Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Evening With A Legend: David Hobbs

Transcript

Evening With A Legend: David Hobbs · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
Evening With a Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to
0:03
legends of the famous 24 hours of Le Mans giving us an opportunity
0:07
to bring a piece of Le Mans to you.
0:09
By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance
0:13
to become part of the Legend of Le Mans with guests from different
0:16
eras of over 100 years of racing.
0:34
Tonight we have an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you sharing in the
0:39
Legend of Le Mans with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing.
0:43
And as your host, I'm delighted to introduce David Hobbs, who has enjoyed a
0:47
long and diverse racing career with a 24 hours of Le Mans serving as a cornerstone
0:52
of his legacy in international motorsport competing in the iconic endurance
0:57
race 20 times between 1962 and 1989.
1:00
He drove a wide variety of machinery, including GTS prototypes and group C
1:05
cars for manufacturers such as Ford Mirage, Porsche BMW, and Jaguar.
1:10
His adaptability and technical insight made him a valuable asset in multi
1:13
driver lineups, and he earned several strong finishes, including a class
1:17
win in 1962 at third place overall in 1969, driving for John Wire's four
1:23
GT 40 team, and then again in 1984 in a Porsche 9 56, David Hobbes's.
1:28
Consistency, endurance, and charisma made him a fan favorite and a respected
1:32
figure at Le Mans where his career spanned some of the most transformative
1:36
decades in sports car racing history.
1:38
And with that, I'm your host crew chief Eric from the Motoring
1:41
Podcast Network, welcoming everyone to this evening with a legend.
1:44
So David, welcome to the show.
1:46
Thank you very much, Jared.
1:47
That's a. A very complimentary opening statement there by yourself.
1:51
Thank you very much.
1:52
No worries.
1:53
Let's begin at the beginning.
1:55
What initially drew you to compete at Le Mans?
1:58
How did that opportunity present itself?
2:01
What do you remember about your very first Le Mans race in 1962,
2:04
and how did that shape your approach to endurance racing later?
2:07
Well, actually, I hadn't done any open wheel racing when I first went to the Mon.
2:11
I was fortunate enough.
2:12
I have a father who was extremely clever and had invented an automatic transmission
2:17
that was way ahead of the field in as much as it had four gears instead
2:21
of three, which most automatics had.
2:23
And it did not have a, uh, fluid drive.
2:25
It had a friction clutch, which is automatically operated and it used
2:28
very little power to run the gearbox.
2:30
I had raised my mum's my Oxford, first of all, that 1959.
2:34
The 1960 IRA dad's XK one 40, and then his company got an injection of
2:40
money from an American company who could see a lot of future in his gear
2:44
box, and it puts a lot of money into dad's company and they all thought.
2:48
Of course, I helped them think that, that it would be a good idea to advertise
2:52
the gearbox with racing in a small car.
2:55
So they bought a Lows Elite for me.
2:57
So in 1961, I raced a Lows Elite, which was incredibly successful.
3:02
I won 14 out of 18 starts with that car.
3:05
We had some teaming troubles to start with, and then we employed a guy who
3:08
came up to, I volunteer his services.
3:10
Who had been an ex Lotus employee, and he, uh, gave us a lot of tricks,
3:14
how to light in the car, how to strengthen it, especially where the
3:17
axles attached to the fiberglass shell.
3:20
So I had a very successful year with that.
3:22
In 1962, I got a call from Team Elite, which was run by Clive Hunter
3:27
at the time, and he ran two or three Lotus Elites in Lotus colors.
3:31
And of course they had a stick ship.
3:33
And they asked me to drive with them at Le Mon with Frank Gardner from Australia.
3:37
So we dually assembled in a little village just south of Le Mon, to do the 19 62,
3:42
24 hour, and that was my first run.
3:45
Now, to say that I was very pleased would be an understatement because when I'd
3:49
started racing, not one of the reasons had been, to me, a big reason that I wanted
3:53
to go racing was I really wanted to win.
3:55
Le Mans.
3:55
Le Mans to me, seemed like a very, very groovy race, and I was slightly
3:59
more interested in Le Mans than I was in Formula One, actually.
4:02
So, uh, I was very pleased to be able to go to Le Mans.
4:04
And the team elite people were very helpful.
4:06
Ron Bennett was a mechanic on our car, and Ron Bennett just died a few
4:11
months ago at the age of like 94.
4:13
And Ron went on to fame, I'm not sure about Fortune, but so he went on to fame
4:17
as a chief mechanic when Denny Holmes drove for the Irish to, and they had
4:22
an incredibly successful career in, uh, big sports car racing, the Braham
4:26
sports car, whatever it was, a BT 21.
4:29
Then he bought a load of T 70 and it was all concrete in that Ron
4:32
Bennett was a terrific mechanic.
4:34
Anyway, Frank and I, there was another car, John Wagstaff
4:37
was driving in the other car.
4:39
And anyway, we were fortunate enough to, um, last the 24 hours and it was
4:43
incredibly hot, very, very hot weekend.
4:45
So we didn't have any rain, which of course was nice.
4:48
And, uh, we won the class, well, we, we'd win the class, but we un won the
4:52
index of Thurman efficiency as well.
4:54
And we were eight.
4:55
They were all in the first British car home.
4:57
All in all, it was a pretty good weekend.
4:59
So I thought, well, this is a bit of a battle.
5:00
This race should be able to win this one of these days.
5:03
So let's take two steps back so we can proceed through
5:06
the rest of your Le Mans career.
5:08
So with that early Lotus, with the automatic transmission
5:12
prototype that you were racing, most of that was done in the uk.
5:16
Had you raced anywhere else in Europe before turning laps at Le Mans?
5:20
Funnily enough.
5:21
In 61, we got an entry the Berg green thousand kilometers on the Norge life.
5:26
And a friend of mine, bill Pinckney, was racing a Los 11 and it was very quick.
5:31
So he and I went off to drive in the Nu Berg Green thousand Ks.
5:35
Now the gearbox caused a bit of a fracker because I had been told by
5:39
a Lotus Elite owner the week before brand's hatch that, why on earth would
5:43
I racing car and automatic transmission?
5:45
'cause they were useless and they were absolute crap and just not
5:48
worth why, why was I doing it?
5:50
And I said, well, it's the only reason I'm race is 'cause my dad's gearbox.
5:53
Anyway, I beat him fairly soundly at Brand's Hatch and also a guy called Graham
5:58
Warner, who is the sort of king of loads of elites, had a white and gray one.
6:02
And, uh, I beat them both and won the race atranta.
6:05
And the following week, we, the Bergy, we hadn't been there long
6:09
and I had a call, came over the Act Act Ha Hobbs, come to the office.
6:15
So I go to the office.
6:17
They say Your car is one automatic Katrina.
6:19
And I said, yes.
6:20
It has said, well, it's not homologated with automatic, one
6:23
of your competitors has protested.
6:25
So they moved me up to 1200 CC GT class to the 1600 CC sports
6:31
car class, which in the end.
6:33
We won.
6:34
And now the Germans being very onic and very sort of precise, had a lot more money
6:39
for sports cars than they did for GT cars.
6:41
And of course a lot more money still for a bigger sports car.
6:44
So I ended up with about four times of money that I would've
6:47
done if I had won a GT class.
6:49
Needless to say, I still beat the aforementioned better anyway.
6:52
So I had actually done one race overseas, which was the burging thousand Ks in 1961.
6:58
And in fact, I went again in 1962.
7:02
And this time my co-driver was Richard Outward.
7:04
Of course, Richard Outward and I were both apprentices at Jaguar at that time,
7:09
or had been just right up to that time.
7:11
And of course, Richard went on to become the first guy to win the
7:14
month for Porsche overall in 1970.
7:17
So he and I drove with a berg ring as a quid pro quo.
7:20
I drove his former junior later that year at a place called Alton Park in England.
7:25
And everybody thought I might come about fourth or fifth 'cause they
7:28
were very seasoned former junior drivers in the race, a couple of whom
7:32
were real Alton Park specialists.
7:34
And I won that.
7:35
So I won my very first single seater race and I won my very first international
7:40
long distance race, Berg ring.
7:43
And then later that year, 1962.
7:45
Clive Hunt asked me to drive with him and Frank, and we won that too.
7:49
It all seemed pretty easy, but it definitely got more
7:52
difficult as time went on.
7:54
There's 20 attempts in your career at taking the Crown at Le Mans and jokingly.
8:00
When Patrick Long was here, I said the only person that's got more
8:02
attempts than Patrick is David Hobbes because Patrick's got 16.
8:06
And so how do we summarize 20 attempts?
8:08
Do we kind of take it in blocks and say what happened between
8:11
the milestones 1962 and 1969?
