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Daytona, not just for stock cars, over the years at the 24 Hours at Daytona
Story and photographs by Jim Casey
The first sports car race at Daytona was run in 1962. It was a three-hour race, and it was won by Dan Gurney in a Lotus 23 with a Coventry Climax 2.7 liter V8 engine. He was so far ahead that when his car began to have problems, Gurney stopped just short of the finish line, waited for the three-hour time limit to come, and idled across the line to take the checkered flag. 
I wasn’t there, but I wish I had been. I was 11 at the time, and saw the highlights on Wide World of Sports, and knew I had to go there someday. The 50th Anniversary of that race is coming up, which makes this a good time to look back on some of the great races, fabulous drivers, and spectacular cars that roared to victory there.
The race remained a three-hour event for one more year, and in 1963 it was won by Pedro Rodriguez in a Ferrari GTO, one of the most beautiful and valuable cars ever built.
For 1964 and ’65 the race became a 2000 kilometer event, and the battle between the Ferrari 250 GTO LM of Phil Hill and Pedro Rodriguez, and the Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupes lasted most of the race, which I listened to on the radio, until the Cobra fell back after a pit fire, allowing Ferrari the victory.
In 1965 the race was opened to prototypes and became the first major victory for the Ford GT-40, driven by Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby, who would duplicate their win in 1966, also in a Ford, when the race first became a 24-hour event.
The first year I attended in person was 1980, with Porsche completely dominant, the race won by Rolf Stommelen, Reinhold Joest, and Volkert Merl in a 935. I went to the race almost every year in the 80’s, and each year until 1988 the race was won by a Porsche, or a March-Porsche.
In 1983 the race was won by a 935 long-tail entered by Preston Henn, and driven by Bob Wollek and Claude Ballot-Lena. Early Sunday morning, Henn hired A. J. Foyt, whose own car had broken down early in the race, to spell Wollek and Ballot-Lena. When Bob Wollek brought the car into the pits for fuel, tires, and a driver change, he was quite surprised to see Foyt getting ready to get in the car. His dismay only grew when Foyt asked him if the car was a 4 or 5-speed, so he’d know the shift pattern. After Foyt roared out of the pits, in the rain, in a car he’d never driven before, Wollek was beside himself.
The race was being broadcast on TBS, and Mike Joy interviewed Bob on live tv as Foyt started driving the car. Wollek was livid, and let his anger flow for several minutes, until it could be heard over the track PA that Foyt had just set the fastest lap of the race. By the time the car got to victory lane all was sweetness and light.
In 1984 Porsche debuted the 962, and the car was driven by Mario and Michael Andretti, but it retired after 6 hours with mechanical issues, and the race was won by three South Africans in a March-Porsche.
Foyt and Wollek were re-united for the win in 1985, the first at Daytona for the 962, which would be the first of three for perhaps the most beautiful Porsche racecar ever built.
The Porsche dominance was finally broken in 1988 by Tom Walkinshaw’s Jaguar XJR-9, driven by Raul Boesel, Martin Brundle, Jan Lammers, and John Nielsen.
That was the last 24-hour race I attended in person. Over the course of those years I had the good fortune to meet and talk to many great drivers, some, like Dan Gurney and Mario Andretti, heroes of mine since my early years. Others, like Hurley Haywood, Derek Bell, Bob Akin, Bruce Leven, Bob Wollek, and others, drivers whose glory years I got to witness in person.
Then late one night in the early 80’s, as midnight loomed and I was getting ready to leave the track and get some rest, I encountered the legendary Luigi Chinetti, first to import Ferraris to the U.S., head of the North American Racing Team, as he was leaving the track after one of his beautiful 512 BB’s had just retired from the race. I said, “Signore Chinetti, how is your car?” He replied, “We break the sump.” Those are the only words I exchanged with him, but somehow it was enough. Those were great days and fabulous cars and drivers.
*Jim Casey is a freelance contributor to Sports Car Illustrated.
12/13/11
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