Jean-Luc Salomon was born on 27 February 1944 at Saint-Cloud, Seine, in the Nazi-occupied France. According to his birth certificate, his surname was Robert, but that was later officially recognized by his father as Salomon. Before being involved in motorsport, Jean-Luc had been one of the best young French athletes, being the fastest junior European racer in the 1500 meters then in the 1500 meters steeplechase. In the 1966 Track-and-Field European Championships, held in Budapest, Salomon scored an eighth place in the 5000 meters final, and in June of 1967 he obtained the second best time ever for a French athlete in the 3000 meters.
In spite of his success as a runner, in 1968 Salomon decided to move to motorsports, entering the Magny Cours racing school; he immediately demonstrated his skills, and won the Volante Shell prize in his first season. The following year he was awarded the Volante Elf prize, scoring two wins in Formula France. In 1970 Salomon drove a Citroën DS21 in the Rallye de Monte-Carlo - from which he was forced to retire due to an accident - and a works Martini MW5 - Ford in the French Formula 3 Championship. He quickly came to grips with that car and became one of the frontrunners in that series - so much that both him and his fellow Denis Dayan were rumored to move directly to Formula 1 and compete in the French Grand Prix of that year, to be held at Clermont-Ferrand on 05 July.
Sadly neither of the two would reach such a dream. On 28 June 1970 both Salomon and Dayan raced the Coupe de Vitesse de l'A.C. Normand - Craven A at Rouen-les-Essarts. That was the tenth round of the French Formula 3 Championship and a support race to the XVIII Grand Prix de Rouen-Les Essarts for Formula 2. Early in the race Denis Dayan suffered a grave accident at the Virage des Six Frères; seriously injured, he would succumb in a hospital four days later, on 04 July 1970.
The race continued, and five laps later another enormous and fatal crash would happen. Five drivers, Mike Beuttler (Brabham), Bob Wollek (Martini), Jean-Pierre Jaussaud (Tecno), Richard Scott (Brabham) and Salomon (Martini) were involved in a big fight for the lead of the race. Four of them approached the fast Virage de la Scierie side by side at more than 200 km/h - but there was simply no space enough for that.
A bit before the start of the braking zone for la Scierie Salomon took his Martini to the edge of the track but it touched wheels with Scott's Brabham, riding over one of its rear ones. The Martini took off, somersaulted an landed upside down in the ditch that ran along the left side of the track between La Scierie and the Virage Paradis. The roll-bar of his Martini collapsed backwards upon impact, and Jean-Luc suffered extensive injuries.
R.I.P
