Since yesterday, Brazilian motorsports mourns the passing, of engine-tuner L\u00facio Pascoal Gascon (78) \u2013 better known among go-kart and racing enthusiasts as \u201cTch\u00ea\u201d \u2013 in the city of S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n
Born in Spain and holding a degree in engineering, Tch\u00ea came to Brazil search of employment, and ended up working with the country\u2019s greatest racing legends \u2013 among them, a promising young go-kart driver named Ayrton Senna.<\/p>\n
The partnership began in 1974, the year Ayrton got his first go-kart title, winning the Junior division of the Paulista championship. Tch\u00ea can be seen waving the checkered flag to Senna\u2019s go-kart in the now-famous photograph, at the Interlagos track (above). The Spaniard was in charge of prepping the vehicle\u2019s engines, and he even owned an automobile repair shop near the Jos\u00e9 Carlos Pace racetrack, in Interlagos.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the successful partnership, the Brazilian driver won title after title, paving his way to the biggest category in the world of motorsports. Ayrton and Tch\u00ea had such a close relationship that, in 1990, the idol wrote an open letter thanking his friend.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy Friend Tch\u00ea<\/em><\/p>\n You\u2019re someone who\u2019s incredibly responsible for how my life turned out. You\u2019re the one who taught almost all I know, who helped me and who was there for me in every single moment. You\u2019re the one who made me get to where I am. You\u2019re the most responsible for my glories. You can\u2019t imagine how grateful I am. You\u2019ve earned a lot of affection and warmth from me.<\/em><\/p>\n Tch\u00ea, you\u2019re extraordinary, someone to whom I\u2019m forever tied. You better believe in all of this, because I\u2019m speaking from the bottom of my heart, \u2018espanholo\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n Ayrton\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Source: Folha da Tarde, September 29th 1990<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since yesterday, Brazilian motorsports mourns the passing, of engine-tuner L\u00facio Pascoal Gascon (78) \u2013 better known among go-kart and racing enthusiasts as \u201cTch\u00ea\u201d \u2013 in the city of S\u00e3o Paulo. Born in Spain and holding a degree in engineering, Tch\u00ea came to Brazil search of employment, and ended up working with the country\u2019s greatest racing […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-novidades","category-senna-na-midia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}