Formula One is more than just drivers and cars: it's also the mechanics, the media and the creative minds that bridge between the sport and its fans. Atlas F1 pays tribute to some of those professionals, as Jo Ramirez - who began his forty year career as a junior mechanic - recalls one of the best mechanics he ever met, Bob Dance

In motor racing and especially in Formula One, people always spend endless hours discussing who has been the greatest of all time. Was it Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Senna or Schumacher? But people will always forget the backstage of the sport, the people without whom the Schumachers of this world would have never got to their high pedestals and enjoyed all the public adoration that they have. Yet those people behind the curtains have devoted their lives to the sport without ever having any public recognition.

I am talking about the race mechanics, the hard-core of the sport.

When I left my native country heading for Europe in search of this life, there were only two race mechanics that were reasonably well known; the first one was Guerino Bertochi - Juan Manuel Fangio's mechanic at Maserati - for whom I had the pleasure to work, under his guidance, in later years when I was at Maserati.

The other, because he had written a book that was the bible for any newcomer to the business, was Alf Francis, Stirling Moss' racing mechanic. So when I arrived in England, I was no different and my first stop was at the bookshop. If nothing else, it might help my non-existant English in those days. Yes, he was a great racing mechanic, but perhaps a little too self-confident and too conceited for my liking.

I think that most people from roughly my generation would heartily agree that if we are going to talk about the greatest racing mechanic, the name that will always come to our lips will be Bob Dance. His career spanned over four decades and he loved it so much that he refused to be pensioned off when the time came.

I first met Bob in the mid- sixties when he was already a well established race mechanic with Lotus, having started with them in 1960 and with whom he spent most of his racing life except for a few spells with other teams before and after Lotus' last race in 1994. But he will always be remembered as Colin Chapman's right hand man at the circuits, and later as Peter Warr's.

You can safely say that every Lotus driver experienced the magic of his car preparation. The likes of Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt, Mario Andretti, Ayrton Senna, would have all being lesser champions without Bob's immaculate and uncompromising attention to detail. Even Nigel Mansell had a few years of being looked after by Bob during his spell at Lotus, and anyone that worked with Nigel deserves my greatest admiration.

Bob was not only a great mechanic, but also tremendously resourceful, a man that would always fix whatever there was to be fixed with whatever was at hand. I have seen him fixing a broken rear suspension beam with a piece of metal stolen from the guardrail and fixed to the gearbox with wire stolen from the chicken wire fence in the spectators bay!

Bob, as well as being able to improvise all the time in whatever time was available, always had an enormous amount of energy, completely unflappable, and took everything in his stride, always ready to help any one in trouble. I saw time and time again young inexperienced, as well as old experienced, race mechanics coming to him for advice - me included - and he would always have time to stop and lend a helping hand. Of course, in those days, the relationship between race mechanics was much closer and friendly than it is now, and this fierce rivalry between the teams that reigns now did not exist.

But, above all, Bob's most memorable attribute was his tremendous sense of humour and fun. On any occasion where the teams got together outside the circuits, Bob was always the one for the practical joke, the bright spark who would always initiate the clean and simple entertainment that always set the party on fire... Sometimes literally! People will always remember in the seventies Bob's orchestrated Kenny and Clive show when two of the Lotus mechanics dressed in drag and entertained the Grand Prix circus as well as any passer by at the Tip Top bar on Sunday nights after the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Tip Top bar in Monaco, situated on the short straight between Casino Square and Mirabeau corner, was always the place to be in any evening of the race weekend, and one of Bob's favorite tricks was to put cars on stools. I remember once an old lady arriving outside the Tiptop and parking her car right in front, despite the warnings of all the beer drinkers around the pavement. With a typical French "Vous far le merde" attitude, she left her old Simca right there, only to find it two hours later across the road standing on four chairs, compliments of Bob and his band of helpers. Naturally it was all in good fun and we lifted the car down once she had deposited the 'parking fine' behind the bar!

Another occasion that comes to mind is when he decided to put Mike's Murphy little Fiat on four oil drums at the paddock in Zandvoort in the late seventies, with a note saying: "Win this car, guess how many hairs in Murph's head. £10 a guess." Not a difficult guess as Mike was almost completely bald. Mike and Ann Murphy ran the Lotus Motorhome for several years and I don't remember what happened that morning in Zandvoort, but perhaps the breakfast was late!

When I think of the past, it is sad to see how much the sport has changed, and how much the people involved now would really love to have had one of these great characters in their pit, and Bob Dance was undoubtedly one of them. I believe he is still active helping Clive Chapman to maintain the Lotus car heritage and also lending a hand to the all-conquering Audi R8 sport cars in the 24 hours of Le Mans.

Thanks Bob for all those wonderful years of laughs.

Jo X

About the author:
Jo Ramirez began working in Formula One in 1961, when he arrived to Europe from Mexico with his childhood friend Ricardo Rodriguez. He worked as a mechanic and a team manager with Dan Gurney, Emerson Fittipaldi, Ken Tyrrell and many others, before making McLaren his home for 18 years - where he worked as team co-ordinator between the years 1983 and 2001 and where he made life-long friendships with the sport's top drivers. Jo retired from F1 at the end of the 2001 season. He joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in February 2002.