The French connection, François Salabert (1947-1990)
In April 1990, the annual Nine-Hour Endurance Race was held on Parker Dam, Arizona. Among the competitiors were “the Frenchies”, two-man team from across the Pond with a Kevlar hull powered by a 400hp Mercury. Balloted in tenth place, after 86 laps, the French boat came in first. This was the first and last boat in the 60-year history of that race. At last one of the drivers, aged 43, felt he might be on the road to winning the Formpula One World Championship.
His name was François Salabert. His story goes back before the times when, despite his poor English, he teamed up to race alongside the British Percival/Spalding duo for JPS.
Francois Jean Antoine Salabert was born August 1, 1947 in the riverside village (1,100 inhabitants) of Lamagistère, near Agen, France. Unlike the Brooke-Percival family of Norfolk or the Seebolds of Missouri or the Molinaris of Como, for Francois Salabert, there was absolutely no precedent for a boating career. During the 1880s, his great-grandfather Antoine Salabert ran a deli. His son Gaston ran the butcher’s shop, then began to diversify, first with canning tomatoes, then with plums and apples which he converted to jam (confiture) to supply to soldiers during the Great War. Francois was born while his father Jean was taking over the reigns after World War II.
As a child François built a little and played cowboys and Indians with his friend and next-door neighbour Michel. As a teenager, with his friend Jean-Michel Baylet, François took part in the regional sport of rugby, playing third-row in the junior team of his local Valence d’Agen team. Soon after, he took to go-karting round the local Caudecoste Circuit. The plan was for him to run the family firm and to this end he studied accountability.
But one day, his cousin Michel Escudier who was an amateur powerboat racing driver, invited the twenty-year-old to a race where he helped out as mechanic. In 1968, Escudier invited Salabert to co-drive his outboard-skiff in an Endurance Race in Spain, where they placed 6th. Salabert then placed 2nd in Marbella, the same in Malaga, then won the Portuguese Grand Prix in the E850 Class. Before long as a member of the Club Rochelais de Motonautisme, the Magisterien had progressed to competing in the Paris Six Hour race and the Rouen 24 Hour race, coming 3rd in the Championship of France.
By this time he had married Claudine Durenque, who he had first met when she was selling programmes at a moto-cross event in the region. The following year, they had a little girl called Nadège, with son Bertrand arriving six years later. At this point, they lived in a flat in his parents’ house.
At this time, the Italian outboard manufacturer Carniti had developed an in-line six engine, the 65 for the Paris Six Hours. Salabert and another Frenchman, Albert Izard became their official pilots in the SD Class. The Carniti had a tendancy to break down. According to Izard’s son, Jean-Luc “During the Rouen 24 Hours, they had a lot of problems with the engine and in the middle of the night, when they thought it was finished and could go to sleep, they met Carniti’s engineers. They repaired the engine and my father had to go again in the frost and rain, but only for a few hours because the Carniti broke down again.” While Izard changed his Carniti for an Evinrude and in 1975 he became French champion in Class SE, his now close friend Salabert remained faithful to the Italian outboard, but not for long.
In 1978. spotting Salabert’s skills, the Dutch powerboat builder and champion driver Cees van de Velden offered him one of his Boxtel-built hulls to take part in the OE World Championship at Evian, where the Frenchman came in runner-up, awarded a silver medal at the UIM O-850 World Championship 1979. He had his friend Albert Izard as co-driver for the Three Hours of Viry Châtillon, won by Izard.
In 1980, with sponsorship from Bénéteau, Salabert won his first Grand Prix in Brussels, placed 3rd in the Formula One OZ (Unlimited) World Championship, was Champion of France in Formula 3 and clocked the fastest lap (recordman) in the Paris Six Hours. Co-driving with Izard, they had been leading in the Paris Six Hours for 5 hours 50 minutes, when the propeller broke and they finished second behind the Englishman John Hill. Salabert was awarded the Neptune d’Or (Gold Neptune) as “Powerboat Driver of the Year”. Not only did he take this back to join his other cups and trophies at Lamagistère, he mounted the broken prop on a plinth to go alongside!
“His driving style, with no fear of speed, his thirst for winning and his flight had no equal.”
His target was now to become Formula One World Champion. In 1981, he placed 6th
In 1982 he placed 7th including his first race in a Formula One V8 Molinari hull, competing alongside Englishmen Tom Percival and Bob Spalding in the JPS black and gold livery, whose victories we have already chronicled. They became great friends. Including the night when, after the British Grand Prix at Holmepierrpont, Tom, Bob and François Salbert dressed up in a black satin nighty and long wig, fake boobs as a Top-of-the-Charts American pop trio “The Three Degrees” for a fancy dress party! François won!
The Frenchman next raced a brand new #12 Velden Racing/JPS/and a highly potent Johnson V8 3.5 litre rig, and – together with Percival, Spalding, Van de Velden, Molinari and Seebold they competed in front of tens of thousands of spectators on the Allegheny River in the 1982 Three Rivers Regatta in Pittsburgh.
Came 1984, and the death of four powerboat pilots in as many as many months, culminating in the fatal accident of his close friend Tom Percival at Liège. Before August was over Cees van de Velden, with young team mates Arthur Mostert and François Salabert, announced the withdrawal of his Benson&Hedges Racing team from the UK Powerboat Grand Prix at London’s Royal Victoria Docks.
