{"id":492096,"date":"2011-11-01T15:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T22:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=31693"},"modified":"2024-12-27T03:08:01","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T03:08:01","slug":"spanish-racing-crusader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/spanish-racing-crusader\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish Racing Crusader"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Adrian Campos
Photo: Pete Austin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, Spanish motor racing spectators have much to cheer for. Fernando Alonso wins many Grand Prix races and is number one Ferrari driver. Jamie Alguersuari is a great driver with the F1 Torro Rosso team. It was not so easy for me, so many years ago in the 1980s. In those days, Spain did not have a culture of motor sport. Drivers like me, Emilio de Villota, Luis P\u00e9rez-Sala, and Carlos Sainz had to fight a lot because people didn\u2019t know motor sport. We had to be a good driver and find sponsors, so we had to have commercial knowledge. Without this we would not have money to race. I think Spanish drivers today are helped by what we did many years ago, a time when Spain didn\u2019t know motor racing, just bull fighting and football. Spain had one motor racing hero in my early days, Alfonso de Portago. Unfortunately, he was involved in a terrible accident driving his Ferrari at the 1957 Mille Miglia. The accident took his life, his co-driver\u2019s life and many spectators were either killed or badly injured. This all happened three years before I was born, yet from a very early age I looked at him as a gentleman driver, and my hero\u2014I really wanted to race.<\/p>\n

I won my first race when I was just seven years old, in \u201ccyclo-cross.\u201d There were about one hundred kids competing that day. I remember the circuit was just two long straights with corners at each end. I was amazed with myself that I knew how to take the right line to keep fast, something other kids found difficult. For me, I didn\u2019t really have to think about it, it was very natural. The racing line was very clear in my brain, as I say other kids were over here and over there\u2014for me there was just one correct line. Jim Clark was the great racing driver in these days and I wanted to be like him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n