By Zack Albert, NASCAR.com Special To NASCAR Wire Service

In less than two weeks, the NASCAR Cup Series will race for points in an international land for the first time in nearly 67 years. The name of the track won’t end in Speedway, Raceway, Motor Speedway, International Speedway or be called Circuit of fill-in-the-blank. The metropolitan Mexico City road course is an autodrome — autódromo in the local language — and it forever pays tribute to two national motorsports heroes.

Ben Kennedy, NASCAR Executive Vice President & Chief Venue & Racing Innovation Officer, joins NASCAR Cup Series driver Daniel Suarez to announce that the NASCAR Cup Series will race in Mexico City for the first time next year at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on August 27, 2024 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images)

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez takes its name from the two racing brothers — Ricardo and Pedro Rodríguez — who rapidly rose to speed-soaked stardom in a host of motorsports disciplines, including a brief involvement with NASCAR. Mexican pride soared with each accomplishment in their brief careers, which were tragically cut short in a pair of fatal crashes nearly nine years apart.

The national pride was a shared sensation. When the brothers — Pedro, 21, and Ricardo then just 19 — paired up in the 1,000 Kilometers of Paris in 1961 to clinch one of their first major grand-touring victories, a trio of festive mariachi muchachos serenaded their steel-gray Ferrari at the finish, strumming guitars in their sombreros as they straddled the straw-bale trackside barrier.

Years later, Pedro Rodríguez became the first Mexican driver to win a Formula One race, realizing one of his lifelong dreams in the 1967 South African Grand Prix. The triumph was a singular feat for decades until countryman Sergio Pérez’s F1 breakthrough in 2020. “I felt an immense satisfaction for Mexico,” Pedro Rodríguez, the elder of the two brothers, said post-race. “On the victory lap, tears started to flow from my eyes.”

What happened next amid the fanfare nearly prompted Rodríguez to choke on his victory champagne. After the young driver rose to the top step of the podium, the band assembled trackside realized it did not know the Mexican national anthem. Instead, the musicians improvised by playing a tune called Jarabe Tapatío, or as it’s known in English, the “Mexican Hat Dance.” According to legend, Rodríguez always traveled with a recording of Himno Nacional Mexicano from that point forward.

That pride lives on in the circuit that bears their names.

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Both brothers were prodigies, following the love of their father, Pedro Sr., into motorcycle racing. Don Pedro’s success in the railroad industry and his later expansion into manufacturing and the hotel business afforded the family access to rare and sinewy sports cars, which became the children’s gateway into four-wheeled motorsports. He carried his young sons on the handlebars of his bikes before they were able to ride on their own.

The two became motorcycle champions in their mid-teens, setting youth records as they explored other racing disciplines. Ricardo was just 18 when he teamed with Andre Pilette to finish second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1960. The following year, Pedro joined him for the French endurance classic. The brothers led the race until an ignition short cost them precious time; after repairs, they rallied to second place before the Ferrari 250 they co-piloted expired with just two hours to go.

Undaunted, Ricardo established another benchmark later in 1961, becoming the youngest front-row starter in Formula One history. The 19-year-old started second for Ferrari in that year’s Italian Grand Prix before a fuel-system failure sidelined him.

Wherever their travels took them, questions rarely focused on how they would perform, but whether they’d meet the minimum age requirements set by the racing commissions in each country or state. It’s the hurdle they faced with their introduction to the NASCAR world in the spring of 1959 — 19-year-old Pedro was allowed to compete against stock-car racing’s older guard at Trenton (N.J.) Speedway; Ricardo — then 17 — was forced to manage the team from the pits.

Race promoter Sam Nunis took the youngsters on a sweeping publicity tour before the event, visiting television and radio stations and a host of newspapers’ sports departments. Shortly after their entry was filed, the Paterson (N.J.) News reached out to veteran Lee Petty — on his way that year to his third premier series title — for comment. “I’m happy to hear the boys will race at Trenton in that 150-miler,” the 45-year-old Petty said. “The more competition, the better. I don’t reckon they’ll beat me.”

They nearly did, with the NASCAR Hall of Famer coming in fourth behind first-time winner Tom Pistone. Pedro Rodríguez’s name was listed two spots behind Petty in sixth on the Trenton results sheet, ahead of such luminaries as Junior Johnson and Lee’s son, Richard.

