Comments on: 1969 24 Hours of Daytona – Race Profile

By: Kevin Ward

Kevin Ward — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 20:03:42 +0000

My father’s (Jon Ward) car, is pictured. I remember the stories my brother told me of running and dragging a floor jack around the parking lot in the middle of the night looking for a late model camaro to steal a rear end out of! They found one (luckily the right gear ratio) and left the car on stands with a note. Everyone burnt their hands getting the failed rear end out (apparently it was nearly glowing red) and the whole process took about 45 minutes.

By: Phillip Jones

Phillip Jones — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:43:36 +0000

Lou,

Great Article! I enjoyed it very much and the pictures were great…one of ‘the Captain’s’ best victories.

By: Lou Galanos

Lou Galanos — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:09:24 +0000

Jorge: If memory serves me correctly the design of what we remember the 917K looked like was a result of stealing design ideas from Eric Broadley’s Lola T-70 Mk.IIIB and then having John Wyer Automotive adapt and improve on those ideas. The Ferrari factory stole design ideas from both the Lola and 917 for their 512M. Alas, it was too late to help Ferrari win the championship. If they had had only one more year.

By: Jorge (427fan)

Jorge (427fan) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:32:01 +0000

Thanks for the article , it brought back many memories of those awful looking Porsche 908L , I was rooting for the GT40′s or anyone else for that matter….I am glad they designed the 917 they really did a great job with the design maybe they fired the 908L design crew…

By: Duane

Duane — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:59:25 +0000

A great story from a great era in sports cars and motorsport. I have a great fondness for endurance racing and stories like this preserve it for later generations to enjoy.

By: Xavier

Xavier — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 07:44:10 +0000

As always, excellent ! Limpid text and original pictures, thank you !

By: Giuseppe

Giuseppe — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:32:13 +0000

Very interesting article, congrats for it and for the photos!

By: Butch Lewis

Butch Lewis — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:05:24 +0000

Marvelous job by all. Is it just me or is that a really fast Ford station wagon in the pace lap photo? Ha.

By: Fred Lewis

Fred Lewis — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:12:53 +0000

Small world, isn’t it, because of the ‘net? Thanks for the kind words from e-mail pals Ed, Nathan and Arthur. I had the pleasure of meeting Lou and Wilma at Daytona in November. As a retired teacher I assumed Lou’s subject was English since all his stuff is so well written. No, Wilma was the English teacher and she proofs the articles, he said. Having good material makes proofing easy, I’d think. And, probably entertaining for Wilma since she was there as a corner worker along with Lou. Two sets of memories can make for more details to enhance readers’ enjoyment of remembering what it was like then.

By: Tom Havens

Tom Havens — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:28:11 +0000

Another great article from SCD and the photos were fabulous. Kudos to the author and photogs. Hopefully there will be more from the author in the future.

By: Arthur Porter

Arthur Porter — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:14:37 +0000

Louis and Fred have done it again. Great article. Spectacular pictures. What a treasure you all have tucked away. I hope you all will get more published. Next let’s hear about the ‘water in the fuel’ BMW CSL win with Gregg, Redman and Fitzpatrick.

By: Bill Stowe

Bill Stowe — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:20:17 +0000

Louis,

No offense. We both thought your comment was quite humorous as we look back on it now. She says that the back set was not very comfortable.

I’m looking forward to more articles to be able to relive memories.

By: Louis Galanos

Louis Galanos — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:27:33 +0000

Bill:

That anonymous comment is from me (forgot to list my name). My wife said you might not take it as a joke so no offense intended. Best wishes.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:14:17 +0000

Thanks Bill. I am curious about one thing. Since you have taken your share of nice race photos yourself I wonder what you would have done if your wife had gone into labor during the race. Would you have dropped her off at the track physician and continued photographing the race, or??? ) Happy Holidays

By: Bill Stowe

Bill Stowe — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:33:04 +0000

In the 60′s I vacationed in Florida in March to attend the 12 hours of Sebring. However, in 69, my wife was expecting our firt child and the Doctor ruled out traveling in March. However, the Doctor approved traveling earlier so we attended the Daytona 24.
We didn’t rent a motel so we slept in the car that night. The wife made it through the night just fine and cheered her favorite driver to victory the next day.
Therefore,the article brings back a fond memory.

Bill

By: Obster

Obster — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:03:43 +0000

Yes, I remember reading the Philadelphia newspaper sports pages on the Monday after the race and being amazed at the victory.
I may have said this before, but I think this particular victory did a lot for the reputation of Penske racing-it was against a strong field in an event with a big international reputation.
For me, it was impressive as it was a LeMans-type race against cars that I was well familiar with from slot car racing!

By: Mario

Mario — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:47:37 +0000

Another fantastic return to the great years of “sports car racing”. With your descriptive writing, you could omit the photos….. But don’t you dare !
Mario

By: Michael Seidel

Michael Seidel — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:23:37 +0000

Another great Louis Galanos story. Fabulous details and pictures. Between you and Fred, there are some great shots. Thank you for writing it, and for Sports Car Digest for playing Santa and delivering this, just in time for Christmas.

But I think Will Ferch is right about Heavens To Murgatroyd!

Exit – stage left

Cheers

By: Nathan Beehl

Nathan Beehl — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:09:11 +0000

Thanks for a great story, and great photos (esp ‘hello’ to my friend Fred Lewis)This was the golden era of sports car racing.

By: Wil Ferch

Wil Ferch — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:12:06 +0000

Wonderful story….certainly much better detailed with insight compared to Road & Track reports of the day….which usually came 3 months later in the mail !

A couple of things.
1.) Heavens To Murgatroyd!….Wasn’t that Snaggle-Puss?.”Heavens to Murgatroyd…exit…stage left!”
2.) More correctly, John Wyer’s operations were in “Slough”, not really in London.
3.) Pretty much the full armada of the 5 908′s suffered the very same intermediate shaft failure. I believe it was team manager Rico Steinemann ( taking over from long-time Baron Huschke von Hanstein) who was supposedly quoted as saying..”I guess Porsche does not make very good intermediate shafts. These are some of the reasons Porsche goes racing, to improve components. ” In fact, I think these were aluminum and were indeed later changed to steel. Hmm…even spin doctors back then !