Peter Egan wrote of a grand dinner that Mercedes Benz had organized for the reopening of the Nurburgring circuit.

Lions, Young and Otherwise

by Peter Egan

It was one of those evenings when you look around yourself and say, “Well, if the roof collapses or I get hit by lightning, at least I can die happy.”

We were dining at a grand old German restaurant in the Eifel Mountains, not far from the Nurbrurgring, perhaps 150 of us, divided into rough thirds as journalists, Mercedes-Benz officials and famous racing drivers.

A lot of famous racing drivers.

More, in fact, than I had ever hoped to see in the chance meetings of a lifetime, much less sitting down to dinner in a single room. Half the heroes of my protracted, ongoing childhood were there. Casting aside all civilized restraint and the usual social taboos against name dropping, I’ll describe it.

Phil Hill sat across from me, and over his shoulder I could see Denis Hulme and Jack Brabham at the next table. Niki Lauda and James Hunt stood out from the sea of dark evening dress – Lauda with his trademark red cap and Hunt, whose luggage had failed to arrive, in a plum colored corduroy sport coat and blue jeans. Moss chatted with Surtees nearby, whle Prost, Rosberg and Reutemann looked on.

Behind me, the camaraderie was all in German stories and laughter coming from a gathering of pre-war Mercedes greats that included Karl Kling, Hermann Lang and Manfred Von Brauchitsch (on leave from East Germany) and their wives and friends. At the other table nearby were those grand gentlemen of racing, Rene Dreyfus, Piero Taruffi and none other than Juan Manuel Fangio himself, looking very sleek and tanned. There were others I no doubt missed, lost in the clouds of after dinner cigar smoke. John Watson was supposed to be somewhere in the crowd, and Jody Scheckter, whose name card and place setting lay unclaimed beside my own, was reported to be late with airline problems.

The effect, especially after a couple of glasses of Crozes-Hermitage (81er), was slightly heady and unreal, like dining in the midst of a photo montage come to life; the racing counterpart of a Hollywood poster that purports to show Monroe, Bogart, James Dean, Mae West and the Marx Brothers all standing in the same crowd. That, or a little like sitting down to the Last Supper with the original Twelve, Fangio getting my vote for center seat; a sort of baroque Upper Room with candles, cut glass, brandy and real Cuban cigars.

Why, you ask, was all this driving talent concentrated under one roof?

Mercedes-Benz, never a company to work in half measures, had invited the drivers for the opening of the new Nurburgring and the introduction of the 16-valve Cosworth headed Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 (just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?), thereby killing two birds with dozens of stones and hundreds of thousands of Deutsche Mark. Mercedes was sponsoring what was essentially a showroom stock race of the Cosworth 190’s around the new Ring. Twenty of these great drivers would be pitted against one another in a 12 lap race during Sunday’s opening ceremonies. It was ostensibly just an exhibition race, but in Saturday’s practice the drivers were clearly taking it seriously. Not one of these men had become a racing legend because he liked following other cars around the race track.

At Saturday night’s dinner, a young journalist asked Phil Hill if he were “really going to try hard tomorrow.” The color rose in Hill’s face and he said, “Of course I’m going to try tomorrow. Are you kidding? I was driving my tail off in practice today. I still can’t figure out how Prost is going so fast . . .”


History recalls that some new driver named Senna beat Lauda the next day.