The Roaring Road

From the steaming jungles of southern Mexico, over mountains and past frowning volcanoes, across the sunbaked plains of the north to the banks of the Rio Grande, stretches the longest, most punishing car-racing course in the world. On these twisting, plunging 1,912 miles of macadam and concrete, the fourth Pan-American road race began last week. One of the greatest international meets ever held, it had 177 starters from ten countries and was actually four races in one--big and small sports cars, big and small stock cars. At stake was a total $101,271 in prize money.

Paint on the Curves. The burros and Indians in the town of Tuxtla Gutierrez, where the race started, stared in wonder at the invasion. The palm-fringed streets swarmed with the heterogeneous spawn of the automotive age--sleek Ferraris and squat reef Lancias, souped-up Chryslers and Lincolns and Oldsmobiles, petite Porsches, souped-up Fords. Such blue-chip entries as the Lancias even had their own mobile garage to follow them, a huge trailer complete with machine shop and dormitory.

Beneath the cars' hoods lurked the apparatus of speed--superchargers, twin ignitions, high-compression engine heads, four-barreled carburetors, horsepower piled on horsepower. There were also gestures toward safety. One driver had reconnoitered the whole course, splashed yellow paint on the road to signal the worst curves (unfortunately, other drivers had also painted the course in stretches and confused the system). Thousands of Mexican soldiers were assigned to patrol the route, ward off unwary roadsiders. But safety seldom wins a race. For five days, over eight separately timed laps, speed was the watchword.

On the first day, death had a fiesta. Soon after the roaring pack headed off over rolling junglelands from Tuxtla to Oaxaca (329.3 miles), disaster multiplied near Tehuantepec. A Ford overturned on a curve, and six spectators who had rushed to help its occupants were killed by a second Ford, which came whipping around the blind turn. A bit later, near by, an Italian co-driver died under his Ferrari after it blew a tire and overturned. The survivors tore onward, and at first lap's end a record average speed of 94.86 m.p.h. was set by one of Italy's top drivers, Felice Bonetto, in a 245-h.p. Lancia. Other Italian-driven Lancias snorted in second and third.

Skidding Lancia. The second day's docket called for two laps, from Oaxaca over lofty, roller-coaster roads to Puebla (252.9 miles), then a short (79.5 miles), nightmare stretch girdling a volcano at a height of nearly two miles and then plunging in murderous curves down to Mexico City. Again the Lancias led the pack, and Italy's "King of the Mountains," Piero Taruff, relishing his favorite sort of terrain, hung up lap records of 88 m.p.h. on the long leg, 102.8 m.p.h. on the treacherous short one. Late that night, in a hospital far back on the route, another Italian died of injuries received in the Ferrari crash of the day before.

Shortly after dawn of the third day, the horde thundered north again on the first of two laps, 261 miles over high mountain passes and through cloudswept valleys to Leon. Just before pulling out, Felice Bonetto, leading on total elapsed time, puffed a cigarette and jauntily observed: "I'll be driving in this race until I die." He died two hours later with a broken neck, when his Lancia skidded into a lamppost in the narrow-laned town of Silao. Italy's Humberto Maglioli, in a Ferrari, roared past Bonetto's body (still strapped to the driver's seat) to take the lap in a record 115.4 m.p.h. On the next lap, the course levels out and straightens, and from Durango to the Rio Grande, through Parral and Chihuahua, Driver Maglioli demonstrated the superb straightaway speed that was built into his Ferrari. Over the final 222.5 miles he set his third straight lap record--138.4 m.p.h.--one of the fastest sustained road-race averages ever recorded. But it was not enough to overcome the leads that the Lancias had built up back in the hairpin-turn country. At the finish, the Lancias were 1-2-3, with first place going to Argentina's famed Juan Manuel Fangio, whose average for the 1,912 miles was 105.1 m.p.h.

In the big stock-car class, the Lincolns repeated their 1952 sweep, finished 1-2-3-4, with Milwaukee's Chuck Stevenson leading the way at an average 93.2 m.p.h. A Porsche led the small sports cars with 80.1 m.p.h., a Chevrolet the small stock cars with 77.1. Chief cost: nine dead.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.