Hector Suppici Sedes (1903-1948) was an
Uruguayan
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
racecar driver
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.
Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organis ...
. The first winner of the Grand Prix of the South, he was also a skilled mechanic and was known for his many innovations in racing technique and racecar management.
He was born in
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...
, the cousin of
Alberto Suppici
Alberto Horacio Suppici (20 November 1898 – 21 June 1981) was a Uruguayan footballer and coach who won the first ever FIFA World Cup, leading the Uruguay team in the 1930 tournament on home soil. Suppici is known as el Profesor (the Professor ...
, who later became the first football manager to win the
FIFA World Cup. He was known in his neighbourhood of
La Blanqueada
La Blanqueada is a '' barrio'' (neighbourhood or district) of Montevideo, Uruguay.
Location
It borders Tres Cruces to the west, Larrañaga to the northwest, Unión to the northeast and Parque Batlle to the south. It is home to the Military Hosp ...
as "El gaucho" and "El inventor". He had notable success as a professional driver, winning the
Uruguayan National Grand Prix four times and also the Buenos Aires-Mendoza race in 1935. In 1938, he had his greatest triumph, winning the
Southern Grand Prix (
El Gran Premio del Sur), which covered all of
Patagonia. Suppici covered the 6,224 kilometers in 60 hours 49 minutes and 37 seconds, at an average of 90.436 kilometers per hour.
His contemporaries were drivers such as
Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio (American Spanish: , ; 24 June 1911 – 17 July 1995), nicknamed ''El Chueco'' ("the bowlegged" or "bandy legged one") or ''El Maestro'' ("The Master" or "The Teacher"), was an Argentine racing car driver. He dominated t ...
, “Hipomenes”
Angel Lo Valvo, “El indio rubio”
Arturo Kruuse, the Gálvez brothers and
Raúl Riganti. He was also a friend of intellectuals and writers such as
Juan José Morosoli (author of "Journey to the Sea") and
Julio César Castro (aka Juceca, the creator of
Don Verídico).
Pintín Castellanos
Horacio Antonio Castellanos Alves (Montevideo, 1905 – Montevideo, 1983), better known as Pintín Castellanos, was an Uruguayan pianist, composer, lyricist and conductor of tango music
Tango is a style of music in or time that originated ...
composed and dedicated the
milonga “Meta fierro” to him, which
Juan D'Arienzo recorded in 1939.
On the afternoon of December 4, 1948, he crashed his car in the Chilean town of
Victoria, in the
Atacama desert, while he was driving in the second stage of the Lima-Buenos Aires race. He was 45 years old.
[https://www.laondadigital.uy/archivos/18083]
He was commemorated in an Uruguayan
postage stamp in 1973.
References
{{reflist
Uruguayan racing drivers
1903 births
1948 deaths