Horst Kroll

'Bold text'Horst Kroll (May 16, 1936 - October 26, 2017) was a German-born Canadian race driver who won the final Can-Am racing championship 20 years after Formula One world champion John Surtees captured the inaugural series for high-powered, closed-wheeled sports racing cars on Canadian and American tracks. Can-Am

Chipwich Charger returns to Mosport

At age 50 he became only the second Canadian winner of the Canadian-American Challenge Cup series following Jacques Villeneuve Sr.

The Sports Car Club of America's pro racing sanctioning body had dropped the original Can-Am series in 1974, only to revive it three years later when Kroll led the first race at Mont-Tremblant, QC, but finished third. Winning thereafter remained beyond his grasp until 1985.

He was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 1994 in the second group named to the fledgling institution.

CAREER, THE EARLY YEARS

Kroll left his mother and siblings in East Germany in 1954 and made his way to Stuttgart Zuffenhausen where Porsche hired him as an apprentice.

Promoted from assembling 356 sports cars to servicing cars owned by favoured clients and Porsche family members, he'd don his company overalls to gain admission to major races and offer his help in the pits.

His move into racing himself followed Porsche arranging employment as a technical specialist with Volkswagen Canada, where fellow Porsche specialist Ludwig Heimrath already was winning races in a Porsche 356. A third-place finish in another 356 in his first race at Ste. Eugene, a circuit on a deserted airfield in eastern Ontario, hooked him on the sport in 1961 and he soon added ice racing and hill climbing to his resume.

Formula Vee, the low-cost starter series, yielded his first championship in 1964. Wright, John (July, 2002)

Wins in a 356 Carrera at Mosport, the road course since named Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and Harewood Acres, another airport circuit, led to Quebec star Jacques Duval inviting Kroll to co-drive his Porsche 904 GTS in long distance races. Duval entered them in the 1967 Sebring 12 Hours, then the major endurance event in North America, after the duo finished third in their first outing, Mosport's 6-Hour Sundown Grand Prix. Second in class, 16th overall at Sebring prompted a return in Duval's Porsche 911 S in 1968 for third in class, 9th overall. "Horst was as accomplished behind the wheel as he was under the hood of a Porsche," Duval wrote in his memoir, crediting Kroll for preparing the cars for the endurance races as well as setting the pace.

Mike Rahal, whose son Bobby later won the Indianapolis 500, recruited Kroll to co-drive a Porsche 906 in the 1971 Watkins Glen, NY, 6-Hour. Despite failing to finish they partnered again in Rahal's Lotus 47 in the 1972 Glen 500-km and the 250-mile Daytona Finale.

Kroll's best Sebring result came in 1979, second in GTU and seventh overall, driving a Porsche 911 Carrera RSR with Rudi Bartling, a fellow member in Toronto's Deutscher Automobile Club, who was an endurance specialist. Kroll won the Sundown Grand Prix with the DAC's Harry Bytzek in the Bytzek RSR in 1975.

Wife Hildegard and two-year-old Birgit share the moment.

He captured the Canadian Road Racing Championship in 1968 driving the Kelly Porsche, a clone of the Lotus 23B sports racing car engineered by his friend Wayne Kelly. He put the honour in perspective with his oft-quoted remark after the awards banquet, "I got a busted trophy and a handshake," he said. "At least my mechanic won a set of tools."

He also raced the Kelly Porsche against first-generation Can-Am cars in four races of the 1968 United States Road Racing Championship in which many Can-Am regulars competed prior to their series commencing in the fall. Although the Kelly's Porsche engine was less than half the size of the American V-8's, Kroll scored a 9th at Watkins Glen and 12th at Mid-Ohio, both races won by Mark Donohue in the Penske McLaren M6A."

The Canadian championship switched in 1969 to open-wheeled cars - called Formula A in Canada and Formula 5000 in the U.S. - in the new Gulf Canada series. Intent on defending his title, Kroll flew to England that April and bought a new Lola T142, racing at Oulton Park and Brands Hatch in preparation. But Eppie Wietzes dominated the Gulf Canada races; Kroll finished second to Wietzes in four consecutive races and the first two of four in 1970, making him runner-up in the championship in successive years. His one win came when Wietzes failed to finish at Harewood Acres. The series folded after the oil company dropped its sponsorship.

Racing south of the border was tougher. In the SCCA Continental Formula 5000 Championship OldRacingCars.com new cars from AAR, McLaren and Surtees challenged the Lolas. Underlining the standard of driving, F5000 front-runners Jody Scheckter, Alan Jones and Mario Andretti all advanced from the American series to Formula One world championships. Kroll persevered, complaining that inadequate prize money for mid-field finishers made it difficult to improve. His voice was prominent among drivers sounding off at the 1972 season opener at Laguna Seca, CA.

