Bruno Sojka
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| Complete name: Bruno Sojka |
| Birth date: ??.???.1909 |
| Birth Place: unknown, unknown |
| Death date: 30.Jun.1951 |
| Death Place: Šternberk, Czechoslovakia |
| Nationality: Czechoslovakia |
| Gender: male |
| Age at death: 42 |
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| Event date: 30.Jun.1951 |
| Series: hillclimb |
| Race: Ecce Homo Šternberk |
| Event type: hillclimb - practice |
| Country: Czech Republic |
| Venue: Ecce Homo |
| Variant: hillclimb |
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| Role: driver |
| Vehicle type: car |
| Vehicle sub-type: sportscar |
| Vehicle brand/model: Tatra T602 Tatraplan Sport |
| Vehicle number: 21 |
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Notes:
Bruno Sojka was the greatest Czechoslovakian driver in all the Voiturettes Czech Grand Prix - Masarykově okruhu v Brně - scheduled at Brno circuit: he arrived 2nd in 1933 and 3rd in 1931, 1932, 1934 and 1935. From 1932 onwards he teamed up with countryman Florian Schmidt, racing an old Bugatti T37A. In 1934 they acquired a 1.5-liter 8-cylinder twin-cam supercharged Bugatti T51A, formerly owned by Pierre Veyron, and Sojka obtained a 2nd place in the Frontières Grand Prix at Chimay (Belgium) and a 5th place in the Eifelrennen at Nürburgring. In 1935 again in the Eifelrennen at Nürburgring he arrived 6th overall.
After the Second World War, Sojka became works driver for Tatra. The first car the team built in 1949 was a new Tatra T600 "Tatraplan" a sportscar fitted with a rear-mounted air-cooled engine and an aerodynamic body. The drivers of the team were Pavelka, Sojka, Vrdlovech, Chovanec: they won many sporting events such as the Internationale Österreichse Alpenfarht in 1949 where four T600s took the first four places in overall classification.
Based on the T600, in the following seasons Tatra built the aluminium two-door T601 Monte Carlo and the T602 Tatraplan Sport. At the wheel of one of these works sportscar the aged driver Bruno Sojka died after a crash during practice for the the 1951 Ecce Homo hillclimb, a race he had already won the previous year.
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Sources:
- Website International Streamlined Tatra Site, page http://www.tatra.demon.nl/cars_history_racing.htm
- Website Atlas F1, bulletin boards, "The Nostalgia Forum", thread "Ecce Homo 1905 , 1921 - 1937 , 1950 - 1958 race results", posting by "Hans Etzrodt", message http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=443269#post443269 citing book "Die großen Rennjahre" by Erwin Tragatsch.
- Website Atlas F1, bulletin boards, "The Nostalgia Forum", thread "Ecce Homo 1905 , 1921 - 1937 , 1950 - 1958 race results", posting by "Roman", message http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=443388#post443388
- Website The Golden Era of Grand Prix Racing, by Leif Snellman, page http://www.kolumbus.fi/leif.snellman/ds.htm
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