AUTO RACING LEGEND JUAN FANGIO DIES AT 84


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   BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Racing great Juan Manuel Fangio, a
   five-time Formula 1 world champion, died Monday in a hospital here.
   Fangio was 84.

   The Argentinian, who dominated racing in the 1950s in a silver arrow
   Mercedes, had been suffering from kidney problems for some time.
   Fangio was hospitalized Saturday with pneumonia.

   He won 24 Grand Prix races, a total that is seventh behind Alain Prost
   (51), Ayrton Senna (41), Nigel Mansell (31), Jackie Stewart (27), Jim
   Clark and Niki Lauda (both 25). He was world champion in 1951 and from
   1954 to 1957.

   Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo called Fangio ``the most
   outstanding figure in the history of motor racing.''

   Fangio raced in the days when drivers wore leather helmets and
   goggles. Often Fangio raced in shirt-sleeves, sitting bolt upright on
   straightaways and leaning slightly into curves.

   His reflexes and anticipation were legendary. That, he said, came from
   racing Fords and Chevys on unpaved roads in Argentina and South
   America before advancing to Alfa Romeos, Maseratis and Mercedes-Benz
   on the European circuit.

   ``We had the opportunity to learn to feel the car with the entire
   body,'' he recalled.

   Fangio said caution and attention to detail led to his success.

   ``I never took an unnecessary risk. I always knew my limits,'' he told
   reporters Friday. ``I always talked with my cars. I listened when the
   car wasn't going well.''

   Britain's Stirling Moss was Fangio's teammate with Maserati and
   Mercedes.

   ``The skill that Fangio had was enormous. What made him so great was
   his concentration and his balance of the motor car,'' Moss said. ``He
   wasn't a technician. He was just a great artist of driving. But above
   all that, he was a gentleman and to me a wonderful man, a father
   figure.''

   In 1948, his co-driver in a race from Buenos Aires to Caracas,
   Venezuela, Daniel Urrutis, died after the car flipped over. In 1952,
   he narrowly escaped death when he crashed at the Monza Grand Prix,
   suffering a concussion and broken neck when he was thrown from his
   Maserati.

   He retired in 1958 at age 47, in part because he thought race car
   teams in pursuit of speed were thinking too little of drivers' safety.

   ``My best friends died in stupid accidents and I didn't want to go
   on,'' he said.

   Since retiring as a driver, he worked around the racing circuit and
   cars, advising Argentine racers and his former sponsors. He was
   honorary president of Mercedes-Benz in Argentina.

   Mercedes-Benz and Pirelli, the Italian tire company, sponsored the
   book, ``Fangio,'' that was written by Moss, Britain's top race car
   driver in his day and a competitor the Argentine remembers as ``one of
   my toughest.''

   Fangio's wake will be at the Argentine Automobile Club's central
   building in Buenos Aires. His funeral will take place Tuesday in his
   home city of Balcarce.