8:14
You were doing a lot of racing then.
8:16
Open Wheel Le Mans, sports cars, endurance.
8:18
Do you wanna talk about that period?
8:19
Or we wanna just jump to the highlights?
8:22
Well, as you say, I was doing a lot, well in the 62, I drove the Formula
8:27
Junior then in 1963 by having won that race with Richard's car in 62,
8:34
the Midland Racing Partnership, were going to run the factory Lolas in 1963
8:39
in the Formula Junior Championship.
8:40
They asked me to drive.
8:42
Which I did.
8:42
So I became a Lola kind of worst driver, even though it was a private
8:46
team, but they were racing under the auspices of the factory team.
8:49
That was the year that the Lola March six came out, which of course
8:52
was the forerunner of the GT 40.
8:54
And so Richard and I drove that at Le Mans in 1963, which was an incredible hassle.
9:00
It ran very late.
9:01
We were down at the Bromley factory, which is where Below were in those days.
9:05
Little factory in Bromley, south London.
9:08
We went down there, well, they were finishing the car and
9:10
they were running way behind.
9:12
And then on like Monday of race week, Eric said, well, you two.
9:16
I'd better go to the mom and sign on and get your medicals done and do the
9:21
work stuff, and I'll drive the car down tomorrow, which of course we did.
9:25
And, and he did.
9:26
And he arrived and we were late for Cru hearing.
9:29
And then of course, the French officials who weren't very officially
9:32
those days, it was a bunch of old guys who just were friends of the track.
9:36
I mean, they weren't real engineers, the technical team, they didn't
9:39
like the sloping back window.
9:41
They didn't like the mirror, they didn't like the trunk room for the
9:43
box that gotta fit in the trunk.
9:46
But we finally got practicing and started the race.
9:49
It had the colos gearbox, which is a horrible box.
9:51
And then the middle of the night we had problem.
9:54
And of course at Le Mansr you can't change or you couldn't then change components.
9:59
You have to fix them.
10:00
So we had the gearbox apart on the pit lane, which was separated from
10:03
the track then by a white line.
10:06
And, uh, this was actually the corner, white House was still there.
10:10
By the time you exited White House and got to the pits and the Dunlop
10:14
Curve, you were back up to top speed.
10:16
So in those days, the Ferraris and things were doing probably 170 parts, the pits.
10:21
And there's old Malcolm Malone lying on the floor fitting with his kibo.
10:25
Anyway, when they put it together, it only had three.
10:27
We had to leave one out going later on in the evening, well about
10:30
five o'clock in the morning, it was just starting to get a light.
10:32
I went down into White House and it just sort of selected neutral.
10:36
I couldn't get it into, so, you know, you go whistling to White
10:38
House about 150 mile an hour.
10:40
Anyway, I crashed the car and um, Eric was very disappointed in everything.
10:44
Not as disappointed as I was probably, but so that's what
10:46
happened in 63 and that kinda relegated me on people's driver list.
10:51
And in 64 and five, I drove for Triumph in the Spitfire.
10:55
I drove with the Skid School specialist from Holland in 64.
10:59
We finished, I don't know how well we did in the class.
11:02
Third in class, were we?
11:04
Yeah.
11:05
Better than I thought.
11:06
Fourth, the second time.
11:08
Well, the second time course, he crashed it at White House.
11:10
We were four.
11:11
There must have been only four cars in the class.
11:14
I've got the official records in front of me in 64.
11:17
I drove for Team Lotus in there.
11:19
Lotus Corina.
11:20
Over here in the States a couple of times at uh, Marlborough and at Road America.
11:25
Fun enough, 65.
11:27
I then started to repair my credentials a bit.
11:30
Colonel Ronnie Haw, who ran a Ferrari concessionaire in England and who
11:34
ran some very successful race cars, asked me to drive one of his cars for
11:38
a chap called Mike Salmon, who was also a very experienced driver, but
11:42
we were only an adino, which he was as, it's funny enough, I mean it's,
11:46
yeah, Richard Ford Ferrari is based around, we only lasted about an hour.
11:50
Something broke, I can't remember what it was.
11:52
And Richard at was driving for him with David Piper in a P three and that broke P
11:57
Courage and Roy Pike and American Driver.
12:00
I think they won the GT class in, in the GTB or whatever it would've been in 1965.
12:05
So there we, now we've got what, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 racers and only
12:09
one class went to talk about in 66 I was racing at Lola T 70.
12:15
David Fletcher was the guy that ran it from Anso Station
12:18
in Long Melford in Suffolk.
12:20
That was a beautiful car.
12:21
We won quite a few races in now.
12:24
So John Serty was running the Aston Martin Lola project and he asked me
12:31
to drive with him, but he and Aston Martin didn't get on well and the engine
12:35
was not very powerful to be truthful.
12:37
It was a big V eight and it was a bit heavy and it wasn't as powerful
12:40
as the chef, the Aston Martin people kept saying it was the car.
12:43
And Eric broadly kept saying, well.
12:45
It's not the, it's the engine.
12:48
So I did quite a bit of track testing with the engine, trying various things and
12:52
couldn't really get it to go very fast.
12:54
Ironically, unbeknownst to them at the time, I was secretly testing the Jaguar XJ
13:00
13 with the new Jaguar V 12 engine, which was a twin overhead cam V 12, which was
13:07
extremely powerful, gave 570 horsepower, which back in 1965 was a hell of a
13:14
horsepower from a normal aspirated engine.
13:15
So I could, I could tell exactly which problem was in this, between
13:18
the engine and the uh, and the car.
13:20
Anyway, we went to Le Mans.
13:21
While we're at Le Mans.
13:22
John, who was not the easiest guy to get on with, had a big row with asin 'cause
13:27
he wanted to change the sparking plug type from like Lucas or NGK or whatever it was.
13:33
Champion Spark plug to some other mate.
13:35
Anyway, the engine burned a piston in about four laps, so
13:38
that was another one I didn't win.
13:40
The other car went on for about an hour or two and then it faded.
13:44
John said it was Aston Martin's fault 'cause they changed the head gasket
13:47
without telling him they said it was his fault 'cause he changed the spark plug.
13:50
So I don't know whoever's fault it was.
13:52
So that was 1966.
13:54
In 1967, I drove, uh, what the hell did I drive in 1967.
13:58
67 was the Lola 68.
14:03
You switched to John Wire.
14:04
Oh, 67 was the Lola.
14:05
Yep.
14:06
Well, they driving 66 then 66 was the Dino, and then 64 and 65 were the drive.
14:12
Yeah, right, exactly.
14:12
So I haven't missed a car out.
14:14
Nope.
14:14
And then of course, 68 and 69.
14:16
I drove the golf cart yet.
14:17
So let's talk about 1969.
14:19
That's your first overall podium.
14:22
Third overall, yeah.
14:23
What was that like after so many attempts trying to get the overall win, now
14:27
you're, at least you're up on the podium.
14:29
What was that like for you?
14:30
Fantastic.
14:31
Of course, I mean, to be on that podium, which then was
14:34
shattered what they've got now.
14:35
But still in all, you know, the crowds came out on the track and the podium was
14:39
above the grandstand, which of course was very different then to what it is now.
14:42
The whole pit area changed drastically soon after that.
14:45
When they rebuilt the pits, did the whole brand new pit area, but it was incredible.
14:50
It was slightly tainted because it was the last year of Le Mans Star.
14:54
The old Le Mans star, right?
14:56
We qualified fairly well down the field.
14:58
I don't know, 10th or 11th or something.
15:00
Jack Ys was protesting the Le Mans star.
15:03
So I ran across the road, jumped in, and then put the belt on, going down
15:06
the moan Strait, did a little, all that fiddling around the belts, which
15:09
is of course highly dangerous, but everybody else is doing that too.
15:13
Jackie of got strolls across the track, more or less dead last away.
15:16
Unfortunately for him, although it didn't.
15:18
Last, poor old John Wolf who had decided to drive the nine 17, which
15:23
he had bought from the factory and he had a factory driver to help him.
15:27
And of course the factory kept saying, well let you go
15:29
start and then you take over.
15:32
But John said, no, no's my car.
15:33
I wanna start.
15:34
And of course, he crashed at White House and was killed.
15:36
Took out two or three other cars, including Chris a
15:39
Amen in the factory Ferrari.
15:40
Now we're at the end of the second lap.
15:42
We're lap a bit ahead of Jackie and we stayed there for a long time
15:46
until in the middle of the night.
15:47
I had a break failure going into the Ballan hairpin.
15:50
So I go down the escape road, pumping the pedal, do a U-turn, go back to pits.
