Page 89 - Yanks reviews

Porsche Road & Race, June 22, 2020 / page 8
When a rocker arm broke in his and Axelsson’s Porsche 906/6 in the final minutes of the 24th hour, Peter Gregg would stop in the pits, also trying to wait for the last lap before crossing the finish line. Alas, the car could not be re-started, ruining Gregg’s Le Mans debut with the dubious distinction of being in the last car to retire in 1966. THE HENRY FORD
“I could see he was really nervous. When Ken got nervous, he’d start pullin’ on his gloves. And I said, ‘What’s up?’ He said, ‘They don’t want me to win the race. They want the Amon/McLaren car to win.’ I said, ‘Ken, what are you talking about? You’re miles ahead of them, how are they going to win the race?’ You gonna’ stop on the back chute or what? That’s impossible.’
“I was only a kid anyway and it didn’t make any difference what I said, but I told him, ‘If I was you, I’d win the race. You’ll have no trouble gettin’ a job. You could walk up and down the pit lane with a ‘For Hire’ sign and there’d be ten people grabbing you.’”
But Miles was told the dead heat finish had been okayed by the ACO. To refuse to cooperate would mean the end of his career with Ford, so grudgingly, he agreed to go along with it, perhaps even believing that he had one or more laps in hand and that it would be for appearances only. But had that lap advantage disappeared with a suspect brake disc change? Earlier, Hulme had brought their car in for scheduled brake change, a procedure Shelby’s crew had perfected and one that had just been performed on McLaren’s car. Phil Remington’s clever quick-change system enabled pads and rotors to be changed in a matter of seconds – critically important for a 3,500 lb. car that goes 200+ mph. Multiple sets of bedded-in rotors were prepared in advance by the crew chiefs of each car. With machine precision, the new rotors were fitted and Miles took off for his stint, still laps ahead of McLaren. But then, trouble. Miles brought the Mk II back in the next lap. Agapiou was there.
“Ken said, ‘I’ve got a vibration, a brake vibration.’ I said, ‘It can’t be a brake vibration, it must be the tires.’ He said, ‘I’m telling you, it’s a brake vibration.’”
Knowing the rotors had been bedded in, Agapiou threw on a new set of wheels and tires and Miles was sent out. Only then did Agapiou learn that the rotors he’d been given were not in
TOP: Shelby tells Ken Miles, now leading, that Ford wants him to slow down to let the No. 2 Amon/McLaren car catch up so they and the third place Bucknum/Hutcherson car can finish together on
the track – with his No. 1 car and the No. 2 in a dead heat. Miles is crushed. THE CAHIER COLLECTION, BERNARD CAHIER
MIDDLE: Two of the architects of Ford’s success, Remington and Miles. At this point, there’s nothing to say. THE CAHIER COLLECTION, BERNARD CAHIER
RIGHT: Before taking over for the last shift, Miles talks to Denny Hulme about the Ford team orders. THE CAHIER COLLECTION, BERNARD CAHIER
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“Well, I went looking for him, but the car was out and the driver had disappeared. Damn good thing.”
Morning was not kind to the Ford camp. Peter Revson and Skip Scott’s class-leading GT40 was the first to go, retiring from fifth overall just after morning light with a blown engine. The two remaining GT40s of Grossman and Ligier and Sutcliffe and Spoerry were both felled by electrical problems. Then in the eighteenth hour, with Grant at the wheel, his and Gurney’s leading Mk II suffered terminal overheating.
The only Ferraris still running were two GT cars, the faster of which was co-driven by American expat Roy Pike, whose 275 GTB would finish eighth overall and first in class. With the threat from Maranello gone, unless something unforeseen happened, it appeared that 47-year old Ken Miles, still far in front of the second place Amon/McLaren Mk II, was on his way to making history for Ford, and for himself. But in the closing hours of the race, a drama began to unfold that
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would lead to a controversy still not completely understood, decades later.
In a discussion among Henry Ford, Leo Beebe and Carroll Shelby about how to handle the finish, it was suggested – exactly by whom has varied with the telling – that it would look great if all three cars would cross the finish together, with the two leading cars actually finishing in a dead heat, something that had never happened at Le Mans. Shelby, who would always regret “that chickenshit thing Leo Beebe and Henry Ford and I decided” agreed at the time, and the ACO was consulted and gave their blessing – at first.
