Rob SloTemakeR
This bright light in the racing world was extinguished all too soon
He was known for running into trouble with authority – as he might, being the son of a magistrate. Out on the circuit, though, few people could live with him. ‘Sloot’, as Rob Slotemaker was affectionally nicknamed, began work as a fighter pilot but made racing his career.
Slotemaker was born in 1929 in Batavia, the capital of the Dutch Indies. Having survived separate prison camps during WW2, the Slotemaker family repatriated to Holland after peace was declared. Instead of following his father into law, Rob chose to become a fighter pilot and went to the United States for training. In between flights, he was soon exploring the grip levels of an ancient Buick. Back in Holland, this habit continued on Volkel airbase, where Sloot used to entertain his fellow aces by skidding his car around the frozen runways.
When a series of low-flying stunts got him suspended, Rob’s attention shifted towards cars. He debuted in a Ford Zephyr in the 1954 Monte Carlo Rally and followed that with his first Zandvoort outing, racing a DKW. After leaving the Air Force in the mid-1950s, he opened a school for advanced driving techniques, specialising in anti-skid courses.
Racing Team Holland was founded in 1964, with Ben Pon and Rob Slotemaker as drivers. Pon brought the money, so it was agreed that he would be handed the lead if their Porsche 904s scored a 1-2 finish. Pon was outraged when Sloot broke their agreement at Monza, and it soon led to his separation from the team.
Slotemaker kept on racing until his untimely death, often spreading his talent too thin across many disciplines. His Formula 1 career went no further than driving an Ecurie Maarsbergen Porsche in the 1962 Dutch Grand Prix. He pioneered DAF’s Formula 3 efforts with the company’s groundbreaking Variomatic gearbox, and finished 17th on the London-Sydney Marathon in a DAF 55, but fell out with co-driver Rob Janssen along the way. The holes pierced into Janssen’s passenger door – the result of Slotemaker crashing into a parked lorry to give Janssen a scare – were testimony to that.
Slotemaker was the guiding light for new generations of racing drivers, among whom Wim Loos and Jan Lammers were most prominent – Loos was due to test for Ferrari’s F1 team when he was killed at Spa. Slotemaker took a second mortgage on his house to help finance Lammers’ Formula 1 career, and lived just long enough to see him make his F1 debut with Shadow in 1979.
Sloot survived many accidents by sheer virtue of his car control, but his luck ran out on 16 September that year, when his Chevrolet Camaro skidded on an oily patch during an insignificant Touring Car race at Zandvoort. He controlled the slide but broke his neck on impact with Michael Strauch’s similar Camaro, which just happened to be stationary at the wrong spot at the wrong time. Zandvoort named the corner after him. Slotemaker was only 50 years old.