15:55
David York, the team manager, who was a huge, huge Jackie X fan, said It's pads.
16:02
And I said, well, it's not pads, it's because it's all so sudden, you
16:05
know, Nope, it's pads, you do the driving, we'll do the engineering.
16:08
'cause in those days, pad change was very long, very complicated.
16:12
Take the body off, take the wheels off.
16:13
Then you have to open the calipers with those reverse type pliers and
16:17
everybody's wearing asbestos gloves.
16:19
I said, well, I can tell you it's not just pads.
16:21
Anyway, off I go.
16:22
And of course, can't stop at the end of the pit lane, nearly run the pit
16:25
marsh loader, do another slow lap.
16:27
They proceed to do the whole thing again.
16:29
And of course there's a little pipe across the top of the calip, which
16:32
had been clipped by a wheel weight, which had been put on the inside of
16:35
the wheel, which far certain people have been told to absolutely do not put
16:38
wheel weights on the inside of the rim.
16:39
'cause there's not enough clearance anyway to chip the hole in this pipe.
16:42
So then they had to bleed the brakes.
16:44
So now we are behind, and that's where we, because that was a fairly harrowing
16:48
race all around because after we got the brakes done and my next stint, I'm going
16:53
down the Motown Strai and there's two nine oh eights in front of me who had passed
16:58
me and they were gradually pulling away.
17:00
I mean, by a second or maybe.
17:02
Second and a half a lap going through the kink.
17:05
Four taillights go round the kink.
17:07
And then there's this flash of brilliant white light, which is obviously headlight.
17:11
And then a huge orange ball of flame erupt.
17:15
So I'm breaking and slowing down like mad and whistle
17:18
around the kink for the brakes.
17:19
Hard on because can't see anything 'cause it's all dust and smoke.
17:23
I'm aware this ball of fire is a blaze stuck to the guardrail on the inside.
17:28
And when I break free, there's the cab of the 9 0 8 bouncing down the road.
17:32
So I'm looking where it's going to go to decide where to pass it, and
17:36
then the driver falls out and he's bouncing down the road as well.
17:39
So it was my in lap.
17:41
So I said to Mike, gonna be all, I said, there's a dead driver
17:44
down on the middle of the road.
17:46
It's gonna be an amazingly long caution flag while they clear
17:49
everything up and blah, blah, blah.
17:51
Well, the driver concern was Udo CHUs.
17:54
And Udo was a bit on the, uh, let's say Porky side a little bit overweight.
17:59
Years later at the Porsche S Sport at Daytona.
18:04
They said, Hamar, how are you, my man?
18:06
Very good to see you in a big wave.
18:08
This great big soul.
18:09
Udo.
18:10
I said, Christ, last time I saw you again in the middle of ah, oh no, I was not.
18:14
That's all.
18:15
Everything was fine, you know?
18:16
And of course, ultimately the other car that he had touched was Hans
18:22
Herman, who of course then went on right at the end of the race.
18:25
They had that incredible dice with Jackie Ys, which he won.
18:28
But if things had just gone normally for us, we would've probably been
18:32
quite a long way in front of them.
18:33
That race would've been for second, instead of which we came.
18:37
But it was the podium and it was a great feeling.
18:40
So that's 1969, and then you stay a household name at Le Mans for the
18:45
next three years, so 10 years total.
18:48
Consecutive racing back to back at the 24 hours of Le Mans through 1972,
18:53
and from 69 with John wy in the GT 40.
18:56
You go to a nine 17 K, then to Nat with the Ferrari five 12 M. And then in 1972
19:01
with a mantra, so that first decade of racing, how would you bundle it up?
19:06
Course in those days, Le Mansr was completely different to what it's today.
19:10
Say we qualified at three minutes, whatever we were doing, 3 56 or something
19:15
in those days, David York, he said, well, for the first six hours we're
19:19
gonna run it four minutes and 10 seconds.
19:21
Then we were reevaluated as the race progresses.
19:25
And of course you had to be very careful the brakes because the brake had changed.
19:28
It was a long, long-winded business.
19:30
And of course you couldn't use the engine too much for braking because
19:33
you didn't wanna blow the engine up.
19:34
You had to be very careful with the brakes.
19:36
You have to be very careful.
19:37
The clutches, you had to be very careful.
19:38
The engine, of course now the flag goes at four o'clock in the afternoon and
19:42
three or four drivers drive absolutely balls the floor all the way through
19:47
the 24 hours, absolutely flat out.
19:49
And they hardly ever break.
19:51
So cars breaking in those days was very common.
19:54
And I was getting a bit fed up by then with, um, driving
19:57
inferior cars like the Spitfire.
19:59
I mean, the Triumph people absolutely loved me.
20:01
They thought I was a hero and that I should be driving
20:03
much faster car than theirs.
20:05
I had to agree with them, but you know, I've got the opportunity to drive.
20:07
So I did.
20:08
And then of course, the Aston Martin was incredibly disappointing, as
20:11
was the Ferrari of Ronnie Hall.
20:13
Could've been Ronnie Hall's car.
20:14
Never really, he's always winning races.
20:16
Yeah, I was a bit upset 1970.
20:19
As you say, I drove the nine 17.
20:21
That too was awfully disappointing because Mike and I were a very good
20:25
pair and we had the third car, which had a 4.7 liter engine, and the other
20:29
two cars had the five liters, which was significantly more powerful.
20:32
But in the end, they all dropped out.
20:34
And Richard too had a 4.7.
20:36
Me and Mike were miles ahead of Richard and Han, Herman
20:40
and Mike going past the pitch.
20:42
It started to rain or just before he got the pitch.
20:45
Anyway, he thought I'll just do one more lap and of course gets to the
20:48
Dunlop curve and runs into a car that's already crashed in part there.
20:51
So we were out and if he hadn't done that with a very good
20:54
chance, we would've won the race.
20:56
But I mean, you know, would've coulda, should have, doesn't count.
20:59
Unfortunately, the biggest disappointment was 71 in that Ferrari.
21:04
Mark Donahue and I run the poll everywhere we went.
21:07
Daytona Sebring, he crashed at Daytona and at Sebring, which is very
21:12
unlike Mark Donahue, never crashed.
21:14
We put about 2000 yards of tape on it at Daytona, and we, uh, finally
21:18
ended up third at the 24 Yard Sebring.
21:21
He had a run in with his absolute pet hate Pedro Rodriguez, who he hated with
21:26
a passion for some reason or another.
21:27
He said that Pedro ran into him, not once, but twice, three times.
21:31
He kept on banging into me.
21:33
Well, I've spent how cock photographer was down there and saw it all.
21:37
And many years later, like in about 2018, he said, well,
21:41
that's not exactly what I saw.
21:43
It looked a lot more 50 50 not, it was not, definitely not old Pedro.
21:48
And anyway, so.
21:49
Roger Penske.
21:50
Every time the engine came from Ferra, it went straight to Al Bart in California,
21:54
who actually was a charitable, a special, but he would blueprint the engine
21:57
and they were absolutely bulletproof.
21:59
They were incredible, and they gave more power than they did from the fact.
22:02
Well, we're at Le Mansr on bloody Friday.
22:04
Oh, Roger comes to waltz into the guards that shell guards on the main road.
22:08
Just before you get to the airport, he goes and says, Hey, Ferrari, you're
22:11
gonna give us a brand new engine?
22:12
Well, Don Cox, who was the chief engine, hit Mark, of course, and what
22:15
he would've do was the chief mechanic.
22:17
They all said, no, no, no.
22:18
What we've got, this engine's fine.
22:20
It's running perfectly.
22:21
There's nothing wrong with it.
22:22
Nope.
22:22
No, we've gotta put the new engine.
22:23
They overruled everybody and they put the new engine in, and at
22:27
about eight 11 at night, we're already a lap ahead of helmet.
22:31
Marco and Chris Van Leonard, of course, went on to win the.
22:35
We were already a lap in front of them and the bloody engine blows up.
22:39
Luckily not when I was driving.
22:42
So every time the car broke, mark was driving it.
22:45
The accident at Daytona was not really his fault because Vic Elford had spun
22:50
when he had a tiger down at NASCAR.
22:52
Three.
22:52
It caused a lot of dust and everybody slowed up some twerp in nine 11 who
22:56
we'd probably lapped about 40 times, ran into Mark at real and his fault.
23:00
Uh, Sebring, I'm not sure.
23:02
Le Mansr was definitely Roger's fault.
23:04
We shouldn't have changed the engine.
23:05
And then course we go to the box lamb with a six hour and I'll
23:08
again around the pole and leading.
23:09
And the, uh, front hub broke all incredibly on Penser.
23:13
So that was very disappointing.