When Ken Miles brought his car in for service and a driver change, he was informed of the plan. Miles was crushed. And furious. To him, this was revenge by those at Ford who didn’t like him. Busy with the car, Charlie Agapiou heard none of this, but when he looked up, immediately he knew something was wrong.
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great respect for each other. And when Porsche decided to put us together for that race, I was happy about it.”
Of particular interest were two American entries, Howmet- Continental TX prototypes powered by Continental turbine engines. One was for Dick Thompson and Le Mans first-timer Ray Heppenstall. Thompson, who’d quit racing in disgust after ACO officials disqualified him before the 1967 Le Mans, had been asked by Heppenstall to help develop the turbine- powered car and ended up “unretiring” to race it in the U.S. – with some success. The two had placed third at the Watkins Glen championship round and Thompson qualified third fastest at Sebring, but did not finish. And then it was on to Europe, and eventually to Le Mans. Thompson saw the irony. “...So somehow,” he laughed. “I wound up there again.”
The second Howmet was to be driven by Brit Hugh Dibley and Bob Tullius, who had not raced anything more powerful than Triumph TR4s when he debuted in the second Howmet at Watkins Glen. There would be a steep learning curve, made even more complicated because the car required working the brake and throttle at the same time in corners to spool up the turbine. That meant left-foot braking.
“I was concerned about that,” he admitted. “I have a gimpy knee that doesn’t bend very well. It doesn’t bend at all. Well, maybe 30 degrees, but normal is 140.”
But Tullius was soon up to speed in the Howmet and though they didn’t finish, he and co-driver Dibley did well enough to be invited to Le Mans.
“I was just gassed about being able to drive a car at Le Mans that potentially – theoretically – could win. Because it was fast enough. It was a 200 mph car. And the Fords would go a little faster than that, but not a whole lot faster. “I really thought there was some chance of us winning.”
Expat from Berkeley, California Roy Pike had no such illusions about the Ferrari 275 LM he was to share with British “gentleman driver” Paul Vestey.
“It was a very poor car, unfortunately. Vestey had bought it from David Piper, but it just wasn’t a very good car.”
Also returning to Le Mans in a 275 LM were Masten Gregory and Charlie Kolb, theirs the very same NART Ferrari Gregory had won with in 1965. NART also entered a two-liter Dino 206 S for Frenchmen François Chevalier and Bernard Lagier de Giuseppe.
Two L88 Sting Ray Corvettes were entered, one for Swiss Jean-Michel Giorgi and Frenchman Sylvain Garant, the other for Umberto Maglioli, winner of the 1968 Targa Florio, and popular French driver Henri Greder.
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A three-time rally Champion of France in Fords and in 1967, a works GT40 driver for Ford of France at Le Mans, Greder was left with no ride when Ford pulled out of international racing. “I was mad at Ford because they fired me,” he laughed later, “and I said, ‘I’m going to buy a Camaro and beat the bastards.’ Greder went to GM Europe and there befriended a sympathetic GM executive, future auto industry powerhouse Bob Lutz.
“I worked for Opel then,” said Lutz, “and to tell the truth, I would much rather have given him an Opel, but we just didn’t have any cars that could run at Le Mans, so I got him a Corvette.”
Actually, he got two, with all the special Duntov performance options, and made arrangements for the Swiss team, Scuderia Filipinetti, to run them. The No. 3 seven-liter L88 Sting Ray Lutz provided for Greder would later turn out to be one of the most famous cars ever to run at la Sarthe, but in 1968, much to the delight of French enthusiasts, Greder and Maglioli’s car was easily the fastest GT car in practice.
RIGHT: Scooter Patrick, in the fastest car he’d ever raced – a works Porsche 908 he would co-drive with Joe Buzzetta. Patrick, no stranger to racing and winning in the U.S., admitted he found Le Mans daunting at first, particularly the infamous Kink. THE REVS INSTITUTE, ERIC DELLA FAILLE COLLECTION
BELOW: Through then-GM Europe executive Bob Lutz, two L88 Sting Ray Corvettes with all the Duntov performance options were provided to the Swiss team Scuderia Filipinetti, the No. 3 for French former-Ford driver Henri Greder and Italian Umberto Maglioli and No. 4 for Giorgi and Garant, Swiss and French, respectively.
THE REVS INSTITUTE, ERIC DELLA FAILLE COLLECTION
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