Potharst, Robert (NL)
b
Race engineer.
His story in his own words
Well this is my story in ff1600 in short lines.
1976: ff1600 in the Netherlands with Jan Lammers in a Crossle 30F, in his first ever single seater race at Zandvoort put the car on pole by 0,7sec.
Because I met David Kennedy at Zandvoort, he was racing in the EFDA European FF1600 Championship because of a breakdown of his transport bus which carried his car he asked me to take him with my and trailer to Mainz-Finthen Germany for the next EFDA championship race, I did and he came second.
In august I ended up in GB and went to see Kennedy race at Mallory Park. Unfortunately he had a massive crash in the race and was hospitalised. Dave Minister of Minister engines ask me to help rebuilding the car, problem it had to go Crossle in Belfast. I returned 2 weeks later at Snetterton. Minister came we put engine in got car ready. Well David back for hospital amazingly finished second and won the Townsend Thoresen Championship. Because I ran out of money David said go to Hawke Racing cars and ask for work because I was well known in the European FF1600 scene. I did and within a few hours I was preparing Derek’s Daly car for the Formula Ford Festival! Well he won!
21 years later at Phoenix Raceways in Arizona I won with Duncan Dayton the USFF2000 race and when Derek came over to interview us (he worked for ESPN) we had an emotional meeting. He organised for me to get Tommy Byrne and Calvin Fish (they both lived in the USA) to the next race to come and visit me. I had many involvements with them over the years in England and Europe. It happened and was unforgettable!
The next years I did many racing jobs in GB. Spend a year at Motor Racing Stables at Brands Hatch with the bosses Jackie Epstein and Brain Jones, till in 1979 Don MacLeod ask me to run his FF1600 Sark at the FF Festival. I did and he won!
Back in Europe this is my list of history;
1982; With Volker Weidler, German. German FF1600 Champion, European FF1600 Champion, German FF2000 Champion. All in van Diemen RF82 FF1600 and FF2000 chassis. All powered by Gatmo tuned engines.
1983; With Harald Huysman, Belgian. 2nd Benelux FF1600 Championship, 2nd Austrian FF1600 Championship. All in van Diemen RF83 FF1600. With Gatmo tuned engines.
1984; With Uwe Shafer, German and Roland Ratzenberger Austrian. Uwe 1st German FF1600 Championship and 2nd in the final of the Formula Ford Festival and leading the European FF1600 final till black flagged. Roland 4th German FF1600 Championship. All in van Diemen RF85 FF1600. With Gatmo tuned engines.
1986; With Marc Hessel, German. 2nd German FF1600 Championship. With van Diemen RF86 FF1600. With Evan Demoulas, American. 4th German FF2000 Championship. With van Diemen RF86 FF2000. With Scholar tuned engines.
1987; With Patrick Dewulf. Belgian. Benelux Champion FF1600. Belgian Champion FF1600. 2nd European Championship. With van Diemen RF86 and RF87 FF1600. With Zagk tuned engines. We did 4 races in the German FF1600 Championship, won two beating Ellen Lohr and finished 2nd behind Ellen Lohr, the first race we came second and Patrick sad after the race she is banging wheels with me, I said next time bang back and he did! Ellen became Champion that year.
1988; With Evan Kersbergen, Dutch. European Champion FF1600 (beat Michael Schumacher into 2nd place). Dutch Champion FF1600. With Reynard 87 FF1600. With Zagk tuned engines.
1989; With Evan Kersbergen. 2nd Benelux Championship FF1600. (With Samson Tobacco sponsorship like Jan Lammers 10 years before With Shadow in F1). With van Diemen RF89 FF1600. With Zagk tuned engines.
1992; Team Boss Fresh Racing; In FF1600 with 3 Dutch drivers, Allard Kalff, Alex Korper and Roger Chiapponi. 2nd +3th in Benelux and Dutch FF1600 Championship. 2nd + 3th in European Championship. With van Diemen RF92 and Zagk tuned engines.
Also in Formula Opel-Lotus with 3 Dutch drivers, Frank Eglem, Hans de Graaff and Eric Roest. 2nd, 3th and 4th in the Dutch/Benelux Championship behind Jos Verstappen.
1993; Continue with Fresh Racing. In FF1600 with Tom Coronel and Vincent Vosse in FF Zetec and Marcel Kooij in FF1600. Champion with Coronel and Kooij Dutch Champion FF Zetec and FF1600. This was with Vector FF Zetec and Vector FF1600 with Zagk tuned engines.
1994; I was running a low budget Formula Opel-Lotus in the European Championship for a Norwegian driver (forgot name). Continues later.
1996; With Westwood Racing in the German Formula 3 Championship with Klaus Graf in a Dallara 396 Toyota. Because my relationship with van Diemen’s Ralph Firman I got in touch with TOM’s Toyota Mr. Hiroshi Fushida Through this we are the only one using Toyota’s engines. Because of this I and Klaus Graf where invited to do the testing program for TOM’s own F3 chassis in GB, because the season had started and teams are not allowed to test with their own driver, (Christian Horner was TOM’s F3 driver). This was a very interesting experience! Unfortunatly Klaus got disappointed with the progress we made and left the team. Without any other driver Ralph Firman told me to run an American team Highcroft in the USFF2000 series in 1997 with a van DiemenRF97. I did and after starting in November 1996 Duncan Dayton the owner and driver took me on after some impressive tests we did. So when we came to race at Phoenix we tested at an Oval in Florida, well I had never prepared a car for an Oval, so I took the Osterreichring as example from my days there in FF1600, FF2000 and F3 as an example because the old Osterreichring had long slightly banked Quick corners.
Well Saturday race Duncan started 10th and finished 4th, Sunday after some adjustment tweaks Duncan finished 1st. Nobody could believe and understand how we did it. We finished the Championship in 3th place. Bye the way Duncan also won that year the Historic Monaco GP in an F1 Brabham. He won in total 11 times in Monaco with several different Brabham chassis in the F1 class and F junior class. He was 33 that year and beat many young talent!
Because my long involvement with van Diemen, in 85 and 86 during January and February I spend weeks and weeks at van Diemen’s shop to build and test cars at Snetterton before the season. During that time Ayrton Senna visited Ralph many times when he was at Lotus and I became a good friend of him, he liked my peanut butter sandwiches I made for myself and he always asked me some as well.
Then at the Imola F1 weekend in 94 Roland, my driver in 84 and Ayrton my friend died. Already there because a week later we had our race, we came early for a little holiday. I have never been so shocked and sad that after our race the week later I gave up with motor racing. I still remember every week the days after the Imola F1 race that I was every day at the circuit just sitting there at the accident places looking, thinking, crying and talking to myself WHY?
So I did leave motorsport till 96 and only because Walter Lechner pushed me to come back.
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