1,000 Greatest Drivers: Rolf Stommelen
Surprisingly has a lot of coincidences with Joe Weatherly yesterday.
This marks a weird parallel with yesterday’s entry on Joe Weatherly because both of them died in crashes when they struck the Turn 9 retaining wall at Riverside, although the crashes themselves were very different. Not only that, Stommelen too famously finished a race where he had to shut the engine off in the turns and accelerate in the straightaways, but I couldn’t use that race for Stommelen since unlike Weatherly, he didn’t win. One odd trend lately has been these European drivers who inexplicably made random NASCAR starts. After Thierry Tassin’s Busch Series start at Nazareth, Stommelen started a Cup Series race at Talladega, and both of them qualified well too despite neither of them ever having any oval experience at the time.
ROLF STOMMELEN…………GERMANY
Born: July 11, 1943
Died: April 24, 1983
Best year: 1977
Best drive: 1980 24 Hours of Daytona
One of the most pivotal drivers in Porsche’s sports car success, Stommelen learned the engineering trade and raised money to race while working at his father’s garage. When his father bought him a Porsche 904, he began excelling in hill climbs and rivaled Porsche’s factory drivers in speed, which prompted Porsche’s sports director Huschke von Hanstein to hire him. He earned a Le Mans class win in 1966, his first major overall win at the 1967 Targa Florio with Paul Hawkins, and he was part of Porsche’s first overall winning team at the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona. He then won the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans pole by two seconds.
F1 teams took notice and Stommelen made his debut at the 1969 German Grand Prix, finishing the race eighth overall in an F2 car that caught fire. He ran full seasons for Jack Brabham and John Surtees sponsored by the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport in 1970 and 1971 respectively. Although he made 63 starts, he only had a single podium in 1970, but he did inherit the lead for Graham Hill’s team at the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix when Mario Andretti had a suspension failure before Stommelen’s rear wing failed, which vaulted his car across a barrier, injuring him and killing a spectator, a firefighter, and two journalists.
Although doctors told him not to race again, he actually improved afterward, winning the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft touring car championship in 1977 and 11 wins in that series, two more 24 Hours of Le Mans class wins, including a memorable 1979 race where he willed his broken-down car to second place overall alongside car owner Dick Barbour and actor Paul Newman, and three more Daytona wins. He remains the only four-time 24 Hours of Daytona winner with no repeat co-drivers.* In 1980, he and Manfred Schurti had an epic nighttime hour-long battle for the lead, but Stommelen’s team won by 33 laps after Schurti crashed. Two years later, Stommelen and John Pauls, Sr. and Jr. set a Daytona distance record that lasted for 36 years. Sadly, Stommelen was killed in an IMSA race at Riverside in 1983 after another rear wing failure. His team initially intended to adjust his wing on a pit stop, but changed their mind to save time and forgot to re-tighten the right side wing nuts. This ultimately sent his car into the Turn 9 barrier at 190 mph and he died of massive head trauma.
At once a fair-minded, cerebral, and very fast driver, Stommelen delivered 46 major wins in his a short career. His try-anything-once ambition was very admirable; he even qualified sixth for his only NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega in 1971. His open wheel career might have been lackluster, but he was clearly universally respected there as well since he got the opportunity to drive for three world champions and German drivers of this era valued sports car racing more highly anyway, so I won’t hold that against him.
Touring car model: #244 of 1676 (.175)
Teammate head-to-heads: 23-9 (1-0 vs. Jurgen Barth, 1-0 vs. Josef Brambring, 1-0 vs. Carlo Facetti, 1-1 vs. Dieter Glemser, 2-0 vs. Toine Hezemans, 0-1 vs. Klaus Ludwig, 7-3 vs. Volkert Merl, 0-1 vs. Herbert Muller, 3-1 vs. Clemens Schickentanz, 6-1 vs. Tim Schenken, 1-0 vs. Manfred Schurti, 0-1 vs. Alex Soler-Roig)
Open wheel model: #663 of 931 (-.178)
Teammate head-to-heads: 4-19 (1-2 vs. Jack Brabham, 0-1 vs. Tony Brise, 0-2 vs. Wilson Fittipaldi, 1-3 vs. Graham Hill, 0-1 vs. Jochen Mass, 0-1 vs. Carlos Pace, 0-3 vs. Riccardo Patrese, 0-1 vs. Brian Redman, 0-2 vs. Carlos Reutemann, 2-3 vs. John Surtees)
Year-by-year: 1966: C-, 1967: C, 1968: C-, 1969: C-, 1970: C-, 1971: C, 1972: C, 1973: C-, 1974: C+, 1976: C+, 1977: E, 1978: C, 1979: C+, 1980: E-, 1981: C, 1982: E
* Technically some people will tell you Pedro Rodríguez also did this. I do not agree. His 3-hour win in 1963 and 2000-kilometer win in 1964 should not count as “24 hour” races.