While the top-three finishers shared $30,000, Kroll in eighth was paid $600, falling short of his travel expenses. Worse, car breakdowns at Lime Rock, CT and Road Atlanta, GA produced $225 checks. Kroll's most successful F5000 campaign came in 1976: he stood twelfth in championship points with a fifth at Watkins Glen his best race finish. Coincidentally this was the year the SCCA decided to dump Formula 5000, reintroducing the Can-Am as its premiere professional series in 1977.

THE CAN-AM YEARS

Mounting the top step of Mosport's victory stand followed years of frustration

The SCCA called on its teams to rebid their F5000 cars enclosing the wheels to resemble the legendary Can-Am monsters that had commanded international attention from 1966 through 1974. In so doing Kroll gained a fresh start in the Lola T300 in which he'd previously contested 26 F5000 outings, sporting a new body crafted by fellow Canadian Roy Hayman. OLD RACING CARS

He turned heads by leading the first race of the 'new' Can-Am at rain-slicked Mont-Tremblant, QC, June 6th, 1977, taking the lead as other drivers pitted for slick tires better suited to the drying pavement. Staying on rain tires put Kroll in front but slowed his pace so he finished third, a bittersweet podium that would be his best result over the following eight years.

In his next 39 races he counted 19 top-10 finishes, three of them top-five.. His Volkswagen-Porsche repair shop funded his racing, but left him perennially short. His daughter, Birgit, described how he'd tour tracks' paddocks the night before races searching other teams' garbage bins for parts like camshafts. Although trashed as overly worn, they were still good enough for a second life in Kroll's car.

He became newly competitive in 1983 when his first major sponsorship enabled him to re-body his Lola T330 as a near clone to the Galles Frissbee that Al Unser Jr. had driven to the 1982 championship and acquire a 550-horsepower VDS-built Chevrolet engine. This was Lola HU2, a F5000 car in which Alan Jones won at Brands Hatch in 1973. Also working in Kroll's favour, front-running teams VDS, Rick Galles and Paul Newman follow four-time champion Carl Haas's 1982 move to Indy Car racing, levelling the Can-Am playing field by their absence.

Villeneuve Sr. raced to the 1983 championship in the ex-Unser Galles Frissbee the Canadian Tire team had bought as Galles exited the series. But Kroll was never far behind. He counted fourths at Trois-Rivieres, QC and Sears Point, CA along with fifths at Mosport and a second Sears Point race. He drove the brilliantly painted Chipwich Charger (so named promoting the sponsor's new ice cream sandwich and officially dubbed the Frissbee KR3) to fifth in championship points.

He climbed to third in 1984 as Ireland's Michael Roe eclipsed Scotsman Jim Crawford for seven wins in 10 races. The optics changed again in 1985 when Kroll won the season opener at Mosport, his first win in eight years and 62 races. American newcomer Rick Miaskiewicz made his case by capturing the lead off the start - in the same Galles Frissbee Unser Jr. and Villeneuve Sr. drove to their championships - but Kroll was in position to take command when Miaskiewicz spun off at Turn One. Making the day even more celebratory, Joe DeMarco earned third in another Horst Kroll Racing entry.

Miaskiewicz scored three victories and the 1985 championship, but Kroll was second each time for second in points as well. Kroll was fully in charge as the 1986 schedule commenced at Mosport once again, this time qualifying fastest and leading from the start, winning ahead of IMSA star Bill Adam in another Kroll entry, a Frissbee KR4. After the SCCA announced it was folding the series after four races. Kroll became its final Can-Am champion by following up on his win with a fourth at Summit Point, WV, second at St. Louis, MO and another second at Mosport's fall race - won by Paul Tracy in the KR4, the 17-year-old's first outing beyond the starter formulas on his way to Indy Car stardom.

The Can-Am competitors formed a new organization hoping to salvage their brand of racing,, Championship Auto Teams, adding a single race to the Can-Am schedule at Hallet, OK to create the CAT Thunder Car Championship. Kroll added the CAT title to his Can-Am laurels By finishing sixth at Hallett.

Kroll committed to defending his title in the first full Thunder Car Championship in 1987. What's more he pledged the availability of his backup cars for guest drivers to create better shows with larger starting fields, as he had with young Tracy at Mosport's Can-Am finale,. So it was Villeneuve Sr. drove the KR4 to second behind Bill Tempero in CAT's visit to Canada's best-known oval, Sanair Raceway, QC with Kroll fourth in KR3 and John Macaluso sixth in KR5. New to ovals but feisty, Kroll also took third behind Tempero at Milwaukee and eighth at Phoenix for third in points as the American oval racing veteran won the Thunder Car title.

The Can-Am cars were relegated to the sidelines in 1988 as Tempero introduced the new American Indycar Series for superannuated Indy cars. Kroll retired from professional racing at the age of 52, returning to Mosport for a handful of endurance races co-driving with friends or firing up KR3 for parade laps at vintage festivals, before spectating became his enduring pleasure.