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Last updated: 21-February-2002

Before Formula One Formula One After Formula One
1960s Ben's father a car dealer, who imagined and designed the VW 'hippie' van	A man with a rich family history, and a man of diverse pursuits, Bernardus Pon, better known as Ben Pon, hails from Leiden in Holland. Cars were something that always ran in the Pon household: Ben's father, Ben Pon Sr., was a car dealer in Holland, and was the man who 'had a vision' and introduced the Volkswagen Beetle to America. The rest, as they say, is history. Pon Sr was also the man responsible for the revolutionary VW van, the ultimate cult symbol for those who advocate alternative lifestyles. Peace man! Little wonder, then, that in the early 1960s, while he was beginning to take over from his father in the Volkswagen and Audi import/export business, Pon Jnr began racing sports cars. More to the point, considering his family's intimate involvement with Volkswagens and hence with Porsche, it is not too surprising that in 1961 he competed in three races of the FIA GT Cup (two of which also counted as events in the World Sportscar Championship) in a Porsche-Abarth 356B Carrera.
1961-62 Class wins galore with de Beaufort and Porsche, including at Le Mans	At the Nurburgring 1000kms, he shared the car with his close friend, fellow Dutch amateur racer Count Carel Godin de Beaufort, but the pair retired. Then at the Le Mans 24hrs, in a works car shared with Herbert Linge he won the GT1.6 class, before finishing 7th at the Coppa Inter-Europa at Monza, where he was 2nd in the GT2.0 class. Add to that top-three class finishes for Pon and de Beaufort in non-championship events at Zandvoort and Innsbruck, and Pon was fast making a name for himself. In 1962, Pon continued to race in the 356B in both championship and non-championship events. He came 10th at the Goodwood Tourist Trophy (4th in GT2.0 class), and 8th at Montlhery (2nd in class) with Rob Slotemaker, but at Le Mans his works car shared with de Beaufort went out with ignition problems. Once again, though, in non-championship events, Pon and de Beaufort continued to have much class success, taking class wins at Brussels, Snetterton, Zandvoort and Innsbruck.
	Pon enjoyed much sports car success in this Abarth Carrera with close friend Count Carel Godin de Beaufort. The pair shared the car on route to many class victories.
1962 Porsche De Beaufort runs a newer machine for his friend Ben, and gives some wise advice	Now, de Beaufort had in fact also been entering Grands Prix since 1957, having set up his own team called Ecurie Maarsbergen, named after the town from which he came. From 1961 onwards he had been racing a garish orange 1.5 litre Porsche 718 F4. But for the 1962 Dutch GP at Zandvoort, his team entered a second car, a newer 1.5 litre Porsche 787 F4, for Pon, trusting that Ben's sports car form could translate to open wheelers. Sadly, it would turn out to be Pon's one and only Grand Prix. De Beaufort knew that their 4-cylinder engines could not keep up with the more powerful V8s. It showed in qualifying, where de Beaufort was only 14th quickest out of the 20 entrants, and Pon languished in 18th place, 8.4 seconds slower than the pole-sitting Lola Climax of John Surtees, and 3.5 seconds off de Beaufort. In view of their power disadvantage, the Count made it very clear to his young charge that their aim was to finish the race, and not to try to race the top guns.
1962 A horrifing smash, but Pon is unhurt, although severely shaken	Unfortunately, 26 year-old Pon's youthful exuberance took hold, and he almost paid a heavy price. As the race began, de Beaufort took it easy, but Pon blasted past. The Count found his way by once more, before Pon once again attacked and retook the place. De Beaufort realised he had to let Pon do whatever he wanted to do, but Ben didn't get away with it. On lap 3, while he was in 17th place, he lost his Porsche in the biggest possible way. As the car crashed into an earth bank, it flipped, and Pon was thrown out. De Beaufort thought he was dead, but was mightily relieved to find out afterwards that Pon, miraculously, had got away without so much as a scratch. Ben vowed never to race a single seater ever again after that, and I doubt de Beaufort would have ever let him again anyway! Especially since de Beaufort, who finished 6th and scored a point in the race of attrition, reckoned Pon could have finished an excellent 7th had he just aimed to stay on the track.
	Suffering a frightening crash in his one and only F1 starts, Pon vowed never to race single seaters again. Picture from 8w.
1963-64 More brilliant WSC success, finishing every race in the top three in class	Pon was true to his word, for he never did drive a single seater again, but that did not stop him from continuing to race in sports car events, sometimes for Racing Team Holland, and at other times for the full factory Porsche System Engineering team. In 1963, he had two starts in the World Championship, driving a PSE Porsche 356B 2000GS to a GT2.0 class victory and 4th outright at the Nurburgring with Hans-Joachim Walter, but retiring in the same car at Le Mans with Heinz Schiller after engine problems. 1964 was then an excellent year. After racing in the Sebring 12hrs in a 356B 2000GS with Joe Buzzetta, he then campaigned a Porsche 904 GTS for the rest of the year, finishing every World Championship race he started (7 in total), placing in the top three in class in each one of them, with a best of 3rd outright at the Nurburgring 1000kms (1st in class) where he drove with Gerhard Koch, and 2nd outright at the Coppa Inter-Europa at Monza, where Pon actually entered Slotemaker's winning car.
