 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight in his Porsche 917 LH. In 1970, he made his Formula One debut with Brabham with sponsorship obtained from the German magazine "Auto Motor und Sport" and raced both sportscars (Toj and Porsche works teams) and Formula 1 throughout the 1970s.

Unfortunately, he would play a role in the end of the Spanish Grand Prix's tenure at Montjuich Park in Barcelona when he crashed there in the 1975 race after the rear wing of his Embassy-Hill- Lola broke, resulting in the deaths of four spectators and him being seriously injured.

After his recovery, Rolf returned to sports car racing, winning races for Alfa Romeo and also winning the 24 Hours of Daytona a further three times.

In 1977 Rolf had the honor to drive the maiden race of the Porsche 936 at the 300km Nürburgring race. With an black body and without the air-intake, the 936 of this race became known as the black widow. He qualified second, between the factory Renault Alpine A442 of Patrick Depailler and Jean-Pierre Jabouille on first and third. The Renault team was eager to win at Porsche's home soil. On the racing day in hard rain, Rolf managed to overtake the Renault in front right after the start. Now in the lead, he rushed towards the Nordkehre, braked and let deliberately room for the Renault's in pursuit to overtake. The Renault's, wanting to take back the lead after 2 of 300kms, rushed past Rolf into the water puddles and crashed into the catch-fences in tandem, with Rolf taking back the lead again. This led to the saying "On the Nordschleife, you can never break later than Rolf Stommelen!". After the sixth lap, the throttle cable of the 936 stuck in the "open" position. But instead of giving up, Rolf continued the race by turning off the master switch at the bends to brake, and turning on the master switch again after the bends to accelerate throughout the rest of the race, mastering an unbelievable second place at the end of the race.

In 1978 he was given the task by the Porsche factory to pilot the mighty Porsche 935 "Moby Dick" in Martini Colors. The 78 "Moby Dick" had a 3,2 liter Turbo Engine that outputed 845 HP and Rolf was with 235 mph (365 km/h) the fastest man on the Mulsanne Straight, faster as the prototypes like Porsche 936 and the finally winning A442B. Due to high fuel-consumption of the engine, Rolf had to pit too often to battle for the win.

He continued at Le Mans with the Porsche 935, nearly winning the 24 hours of Le Mans with Dick Barbour and actor Paul Newman as co-drivers in 1979 in a Porsche 935, only to be set back by a 23 minute long pit stop caused by a stuck wheel nut. The Team would not have come so far, if Rolf had not been constantly 25 seconds faster than his team mates per lap.

He also drove Toj SC320 prototype sportscars with some success against the works Alfa team (Toj was a small German manufacturer).

He also competed in one NASCAR Grand National series event in 1971 at Talladega Superspeedway in a former Holman-Moody Ford which Mario Andretti used to win the 1967 Daytona 500, which was rebuilt as a Mercury Cyclone, with Jake Elder as crew chief. That car eventually was sold to independent driver Darrell Waltrip to use a year later in his Winston Cup Series debut in 1972, starting a career which led to Waltrip's International Motorsports Hall of Fame induction in April 2005.

He was also active in the German GT Championship Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft, winning the championship in 1977 for the Gelo Racing Team on Porsche 935. A master at the vicious Nurburgring, he was a constant winner of races held there.

In the 1980's he was still a sought after prototype pilot and raced successful on Kremer CK5, Lancia LC1 and Porsche 956.