11/05/2021

Gonchi Rodríguez to have a monument in Montevideo

The Departmental Board of Montevideo (JDM) unanimously authorized the Municipality of Montevideo (IM) to place a monolith with a plaque in honor of Gonzalo "Gonchi" Rodríguez in the Uruguayan Motorsports Square, located in the Carrasco neighborhood, precisely between Dr. Carlos Butler, Dr. Eduardo J. Couture and Lt. Mario Botto Streets.

The IM referred the matter to the JDM in November 2020. It was in November 2015 that the departmental deliberative body had communicated its willingness to incorporate the late motorist's name to the capital's nomenclature.

At that time it was proposed to pay tribute to him on the promenade of Montevideo, but in February 2016 the Special Commission of Nomenclature of the MI stated that by decree of 2003 the space located between Dr. Carlos Butler, Dr. Eduardo J. Couture and Lt. Mario Botto, in Carrasco, was designated with the name Plaza del Automovilismo Uruguayo, so it suggested placing the plaque there.

More than three years later, in November 2019, the JDM expressed its willingness to place the monolith in said square and defined the text: "To the motorist Gonzalo 'Gonchi' Rodríguez, committed sportsman who left our country at the top of the world, generating in Uruguayans an immense feeling of pride and admiration. Tribute from the Departmental Board of Montevideo". After the various studies, the JDM authorized the IM to place the monolith with the plaque.

In his Twitter account, the frenteamplista councilman Claudio Visillac wrote: "After so much to-ing and fro-ing, a great desire that we had since the last legislature with councilmen of all parties came true; Gonchi Rodríguez will become part of our capital city's nomenclature".

In dialogue with Montevideo Portal, Visillac pointed out that in the JDM they ended up "converging" in the proposal that emerged from the Special Commission of Nomenclature. Throughout this process, there was "a back and forth between the IM and the JDM" and the final decision "comes a little late" but leaves them "with great satisfaction".

About the honoree, the mayor pointed out that "he marked a generation in the sport, he marked a generation that evidently did not have motor racing as a sport that generated the expectation and the following that others can have". "El Gonchi put motor racing in the retina of many Uruguayans", he pointed out.

Source: Montevideo Portal