Remembering Krosnoff 25 years on
Jeff Krosnoff was plucked out of obscurity to become a respected and highly popular professional in Japan, and then got an Indycar break. But his life ended in tragedy on 14 July 1996
Twenty-five years ago this week, Indycar rookie Jeff Krosnoff lost his life in a crash in the Toronto street race, when his car speared into a debris fence after contact with Stefan Johansson. His death was a terrible blow for the CART Indycar community and his little Arciero-wells Racing team, but the tragedy also echoed around the world thanks to the many years that the Californian had spent racing in Japan.
Krosnoff’s colleagues and rivals on the Far East scene included Eddie Irvine, Heinz-harald Frentzen, Mika Salo, Johnny Herbert, Jacques Villeneuve and Tom Kristensen, all of whom had also been hit by the loss of another of their small group, Roland Ratzenberger, just a couple of years earlier. But no one took Krosnoff’s loss harder than his closest friend, Mauro Martini. Team-mates in Japanese F3000, they had also often shared drives in sportscar racing, including a full season with TWR and Jaguar in 1991. With Irvine, they came tantalisingly close to winning the Le Mans 24 Hours with a Toyota in 1994.
Off track, Krosnoff and Martini shared an extraordinary ‘bromance’ way before the term was coined, enjoying a genuine, deep friendship that was highly unusual in the competitive world of motor racing. “July 14 1996,” Martini recalls. “For the French, Bastille Day, a national holiday. For me, it was I believe the worst day of my life. A day like that, it’s still hard to get through even after 25 years. For me it was a real tragedy, because I always think he was the brother I never had. I loved him like a brother, definitely.”
In the late 1980s the Japanese racing scene was thriving, fuelled by backing from tyre companies and sponsors. There was a gold rush of drivers whose careers had stalled in Europe, and who could earn substantial salaries. In 1989, the F3000 field included Ross
Cheever, Geoff Lees, Emanuele Pirro, Paolo Barilla, Fabrizio Barbazza, Jean Alesi and Martini, who had been a frontrunner in Italian F3 before making the move.
That year Krosnoff arrived on the scene as a complete unknown, and in unusual circumstances. He had raced in US Formula Atlantic and the SCCA pick-up truck series when wheel manufacturer
Speed Star came looking for an American driver to join its team in Japan. Krosnoff travelled over expecting to test an F3 car and found an F3000 machine – it was a huge step up from what he was used to, but he got the job.
Other drivers were nonplussed by this newcomer, but the UCLA graduate soon won them over with his quirky humour, enthusiasm and intelligence. “I remember this guy with blond hair arriving,” says Martini. “And I didn’t know who he was. He wasn’t famous at all – nobody knew about him, because he didn’t have a background. All the other drivers were F3 champions, or had raced in F3000 or F1. But I remember the first time I talked to him I found myself in harmony, in a good feeling with him, because he was a very good guy. For me, to be a good racing driver, you have to be a little nasty, a little mean. He wasn’t in the right place, I think, because he was very, very nice and gentle.”
Krosnoff had a lot of learning to do with the Speed Star team in 1989, but he finished a respectable 10th in the championship.
For 1990 he joined Martini at Suntec, an operation sponsored by eccentric businesswoman Yuko Yamazaki, who ran a chain of technical schools. Martini and Krosnoff spent that year living not in exciting Tokyo, but far from the action in dull Kofu, their mundane daily lives enriched only by the occasional visit from their respective wives, Barbara and Tracy. In this pre-internet, pre-smartphone world their friendship deepened, as most of the
“It was a real tragedy… he was the brother I never had. I loved him like a brother, definitely”
time their only source of entertainment was talking to each other.
“We were having lunch and dinner together, we were living in the same hotel,” reminisces Martini. “And so he became my teacher, because my English wasn’t good enough! We were trying to do something during the day, but it was so damn boring because there was no television to watch, no internet, nothing.
Just some small family restaurants.”
That year the pair also shared a Suntec-backed Ford RS500 in the local Group A touring car championship. Then, for 1991, Mrs Yamazaki paid a huge sum to Tom Walkinshaw to run a Jaguar XJR-11 turbo in the Japanese sportscar series. The deal included a green-hued XJR-12 for Le Mans – where David Leslie joined as third driver – and ultimately an outing in the sensational
Ross Brawn-designed XJR-14 at the Sugo finale. “She made an impressive investment!” says Martini. “For us, it was good to have some experience with sportscars.”
