Another entry in an abridged Bob Riley story - one of racing’s greatest. (Though having something to do with getting down in New Orleans, what part in the series might this be, and the number to come, is for more industrious and higher-math-capable souls to figure than me.)
Though losing the overall Lime Rock Park battle, its show that day catapulted the Intrepid to the forefront in the war for minds as more and more owners and drivers started wondering what great feats might be accomplished if only raced in an Intrepid.
The answer would soon come.
On the heels of Lime Rock Park’s Memorial Day race was the June 2, 1991 Nissan Grand Prix of Ohio.
As happened at Lime Rock Park, Tommy Kendall’s Miller Racing Intrepid set a record-setting pace on the 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course – considered by many to be among the world’s most “technical” road courses – with teammate Wayne Taylor (second) and Davy Jones (third) following, each likewise posting times besting that of 1990 top qualifier, race winner and reigning IMSA GTP driving champion, Geoff Brabham.
Alternating for the season’s first part between a 1989-vintage XJR-10 and a 1990-built XJR-12, Jones’ XJR-16 – under the direction of TWR’s Tony Dowe (who most recently has toiled, and won, with team-owner Leighton Reese) – was markedly slower (in the world of stopwatches and fast cars) than the Intrepid pair.
Still, the starting order was reversed by race end as Jones lead Taylor and Kendall to the checkered flag, barely 2-tenths of one second ahead of Taylor’s No. 64 Intrepid, again the bridesmaid.
“External elements in racing as often as not dictate the race’s results,” Intrepid designer Bob Riley insisted. “A driver can cut nothing but perfect laps and a pit crew can have perfect pit stops – everything a team can control can be done perfectly – but still not win because of something having absolutely nothing to do with the team. Yet, a team must always perform at its absolute best just to have a chance at winning.”
In the next race two weeks later, at the 2-hour Nissan Grand Prix du Mardi Gras, it all came together.
Ironically, it would come together only after neither Kendall’s nor Taylor’s Intrepid qualified for New Orleans’ front row – the team’s only third such shutout since the car’s introduction at West Palm Beach.
Contributing to that irony, capturing the New Orleans pole was the Pontiac Spice SE90P driven by Spice Engineering factory shoe Perry McCarthy (with American Jim Adams co-driving), which additionally captured the race’s fastest lap before experiencing the unforgiving nature of a temporary course’s concrete barriers, that are to even slightly errant race cars what graters are to cheese.
Compiling a blazing 60.126-mph average speed, Taylor’s still deft ability to navigate city traffic carried the day on the 1.3-mile (2.09 km) New Orleans temporary street course.
“Few people seem to know or remember but New Orleans was my first win here in the United States, too. I tell you, I was just elated,” Taylor said. “I’d come so close so many times before. A huge weight was lifted from my shoulders.”
Riley would also find relief, too . . . sort of.
“It’s an indescribably wonderful feeling, seeing something like that happen, because even though you’ve had success before and given everything you possibly can to make the next best thing even better, in the back of your mind you keep thinking of how it might be done better. I tell you, though, that was a wonderful time – even though I was thinking in the back of my mind . . . and still am, with everything we’ve done or do.”
Soon, Watkins Glen’s blue-hued metal perimeter would make New Orleans’ concrete-lined avenues look like a SAFER barrier forerunner.
Later,
DC
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