FALSIES

ROLEX 24 FALSEHOODS

Haywood Drove a 917 at Daytona

(Note: This is the first in a series of Rolex 24 falsies of however many Ol' DC cares to post. But, he figures at least one more will hit before The Seriously Big Race later this week. The links will whisk the clicker to exotic background material at least once or twice. They're mostly for Ed Bennett's sake, though, so he can gain a sense of the sport's background).

When one works closely enough to something, probably anything, it's surprising what others may see or for that matter not see and, even, see something where nothing such existed at all.

Thoughts of what is, isn't and couldn't have been recently arose during a question-and-answer (QnA) between The Fourth Estate Inquisitors Club and a couple of notable, accomplished sportscar drivers, both of whom having been around the sport a lot longer than many of the inquisitors.

One of the interrogators confused a couple of facts and spoke of them as having simultaneously occurred when they hadn't at all.

"Hurley, what was it like to drive a Porsche 917 back in the day?"

For all the considerable knowledge and great ability possessed and displayed by one Hurley H. Haywood, competitively driving a Porsche 917 wasn't among it, for he hadn't at all been at the wheel of a 917 (parade, show or "historic" laps notwithstanding) in either its or his "day."

Haywood might've, probably has driven a 917 since the car dominated its two Daytona 24 races (1970, 1971), but FIA rules would sunset Herr Doktor Norbert Singer's first contribution to his storied Porsche career about two years before Haywood became a household name of lofty enough stature to drive any factory backed Porsche.

(Bar Bet Material: No, Dr. Singer -- who has his own fan club, by the way -- didn't design the 917, but he did design the 917's ducting.)

(OL’ DC NOTE: As usual, when Ol’ DC blows it, he leaves the evidence trail intact. Thinking “Daytona” and “prototype” racing, Ol’ DC just up and totally forgot HHH’s 917-10 Can-Am days, even though Ol’ DC personally witnessed a few. So, in one way, Hurley did drive the 917 in his and a few other people’s “day.” But he still didn’t drive a 917K, or 917L, which were a different breed than the 917/10 and, eventually, the Porsche 917/30 that flat-out dealt a death blow to Can-Am. And I even possess personally shot pictures of Haywood in the Brumos 917. Bummer.)

Herr Doktor Singer's mind was at work hatching the 917's air-ducting system just about the same time, give or take, that Peter Gregg discovered Haywood in 1968 at a Jacksonville, Fla., SCCA autocross.

Haywood, driving a Corvette between college classes he'd soon, um, make like a tree and leave, had all but tripped over the autocross in a hunt to dispel boredom.

Gregg was at the same event for the purpose of breaking in a new Porsche being prepped for racing.

Haywood, not knowing any better, was unbothered by Gregg's already well-founded racing reputation and turned faster laps than did Gregg, who not only noticed someone did better than he but civilly talked with him.

In a much later, similar situation at Savannah, Georgia's Roebling Road Raceway in a new race car both drove (no, not at the same time, Menego), Haywood again was the faster of the two.

"He hired me on the spot," Haywood said of the aftermath.

Co-driving a 911S the two drivers afterward won their first race together at Watkins Glen International in 1969, after which Haywood involuntarily was on his way to a government job in a Southeast Asian paradise.

When Haywood returned to racing at the start of the 1971 season, the 24 Hours of Daytona was his first stop, the FIA long before that event having already mandated the 917's competitive demise, so angry were they with the Germans.

In 1971, two-driver teams were common to an international-level 24-hour race (23 of that year's 48 Daytona starters were such) so as a twosome, Gregg and Haywood were de rigueur in tackling the race without a third or fourth driver along for the ride in their No. 59 Brumos Porsche Audi Porsche 914/6 (#9140430705).

But they really wouldn't need one, either.

Qualifying 23rd, after 260 race laps something snapped mechanically (never does a Porsche engine fry; don't believe the race's official record keeping) and the pair finished 29th overall -- 428 laps in arrears to eventual winners Pedro Rodriguez (his fourth Daytona win) and Jackie Oliver, whose John Wyer No. 2 "ride" was one of four Porsche 917's on hand.

The good news? Gregg and Haywood finished nearly 150 laps ahead of Derek Bell and Jo Siffert's No. 1 John Wyer Porsche 917K and only 14 laps behind a 28th-place No. 4 917K driven by Vic Elford and Jonkheer Gijsbert van Lennep, Esq., who later in 1971 co-drove the same No. 3 Martini and Rossi 917 to a Le Mans win with Herr Doktor Helmut Marko (yes, that Helmut Marko) who co-drove with Rudi Lins at Daytona.

(BBM: In its 1970 Daytona debut, the Porsche 917K scored a victory with co-drivers Rodriguez, Leo Kinnunen and Brian Redman. Redman also finished second, driving a sister 917K. According to, well, the storytellers, Kinnunen had difficulty with understanding the Queen's English, as spoken by John Wyer and company. Having been repeatedly told to slow due to his massive lead but apparently not having a "clue," when Kinnunen next pitted for fuel Redman went in for two slower-driving stints so as to preserve the car for the finish. Of course, there are those who would say, even to this day, that Redman is slow, slow, slow anyway. Countering such fallacy was his later 1981 championship romp in the Flying Banana, aka the Cooke-Woods' Lola T600).