That year, the pair moved to bustling Tokyo and the famed President Hotel, where most of the visiting racing drivers stayed. Their social scene suddenly became busier, although neither man was a party animal. “We could have fun,” says Martini. “It was definitely a much, much easier life for us. We had CNN to watch! We were always together. We were training together, eating together. Our lifestyle was the same, so we never had a fight or a discussion.”
Alas, the Suntec money ran out, and Krosnoff and Martini moved to different F3000 teams for 1992. Krosnoff’s form with Jaguar also landed him a prestigious works Nissan deal for the Japanese sportscar series, the only foreigner in a team dominated by veterans Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Masahiro Hasemi. Martini joined him once more for the Daytona 24 Hours – it was Jeff’s first US race since 1988, and it was a big deal for him to return home for such a legendary event. While Martini won the 1992 F3000 title, for several years Krosnoff was stuck in uncompetitive teams, earning the odd podium along the way.
A chance for both men to really make their names came at Le Mans in 1994 with SARD Toyota, which had been Ratzenberger’s home for many years. After the Austrian’s death at Imola, Irvine was drafted in as the third driver. It was an emotional weekend, with Ratzenberger’s name still on the car, and his helmet on display in the garage.
The trio led in some style until the gear linkage failed on Krosnoff with just over an hour to go. Somehow he fixed it and got back to the pits, but SARD had to settle for second place. “It was 27 years ago,” sighs Martini. “But still when I think about it, I get mad,
I get really, really frustrated, because we won that race!”
As their friends Irvine, Frentzen and Salo made their way to F1,
“Chip Ganassi spoke very well about Jeff and helped him find the seat with Arciero-wells”
Martini and Krosnoff were both left treading water in Japan. In 1995 they returned to Le Mans with SARD, this time with a hopeless Supra GT car – it summed up the fact that they needed a change.
Krosnoff networked hard in Indycar circles, eventually landing a test at Homestead with Chip Ganassi Racing. Alex Zanardi was also present and got the drive, but the American had impressed. “I remember Chip Ganassi spoke very well about Jeff,” says Martini. “And he helped him to find the seat with Arciero-wells for 1996.
Jeff was very happy, because the team was small, but you have to enter somewhere. I think if he could get to a top team, he would have won some races.”
Krosnoff’s Japanese adventure was over after seven memorable years, and at 31 he was starting a new chapter. In the first half of 1996 he faced a steep learning curve, his progress not helped by an uncompetitive Toyota engine, but he showed steady improvement. He talked regularly on the phone with Martini, and there were even plans for the Italian to join him in a second Arciero entry in 1997.
Then came Toronto. As usual, Martini was following his friend’s progress on Eurosport: “I remember I saw a car completely broken. You couldn’t see who the driver was, there was dust, there was debris everywhere. I didn’t know who he was, but watching the car, I knew that the driver was dead, because nobody could survive such an accident. And they showed it again with the replays.
In the moment I realised it was Jeff I threw the remote control at the television and broke the screen. I started to scream.
“I remember my wife was out in the garden with some friends. And they heard me screaming, and they couldn’t understand what was going on, because I went into my room and I locked up the door. I didn’t want to speak to anybody. I cried for two or three days. I couldn’t stand it.”
Martini was eventually able to contact Krosnoff’s wife: “I called Tracy up and her mother answered me, and she told me, ‘Tracy is waiting for you for the funeral, she wanted you to come’. And I went to the funeral in LA. It’s hard to describe the atmosphere. I stayed there in his house for four or five days with Tracy. And I came back home without my brother.”
Martini contested some GT races in 1997, and he even returned to Japan for a Formula Nippon outing. But his heart wasn’t in it. “That day everything finished,” he says. “And I wasn’t the same anymore. My racing career finished on July 14 1996. Something broke inside me. I didn’t want to continue. I did some racing, but my head wasn’t like before. I wanted to stop. He was maybe the nicest guy I ever met my life. It’s hard to accept why good people die, and bad people live. It’s hard to understand, but it’s life. You have to accept it.”