Claudio “Pachi” Martinez it has something that is almost impossible to define. Throughout its 59 years, the cast of those who tried to decipher this mystery has been more than varied. It is an unknown that his own family tried to solve-“with this stupidity you are going to starve,” her mother sentenced him at some point-, thousands of onlookers, journalists and also “Chiche” Duhalde who, one summer in the 1990s, went to ring the doorbell of Martínez’s home in Pinamar to thank him for having rescued his son-in-law when he was drowning at sea. “If you can, what I need is for the municipality to let me jump over my house with my motorcycle,” was the bizarre response of the protagonist of this note, who when he got on his helicopter to look for a lost young man he had no idea who he was or that a few hours later the First Lady herself would be knocking on his door. The surprise of the wife of the then President It was the same as most of those who treat “Pachi”: is this guy crazy or is he a genius? Or both?
Perhaps the one who came closest to solving the enigma was the Clarin newspaperin a summer edition of 1972. “The child of the miracle in the mountains”, said its cover, due to the fall of Martínez, then seven years old, from the third floor of a building in Cordova. The title was precise: only a miracle could explain that that boy was not only still alive but that he came out of that domestic accident without a single injury. It’s just that “Pachi” is difficult to explain. The man left the law profession, a profession he inherited from his father, when a director of programming in America – who had seen the occasional mobile phones that Martínez made in his capacity as a motorcycle racing driver – assured him that “people like the bullshit” that he said and did. So he started “Fifth to Fund”, the program in which “Pachi” and a varied group of athletes shine before the cameras with a bizarre mix of extreme sports, unusual inventions -“La Gomera humano” was the last hit- and the seal of humor of its host.
This is where the title of that Clarín is confirmed: in the 22 years that the program has been running – in which it went through the channels America, Fox Sports, Metro, Magazine and the Garagewon the Martín Fierro for the best cable program in 2014, and is now a success on Youtube- Martínez accumulated 25 stitches in his head (several of them during a note ten years ago for NEWSwhen he fell out of a car trying to do a fatal), triple nose fracture, fractures in both clavicles, rib fracture, wrist fracture, loss of the second knuckle in the right hand, torn anterior and posterior thighs, pubalgia, fracture penis, strained ligaments in both knees, fractures in both ankles and a kidney injury, which was done after a forced landing, help from “Chiche” Duhalde through, before a mob on a motorcycle above his house in Pinamar. A true miracle. “It’s that if I die doing this, right now, I die with a smile,” he says, before attaching a parachute to his 4×4 to fly over the Pinamar beach during the production of this article.
Pachi Martinez: I am aware that I am not doing a culture program, I am doing something stupid. Look, once I went to do a show in Catamarca and when it was over, María Soledad Morales’ father approached me. He told me that, in the midst of the misfortune of losing a son, the only half hour that he and her family got away from misfortune was with my program. I almost died there. Since it has served someone for that, for me it is priceless.
News: But for you, what you do in your program is “stupid”?
Martinez: What I do I do since I was little, it’s not that I do it for the program. What I’m amazed at is that from what I do, which is a game, people have created a culture. Because “Quinta a Fondo” is a culture, it is a way of living, of playing, of going with a message of not taking drugs, love your parents, take care of nature, if you do extreme sports do it carefully, with the protection necessary and if you know.
News: In a few days you will be 60 years old. Do you feel the same as when you started the program?
Martinez: I feel the same. I take care of myself, I train a lot. I don’t feel like I’m old, my body doesn’t hurt, I’m not afraid of these things, it gives me joy. I always enjoy these things that happen to me. Even when I end up in the hospital I have fun.
News: Get hurt and have fun?
Martinez: Yes, if it’s recorded, if I don’t want to kill myself (laughs). But people give you so much energy, so much joy, that if you die doing this, you do it with a smile. It is very strong that someone who does not know you loves you so much. What I lived with is like it’s too much for what I dreamed, very nice things happened to me. Think that I haven’t worked a single day for 22 years, this isn’t work.
News: Do you receive criticism from some who may understand that dangerous sports are being promoted?
Martinez: The truth is that I never receive an insult. Also nothing to do with what is Jackass, for example. I’m the antihero here, it’s like a boys’ game, for fun, it’s all humor. I think people feel identified: we’re all kiddos, there’s only one Messi. I think when people see me as an equal, everything goes wrong for me.
News: But when they get hurt on the show is when it’s seen the most.
Martinez: Yes, when I show blood it is when people like it the most, the most it is seen. I laugh my ass off. I get something positive out of an accident, some laughs.
News: Aren’t you afraid of having a serious accident?
Martinez: No, I’m not afraid. I am so focused that I am never afraid of dying. I also believe in past lives and future lives. I think that in another life I was Saint-Exupéry, I read his life and many times I dream that I fly like him. To this day I still dream of flying. Also, on the one hand, I think I’m never going to die. I will not stop doing what I do, neither with the program nor with the life that I have. It re amuses me, as if it were the first day. I never lost that.
