Description
By: Guillermo S. Iacona .
Introduction
Although apparently a paradox, it is not merely a coincidence that both of the greatest Argentine car racing drivers, should have their origin and source in the countryside, the "camp", as locally dubbed. The immense and limitless Pampas furnished tremendous working possibilities and inexhaustible wealth potential, which our own countrymen, through sacrifices both shared and endured, helping to forge their own characters and personalities, selflessly offered survivors from the horrendous suffering sustained during World War II. They were, humbly brought up country people who were taught to live honestly with the fruits of the efforts they had exerted.
With these values, which were interwoven in, and formed an innate and basic part of their temperaments, they proceeded to change their endeavours from working with the soil in their farming activities to driving sophisticated machines, a passionate dream and hope they had always nurtured in their hearts. These virtues combined to allow them both to cross the bridge to enter history as dignified yet humble members of the truly great. It is impossible to mention Froilan Gonzalez without a smile, because Pepe, the "the Bull of the Pampas", only possessed the courage and incredible physical strength which enabled him to attain unbelievable victories, always accompanied by his particular sense of humour, a warm hug or an almost childish joke for everybody around him, including those who only a short time before had been his inexorable rivals in one of the most demanding and cruel of sports. He never lost this outlook on life. Dear Pepe is always the permanent and expected guest at the many Sunday barbecues where he is perennially invited and showers all with his infinite joy of life and gayety. At his office he receives daily visits from those who already are and thereafter will become his friends. His "cafecito" at the "Modena".
Club is a daily must, part of his ritual, and he never resorts to the pretence that he is too busy to give an admirer his autograph. He constantly looks forward to his yearly treat, his visit to his second home, Maranello during the European summer months. It is not easy for him to tell the story of his life, embedded as it has been from childhood dreams during his early life in the country until it included Silverstone, Reims, Salto, La Cumbre, Nurburgring, Rafaela, the names become jumbled up, he enjoyed them during many years, and recalls them as part of a joke or an anecdote. When asked a serious question he always reacts in the same way, "Tell me boy, where was that race we won in...? He is actually wondering to which "asado" he is invited the following Sunday.
J.C. Perez Loizeau
