Draft:Horst Kroll

• Comment: Adding WP:WIKILINKS will help in providing context. Greenman (talk) 20:49, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

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Horst Kroll (May 15, 1936 - October 26, 2017) won the final Can-Am racing championship in 1986, 20 years after Formula One world champion John Surtees won the inaugural series for high-powered sports racing cars on Canadian and American tracks

Late in his career at age 50, Kroll became only the second Canadian champion of this form of racing following Jacques Villeneuve Sr. in 1983.

He led the first race of the revised series at Mont-Tremblant, Que., in 1977, three years after the Sports Car Club of America had folded the original. His first win, however, remained beyond his grasp until 1985 in his 62nd Can-Am start. Kroll was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 1994, in only the second group so honoured by the fledgling institution.

Early career

At the age of 18 Kroll left his family in East Germany and made his way to Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen in West Germany where he was hired by Porsche as an apprentice.

From assembling 356 sports cars he was transferred to servicing the cars of Porsche family members and favoured clients. On weekends he'd don his company coveralls to gain admission to major races at circuits like Solitude, just outside of Stuttgart. He'd offer to help the Porsche team in the pits, thus meeting many of the drivers of the day.

His first foray into racing was in Canada, where Porsche had arranged employment as a technician at Volkswagen Canada, which sold the German sports cars at the time. Fellow Porsche specialist Ludwig Heimrath already was earning attention racing a 356; in Kroll's first race in 1961 at Ste. Eugene, a circuit on a deserted airfield, he drove another 356 to third place and was hooked.

Soon he moved up to the more powerful 356 Carrera. Wins at Mosport, the road racing track that opened in 1961, in recent years named Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and Harewood Acres, another airport circuit, led to prominent Quebecer Jacques Duval asking him to co-drive his full-out race car, a Porsche 904 GTS, in endurance races.

Kroll's first championship came in 1964 in Formula Vee, the budget series that featured cars based on Volkswagen Beetle running gear, in Kroll's case a Huron Vee made by a shop in downtown Toronto. He'd score two more Vee championships in Kelly Vees manufactured by his friend and fellow racer, Wayne Kelly.

Duval entered his 904 GTS in the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring, then North America's major international endurance race, after he and Kroll finished third in their first drive together, Mosport's six-hour Sundown Grand Prix, in the summer of 1965. At Sebring they captured second in the Sports 2000 Class, 16th overall. They returned with Duval's Porsche 911S in 1968 and improved to ninth overall, third among GT 2.0 entries.

Wife Hildegard and two-year-old daughter Birgit join Horst Kroll as he sets out on a victory lap on his way to winning the 1968 Canadian championship.

Kroll earned the 1968 Canadian Road Racing Championship driving another of Wayne Kelly's creations, a copy of the Lotus 23 called the Kelly Porsche. The driver's championship fired his ambition, but without commensurate financial reward. "I got a busted trophy and a handshake," Kroll told reporters. "My mechanic got more than I did. He won $500 worth of tools."

Still, Kroll set out to defend his title. The Canadian championship in 1969 became the Gulf Canada Series for open-wheeled formula cars identified as Formula 5000 in the United States, Formula A in Canada. Kroll purchased a new Lola T142 in England and drove it in two English races in preparation for the Gulf Canada competition.

Eppie Wietzes, another immigrant driver, born in The Netherlands, dominated the Gulf series both years it ran,1969 and 1970, as Kroll finished second or third often enough to stand second both years. He complained his modest budget prevented him from fighting for wins, other than a single victory at Harewood Acres in 1970.

The American Continental Formula 5000 Championship was tougher as Kroll, Wietzes and a handful of ambitious Canadians crossed the border to test their speed against internationally-known drivers. In his strongest of eight years in this league, 1976, Kroll stood 12th in championship points with a fifth at Watkins Glen, N.Y., his best result.

Underlining the quality of the driving, F5000 champions Jody Scheckter and Alan Jones went on to win Formula One world champion titles, as did Mario Andretti, the American star who was runner-up to Brian Redman in the second of the Englishman's three consecutive F5000 championships.

Away from his mid-field struggles in the open-wheeled formula cars, endurance racing burnished Kroll's reputation. Mike Rahal, whose son Bobby later won the Indianapolis 500 and three Indy car championships, invited Kroll to co-drive his Porsche 906K in the six-hour Camel GT Challenge at Watkins Glen. Although they failed to finish, Rahal recruited Kroll again in 1972 to co-drive his Lotus Europa 47 in the Glen's 500-km race and the 250-mile Daytona Finale.

