ROAD RACING SPECIAL
Through the early 1950s the Mexican Carrera Panamericana proved itself to be the most inspiringly exotic, challenging – and positively dangerous – great public road race on the international sporting calendar.
Politically it had been launched to focus world attention on Mexico’s completion of its section of the long-mooted Pan-American Highway – a continuous arterial roadway from Alaska down to Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego. A background agenda was merely to ensure rapid American access to the Panama Canal, but every involved nation was to contribute road sections across its territory – and by 1950 Mexico generated national pride by being the first to complete.
To celebrate, national communications ministry director Guillermo Ostos proposed a world-class motor race on the new road, from border to border. Mexico’s president Miguel Alemán approved. The story broke in March 1949. That June planning began, and an inaugural Carrera was announced for 1950, run north to south in nine legs, over six days, May 5-10 – 2135 miles. Entry to this inaugural Carrera was open only to minimum 550-run stock (production) cars with at