1964 Great win at Zolder, but Ben is devastated when Count Carel is killed in Nurburg crash	At Le Mans, where he drove with Henk van Zalinge, he came 8th and 2nd in class, but apart from these results 1964 was also a year of great highs and lows. Apart from further wins at Limbourg, Solitude and Zandvoort, one of the great highlights must surely have been at a race at Zolder, where, according to Jan van Alphen, Ben won the race after a race-long tussle with Koch, in a 904 GTS which had been hurriedly repaired the night before after being damaged as it was being transported to the race! But tragedy also struck at the Nurburgring, where his friend de Beaufort was killed in a practice accident prior to the German GP. Pon was at the track competing in a GT sports car support race, and was initially given false hope when doctors told him the Count would be fine. But the next day, de Beaufort suffered a relapse and lost his life, and understandably Pon, with whom he had shared so many sports car class triumphs, was devastated.
	Pon (left) pictured at Zolder in 1964, alongside friend Rob Slotemaker, who made a similar vow regarding single seaters, and who was competing with Pon when Count de Beaufort died. Picture from 8w.
1965-66 Founder, along with John H. and Rob S. of the Dutch Racing Team	Yet Pon pressed on, and in 1965 continued to race a 904 GTS with drivers like Buzzetta, Slotemaker and Koch. He took 4th outright at Monza with Slotemaker, and 3rd at Spa on his own, recording two class wins at both events, and he was also 6th (2nd in class) at the Sebring 12hrs with Buzzetta. At Le Mans though, where he drove an Auguste Veuillet 904 GTS with Robert Buchet, he was forced out by and oil leak after 224 laps. By the end of the year, Pon had teamed up with John Hugenholtz, the man who designed Zandvoort, Jarama and Suzuka, and also Slotemaker in forming the Dutch Racing Team. Little surprise, then, that Pon took a step back from driving, entering Porsche 906s instead for Gijs van Lennep and David van Lennep. Ben's only starts that year were at Zeltweg, where he retired, and in the Springbok Series race at Killarney, where he and van Lennep took 3rd in a Porsche 906.
1967 Returns to the saddle, scoring top-10 results at Le Mans and Brands Hatch	Missing the driving bug, in 1967 Pon made something of a return behind the wheel. The 906 he shared with Günther Huber and Peter Peter at Spa went out in a crash, and Ben also retired from the Nurburgring race in Sten Axelsson's 906 with suspension problems. But then at Le Mans he came 7th (1st in the S2.0 class) with Vic Elford in another 906, before joining Tony Dean to finish 8th at Brands Hatch (1st in class again) in an A.G. Dean (Racing) Ltd 906. That race at Brands Hatch was actually also a round of the RAC British Sports Car Championship, in which Pon also competed at rounds at Snetterton and Silverstone, coming 4th and 5th respectively in, you guessed it, his Porsche 906. 1967 also saw Pon return to South Africa, where he crashed out of the Kyalami 9hrs in a Team Holland/Lindsay Sakers Porsche Carrera 6 which he was sharing with Axelsson.
	It was in this Porsche 904 that Pon took several class victories in 1965. It is now campaigned in historic racing.
1968-72 Slowly fades out of competitive racing; loads up the shotgun instead!	Slowly pulling out of driving once again come 1968, he only appeared a few times, once at Brands Hatch where the Porsche 910 he drove with Gijs van Lennep crashed out, and another time at Monza where he retired with fuel pump problems in the same car. But after that, Pon totally left the tracks, and turned to something entirely different. Skeet shooting. That's right, skeet shooting, where you have to aim at the spot where you think the clay pigeon will be. Or something like that. Anyway, Pon proved darn good at it, enough to proudly represent The Netherlands at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games! Unfortunately, he wasn't quite good enough to take a medal, as West Germany's Konrad Wirnhier took gold, the Soviet competitor Yevgeny Petrov won silver, and the East German Michael Buchheim collected the bronze. He remains one of the few drivers to both race in Championship F1 and compete in the Olympics (and one of only two to have competed at the Summer Games).
1990s Produces a top shelf winery in the Carmel Valley region	But ever since 1990, Ben has been trying his hand at something completely different yet again! With his wife Ingrid, they settled in the Carmel Valley in the USA, and has turned his hand to winemaking. He hopes his reds, under the Bernardus label, will be a success. Though the statistics say that only 2% of Americans drink wine, he prefers to think of it as saying that 98% of Americans aren't drinking wine yet. Wishful thinking, indeed. He has high hopes for Bernardus wines. According to their web-site: "It is the goal of Ben Pon to create wines from the promising viticultural region of Carmel Valley that will rival in style and quality the finest traditional wines. With an unequalled commitment and the resources and talent to support this commitment, Bernardus is embarking upon the next frontier in American winemaking."
	If this is the type of scenic vista that you would like to escape into, perhaps you should visit Pon's Lodge. We believe this is the celebrated Bernardus vineyard in the mist!
1990s Owns a sumptuous lodge home of the get away to end all get aways	Furthermore, he has also set up close to his vineyard Bernardus Lodge, a plush spa resort, to capitalise on the tourism potential of the area. It's about as luxurious as you can get, and features a massive spa, plus conference areas, a huge ballroom and a gigantic wedding pavilion. There are 57 suites, with wine aplenty, of course, plus a restaurant with award-winning chef Cal Stemenov. However, Bernardus Lodge is smack bang in an area filled with such resorts, and the rooms don't come cheap. You would need to part with at least US$300 per night, and that's just for the simple rooms! However, the lodge has received excellent reviews - so it may be worth it. For bookings or more information (and no, he's not paying us!) visit Bernardus.com.

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