An experienced racer, François Salabert had already sustained a huge crash during the Belgian Grand Prix at Coronmeuse several years earlier. So perhaps to his wife and childrens’ relief, he spent the next three years with Beneteau, a manufacturer in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie (Vendée) as a sales representative, but free to train as he
wished. This included jogging, weight-lifting and golf. During this time, he kept his hand in, initiating and competing in local powerboat races on the lac de Passeligne at Boé, 12 miles from his home. “For me, to race here is to express myself in my own garden in front of my public” His only other passion was his hometown, where he had been a municipal councilor since 1983. He continued to enjoy an occasional football match in the local stadium with his fellow Magisterians, acting a referee for the younger players.
But still, at the back of his mind, was that elusive World Championship. In 1988 François went out to the USA with Cees van de Velden and they were joined by two younger drivers Rick Hoffman and Benny Robertson. They raced at speeds of up to 250 km/h in Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Toledo. Having been placed 2nd in one race, then third in another, Second Effort team manager Garbrecht gave him authorisation to win, if he could, at Beaumont, Texas for the final race of the championship. Unfortunately hurricane “Gilbert” decided otherwise and that race was cancelled. Thus Salabert’s junior, the American Benny Robertson won the coveted F1 Championship with the Frenchman second and the flying Dutchman Cees 6th
.
François returned to France, that he had stepped up onto podium in every race. In an interview, Salabert stated that he was hoping for French sponsorship, if not he would go back to the USA, certain to be a driver for Second Effort.
That February 1989, François had a surprise for his teenage daughter Nadège:
“He told me “Come on, I’m raking you to Valence d’Agen to get your identity photos.” I asked him why and to my great surprise, he told me it was for my passport. A few weeks later, we left for Miami. Mr Gilbert Choquet, who built his boats, accompanied us. Our plane almost took off without him because he was late, so from then on we nicknamed him Big Gi. During the trip, I saw the pride in my father’s eyes. This began at the airport when I replied to the customs official in English. We visited the International Boat Show. My father was working so I strolled around the beautiful boats on show. I will always remember when I bought two ice teas – the first time I drank one. When I took the second one to my father, he asked me how I had got them. I replied that now I was speaking English. The American accent is sometimes difficult to understand like our local Tarn et Garonne accent. I remember the rented automobile and the motels where we stayed. One American who thought I was his wife, because Dad looked very young and tall as I was for sixteen and a half I looked like a young woman. We roared with laughter. It was an unforgettable voyage. We brought back some beautiful clothes for my mother and a baseball bat and ball for my brother.”
Meanwhile, he encouraged younger French pilots in their powerboating ambitions such as the teenage son of his friend Albert Izard, Jean-Luc: “My parents and I were living near Paris at the time. As François was a great family friend, he used to stay at home whenever he came to the Capital, he had a key ! Sometimes, when he took me to school, my school friends remarked ‘You look like your father !’We had the same passion for powerboat racing so we shared lot of moments. Whenever we went to the races, I travelled with him. With my father, we ended up racing together. In the end I spent more time with my FS than all my uncles. For these few reasons, I considered him as a second father.”
He got that sponsorship from Transports Graveleau who paid hull-builder Jeanneau and their boffin, Jean-François Prémorel (Prémo) to develop a revolutionary hull in tough Kevlar, complete with safety cell, to be powered by a potent 400hp Mercury. From now on he could count on the services of experienced assistance to the requirements of high competition. In total, a dozen people caring for the drivers and their machines and all focused on one goal: victory.
Returning home from his Parker victory, as usual he brought back a some matchboxes from the hotels and restaurants where he had stayed to add to his daughter Nadège’s growing collection: “On weekends together, whenever my father
was not away racing, every Saturday midday we would eat at a cafeteria 3 miles from home. I can now confess that when we returned it was I who was driving. I brought back the whole family, my father using this to teach me to drive. We went over the crossroads at just over 5 mph. I was 16 to 17, when accompanied driving did not exist. One day he came to my college to talk about his job. I was as impressed at the other students. I was always very proud of my father and of his career. My father always said that “Life is the best school”. Something I have since passed on to my children.
And he continued to go out onto the links and to teach his 12-year-old young son Bertrand to play golf with a small set of clubs.
The Frenchman now had that World Championship in his sights. If he could clinch this, then perhaps he could look to a quieter middle age, perhaps going back to running the family jam-making business. He had ordered a new crash helmet, but when he left for England, it was not ready.
On June 10th 1990, racing the same boat at the Bristol Grand Prix, on the 4th lap, thousands of spectators saw him hook into the dock wall at an estimated 200 km/h. He was thrown into the water while the virtually undamaged pilotless boat cruised across the course to hit the other dock wall. Although his unconscious body was rescued from the floating safety cell, he was dead on arrival at Bristol Royal Infirmary of brain damage. He was 43 years’ old.
People remember him as a modest, generous and kind man, with a wonderful smile….loved by all.
The evening before, back in France, his daughter Nadège was celebrating her 18th birthday with some friends. Her brother Bertrand was only 12 years old. François’ home-town of Lamagistère, which he had put on the world map and where he had become the local hero went into mourning. The new crash helmet was delivered that week, too late.
Among those watching that race were Bob Spalding, recovering from his accident of five years before with his wife, Tom Percival’s widow Gilly. After Salabert’s tragic death, they stopped going to races.
Over seven hundred people attended François’ funeral at the Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception where he had once been baptized.
Since 1972, Francois Salabert had the 7th pilot to lose his life on the “widowmaker” course of the Bristol Docks. The race committee managed to organise the race for another year, but from 1992 the annual powerboat races in Bristol ceased. It was the end of an era.
Text by Kevin Desmond, originally published in Fast On Water Magazine.