23:14
1971. Then in 1972, the macho people asked me to drive the V 12 was Jean
23:19
Pierre Yawe and we had the older car.
23:21
Our car was a year old Graham and Pess was a brand new one.
23:25
Chris Aman was driving for 'em, I think had three cars in the race.
23:28
Anyway, Graham and PEs were leading most of the race and of course won it.
23:33
And me and old W eight were lying second for hours and, and it
23:39
rained in the morning and Le Mansr in the rain is not pretty shy
23:43
from the driver's point of view.
23:44
I drove from 10 till two.
23:46
I did a four hour stint from 10 in the morning till two in the afternoon, and I
23:50
must have changed tires about three times.
23:52
I had the most godawful.
23:54
Tank slapper coming out of Arage by now, we've got the Porsche curves.
23:57
But you know, in a car like that between Arage and the Porsche, when you arrive
24:01
at the Porsche curves, you're up to about 190 by halfway there, the car just lifted
24:05
off the road and I'm twiddling the wheel.
24:07
And I mean, suddenly the car, my heart went right up to my throat.
24:11
I mean, that was one of the worst moments I had in the car.
24:14
I just felt so completely helpless.
24:16
I mean, tires weren't touching the road ever.
24:19
Floating along the top.
24:20
But anyway, it hit a bit and luckily the wheels were facing the right direction.
24:25
And every time I came in I said, why don't you let jump yeah out?
24:29
What about him?
24:30
No, no, no.
24:30
David, you were doing fantastic.
24:32
It's fine.
24:32
You keep going.
24:33
You were doing wonderfully.
24:34
You put another sur title.
24:36
Of course, it suddenly dawned me that the reason they wanted me to go till two
24:39
o'clock was so that ye could finish the Frenchmen in the car when he, when we
24:42
came second, well, me and my wife Mags with about half an hour go, we set off
24:49
for the, uh, club at the top of the Dunlop Curve, which used to be where they had all
24:53
the celebrations at the end of the race.
24:55
So we're about halfway then on watching the cars go through the Dunlop Curve.
24:59
And I said to her, hold on a sec. I don't think our car went
25:02
through, but I better just check.
25:03
So we waited and then we saw everybody go through and I
25:06
realized that our car wasn't there.
25:09
So I went back to the pitch and said, yeah, well poor Jean Pierre,
25:12
the gearbox broke coming outta Moosa with about 20 minutes to go.
25:16
That's another one we didn't win.
25:17
And then by then I got very involved with Formula 5,000 over here with Carl Hogan.
25:22
So I missed quite a few years.
25:24
There's a seven year gap where you started your.
25:27
10 year run at Le Mans.
25:29
But 1979, your return to Le Mans after you took a break is really interesting
25:33
because when I look at the records, not one but two Fords in the same
25:38
weekend, how did you pull that off?
25:39
Driving with Derek Bell in one car and then with Vern Schoen in the other,
25:43
and 79, you also went to a three man team instead of a two, two-man team.
25:47
I'm not quite sure how that happened, but that was that Mirage, which had
25:50
been designed and built by John Horseman for uh, what's his name out of Phoenix?
25:54
Harley Clarkston.
25:55
Harley Clarkston, exactly.
25:56
How could I forget that name?
25:58
I didn't like the car.
25:59
I think I was a bit too tall for it, so my head got terribly buffeted around
26:03
because it was an open car and my head got really buffeted around badly by
26:07
the air and I wasn't very happy in it.
26:09
And I, I quite honestly, I wasn't very quick.
26:11
And why they jumped me around that, I'm not quite sure.
26:15
The best part of that weekend was that.
26:17
It, it was my 40th birthday and Ford, France put on a hell of a
26:21
party for us at the Champagne.
26:23
You remember Mo Shandong had that?
26:24
Mm-hmm.
26:25
Club.
26:25
We had a big party in there for my 40th birthday.
26:28
That was a lot of fun.
26:29
That was the best part of the weekend.
26:30
Unfortunately, I'm not sure that I did drive two cars.
26:33
If I did, it was because somebody wasn't feeling very well and they
26:36
just shuffled the drivers around.
26:37
It must have been something like that.
26:39
Not quite sure what happened.
26:40
Quite honestly.
26:41
But I wasn't very quick in either.
26:42
I drove with Jasso for a bit.
26:44
Of course Joso Jasso was the little guy.
26:46
So he was well and truly out of the buffeting and it blew me around a lot.
26:49
I didn't like that.
26:50
So that was that year.
26:51
In 1981, of course I drove with Eddie Irvine and the uh, M1.
26:55
Mm-hmm.
26:56
Which was owned by the guy who was the manager of Pink Floyd.
26:59
Steve O'Rourke.
27:00
Steve O'Rourke, exactly.
27:02
And Steve would ask me and Derek to drive for him at the beginning of the year.
27:05
And we both drove at Silverton and we did quite well in a
27:08
thousand Ks at Silverton in May.
27:10
And then Porsche asked Derek to drive for them in the new 9 36, whatever it was.
27:16
Yep.
27:16
Off he went, of course in and won the race with X.
27:19
And so, um, I drove with Eddie.
27:21
It wasn't terribly quick.
27:22
That car.
27:22
The worst thing about that was it broke when I was driving down at Tat Rouge,
27:26
but at about one o'clock lunchtime.
27:28
So, you know, you've done most of the race.
27:30
My rule of thumb at Le Mansr is, if you're gonna break, break before dinner on
27:34
Saturday, don't drag all through the bloody night and the half the night day.
27:38
The one in with matcha, you know, with 20 minutes to go, oh my God.
27:43
Talk about the pitch.
27:44
What's interesting about this late seventies, early eighties period is you
27:48
have still some of the legends of Legends.
27:51
There's you and there's Brian Redmond and there's Jackie Icks, and I don't
27:55
want to call you guys the old timers, but the veterans of Le Mans who had
27:58
been around turning laps forever.
27:59
And then you got the newcomers coming in, you've got the Hurley Haywoods, and
28:02
you're starting to see Bobby Raha show up from the US and all these different
28:06
names all mixing together at Le Mans.
28:08
What was that like with the new class coming in, competing against people
28:12
like Hurley Haywood as an example?
28:13
Well, of course Hurley ultimately won it a lot of time.
28:16
Uh, he was incredibly lucky he got into a couple of winning cars when
28:19
they were already winning and he got popped in at the last minute.
28:21
So he, he gets counted as a win even though he didn't do much in the cars.
28:26
Yeah, I mean, that didn't really worry me or concern me too much.
28:29
'cause Le Mansr was still a much more technical race, not technical on this
28:34
today, but he still had to drive carefully 'cause the cars weren't as bulletproof.
28:37
Although the new era of cars like the 9 56 and then the 9 62, they were
28:43
becoming much, much more bulletproof.
28:46
Brake pads were still awkward to change.
28:47
It wasn't until the Audi came along in the two thousands and we
28:50
had all this quick change where he changed the whole bloody hub, the
28:53
disc, the pads, the whole damn lot.
28:55
You know, it takes you like a few seconds really.
28:58
So I, I never really worried about the different drivers by now.
29:01
It's becoming, I irritating to do it so many times and not win it.
29:04
And that was getting a bit of an ache.
29:06
So, uh, but I mean, but that's racing.
29:08
I mean, Tom Christensen president, can you believe he's done what 14 times
29:13
and he's only been off the podium once.
29:15
When it broke, and you've gotta be lucky, 'cause I'll never forget, he won one
29:18
year with the German driver who was a DTM driver, whose name I can't remember.
29:22
And the following year they shuffled the teams around and Tom Christians goes and
29:26
wins it again with perio or somebody.
29:28
And the guy that he'd won with the year before ran the car outta gas.
29:32
He was told to come in and and kept going and ran the damn thing out of fuel.
29:36
Why couldn't that happen while he drive with Tom Christensen?
29:38
He certainly would've happened if he'd been driving with me.
29:40
So you've gotta be as lucky, as well as good.
29:43
Obviously Tom Christensen was extremely lucky, but he was also very good.
29:47
Yeah, and it was nice when I'd been driving the BMWI didn't drive at Le Mansr.
29:51
I drove NM one, but it was not a BMW effort.
29:54
I would drive A BMW over here in the states in that little BMW three 20
29:58
I, and then we had the first March prototype, which was not very good.
30:02
They sort of pulled out a racing for a bit and I went to drive
30:05
for John Fitzpatrick and then had another resurgence in the eighties.
30:09
And that begins your long stretch of Porsche?
30:11
Porsche.
30:12
Porsche.
30:12
Porsche, yeah.
30:12
From then until the end, yeah.
30:14
John and I were driving that whale tail 9 35 from Kramer, and that car arrived
30:19
at Le Mans from the factory by Tuesday.