Their experience in NASCAR was limited, with the elder Rodríguez brother making just five more Cup Series starts, including a 13th-place outcome in the 1971 Daytona 500. Pedro’s most distinguished effort, however, came in NASCAR’s longest race in a deal that NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. helped facilitate.

Pedro Rodríguez arrived fresh from London on the Tuesday before the Charlotte event, telling reporters he had “heard a lot about the World 600 and had wanted to drive in it since it started.” Holman-Moody hastily prepped a No. 51 Ford that Rodríguez drove to an impressive fifth-place run behind race-winning teammate Fred Lorenzen.

The result made an impression on the good-ol’-boy crowd, which had poked good fun at the perception of Rodríguez’s nobility-class racing background. Rodríguez, however, poked right back.

“If you people don’t quit calling me a sporty car driver,” he joked, “I’m going to start calling you stocky car drivers.”

* * *

The Rodríguez brothers’ story, however, was interrupted by dual tragedies that left the nation mourning. Ricardo’s signing as a Ferrari factory driver for the Grand Prix circuit had raised the younger brother’s profile for the 1962 season. But the siblings were still regarded as a daredevil collective for their aggressive but fleet-footed style.

“If he lives, I’ll be surprised,” one fellow F1 driver confided with anonymity to The New York Times in May of that year, singling out Ricardo’s approach in an era when racing’s inherent danger was magnified. That eerie premonition came true just months later.

Ferrari opted out of that year’s Mexican Grand Prix, which did not count toward the Formula One standings back then. Ricardo instead piloted a Lotus, which faltered in a high-speed section during practice runs, flipped over a barrier and burst into a fireball. He was just 20 years old.

Their father ran to the crash scene and fainted, declaring later: “Racing is over for all the family. This is the end.” Ricardo had contemplated making the Mexico City event his final race, ending his motorsports career to start a family with his new bride and take a role in his father’s industrial empire. Pedro considered the same path in the wake of his brother’s death, but the lure of racing remained strong and his absence from the circuit was brief.

“The loss of my brother hurt me a great deal when it happened, but racing is my profession and I decided to continue,” Pedro said years later, before his World 600 debut. “I try not to think about his death before races and when I’m driving now.”

His career blossomed in the years that followed. Besides his two Formula One victories, Pedro Rodríguez won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Ford GT40 in 1968, adding a 24 Hours of Daytona triumph for Porsche to his portfolio three years later. Pedro was once considered to be the less polished of the two brothers, mainly for his knack at flinging his cars through tight corners. But he became known as “Ojos de Gato” — “cat’s eyes” — for his extraordinary speed and composure while racing in rainy and nighttime conditions.

Pedro said a Grand Prix driver “probably feels about the same thing before a race that a matador does before he goes into the ring. It’s fear that can make you crash. Before a race, I always think of something else. I never think about what could happen.”

Just months after his Daytona Rolex win, Rodríguez had entered a lower-level sports-car race in Nuremberg, Germany, in part because he regarded the technical Norisring course’s configuration as one of his favorites. “Some drivers like the shorter tracks they can become familiar with,” he told The Associated Press. “I prefer the many curves. It’s a challenge and I think it helps me.”

But the course also challenged the limits of the Ferrari he was driving. In the 12th lap, his right-front tire detached from the rim, sending the car skidding into a barrier and a fiery end. Pedro Rodríguez was just 31.

Don Pedro spoke to the nation at his son’s funeral: “You shared the triumphs of my son with me and now we are sharing the tragedy together.”

Their legacy lives on five decades later, both in Mexico’s history and in the Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City circuit that now honors their names. The NASCAR Mexico Series races that will be preliminaries to the Cup and Xfinity Series next week will be named the Pedro Rodriguez 100 and Ricardo Rodriguez 120 in tribute.

In their brief racing careers, the Rodríguez brothers created a lasting international legacy that reached beyond Mexico’s borders. When NASCAR arrives next week for its first Cup Series race in the country, a new group of international visitors will experience that spirit.

“Motor racing is something that comes out of you,” Pedro Rodríguez once said. “You have something — something in the blood — and it comes out. Nobody can teach you how to drive. You learn it.”