In Memoriam Pete Kerr

For me it is quite difficult finding the right words to compose an obituary about Pete Kerr.

Imagine the following. Your are invited to stay at a friends house for the weekend. You’re visiting a motorshow together, you’re invited having dinner with friends, you’re having breakfast together, you’re having a drink in the evening and talk about your beloved topics: motorracing and cars, cars and motorracing, you have fun listening to the stories, you’re loughing together and casually you’re talking about the future.

Pete’s plan for the future was going back to New Zealand, by the end of this year, where he actually was from. His cars in the gararage were already prepared to send over, just a few things needed to be done in old England before the journey to his place near Auckland could start. His last words to me, when I left on Sunday for the airport, were his invitation to New Zealand: “You must come, we’ll have a nice drive with my cars there!”

That happend on the last weekend in March and it was the last time I saw Pete alive. We had several talks on the phone afterwards and once he mentioned that he has to go to the hospital in Oxford, just a health check, nothing serious.

A few days after our last talk, I received a call from his best friend. He told me about Pete’s poor health and that he was taken to a hospice. My attempt to talk to Pete on the phone in the Willen-Hospice was without success. Pete Kerr passed away in the wee hours of the morning of May 1st, 2007, just 5 weeks after we met each other lastly .......

My private memories on Pete:

In the mid 90ies I tried to get in contact with Pete, but he was still a busy man at Arrows and worked also for Ecclestone’s FIA (Pete was the one who brought the electronical admission-control with plastic cards in F-1 to perfection, which is still used today) and so he didn’t find time for me at those days. 

1998, shortly after he retired from Arrows, we met each other accidentally at Silverstone’s Coys Festival. I introduced myself and he remembered my name immediately. He apologized for not getting in contact with me earlier. Later I learned that his wife died due to an embolism just a few days before.

In summer 2000 I opened my Jochen Rindt Showroom and invited Pete to the opening party in Vienna. Unfortunately he could not come but instead sent me a parcel with a cup and some bows of laurel wreath which Jochen had won. “It is a permanent loan!”, was written in the attached letter. Thanks is much too little, but he didn’t want to thank him for. Pete saw himself just as the mechanic and Jochen as the star, who raced the cars to the win. Pete said: “When they (Alan and Jochen) took off from the the starting line and everything was ok, my job was done and the rest of the race did not interest me anymore!”

                                                    
                                                   The Winkemann Racing Team in the paddock of Reims 1965



We did not lose sight of each other but our next reunion took place not until 2004. The Lotus 49, Jochen’s winning car at Watkins Glen 1969, was shown to public there, 35 years later. Pete, Eddie Dennis and Nina Rindt were invited by Johannes Willenpart, the recent owner of that car, to join that event at Watkins Glen.

Pete’s house was just one hour away from Birmingham and Stoneleigh. So during the last years, he invited me to stay with him for the weekend when the motorshow took place.

We went to the show together and afterwards at home he showed me his treasures in form of books, photos and slides, which had been taken by his wife or by himself. A great and special experience for me, as you can easily imagine.

By the end of 1969 the Winkelmann Racing Team stopped racing. Pete changed to the newly founded racing-team of MARCH as their chief mechanic. He worked, amongst others, for Ronnie Peterson, who even achieved the vice-worldchampion title in 1971, and also for Niki Lauda, who started his F-1 carreer with MARCH.

After MARCH Pete worked for SHODOW, which became later ARROWS under team owner Jackie Oliver. Pete worked for that team until its liquidation and retired well-deserved.

Some impressions of Pete’s legislating:

This photo made him very proud. Temporada in Argentina 1968 together with Nina and mechanic’s girlfriend.