30:22
It had never turned the wheel, put it together and finish it off
30:25
and did race prep and it, it ran fless asleep for the 24 hours.
30:29
And it was a very quick car.
30:31
There was a nice car to drive.
30:32
Very good, very fast.
30:34
And the factory were running the 3 9 56 ERs, the Rothmans cars,
30:38
and they were all brand new.
30:39
And we just thought one of these cars is absolutely bound to drop out.
30:44
At least would come third.
30:46
But they'll finish 1, 2, 3.
30:47
We finished fourth overall and won the GT class pretty comfortably.
30:51
I believe that was a good feeling to, to win the class of that car.
30:54
So right there, 9 35 into the nine 50 sixes, big transition, 9 56 Single
31:00
turbo versus Twin Turbo, and then the 9 62 being the longer version of the 9
31:03
56 versus safety reasons and whatnot.
31:06
It brings us into the middle eighties, 1984.
31:08
Your next podium.
31:10
It's been a lot of years since your last podium.
31:12
What were you thinking taking home that third place in 84?
31:15
It was very good.
31:16
So, so that sort of restarted my, uh, kindle of my interest in Le Mansr again.
31:21
It was a good result.
31:22
We couldn't have done better, really.
31:23
I mean, it was the best we could do with that car.
31:25
Then the following year he bought a 9 56.
31:27
Skull band colors and I'm halfway between Mulan and Porsche Curves late evening I
31:34
think, and the engine engine just stopped.
31:36
I did what all good drivers did.
31:37
I got out and I took the back of the bloody body off.
31:40
Somehow I got the back off on my own.
31:42
God knows how.
31:43
And of course I look in there.
31:44
Well, the fell good.
31:45
It is me looking at the engine.
31:46
What am I gonna do with it?
31:47
You know, what had happened was the fuel pump, it wasn't like I blown the thing up.
31:51
The fuel pump drive had broken, killed from factory.
31:55
Um, he said to me, that's the first time we have ever seen break.
32:00
I said, well, you've seen one break now, mate.
32:03
It was very frustrating.
32:04
I mean, such a funny thing to break a bloody fuel pump drive.
32:08
I mean, that's sort of thing, it kind of runs for a hundred thousand miles.
32:11
It's not under any strain at all.
32:13
It's not like a, it may be a racing engine, but the fuel pump drive is
32:16
not under any sort of strain at all.
32:19
So that was damn irritating.
32:20
Philippe was a bit of a whinger 'cause he was a Formula One driver.
32:23
Well, so were you.
32:24
Yeah.
32:25
But a real Formula one driver.
32:26
Yeah.
32:27
When I talk about luck race morning is the warmup, right?
32:30
Mm-hmm.
32:31
Changed the end on Friday like everybody else did.
32:33
He had very good engine men, terrific guys.
32:35
All very good, very thorough.
32:37
Finally ended up Saturday morning, I drive out the pits on the warmup lap,
32:42
accelerate up the hills of the Donald Curve and the throttle stick wide open.
32:46
So I do a whole lap on the key just slowing down.
32:49
Turn the engine off, put it on, turn it off, put it on.
32:52
They take the plenum chamber off and there's a piece of rag
32:55
down at one of the inlands.
32:57
They had left a paper towel in the plenum chamber.
33:00
About six o'clock in the morning we'd been duking it out with yo, so we
33:05
finally took a fairly substantial lead.
33:08
We thought this could be it now as sooner are we in the lead.
33:12
Then it goes on to five cylinders.
33:15
So I come in and I don't understand any, everything working the right
33:18
air go off again, uh, coming again.
33:21
Uh, they eventually took out the plug and disconnected the fuel.
33:25
We drove ly flat out from like seven o'clock in the morning till four o'clock
33:30
in the afternoon on five cylinders.
33:32
So the thing was vibrating like hell.
33:33
It's a miracle.
33:34
It all stayed together because we came third.
33:36
Even with all that in and out, in and out stuff, it had burnt a valve, which of
33:40
course, I suppose it happened with the rag just didn't have enough fuel or whatever.
33:44
But that vital bloody warmup lap, it obviously started to burn the valve,
33:48
which then eventually gave up the ghost.
33:50
And, but what I love about your stories is that it overlaps with so many other
33:56
legends that we've had on the show so far.
33:58
And what's really fun about 1984, it was sort of a catastrophic year for everybody.
34:04
Rick Nup told a story about being in the Lola Mazda with Jim Busby,
34:08
and they're having complications and issues with that car.
34:10
You're having issues, but still manage the podium.
34:12
And Margie Smith Haas, who's in the audience with us, talked
34:15
about the big wreck that happened in 84 that she witnessed while
34:19
she was driving her Porsche.
34:21
So a lot of things happen in a single race, but all of
34:25
you there at the same time.
34:26
It's pretty cool.
34:27
Yeah.
34:28
I didn't know what this other mayhem was going on around me, and he goes.
34:31
I'm not interested in Rick Masden mis firing or whatever was, but
34:34
I mean, I couldn't believe it.
34:35
John's cars were very well prepared and I mean that starting throttle
34:39
sticks open on the very opening lap.
34:41
I mean, I just couldn't bloody believe it.
34:43
It was just pathetic.
34:44
And there we are.
34:45
That was 84?
34:46
Yep.
34:46
84. Was I driving?
34:47
85. 85. You were still with Fitzpatrick in the 9 56 with Guy Edwards and Joe Gartner.
34:54
Okay.
34:54
We came like fifth, right?
34:55
Fourth.
34:56
Yeah.
34:56
Just off the podium because the following airport, old Joe was killed, wouldn't he?
34:59
On the Mosan Street then it seems like if you can't beat him, join him.
35:03
So you went to Yost?
35:04
Yeah.
35:05
Well, John by then had lost a large sponsorship 'cause he lost Jay David
35:09
when he went to jail for 20 years.
35:11
A chief sponsor.
35:12
So I drive around.
35:13
Yeah, exactly.
35:14
And we, Ryan, or Yes, there's one more LA amount that you can shake.
35:17
A sticker I drive with Sol, he was a bit bigger than me, actually.
35:22
He's about six foot two or three.
35:23
So we were pretty evenly matched on sides.
35:26
One of the trouble with driving those little guys as you gotta change the
35:28
seat every time he ever pitched up.
35:30
But I drove a Sol and we were absolutely the favorites to win.
35:36
Best driver team, best car, best team.
35:38
Well that was a year when they had dodgy fuel from the main supply there.
35:43
Something got into the fuel or it wasn't up to scratch.
35:46
And for some reason that Raul and his crew who are absolutely bloody
35:51
bulletproof, didn't adjust accordingly.
35:55
So Sorl starts to race and in about five laps he's in with a burnt
35:59
piston and the the factory guys.
36:02
Immediately came in, made adjustments to the fuel float or changed the chip.
36:08
'cause by now, you know you've got the electronic, in the old days it
36:11
was change the jets or change the float shower, do this or do, now
36:16
it's, you gotta change the chip and anyway, the bloody thing burnt out.
36:19
I, I'm here, I'm riding R Old Bloody Yost and the engine breaks and
36:24
we are the first engine to break.
36:26
Oh.
36:26
Oh Christ.
36:27
I couldn't believe it.
36:28
So that's what I mean about you gotta be a bit lucky as well.
36:31
Whichever way you look at it.
36:32
It's not all my fault.
36:33
And I didn't win.
36:34
And then my last Le Mansr, 1989 and a 9 62 GT one with Damon Hill and Steven Ankar.
36:43
Right.
36:44
Another cracking driver lineup.
36:46
But Richard Lloyd had had that designer who worked with him a lot.
36:50
Little guy, English guy.
36:52
Who had redesigned the 9 62, which he said had a lot more
36:56
down force and no more drag.
36:59
Well, we were nearly 20 miles an hour slow on the straight, which at Le Mans,
37:04
the kiss of death if you three miles an hour slow on the straight is bad.
37:08
We all struggled on eventually, and of course the awful thing was that the
37:12
entry was Porsche cars, great Britain.
37:15
They had about a hundred dealers there all there, and a great big camp and a
37:20
big tent and a dining hall and crushes.
37:23
What else?
37:23
I mean, it was a very, very, very big deal.
37:26
All these dealers.
37:28
I mean we did, and it broke.
37:30
I mean, it finally gave up the ghost, which actually we didn't mind at all.
37:34
'cause we were floundering around.
37:35
I mean, you know, when I say 20 mile an hour, it might've been 15, but it was a
37:39
massive amount slower down the street.
37:41
And yet when you got to Porsche Curves, which was where it was, I was gonna be so
37:45
fast as the Porsche curves, it wasn't any faster than anything anybody else either.
