Does anyone have any pictures of...

[Muzza]

Hello,

Fab, the pictures you cherished - Woolfe admiring (and fearing) his 917 just before the start of the 1969 Le Mans, and that one of Alfred Neubauer whispering at Pierre Levegh - are two of the most touching motorsport scenes ever captured.

These photos really blow me away. Your comments were very much on the mark.

J_Ickx_Fan, the suffix "K" stands for "kurz" (short) and "LH" is for "langheck" (long tail). These are references to the type of rear bodywork used.

At the late 1960s aerodynamic development for racing cars was very much empirical. Car manufacturers were trying the strangest things to keep the cars stable at high speeds, and to reduce drag. Those were times of a certain "darwinist engineering". Sometimes, out of either knowledge, luck or sheer experimentation, engineers got things right. But sometimes the results were tragic. Henri Pescarolo, for example, almost got killed when his Matra simply took off, like an airplane, during a private test in 1969. Many other drivers suffered terrible accidents for similar reasons.

(well, what to say of the Mercedes-Benz CLM as recently as 1999 Muzza:confused: )

From its conception it was clear that the 917 was not simply rasing the bar for sportscar racing - it was bound to become a legend. It was too powerful, too fast. But, also, too dangerous. There was a lot of debate within the walls of Zuffenhausen about what to do to simply... keep the cars on the track! Everybody - with the exception of Rolf Stommelen, maybe - was pretty much scared with the behavior of the 917 at high speeds.

Two main bodywork configurations were then tried, the K with a short tail (which I like to call "The Bully") and another one, the LH, with the sweeping, sexy curves (which I name "Helga"...)

I will let Dr. Austin, Cybersdorf and others bring something about the particularities of each of these configurations - they surely know about it!

J_Ickx_Fan, it is my understanding that Woolfe's car, chassis 005, was a LH too. Most books, though, call it simply a 917, without suffix. I believe this happens because, at the time, in 1969, only the factory units were called LH.

Cheers, (917 rules)

[Dr. Austin]

Julien, please check out this thread. Woolfe's car was inded a longtail.

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...threadid=17944

[Muzza]

Hello, Doc,

Thanks, I just checked that 917 thread you recommended (http://tentenths.com/forum/sho...&threadid=17944). Outstanding!

We agree: Rolf Stommelen was a hell of a brave guy. Once I read an interview with a British driver (David Piper? I don't recall his name now) telling horror stories about the development of the 917. Porsche was about to run out of test drivers - everybody was too scared of the car!

This British driver was not a Porsche factory pilot, so he was very surprised when he got a call from Stuttgart one morning: someone was trying to hire him to test the 917. He was running on a short budget, and being invited by Porsche to race car that the racing community was talking about... Well, it sounded too good to be true.

He called his friend Jo "Seppi" Siffert in Switzerland, who was a Porsche factory driver. The Brit asked why Siffert was not testing the car, and Seppi replied "Me? Do you think I am crazy?"...

The Brit guy did run the 917, and his description of the behavior of the car is breathtaking. He also recalls that Stommelen was "insane" with the car, because "he was sort of racing for 'Vaterland'"... This interview is very enlightening, and hilarious.

At the end he gave up, saying that "in all life I did not want to be the fastest driver around, but the oldest"!

I loved that interview... Man, who is this driver, I just cannot remember his name! Doc, please help!

Cheers,


Muzza

[Dr. Austin]

It could have been Brian Redman. When he first tried to get in the car at Spa, he accidently turned on the windshield wiper and it flew off the car! He also resused to drive the car at Zeltwig 69 until they promised him a good 'deal' for 1970, which he got.

During the LeMans '69 weekend, the FIA decided to put a ban on all movable areo aids. Porsche had gone to tremendous lengths to get the 917 homologated. While the FIA was rumored to be satisfied to be shown the same Ferrari 512's five different times, Porsche was required to line all 25 of the 917's up for inspection. Now, at the race the car was designed for, the FIA were trying to take away one of it's hard won advantages. Porsche insisted that the car was homologated that way and it would run that way if there were to be ANY factory Porsches in the race at all.

The orgainizers had a little discussion and Stommelen was sent out in the 917 with the flaps locked into place. The resulting demonstration was so scarey that the car was allowed to run the flaps as homologated. however, all the 908's were required to run with their flaps fixed. More of that famous FIA even-handed rules enforcement.

[J_Ickx_Fan]

Thanks Muzza and Doc for the info. I found where I saw that K type for John Woolfe's car, it was at http://www.wspr-racing.com/results/wscc/ms1969.html#8 but I checked again today and he removed the K and let 917 instead. He must have read this forum LoL

Julien

[J_Ickx_Fan]

Talking about lack of knowlegde of the engineers at that time, I have read a few lines from the Le Mans 1969 program that are really crazy :

In 1967 Miles was killed at the wheel of the Ford MK2J and nobody knew what happened. Then when Guy Ligier was doing tests at Le Mans, he reached the speed of 345 km/h in the Hunaudières. Engineers said that it was impossible. The 4th gear at the max rev could only allow 330 km/h.
Finally they realized that in high speed, tires swelled by the centrifugal force, increasing the circumference and then the speed was 15 km/h higher that the estimation. And of course reaction of the car was much different which could have provocate Miles's accident.

[Muzza]

Hello,

Doc, it may well have been Brian Redman! I have to retrieve that interview when I go back home, it is a great article.

It is interesting how these stories cross each other in this forum. We were talking about late 1960s sportscar accidents caused by aerodynamic failures, and then J_Ickx_Fan mentioned the name of Kim Miles.

Once I read - in Steve Small's book - that Miles' accident was caused by an aerodynamic failure... Again, apparently a door flew open, the car lost balance and that was it.

Someone help me: Miles crashed at the Dunlop Curve, wasn't it? The barriers were very close to the track at the time, he crashed head-on at high speed, the car just went straight down the start/finish line (if I am not mistaken his crash by someone's else).

Our friend Guy Ligier also once had a big, mega-shunt at Les Hunaudieres testing a Ford GT40.

Muzza

[Muzza]

Doc,

Sometime ago we were talking about a certain British driver that was contacted by Porsche to become a Porsche 917 test driver, remember?

Indeed, that driver was Brian Redman. Take a look at the page
http://www.porsche917.com.ar/notas03clubnews.htm
from the excelent Juan Genhard's site http://www.porsche917.com.ar

Cheers,

Muzza

[paulzinho]

Wow, don't know how I missed this thread, its been a very interesting read, thanks guys!!!