Jaroslav Juhan

The Porsche 550 with Jaroslav Juhan in the 1953 Carrera Panamericana was at the start

Jaroslav Vaclav Maria "Jerry" Juhan (born October 13, 1921 in Prague ; † September 28, 2011 ) was a Guatemalan racing driver of Czechoslovak origin.

life and career

Jaroslav Juhan was born in Prague, where he also spent his youth. After the end of World War II, he took part in car races and became an importer of Italian automobiles and buses. In 1951 he left his home after political quarrels. He emigrated to the Republic of Guatemala - there he built up an automobile import business for various Italian brands.

In 1953 Juhan became the official importer of Porsche sports cars. In order to make the young Porsche brand known among South American car enthusiasts, Jaroslav Juhan decided to take part in automobile races with the Type 356. In 1953, he competed in the “Carrera de Pacifico” in Guatemala with a Porsche 356 1500 Super . He won this race straight away and ordered two copies of the new Porsche 550 Spyder racing car . In 1953 he started at the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico and took the lead in the 1.6-liter sports car class on the second section of the route. In a promising position, Jaroslav Juhan had to give up on the seventh section due to a technical defect.

A year later , Juhan competed again in the Carrera Panamericana as a Porsche works driver. A duel between him and Hans Herrmann developed over the entire race . After 3,077 kilometers, Hans Herrmann and Jaroslav Juhan crossed the finish line in third and fourth place in the overall standings, just 36 seconds apart. This success inspired Ferry Porsche to give all Porsche sports cars equipped with the victorious four-camshaft engine the nickname “Carrera”. The 1954 Carrera Panamericana was followed by the 1000 km race in Buenos Aires , which Juhan also finished as class winner and fourth overall. As a member of the works team, Jaroslav Juhan started in 1955 after taking part in the 12-hour race in Hyères, as well as in the 24 hours of Le Mans . Together with Helm Glöckler , he finished the French long-distance classic in 6th place.

Despite these impressive successes, Jaroslav Juhan said he always remained an amateur who took part in races in order to be able to sell the cars better afterwards. He contested his last big race in 1958 as co-driver of François Picard at Le Mans, where he was eliminated by accident.

His automobile trade in Guatemala prospered, but the increasingly unstable political situation turned into an ever greater risk. In 1961 Jaroslav Juhan and his wife Denise left Guatemala and settled in Switzerland . As a businessman, Juhan has been active in various fields since then.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1955	Porsche KG	Porsche 550/4 RS 1500 Spyder	Glöckler helmet	Rank 6
1958	Los Amigos team	Ferrari 250TR	François Picard	failure	accident

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1953	Jaroslav Juhan	Porsche 550	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
									DNF
1954	Jaroslav Juhan	Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
			9					4th
1955	Porsche	Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
			4th			6th
1956		Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
			DNF
1957	Jaroslav Juhan	Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
			8th
1958	Los Amigos team	Porsche 550 Ferrari 250TR	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
			10				DNF

Web links

Commons : Jaroslav Juhan  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Jaroslav Juhan at the Carrera Panamericana

Individual evidence

1. ↑ He brought Porsche to South America: Jaroslav "Jerry" Juhan died ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.