The Great Man Retires

In Buenos Aires, 300 Argentines gathered at a ceremonial dinner to honor the greatest racing driver of his day. At an age (47) when most drivers are dead or retired, balding, round-faced Juan Manuel Fangio was still the best there was. But the occasion was a sad one, for the champion was leaving the track for good. Announced Fangio firmly: "I will never race again in the rest of my years. Champions, actors and dictators should always retire when they are at the top."

Son of an Italian immigrant to Argentina, sometime bus mechanic, Fangio was 28 before he attracted international attention by finishing fifth in the Gran Premio Extraordinario Argentino. Not until he was 38 did a manufacturer (Alfa Romeo) sign him up to race full time. In his second year under contract (1951), the phlegmatic Fangio won the world driving championship. He won it again four times in the next six years, driving for Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati and Mercedes-Benz. Twice he narrowly escaped death. In 1948 his car went off the road in the Grand Prix of South America, killing his partner. In 1952 he broke his neck in a race at Monza, Italy. But Fangio developed the delicate sense of touch that enabled him to tread the fine line between the speed that wins and the speed that kills.

"Body & Spirit." Today Fangio is the owner of a string of service stations. In his office last week, Businessman Fangio looked back over the career of Driver Fangio, and talked with a candor that he had seldom allowed himself while racing. Said he: "The exhilaration of racing a smooth-running car and the challenge of keeping in the lead had become drudgery, a constant effort and worry to give people who entrusted me with their cars and money the returns they expected. The joy of the first years became mere fatigue. Not only my body is tired but my spirit as well. They were the most exciting years of my life. I never considered a car as an instrument to achieve an end, but as part of myself or better. I was a part of the car, like a piston or shifting gear. At Reims in 1948, when I had to quit because my gas tank was ripped, I felt as if my own flesh were wounded. This feeling of oneness with a car, and that I had luck in getting the best cars I could drive, made me a champion far more than snappy shifting, lightness of touch on the steering wheel or daring curve cutting.

"If I could offer the younger generation any advice, I would say: Never think of your car as a cold engine but as a hot-blooded horse, racing together with the rider like one beautiful harmonious unit. As for me, the rider has grown older and more blase than the horse."

Lost Cheers. "But enthusiasm is not the only thing I lost. I lost my family too. In ten years, 20 of my racer pals died behind the wheel. Our reunions nowadays look like gatherings of war veterans who try but can't forget those who never came back. What is left? Money? I was born poor, and now I have more money than I can use. The exhilaration of coming in first, the cheering crowds? Tomorrow I could easily be second, then third, and eventually last. As for the cheering crowds, I never heard them. When I race, the only thing I can hear is the purring of my engine, the only thing I can see is my manager's signal from the pit."

He glanced down at the photographs of his dead friends, tucked under the glass top of his desk. "All the great are gone, one way or another. It is my turn. To come in second behind an Ascari or a Fangio is still a triumph, but to come in second behind an unknown beginner because his young reflexes are quicker or his inexperience pushes him to take unnecessary risks can be tough for an aging champ. It will not happen to me. I will never go near a race track again, not even as a spectator."

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