Insofar as Daytona and, especially, the FIA was concerned, when 1971 ended so, too, did the Porsche 917: two Daytona races; two Daytona wins; and, Daytona done.

The 917 was a helluva car having a legendary status rivaling that of axe-wielding Paul Bunyan's -- but even Herr Doktor Singer didn't rank it the equal, much less ahead of the Porsche prototypes that would follow. Then again, the following race cars would pretty much be "all" Herr Doktor Singer's whereas the 917 wasn't.

Before imaginative enhancement and following fantastic tales took hold, the Porsche 917 likely was more attributable to a boring racing climate fostered by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) than anything else.

In a series of moves during the years immediately preceding the 917's introduction at the March 13, 1969, Geneva International Motor Show, the FIA in June 1968 had come down hard on prototypes having large-displacement engines.

And who had kicked bootie with large-displacement engines? Exactly!

All sorts of behind-the-seen political reasons were cited for the FIA's almost complete sportscar racing rulebook rewrite (try to quickly say that three times, starting with "complete") but the FIA (with the ACO celebrating in the background) made it pretty clear American-based engineering was no longer welcome unless it first could "homologate" Yurrupean-sized engines. For goodness sakes, Ford's Pinto and Chevrolet's Vega both were a couple or three years still down the road.

Small-displacement engines!? At the time, frankly, yours truly was trying to just get his head around something called "cubic centimeters" and eventually would acquire a Vega to better understand it.

But liters?

Having unloaded on Zee Ameerikahns on the Atlantic Ocean's western shore, the French-dominated FIA hadn't given much consideration to chronic foe Germany (the reader does know France and Germany are historically acrimonious, no? Believe it: doubtful would be the recent collaborative resolve of France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel if not for a considerable fear of a collapse of the Yurrupean, oops, European Currency Unit, with such doing no good whatsoever for either country, especially Germany -- according to leading German economist Jörg Bergmeister, who happens to also drive a Porsche every now and again between economics lectures).

The result of the FIA's rules rewrite was a 800-kilogram (1764-pound), 5-liter homologated sports car class having a minimum build of 25-units.

It was a racing class that, in net effect, produced the world's first "supercar," the 917, because the class was intended for "street cars."

As known by anyone possessing at least some awareness of Porsche's glorious racing history, the company scrambled to produce their 25 examples of the 917 but only after the FIA learned of Porsche's intent to compete within its "S" or "Sports" (not "prototype") competition class and, most particularly, after learning that Porsche had only fully constructed six of the FIA's 25 required cars.

(A lot has been said, indeed, "urban myths" arose in a couple of cases, as to how Porsche met the minimum.

(Porsche's own story: Porsche "'had all the bits and pieces to build 19 more for the homologation,' according to Rico Steinemann, Porsche’s racing manager at the time, 'the FIA then decided, no!'

("'As all of the racing department’s resources were being utilized, the workers to build the cars would have to come from elsewhere.'

("'We put together apprentices, messenger boys, bookkeepers, office people and secretaries,' remembered Steinemann years later. 'Just enough people, taught just enough to put together 25 cars!'" - Source: "40 YEARS OF THE PORSCHE 917," Motorsport PR, official Porsche press release distributed Mar. 9, 2009.

(Author Randy Leffingwell's Porsche Legends not only possesses beautiful photography but has even more on the 917's origination, in "Porsche's" own words, as well as other interesting Porsche historical tidbits, as of the book's August 2002 publication.

Oh, yeah, the rest of the Haywood "early" story . . .

In 1973, driving a Brumos Porsche 911 Carrera RSR (given the 917 story: ironically entered as a prototype because it wasn't homologated), Haywood and Gregg won the Daytona 24 in an upset by besting supposedly "faster, better" 3.0-liter sports prototypes like the (N.A.R.T.) Ferrari 312P, a (factory) Matra-Simca, a (Reinhold Joest) Porsche 908 and a John Wyer Gulf-Mirage.

Haywood saw his and Gregg's Daytona 24 win in 1973 as that which "put my name on the international stage for the first time. It was when everyone really started paying attention to me," the overall Daytona 24 win leader said recently.

Haywood eventually added another four Daytona 24 victories to a longstanding record five that only now is being directly challenged by Scott Pruett, who has four wins overall (and five others in-class).

Although believing his name was thrust into worldwide circulation after his 1973 Daytona 24 win, people surely had started taking notice of "Haywood" by that time, he having won five "sprint" races during the preceding two seasons.

Among another three Daytona 24 podiums (1st, 1975; 3rd, 1976; 1st, 1977) Haywood would win an additional eight races among 24 total podium finishes in the series' following years before he'd go to Le Mans for the first time in 1977, winning at Circuit de la Sarthe with co-drivers Jürgen Barth and Jacky Ickx in the No. 4 Martini Porsche 936 (#77 001).

In a touch of irony, the fellow who "discovered" Haywood, "Peter Perfect," placed third in that year's 24 Heures du Mans (with co-drivers Jacques Borras and Claude Ballot-Lèna in a privateer Porsche 935).

Later,

DC