Winds of change from the East

These days, we are quite accostumed with the idea of GP drivers from the old Iron Curtain. After all, drivers from Poland, Russia, Czech Republic and Hungary have all driven in Formula 1, and the Pole actually won a race before a rally accident ruined what looked like a great career.

However, in the 70's, we still lived under the Cold War, and the Eastern Block was basically shrouded by mystery. Russia every once announced even more mysterious GP level cars, touring car races were held in Brno, Czechoslovakia, as well as Budapest and Belgrade in the 60s, and East Germany also had a fairly active racing scene. However, dreaming of an Iron Curtain GP driver in Formula 1 in the 70s was as far fetched as an imagination could go.

Not that the Eastern Block did not have a representative in F1, for Edgar Barth, Jurgen's father, did drive in the category while still East German. And later as West German.

Allow me some poetic liberty. As Formula 2 was, at least in theory, the step category before Formula 1, the driver pictured below almost became the first modern Eastern Block driver to reach Formula 1 in the 70s. Allow me a lot of poetic liberty.

Ok, there was Count Adam Potocki, born in Poland, who raced briefly in F2 in the late 60s, early 70s, however, by that time he had French citizenship. The guy below was the real deal.

The car is a Surtees TS16-Ford, and the driver, Yugoslav Francy Jerancic.

The "lot of poetic liberty" stems from the fact that Francy, who apparently had lots of bourgeois sponsorship in his car, never even came close to qualifying in any of the Championship F2 races he showed up for in 1975. That, of course, meant GP teams were not really lined up to hire the slow Titoland driver, and perhaps bring Vesna sponsorship to F1. Elsewhere, Francy did not steal any headlines either.

Notwithstanding, Jerancic makes a nice conversation piece about "almosts", of which there are so many in car racing.

Carlos de Paula is a translator, writer and auto racing historian based in Miami

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