37:48
So A didn't have any more downfalls, and B, it obviously had add a lot more drag.
37:53
When we look back over your 20 attempts at Le Mans, the good, the bad, and the unlucky.
37:59
Yeah.
37:59
As it seems.
38:00
What would you say was your favorite car out of all the cars you drove?
38:05
I drove so many cars over the years.
38:07
Course the track by then completely different than what
38:09
it was when I went there in 1962.
38:12
You know, Mulan was straight down to the Headin and dead righthander
38:15
with all that sand on the outside.
38:17
Catch the UN wary in there.
38:19
The GT 40 of wires were a beautiful long distance car.
38:23
They had a wonderful gearbox out the Zf ZF as I call it, which had a beautiful shift.
38:28
The only thing is you couldn't change the individual ratios, so if you're a bit
38:32
short, you have to change the final ratio.
38:34
Otherwise you could, that's the only thing you could change.
38:36
You couldn't change the individual ratios, so you couldn't adjust to gearbox.
38:39
But that was a great long distance car 'cause it had good visibility.
38:43
It didn't get too hot.
38:44
Great gearbox, lots of room, and it had no vices.
38:47
I mean, it didn't push or over steer or do any nasty snap over steer.
38:51
I mean, it was a really easy car to drive fast.
38:55
You just have to be careful the brakes.
38:57
But in those days, be careful with everything.
38:59
Then I guess the next best car I drove would be the 9 62 of Fitzpatrick's.
39:03
That was a great long distance car.
39:05
John Bishop of didn't like them 'cause they were so expensive.
39:09
He wanted people to use domestic engines like the shes and the
39:12
Fords and the Dodgers and put them in chais like Lolas in March.
39:16
They never, ever got the job done because in those days, those American
39:20
v eights were a bit prone to break.
39:22
And the thing about the Porsche, it was absolutely bulletproof.
39:24
You know, the only thing I didn't like about it was it had a synchronous
39:27
gearbox and over the years using the uh, human box, the LG and the Can-Am
39:32
Cars and the DG and the Formula car.
39:35
Brakes were so good in those days that you could break right into the
39:38
apex and then put it in the gear you wanted to go out of the corner.
39:41
I didn't do all that, you know, because I just thought that put more strain on the
39:46
engine wasn't worth all that bloody bother changing gear about a million times.
39:50
You just break like hell put it in the gear you want and then go, well, obviously
39:54
with a synchronized gearbox you couldn't do that, you had to go down to the box.
39:57
But other than that, I couldn't for fault.
39:58
But of course the other big difference with that is I had been driving
40:02
cars with wings for some time.
40:04
You know, the first wing car drove, we put a wing on my load at four, 5,000, I
40:08
mean, on the McLaren, but that suddenly, because the 9 62 had the tunnels,
40:12
so it had a lot of ground effects.
40:14
So it gripped, I mean it stuck and that took a bit of getting used to,
40:17
I mean, not too much, but a bit.
40:19
It was a great cut.
40:19
And of course it was so reliable.
40:21
We didn't have a cane or anything like that.
40:22
But I mean, it was very good and it, it didn't get too hot either.
40:25
And.
40:26
It had enough room inside.
40:27
That was, that was a good car.
40:28
A nice car to drive.
40:30
So you mentioned when we started this journey that Le Mans came to you
40:34
very early in your career and as we know, first impressions or lasting
40:38
impressions, but with your entire career when you factor in Can-Am and
40:43
Formula One and Endurance racing and Le Mans, everything, did Le Mans keep
40:47
itself at the top of the list for you?
40:49
Has it always been at the pinnacle?
40:51
Yeah, I've always liked Le Mansr.
40:52
I then of course, went on to do about another 10 from the TV booth with Sam Pose
40:58
and Bob Vacher and a whole bunch of guys.
41:00
Well, we PN first and then Speed Beach.
41:03
I don't know.
41:03
There's something about Le Mansr.
41:04
I went there for the hundredth anniversary two years ago.
41:07
I took my two grown grandsons.
41:09
We went and stayed in a little hotel near, and we went to the, uh, PLO Onsen
41:13
suite, which is in the old Goodyear grandstand, dead opposite the, uh, exit.
41:17
So it's a good spot.
41:18
But boy oh boy, the walking, oh, Christ sake.
41:22
We we're about a mile, uh, just walk.
41:24
And at my age, I don't mind doing a bit of walking.
41:26
Oh, sure.
41:26
I wanna walk a mile each way.
41:28
And then of course to get around the pit.
41:29
Don't forget it, because you gotta walk back to get under the tunnel.
41:32
And then, oh, if I go again, I want to be right inside and I wanna be able to
41:36
take my car inside and do it properly.
41:38
But Le Mansr to me, is a great track to drive onto, like the Daytona 24 hour.
41:43
It's a bit of a Mickey Mouse track.
41:45
Whichever way you look at it, you're doing ridiculous speeds around that.
41:48
Banking not quite so bad.
41:49
Now they've got the chicane in, you know, the bus stop.
41:52
But I mean, mark went there with, with the Ferrari, with Mark in 1971.
41:56
I mean, we were doing like 210 into the banking, you know, and of course you
41:59
can't see Dly squat around the banking.
42:01
'cause the car, once the car drops over, you can't see out
42:04
the top of the windshield.
42:05
If you put any sort of sign across the windshield, you know, it's a
42:07
Sunoco and it's, it's a sunshield.
42:10
I mean, you can't see anything and you wanna be able to see,
42:12
well, around the banking.
42:13
You don't wanna be to see what's under your nose.
42:16
Then of course the infield is also tight except for the left sweeper in the middle.
42:20
Now, of course, the bloody things flood it all night, so no point really.
42:24
It sort of takes away from a proper 24 hour race, which includes darkness.
42:28
But Le Mansr's got such great curves and beautiful long.
42:31
Yeah, I mean, even with the Chica, I never drove it with the Chicanes.
42:34
'cause 89 was my last year, and of course it wasn't till 90 that they put Chicanes.
42:38
They're streets now.
42:39
I mean, the Porsche curves were already there.
42:41
Indianapolis has been moved back.
42:43
A lot of stuff's been moved back, so it's a lot safer than
42:46
it was in some ways, a lot safer.
42:48
To me, Le Mansr is just a terrific race.
42:50
'cause if you're gonna breathe for 24 hours, you wanna be on a long
42:53
track like you're going somewhere.
42:54
I'm glad you brought it up before because I think a lot of people may or may
42:58
not realize that you were commentating on Motorsport events while you were
43:03
still driving for quite a long time.
43:05
Yeah.
43:06
And so to come back to Le Mansr and be a commentator, what was that like?
43:10
Did it give you a sense of maybe nostalgia you wanted to be back on the track?
43:13
Or were you happy being in the booth?
43:14
Well, I dunno.
43:15
I was happy to be in the booth, but it was good to be back.
43:18
And of course a lot of the people were still racing who
43:20
were racing when I last did it.
43:22
Can't remember what my first year in the booth was.
43:24
It was probably about 1990.
43:26
All the people I'd been racing with the year before were back in the race.
43:30
That point of view.
43:30
I knew a lot of the contest and they knew me too, so they would
43:34
talk to me and I was with my son.
43:36
Guy was also helping in those days.
43:38
And then we had Lan, who was obviously very well known, was his efforts.
43:43
There was a great TV guy and a great storyteller, so I enjoyed those Le Mansrs
43:48
with the tv I did quite a few of them.
43:50
As I said, certainly to start with, for the first few years,
43:53
everybody knew exactly who I was.
43:55
I mean, if I went to do it now, no one have a clue.
43:57
I was, but well, everybody's about 15.
44:00
Well, they look it, I know you talk about it in your book.
44:03
How did you make the transition from pro driver to commentator?
44:08
I first started doing TV in 1976 because Ken Squire, who had
44:13
interviewed me a few times was the lead announcer for CVS Force.
44:17
And he said to me, I think it'd be good if you could come on board with
44:20
me, because Graham Hill was gonna be his color commentator until he
44:24
got killed in that plane crash.
44:25
So they said, we need somebody.
44:27
He said, I think you could do a good job.
44:29
So I go for an interview at CVS, which is an absolute unmitigated disaster.
44:34
I go all dolled up gum, a blade and tie and all that kid on.
44:37
'cause the guy I'm being interviewed by, whose name was Clarence Cross,
44:41
was the vice president of sport who knew absolutely nothing about racing.
44:45
Well of course I won the formula 5,000 check.
44:46
What's four, 5,000?
44:48
Well it's like Formula One car, but it's got a production engine and
44:51
Oh, so it's not a Formula One there?
