Juan Manuel Urcera’s long road: from the prejudices for “being born in a golden cradle” to handing Turin its first Scudetto in 50 years

“This is amazing, a dream.” José Manuel Urcera did not hide his joy after winning his first crown in San Juan in Road tourism. He was moved to tears as he crossed the finish line of the track the villager in fourth place and secured what was the first title of Turin in nearly 51 years. Emotions for him too when he received the trophy on the podium and when, surrounded by his people and his team, he celebrated to the rhythm of a classic on the football fields, “Come, come, sing with me… that by the hand of Manu Urcera, we will go all the way to daaar”. So much joy had a reason for being.

Is that the man from Rio Negro had to work and wait a long time to get his place in the TC, after a late start in motorsports and some prejudices due to the comfortable economic position of his family, which led many to despise his exploits because he hadn’t had to struggle with a limited budget, like many of his rivals. He never gave up, he was making his way from the bottom up and on Sunday he added his name to the list of champions in the most important and traditional category of Argentine motorsport.

“It’s been a long road. Ten years. I started in 2012, at TC Mouras, I finished second in TC Pista, second and third in TC. I was missing the title. It’s incredible. Being TC champion is the best thing to a pilot from our country can aspire to,” Urcera said in a chat with carburetion.

“I’ve grown a lot within the ACTC. As a driver, but also as a person. I’ve matured a lot,” said the man from Rio Negro. “Motor racing is my life. I dedicate myself completely to this, I work every day to try to be the best. I do it in the best possible way, with merits and mistakes, but above all with the desire to learn. This year I found myself with a fantastic team, with a terrible desire to win, the same as I had, that’s why we won this title”.

Urcera’s love of motorsports started when he was very young. “My father tells me that he rode a motorbike with his friends, when he was doing motocross, and he had to get on the motorbike and do a couple of laps until I fell asleep to be able to leave. Otherwise, there would be chaos in the house, I have none remember,” he said a few months ago in a statement published by the National tourism.

With the complicity of his father Claudio, at the age of 4 he got on a motorcycle for the first time – which Santa Claus brought him – and spent his adolescence competing on two wheels. But after he turned 18, he switched to motorsports. It didn’t take long for him to stand out, but it took a lot of dedication to do so.

“I raced motorcycles from ’97 to 2011. That year I just started racing cars, with guys who were already racing at that point or who had started in karting. For this I had to reduce that time I was missing in addition to the car , dedicating myself to spending a lot of time testing in a simulator, kart or wherever, today I continue to do it, because everything went well for me”.

And he added: “I believe that a driver is born, but you also have to do it. With innate talent you only get to a certain level, to compete at the highest level you have to work. I feel a great passion to compete and win. To give myself goals and work to achieve them. That’s how I grow, mature, gain experience, because all of this motivates me”.

In his first year on four wheels, he was champion in TC Neuquen and runner-up in the Single brand lens. In 2012 she started running nationally in class 3 from TN extension is in the TC Mouras. In 2015 she was already running in TC2000 and debuted in road touring. It was then that he also made the leap on a personal level: he left Cipolletti and moved alone to an apartment in Puerto Madero.

His first TC triumph came in 2016, in the Roberto Mouras racetrack from La Plata. He had his first concrete chances to shout champion in 2019, when, with a Chevrolet of the JP Carreras team, finished second behind Agostino Canapinoand in 2020, when he finished third, again with Chevrolet, he won in the championship Mariano Werner. And as if he was preparing the way for what would have been his consecration in the top category, in those two years he was crowned at the TC Pista. His father accompanied him throughout the journey.

“He is the person who trusted me from day one. Today I think about it, I will certainly be a father in the future, and I don’t know if I would encourage a child to get on a motorcycle at four years old. Not if I was willing to sacrifice all my weekends to go along with my son’s dream. But he was always with me, no matter what. And with his experience as a good and successful man in life, he tried to guide me to follow the path of success and, above all, good people. I am extremely grateful to him, to all my family, girlfriend and friends.”

The constant presence in his career of his father – owner of various companies linked to the oil industry -, in the same way, has generated some critical looks that pointed out that he didn’t have to work so hard being able to race like his peers, many of whom struggle throughout the season to get and keep sponsors and financial support.

“It’s ignorance. Motorsport is a professional sport where we all have to raise a budget, but that has nothing to do with going faster in the car. It may help at first which the family claims, but when one is in the elite, which serves to have the best in the car and nothing else. Racing in the car is not a race of who has the most money. I think it’s something that happens here, in Argentina, it doesn’t happen in other countries. Ayrton Senna had the money, but he was the best in the world for his skills…“, he assured a few years ago in a note with The nation.

The man from Rio Negro turned a deaf ear to those prejudices and built his career. In this 2022, who has been dating the model and entrepreneur since last year Nicholas Neumann -he was in San Juan on Sunday to accompany him- he decided to bet on the team Machine parts and, aboard a Torino, he made history.

Because he won his first title in the most important category of Argentine motorsport and gave the del Toro brand its first since 1971, when Ruben Luis DiPalma He got his second consecutive crown.

“To put my name next to that of Rubén, one of the greatest idols in the history of TC, and to do it with this brand, the only one hundred percent Argentine of the five that race in the category, is incredible,” said the new sample. “I am extremely happy.”