Roger Rey and his more than 50 years of racing
02/26/2014
On February 23, 2014, Roger Rey from Valais, who has driven in more than 950 races during his motor racing career, celebrated his 80th birthday.
As a racing driver and founder of almost all hill climb races in the canton of Valais, the car mechanic, who was born in Sierre on February 23, 1934, left his mark on Swiss motor racing for decades.
On August 18, 2013, he drove his "Formule Libre" racing car in the St-Ursanne-Les Rangiers international hill climb in the canton of Jura for the 50th (!) time. Television in western Switzerland dedicated a very emotional report to him on this unique record .
Roger Rey knew all the great racing drivers of the sixties, seventies and eighties, including Jim Clark and Jo Bonnier. Both of them raced at Les Rangiers at the time, which is how Roger Rey came into contact with them. Siffert from Fribourg won Les Rangiers five times (1963, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968).
Prefers hill climbs to circuit races
Roger Rey also drove in several international circuit races, but still loved hill climbs more than anything else. He won several times in his Formula 2 car, including the Châtel-St-Denis - Les Paccots hill climb. But his favorite track remains St-Ursanne - Les Rangiers. Roger Rey was also a constructor and built a small series of Formula Vee racing cars, the famous Roger Formula Vee.
He also drove his Formula Vee in international races, including in Hockenheim, where he competed against Helmut Marko and Niki Lauda.
Later, he also took part in several Formula 3 races in the European championship and competed with Alain Prost, among others. The Frenchman took part in various Formula 3 racing series in 1978. Prost was most successful in the French Formula 3 Championship, in which he won the championship title. He only finished ninth in the European Formula 3 Championship.
"I still remember very clearly now that the Italian F3 racing drivers said the following at the briefing of the European F3 race in Monza, where I was driving in the same group as Prost: "This young Frenchman has to be shot down on the first lap - and indeed Prost was shot down immediately," recalls Roger Rey.
Roger Rey has hundreds of such anecdotes. He told us that Peter Sauber's story as a constructor began in Valais. "In order to build his first sports car C1 on a good English chassis, Peter Sauber was looking for a cheap Brabham F3 racing car. So he bought the Brabham of my good friend Paul Fellay, who had been a Citroën representative in Sierre for a long time," Roger Rey explained.
Also in rally racing
Roger Rey was also a regular in rallies. In 1961, he won the Rallye du Vin (formerly the Rallye international du Valais) in a Renault Dauphine Gordini. His son Alain Rey, also a racing car driver and winner of several slaloms, took part in a rally only once, in 1987 at the Rallye du Valais as co-driver of the author of these lines. Sadly, Alain Rey died in a traffic accident in 1992.
After the death of his beloved son, Roger Rey no longer wanted to race. Young Valais racers asked him to return to racing and Roger did. "In these difficult times, this challenge helped me," recalled Roger Rey, who will certainly still be driving a few slaloms and hill climbs in his monoposto in 2014. Roger Rey's involvement in motorsport certainly seems to have had the effect of a fountain of youth!
Pictures: Jimmy Froidevaux (2) and archive Laurent Missbauer (2)