44:53
No, it's formula.
44:53
Oh, okay.
44:55
Anyway, I could tell I was on a losing wicked with this guy finally.
44:58
I mean, the sweats running down my back and you know,
45:00
top lips all covered in sweat.
45:03
Horrible, horrible interview.
45:04
So when he shook me by the hand, I mean if ever there was,
45:06
don't call us, we'll call you.
45:08
That was it.
45:09
Well, as luck without it, I was a bit lucky.
45:11
Oh, now here I was very lucky.
45:13
That was 1975 in October, and I got a drive for BMW in the three CSL in the
45:19
24 hour, 1976, and I got a friend of mine that got me a deal with Coca-Cola.
45:24
We also did a deal with Benny Parsons, so he was gonna drive with me in the
45:28
CSL in the 24 hour, and I would drive his backup car and the 500, both of
45:33
which would have Coca-Cola sponsorship.
45:35
So I'd stay over between the 24 hour and the 500.
45:39
Now, Ken Squire has been working on CBS for.
45:44
Saying you don't wanna bother indie stuff and Formula and NASCAR's where it's at.
45:48
NASCAR's where it's at, NASCAR's where it's at.
45:50
So finally, I guess to get him off their back, they send clients cross down to
45:55
watch the Daytona 500 in 1976 being late January, early February in the winter.
46:01
And he lives in New York.
46:03
So he and his wife came down and have a few days R an hour before
46:06
the race, and Ken Squire had a radio show from the Hawaiian N one night.
46:10
He says to me, do you wanna be on the show?
46:12
Yep, sure.
46:12
So I walked down there from the Hilton and there is Clarence Cross with his wife.
46:18
I'm sitting at their table.
46:19
Then Ken asked me up, he does, people like Kale, Yarborough, and
46:23
you know, Richard Petty's there.
46:24
They're all there.
46:24
All the, all the drivers are there.
46:26
So I go up and I had about three or four gin and tonics.
46:28
So I right on top of the cam, I haven't actually slid down the back yet.
46:31
So he and I had a hysterically funny five or 10 minutes and all these NASCAR drivers
46:37
all rolling around laughing like Helen.
46:39
So when I go back to sit down, Mrs. Cross says to me, you
46:43
shouldn't be driving race cars.
46:44
You should be on the stage.
46:46
So I said, well, don't tell me, tell him, you know.
46:48
He said, well, I see a different side of you now what I saw in
46:52
the interview and then blah blah.
46:53
So yeah, we'll try and find something for you very much later on in
46:57
the year, the Pocono 500, it was a champ car race in the car car.
47:01
They wanted a driver who instead said he wanted to drive in the race,
47:04
so I already pushed it and they put me on the 500 with Ken for Pocono.
47:09
Anyway, it's cut a long story short.
47:11
I never missed a motor race with CBS from then until 1996 when I left to join Speed
47:17
Bridge and of course was part of the team that did the 1979 Daytona 500, which of
47:22
course would just beyond all expectation because it snowed up north, half the
47:27
football games were canceled and they had an audience about six or 7 million.
47:31
They thought they were gonna get about 300,000.
47:33
And of course, kale Yarborough and Donny Allison are duke it out for the
47:38
lead and on the last lap they crash it, turn three and they hide up the wall.
47:42
And then they both get out and start fighting and we
47:45
both going crazy in the booth.
47:47
Richard Petty goes on from a distant third to win.
47:50
He is 900th date on 500.
47:53
And Bob Allison, who was second goes, goes around and he gets to the fight.
47:57
So he stops and gets out of his car to help his brother.
48:00
You know, you just couldn't have written a better script.
48:02
And anyway, uh, so, so speaking of scripts, and this is a
48:06
question I'm planned to ask Bob Varsha as well when he comes on.
48:10
Yeah.
48:10
Because I've been thinking about this, you know, you watch Formula One and David
48:13
Thar is up there and he's talking about this is what Ptri is thinking right now.
48:17
And it makes me wonder as a commentator, how much of the stuff
48:20
that you guys say when you're on air is, okay, I get what they're doing,
48:25
or I empathize with the driver.
48:26
Or do you just flat out make it up?
48:27
Oh, no, no, no, no.
48:29
I mean, I'm the color guy, so I don't have to do anything.
48:32
It's up to the Bob VAs and the lead difference to do all the difficult stuff.
48:35
Remember whose birthday it is and who's, how many races they've done
48:37
and what they, you know, my job to say what's going on on the track.
48:41
Sometimes I exaggerate a little bit, but generally speaking,
48:45
I, I call a spade a spade.
48:47
I mean, I don't sort of pushy foot around.
48:48
'cause you have to be very careful with people like Bernie.
48:51
You, you have to be very careful.
48:52
Otherwise, the next thing you'd have me off the air, it was the same
48:55
with nascar, the France family rule.
48:57
Like, you know, I mean it's their domain and that reminded me at 19 it'd be about
49:01
83 or four driver Fitz pass at the mall.
49:05
'cause I mean, I put my uniform on at three o'clock
49:07
in the afternoon on Saturday.
49:09
I didn't take it off until these days.
49:11
They all have showers and air conditioned silence rooms and
49:15
they've got clean air rules and.
49:17
People washing their O overalls and their underwear and they have new gloves every
49:20
stint and new helmets and all that stuff.
49:22
We just had the old same stuff.
49:23
So in the 500 that year, they had the yellow flag rule, which in those days you
49:29
could race to the flag even though there was a yellow flag out, you might actually
49:32
race past where the yellow flag was.
49:35
So I said, I just think this is a crazy rule.
49:38
You know, someone's gonna get killed on these days.
49:40
It's just absolute madness to race the flag when you got a yellow caution flag.
49:46
I go to Le Mansr in June.
49:48
This, the race is like 1st of February.
49:50
I get outta the car between stints and I'm sweating like hell soaking
49:54
when I'm walking back to what was our motor home, which was a little
49:57
tiny two wheel caravan, you know?
50:00
And Bill France is there coming to the race with Alan Berto and this limousine
50:04
is pulling through the paddock area.
50:06
And Bill Florence gets out of the car near am I what?
50:09
And not so much as a, Hey, hey, hey Dave, how you doing?
50:12
How's the race going?
50:13
Blah, blah.
50:14
He gets, he says, there's the boy that don't like our rules.
50:18
I mean, I thought, good God, talk about a memory like a bloody
50:21
elephant for the wrong thing.
50:22
Not so much as a, if I'd been thinking, Carter said, yeah, and
50:25
good evening to you too, bill.
50:26
But yeah, you gotta, there's the boy that don't like our rule.
50:29
I went, well that's the best you could do.
50:31
So, um, yeah, that was funny.
50:33
Well David, before we switch to our very final set of questions,
50:37
I got two from the crowd Uhhuh.
50:39
People are dying to know the answer so I'm gonna do them in reverse order.
50:43
Paul Robinson writes, please ask David how the group seven Can-Am
50:48
compared to the cars at Le Mans.
50:49
I lived near MidOhio and watched David and Denny Hume, Peter Revson,
50:53
mark Donahue, all the races.
50:55
Paul is a huge Can-Am fan.
50:57
So talk a little bit about the Can-Am days.
50:59
Well, I mean, the Can-Am was a really a part of the racing history in the
51:02
United States that people absolutely love and like a lot of nostalgia things.
51:06
Everybody thinks it was absolutely amazing and it was, the cars were great.
51:11
One shoe mark was winning Formula One races, one after the other.
51:15
And then when Betel winning race, everybody, oh, show that Formula One.
51:18
It's the same guy wins the races.
51:20
Well, for God's sake, Canam 1967 to 1971, Denny and Bruce or
51:26
then, and Bruce and Peter Revson came first and second in battle.
51:29
Every race, Jackie Stewart won a couple.
51:31
Peter rep might have won one in a, in a, I mean it was incredibly
51:35
one-sided, but those were exciting cars.
51:38
The Le Mans cars, obviously when I first did Le Mans were, obviously the
51:42
Canam cars were much bigger and faster.
51:44
But towards the end, when those turbocharged engines, although they
51:47
were smaller displacement, they had the same sort of horsepower, even
51:50
more torque when those big V eights.
51:52
But one of the nicest cars I ever drove was for Roy Woods in 1973, he
51:58
bought Peter Revson, the M 20, which was the last maclan, and we raced in,
52:03
uh, Carl and black label colors, and one of the best racers I ever had.
52:07
Was I came second to Mark Donahue at Watkins Glen in 1973.
52:13
He was in the 9 17 30, which was absolutely just ridiculously fast.
52:19
I beat all the other nine 1710s, which had won the championship the year before.