Kroll's one endurance win came in a race he attended as a spectator. A friend from Toronto's Deutscher Automobile Club,Harry Bytzek, convinced him to retrieve his helmet from home and co-drive with him in his Porsche 911 Carrera RSR in the 1975 six-hour Sundown Grand Prix. Kroll's best Sebring followed in 1979, second in GTU and seventh overall in a Porsche 911 Carrera RSR shared with Rudy Bartling, another DAC stalwart.

THE CAN-AM YEARS

The SCCA reinvented the Can-Am in 1977 to replace Formula 5000 as its premier professional series. Competitors rebuilt their F5000 cars with bodies enclosing the wheels so they resembled the legendary cars that had commanded international attention from 1966 through 1974. In Kroll's case his Can-Am entry was based on a Lola T300 he'd bought in 1972 and driven in 19 Formula 5000 races.

In the opening Can-Am at rainy Mont-Tremblant, Que., Kroll turned heads by taking the lead as other drivers pitted for slick tires better suited to the drying track. Staying on the faster-wearing rain tires dropped Kroll to third at the finish - a bittersweet podium that would stand as his best result over the first six years of the reborn Can-Am.

In 1983 new sponsorship enabled him to rebuild a Lola T330 as a near-clone to the Galles Frissbee that Al Unser Jr. drove to the 1982 championship. Also working in Kroll's favour, top teams migrating from the Can-Am to Indy car competition included those of Rick Galles, VDS, Paul Newman and four-time champion Carl Haas, levelling the Can-Am playing field.

Jacques Villeneuve Sr. raced to three wins and the 1983 championship in the ex-Unser Galles Frisbee his Canadian Tire team acquired, but Kroll successfully challenged for top-five finishes in his Chipwich Charger, as the old Lola/become Frissbee KR3 promoted its ice cream sponsorship. Kroll advanced to fifth in 1983 points with fourth-place finishes at Trois-Rivieres, Que., and Sears Point, CA, along with fifths at Mosport and a second contest at Sear Point.

He climbed to third in 1984. While Ireland's Michael Roe dominated with seven wins in 10 races, Kroll took seconds at Brainerd, Minn., and Road Atlanta, third at Mosport's autumn race, fourths at Trois-Rivieres and the season opener at Mosport and fifth at Lime Rock, CT.

Horst Kroll celebrates his first Can-Am win, at Mosport in 1985.

His first Can-Am win in 62 starts opened the 1985 season. With Michael Roe departed for a career in endurance racing, American newcomer Rick Miaskiewicz quickly stated his case by taking the lead off the start in the Galles Frisbee, the same car in which Unser Jr. and Villeneuve Sr. prevailed. But Kroll was poised for victory when Miaskiewicz spun off at Mosport's Turn One in the 18th of 60 laps. Making the day even more celebratory, Joe DeMarco finished third in another Horst Kroll Racing entry, a Lola T300 (that would become a Frissbee KR5 in 1986).

As Miaskiewicz went on to take the championship, Kroll took second in each of the American's three wins for second in 1985 points as well.

The 1986 series began at Mosport once again, but this time Kroll qualified fastest and won ahead of IMSA star Bill Adam in the team's Frissbee KR4. After the Sports Car Club of America announced it was folding the series after an abbreviated schedule of four races Kroll made the championship his own finishing fourth at Summit Point, WV, second at St. Louis and second again in Mosport's fall race, which was memorable for Paul Tracy winning ahead of Kroll in the 17-year-old's first outing beyond the starter formulas on his way to Indy car stardom, getting his break in Kroll's Frissbee KR4.

The Can-Am teams formed a new organization, Championship Auto Teams,. in an attempt to salvage a showcase for their cars, A single race at Hallett, OK, added to the four Can-Ams created the 1986 CAT Thunder Car Championship. Sixth at Hallett earned Kroll the CAT title along with his Can-Am laurels.

For the 1987 Thunder Car season Kroll committed to improving the show by making his backup cars available to guest drivers as he had with Tracy in Mosport's final Can-Am. Villeneuve Sr. drove the KR4 to second behind American Bill Tempero on Quebec's best-known oval, Sanair Speedway, with Kroll fourth in the KR3 and another American, John Macaluso sixth in KR5. When Tempero won again on the Milwaukee oval on his way to the CAT title, Kroll took third in KR3 and Jimmy Slack (who had raced a Kroll car in Formula Vee) tenth in KR5.

In his final Can-Am/CAT outing, November 1, 1987, at Phoenix International Raceway, Kroll took eighth in KR3 for third in CAT points as Tempero won the CAT title. When Can-Am cars were relegated to the sidelines - or vintage series in the hands of amateurs - replaced by supernnuated Indy cars as Tempero introduced the American Indycar Series in 1988. Kroll retired from professional racing, only returning to Mosport to contest a handful of endurance races co-driving with friends.