La Carrera Panamericana: The deadliest road race ever

[svgallery name="1952_MB_300_SL_hirez"] By John LeBlanc OAXACA, Mexico - Driving the 2010 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG on the same route as the historic La Carrera Panamericana road race is no marketing gimmick. The modern Mercedes sports car’s ancestral inspiration, the 1952 300 SL Gullwing racecar and the legendary Mexican road race are intrinsically linked. Once the Mexican section of the Pan-American Highway system (that originally stretched from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Buenos Aires, Argentina) was finished in 1950, a road race (similar to Italy’s contemporary Mille Miglia and Targa Florio) across the country was proposed by the government to promote the highway’s completion and attract foreign business investors. The result was La Carrera Panamericana, a weeklong, over 3,100 km road race that was included in the World Sportscar Championships for the five years it was originally held. In the inaugural event, large American V8 sedans and American drivers took the first four spots. The winner, Hershel McGriff, drove an Oldsmobile 88. But to broaden the event’s appeal and allow the larger and heavier American cars to better compete against the smaller and lighter European sports cars (like the Ferraris that took first and second in 1951) the cars were now separated into two classes: Sports Cars and Stock Cars. One of the first manufacturers to enter the new Sports Cars class was Mercedes, bringing three 300 SLs and their distinctive top-hinged, or “gullwing” doors. The year before, Mercedes had decided to return to racing. In preparation for the 1952 sports car racing season, the  300 SL (Sport Light) was built in just nine months. Its aluminum spaceframe and was raised at the sides for strength, resulting in the high sidesills that led to the legendary gullwing doors. It didn’t take long for the German automaker to find success. 300 SL drivers Karl Kling and Herman Lang won first and second places in the ’52 Carrera race, respectively. Amazingly, Kling and his navigator, Hans Klenk, won the ’52 race despite the car’s windshield shattering after being hit by a vulture at over 200 km/h. For the remainder of the race, ‘Benz mechanics affixed  eight vertical steel bars across their 300 SL’s new windshield, now one of the car’s most distinguishing features. Navigator Klenk is also credited with the invention of “pace notes,” prepared annotations that allowed him to call out instructions for upcoming corners to his driver Kling, a practice now employed universally in road rallies. A Mercedes 300 SL would eventually go on to win that year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans as well—the first German car to ever win the French endurance race. Unfortunately, the tragic 1955 LeMans race—when a Mercedes 300 SLR crashed into the crowd and killed 84 spectators, the car’s driver, Pierre Levegh, and injuring 100 more—forced the cancellation of the original series of La Carrera Panamericana road races over safety concerns . Unlike shorter road races, the long stages of La Carrera Panamericana were difficult to support properly. On some of the more remote stages, it would take hours for officials to get to crashed cars and their injured drivers and navigators. In total, 27 lives were lost during the running of the first five races, making it one of the most deadly races ever. Despite similar dangers running virtually the same route as the 1950’s original, the appeal and the magic of La Carrera Panamericana lives on today in the form of a classic road rally that was started in 1988.

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