Wink:
GREAT STORY!! I hope you're working on that book. I know you must have at
least one or two more of those stories we'd all love to hear.
The officials' ruling on this reminds me of my near brushes with fame... In
1977, I worked for Motorola and somehow convinced management I needed to go to
Lemans to help work on Harley Cluxton's Renault-turbo powered Mirages that he
entered with our sponsorship. We were two private entrees against 4 factory
Renault entrees , the lone cars powered by the then new V6 turbo. I was there
working as part of the pit-crew, changing batteries in the Motorola radios
and checking on other electronic bits we provided.
By the 22nd hour of the race, all the factory Renaults has dropped out and we
had 1 Mirage running 2nd, but well behind the leading Porsche. With about an
hour remaining (or less), he (the Porsche) pulled into the pits with a blown
engine. We thought victory was within our grasp, but alas, not.
With the TV and media folks crowding our two pits, the Porsche crew quickly
went to work, and pulled one of the 6 pistons and rods out of the red-hot
engine. Then, they buttoned it back up and sent him back out again in minutes,
where he poked along on 5 cylinders long enough to claim the chequered flag
ahead
of us (we simply weren't able to gain back all of his lead). There was a
protest, but he kept the victory, and they made a rule that cars had to be
running at least 80% of their average speed on the final lap.
Ain't racing fun???
Myles H. Kitchen
1965 Lotus (the older I get, the faster I was) Cortina Mk1 #128
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