Monday, April 10, 2006
PICTURE TELLS TERRIBLE STORY
At first glance, nothing about this image (recently found in old Bulletin files) is at all remarkable:
Let’s take another look. The fellow on the left we might assume is a racing driver, given his clothing and the attached Dunlop/Ford insignias. Some will recognise him as Jackie Stewart, who retired from racing in 1973.
Dunlop withdrew from Formula One at the conclusion of the 1970 season, which helps narrow down the photograph’s likely date.
What about location? On the right we see a Vespa bearing Milanese plates (MI). We’re in Italy. And, noticing those crosses, outside a medical facility.
The woman with whom Stewart is speaking carries the sort of notebook used in that era to record lap times. She is Nina Rindt, wife of Jochen Rindt, an Austrian driver orphaned by Allied bombing in WWII.
Stewart was one of the first drivers to visit Rindt following an accident during qualifying for the 1970 Italian Grand Prix. One of Rindt’s legs had been torn away. Stewart observed that no blood was pulsing from the wound.
Awfully, heartbreakingly, we quite probably see here Stewart telling Nina Rindt that her husband is dead.