Rolf Johann Stommelen was born on 11 July 1943 in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Nazi Germany.

He inadvertently played a role in the end of the Spanish Grand Prix's tenure at Montjuich Park in Barcelona when he crashed there in the 1975 race after the rear wing of his Hill GH1 failed which caused his car to fly into the crowd, resulting in the deaths of five spectators and him being seriously injured.

Now in the lead, he rushed towards the Nordkehre, braked and deliberately left room for the Renaults in pursuit to overtake.

The 78 "Moby Dick" had a 3.2-litre Turbo Engine that produced 845 HP and Stommelen was, with 235 mph, (365 km/h) the fastest man on the Mulsanne Straight, faster than the prototypes like the Porsche 936 and the Renault Alpine A442B which won the race.

[4] He also competed in one NASCAR Grand National series event in 1971 at Talladega Superspeedway in a former Holman-Moody Ford which Mario Andretti used to win the 1967 Daytona 500, which was rebuilt by Robert Gee (Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s grandfather) as a Mercury Cyclone, with Jake Elder as crew chief.

That car eventually was sold to independent driver Darrell Waltrip to use a year later in his Cup Series debut in 1972, which is how it stands today in the latter's museum.

In the 1980s he was still a sought after prototype pilot and achieved success driving the Kremer CK5, Lancia LC1 and Porsche 956 cars.

Stommelen had just taken over the car from Bell and was running in second place when the rear wing broke due to mechanical failure at 190 mph (306 km/h).