52:23
'cause that McLaren, I could see why Bruce, well then Danny had won
52:27
so many races because the car was just so incredibly good to drive.
52:31
Obviously huge horse of horsepower.
52:33
Unfortunately Roy and his engine guy kept trying to get more and
52:36
more horsepower out of it by making the engine bigger and bigger.
52:39
You know, we're up to 800 cubic inches.
52:41
But the trouble is because they became totally unreliable.
52:44
And, uh, we had quite a few engine failures, but that was one
52:47
of my best ever races and that was a beautiful car to drive.
52:50
It was very sensitive.
52:52
Change the rollbar a bit or change the spring.
52:54
Change the ride height eight of an inch or quarter of an inch and you,
52:57
you could really feel the difference.
52:58
So it was, it was a great car.
53:00
So I liked those Canam cars, but of course in the end, the rules
53:03
were you can run what you'd run.
53:05
And of course Porsche brung and I, the nine 17 and of course complains,
53:10
oh, Porsche have ruined the sport.
53:11
Well, Porsche done exactly what the rules said all along.
53:14
So, I mean, tough shit.
53:15
I mean, that's, that's the way, that's the way it didn't go.
53:17
They came with a better machine.
53:19
Alright, take us back again to 1964 because Scott writes, can you
53:24
please share the story about your commute to the thousand kilometers
53:28
of the berg ring with sterling Moss?
53:32
God Sterling had that terrible crash in 1962.
53:35
And then I think prematurely retired.
53:37
He went to drive and he just didn't think he was up to scratch.
53:40
But then many years later he said, I should have just stuck it out, he said,
53:43
because I think I could have still done very well and I think he would've done.
53:46
And so Sterling has me drive, I think it's a nine 14.
53:49
Scott just tells me it was a 9 0 4.
53:50
I was driving not a nine 14, so he's probably right.
53:54
Well, I'm sure he's right, but I'm driving a guy called Lucky Kaner who won it
53:59
the year before in a Birdcage Maserati.
54:01
Overall, he won it with, I think, driving with Dan Gurney.
54:05
So we were driving nine 14, I can't remember where we were
54:08
staying, but we were staying still of about 20 miles from the track.
54:11
Berg green.
54:12
Thousand kilometers in those days attracted about 120, 130,000 people.
54:17
'cause obviously 14 mile track, there's plenty of room for them.
54:20
But the roads weren't really up.
54:21
John went Sterling in whatever he was in Sterling and Susan were.
54:26
In the front.
54:27
I'm sitting in the back and Sterling's driving.
54:30
He come to the back of this tail of traffic that's about 10 miles long.
54:33
Oh, Sterling just proceeds to overtake everybody going down the outside.
54:37
Then they, then they move over and then somebody see him coming to
54:41
the mirror and they'd move out.
54:42
So we'd just chop and chin, go down the grass road and then go past and
54:45
it, it just scared the shit of me.
54:46
I mean, we just, how we weren't killed on that drive in.
54:50
I have no idea.
54:51
I mean, it was the most hair raising part of the whole bloody weekend.
54:54
I mean, it made the race look like bloody time.
54:56
It was hair raising.
54:56
We were running late because we had to get there.
54:59
So yeah, that was a very exciting drive.
55:02
It was the most dangerous spot the whole weekend.
55:03
You mentioned to me the last time we spoke that Le Mans is one of your favorites,
55:09
but also one of your biggest regrets.
55:11
So when you look back over all your attempts at Le Mans, put it in perspective
55:15
for everybody as a pro driver who always wanted to win the crown but never got it.
55:20
Well, as you get older, you know, all this stuff sort of fades and it's no good
55:24
holding a grudge forever because I just didn't like Jackie Icks because David
55:28
York was infatuated with Jackie Icks.
55:31
I'm sure that he saw a great opportunity at Le Mansr to slow me down
55:35
by doing that bloody break pad change.
55:37
He didn't need it.
55:38
That's one thing.
55:39
And he also, we were leading at Watkins land.
55:42
Me and uh, Paul Hawkins had a lap lead over Jackie Itch.
55:45
And David, you, when I came into the pitch, he said, I want you to slow down
55:47
'cause I want Jackie itch to win the race.
55:49
Which of course I did.
55:50
But I mean now, I mean, Jackie and I like a couple of old brother, you
55:53
know, Hey David, how you doing David?
55:55
He's lovely to see you.
55:56
And I think, yeah, Jackie, he said, you didn't like me, did you?
55:59
I said, no, I didn't like you at all.
56:00
That's racing.
56:01
You gotta take the rough with it.
56:02
Smooth.
56:03
I didn't win it.
56:04
And of course Brian Re's big regret.
56:06
He never won them all.
56:07
Bob Wallet.
56:07
Neville won it and he won everything else.
56:09
They, both, him and Redmond won everything but they didn't win
56:11
Le Mansr and it's like so many IndyCar drivers that they don't win any 500.
56:15
They don't think they've had a career.
56:16
The fact that I didn't win it is regretful, but it was all 40 years ago.
56:20
So see, love you.
56:22
As the French would say, well you're still very active in the
56:24
motor sports community as a whole.
56:26
What's next for you, David?
56:27
Anything?
56:28
Nothing.
56:28
This year I've, I went to concourse in Lakeland last week.
56:31
Lovely affair, big crowd, lot of cars.
56:33
I think my next motor racing thing is gonna be probably the Daytona 24 hours
56:38
probably go there, so not much on that.
56:41
Before we wrap out, I want to pass the torch to our a CO representative
56:45
David Lowe, for some final thoughts.
56:46
David.
56:47
On behalf of the a CO and Endurance racing fans around the world.
56:51
I just wanna thank you for an incredible evening.
56:53
Thank you so much.
56:54
Well, thank you David.
56:55
I appreciate it.
56:56
I, I enjoyed being asked to be on it.
56:58
And, uh, so, uh, yeah, a lot of good fun, lot of good questions.
57:01
I look forward to catching up with you in the near future.
57:03
Thank you again so much.
57:05
Alright.
57:05
Thank you David.
57:06
And that concludes this evening with a legend where we had the pleasure of
57:10
diving into the remarkable Le Mans's journey of David Hobbs, a man whose racing
57:14
career spans over two transformative decades at the Circuit de Losar from
57:18
his class win in the early 1960s to driving some of the most iconic
57:22
endurance machines for legendary teens.
57:24
David brought a rare combination of skill, consistency, and wit to the
57:28
world's most grueling endurance race.
57:30
His stories remind us why Le Manss isn't just a race.
57:33
It's a test of time, talent, and tenacity.
57:36
If you wanna hear more from David Hobbes, be sure to check out his
57:38
book, HaBO Motor Racer Motor Mouth, and follow him on social media at Mr.
57:43
David Dot Hobbs on Facebook.
57:44
And Mr. David Hobbs on Twitter.
57:47
We hope you enjoyed this presentation to look forward to more evening
57:49
with legend throughout the season.
57:51
And on behalf of everyone here and those listening at home, thank you
57:54
David for sharing your stories with us.
57:56
Thank you very much, Jack.
57:57
Enjoyed it.
57:58
Thank you.
57:58
It's been a pleasure getting to know you and hearing your
58:00
stories, so thank you again.
58:01
Thank you very much.
58:13
This episode has been brought to you by the Automobile Club of the West and
58:17
the A-C-O-U-S-A from the awe-inspiring speed demons that have graced the
58:21
track to the courageous drivers who have pushed the limits of endurance.
58:25
The 24 hours of Le Mans is an automotive spectacle like
58:27
no other for over a century.
58:29
The 24 hours Le Mans has urged manufacturers to innovate for the benefit of future
58:33
motorists, and it's a celebration of the relentless pursuit of speed and
58:37
excellence in the world of motorsports.
58:39
To learn more about or to become a member of the A-C-O-U-S-A look no further than
58:44
www do Le Mansn.org, click on English in the upper right corner and then click
58:49
on the ACO members tab for club offers.
58:53
Once you've become a member, you can follow all the action on the Facebook
58:56
group, A-C-O-U-S-A Members Club, and become part of the Legend with Future
59:00
Evening with the legend meetups.
59:12
This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part
59:16
of our Motoring Podcast network.
59:17
For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational
59:21
content from organizations like The Exotic Car Marketplace, the Motoring
59:25
Historian, break Fix, and many others.
59:27
If you'd like to support Grand Touring Motorsport and the Motoring
59:30
Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at
59:34
www.patreon.com/gt motorsports.
59:39
Please note that the content, opinions and materials presented and
59:41
expressed in this episode are those of its creator, and this episode has
59:45
been published with their consent.
59:46
If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators
59:50
of this episode via email or social media as mentioned in the episode.