A very sad sunday

It was on the 24th April 1983 that Rolf Stommelen was killed driving a Porsche 935L entered by John Fitzpatrick. It was the 4th race of the season and a fine field of sportscar machinery was to take the start of the 6 Hours of Riverside. Rolf Stommelen was sharing his drive with Derek Bell and had started from the front row alongside Al Holbert's March 83G Chevrolet. They were just ahead of teammates John Fitzpatrick-David Hobbs who drove the Porsche 935K4 for the team's second car. As the race seemed to go on an easy way, Rolf Stommelen had just taken the wheel of the Porsche from Derek Bell when, in an unexpected way, the car lost its rear wing in the fast straightaway where it had been the fastest car in the race and took off only to hit the wall in turn 9. The car hit the wall and caught fire : the corner workers had trouble extinguishing it and Rolf Stommelen died in this awful accident. John Fitzpatrick won the race with David Hobbs but the two of them were too upset to get on the podium. Nobody among the spectators got any information about this dramatic accident. Sportscar Racing had just lost one of the most talented drivers in the World.