Page 39 - Yanks reviews

Motor Sport magazine extract, June 20, 2019 / page 3
On the Friday before race day, a fidgety Phil Hill and Denise McCluggage were in his VW, driving around the course, once again a country road with gendarmes directing traffic. Occasionally, he would stop and get out to show her the line he was taking and the critical braking points. At the very fast, blind right-hand bend leading to Indianapolis, Hill told her he wished it were more distinctive, as he couldn’t read the entry as well as he liked. The two hatched a clever plan. After a quick trip into town in the Beetle, they returned, armed with a can of yellow paint. “I stood innocently, paint at the ready,” McCluggage recalled, “as Phil retraced the circuit to sight along his racing line. Attending to his hand signals and between passing cars, I splashed the bright yellow paint along the edge of the roadway.” A couple of test passes in the VW confirmed... problem solved.
Then skip to after the race...
At 4:00 p.m., Hill received the checkered flag. When Denise McCluggage caught up to him afterward, she asked if their carefully placed yellow paint marking had helped. Hill stared blankly and said, “I forgot all about it. I didn’t look for it.”
Didn’t matter, he had done it. He had won the big one. There were no more questions, no more doubts. His heroic performance established Phil Hill, once and for all, as one of the top drivers in the world, not to mention the first American to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Denise McCluggage takes notes after a tired Phil Hill’s first night shift in the rain Photo: The Cahier Collection