"What does this one do in a novel? This chabón has another piné ", thought Juan Palomino when he first saw Pappo on the film set of Carola casini, that series of Pol-Ka that broke into homes in Argentina in 1997 with Araceli Gonzalez and Palomino himself as protagonists.
That first meeting ended with a singular chat in the parking lot of the Buenos Aires racetrack, filming location. "Are you going with that ...", the musician asked him. “Yes, it is a Honda Shadow; It is what it is…", the actor replied. "Hmmm. Shadow. Sling. Japan", Carpus retorted disapprovingly. The next day, Pappo put things in order: he let Palomino park his Shadow and he appeared with his Harley: “Harley-Davison. U.S. Motorcycle"he shot with his particular voice. From there the two became inseparable.
In that hit strip, Pappo played Enrique Angelozzi, the mechanic friend of Carola (Araceli González). His performance was so good that he was nominated for Revelation at the awards. Martin Fierro.
During the recording, the relationship between the musician and Palomino was strengthened. To the point that the actor, who at that time was going through a bad time in his love life, was "adopted" by the rocker. “You need crazy family, you need old woman, you need food. You come home with me ”. And so it was that, periodically, Juan spent whole days in the house on Calle Artigas, in La Paternal.
When the strip ended, the bond continued and the passion that they both felt for irons and, especially, for motorsport had to do with much. Pappo ran whenever he could and he had the money to do so. I had already passed through zones and until Argentine Pilots Club, where it had more continuity. Juan spent his childhood in Peru and, like every child, grew up in the shadow of the Inca Trail Rally, the mother competition of Peruvian motorsport. When he was grown up he came to run the Inka Rally On a motorbike.
The enthusiasm led them to compete together and so it was that the March 1 1998, in the racetrack of La Plata, the two were found inside the cabin of a Chevy of Supercart. They started 14th and arrived in a dignified 10th place. “I was so happy that I started crying. Norberto saw me, lowered the visor of my helmet and told me, 'You cry calmly that I attend to journalists'. It was a very emotional experience ”, Palomino affirms to Automundo.
The idea of the friends was to play several races. They did a couple more in the Supercart and then they cheered on the TC Pista, but the experience lasted a long time due to lack of financial support.
“If I have to define the relationship Norberto had with speed, I would say that he was like Meteoro's older brother… A man passionate about the aroma of racing, passionate about the wind that produces speed, about the sound of the gearbox that resembled the riff of a guitar ”, Juan reflects on the godfather of Aaron, your son. “Surely if I had raced more often, I would have had the chance to be a great driver. But as a great musician that he was, he allowed himself these spaces of experimentation where the body and the soul were translated into his other passion: motoring ”.
16 years ago Norberto Napolitano left us forever. But testimonies like that of Juan Palomino serve to realize that behind his guitar there was also a pilot.
