This season, Ebbsfleet United have announced new kit partners in Admiral, the retro shirt manufacturer whose designs from the 1970s are still fondly remembered throughout the world of football. In honour of that tradition, the club has introduced two classic new football kits for 2025/26; the home shirt with its traditional collar in a classic Fleet red and an away number inspired by a famous motorsport colour combination of light blue and orange.
So where did the inspiration for the new away shirt arise? Keen-eyed motorsport fans will instantly recognise the blue and orange livery of Fleet’s away kit but the story of its connection with Brands Hatch, perhaps not so much. And one race in particular – more than half a century ago – showed how determination, grit and skill earned the chequered flag for a man in the sleek, gleaming hues of light blue and orange.
The club was only too pleased to work with Brands Hatch when the linkup for our kit launch was arranged. The venue is of course our local and historic racing track here in North Kent and it has witnessed a number of momentous occasions in motorsport, on four wheels and two – but a standout in the racing circuit’s history arrived in the middle of torrential rain on April 12th, 1970, during the Brands Hatch 1,000km race – see video.
Wet-weather races are notorious for a tricky drive for those behind the wheel but for Mexican star Pedro Rodriguez (pictured above), he treated it like any ordinary race and came home victorious, lapping his closest opponent five times in his blue-orange Gulf-Porsche 917 (pictured below).
Due to the weather conditions, doubt loomed about whether the race should even go ahead but go ahead it did and the drivers battled it out for the leading position heading into the first corner. An early crash brought out the yellow warning flags on lap one (rules in motorsport dictate that overtaking must halt) but due to the overcast and tricky conditions, Rodriguez continued to pass other cars due to his limited vision as flags were waved by race marshals.
After missing the initial yellow flags, Rodriguez was then shown a black flag signal to stop which he also claimed not to have seen. His race engineer was advised that he must enter the pits or be disqualified. He headed in but spent only 20-30 seconds in the pit lane following a strong word from the Clerk of the Course about his racing style in the conditions and then promptly returned to the race almost a lap behind.
Rodriguez accelerated up to third place by Lap 15 with just the Ferrari of Chris Amon and another Porsche driven by Vic Elford in front of him. By Lap 50, Rodriguez had taken the lead and shortly before the halfway point of the race was a lap ahead. With races of such duration, a mandatory driver change saw Rodriguez swap with teammate Leo Kinnunen for 38 laps but the Mexican insisted on returning to the driver’s seat and became unstoppable.
Four hours into the race, the weather began to dry up with the track slowly following suit. After a gruelling six-hour and 45-minute race (Rodriguez driving for five and half of those while mastering the wet weather conditions), his team covered 235 laps of tarmac at Brands Hatch and ultimately the blue-orange Gulf-Porsche swept over the line to win by a staggering five laps, etching his name into the sport’s history books.
It became known as “The day they forgot to tell Pedro it was raining” – the tale of one man in a well-honed blue and orange machine who refused to let the conditions or the situation beat him as he recovered from adversity and came from behind to take his prize.
