Jo Siffert’s night-time Porsche 917 pitstop at Daytona made more dramatic by the exposure used by photographer Dave Friedman…
You can see Seppi’s distinctive helmet in the murk to the left of the car as Brian Redman gets ready to rejoin the race.
It was not to be Siffert’s race, the first in which the dominance of the 917 generally and John Wyer entered cars specifically was displayed in the Sports Car Championship that year. The Ferrari 512S (Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella/Mario Andretti) took a Sebring victory in March but otherwise it was a Porsche year, what the 4.5-5 litre flat-12 917 didn’t win, the 3 litre flat-8 908 did on courses for which it was designed.
Siffert/Redman led the race until after the three-hour mark. Not long after a driver change to Redman, Brian came into the pits with a punctured tyre, worse was the brake-pipe broken by the rotating tyre tread. It took a critical 17 minutes to make the car good. The pair’s day of drama wasn’t over yet though. They lost an hour to replace the clutch, and later still had another stop to ‘straighten the Porsche after a wall-scraping episode.’
Pedro Rodriguez and Leo Kinnunen won the race in the sister John Wyer entry, 45 laps ahead of Siffert/Redman with the Andretti/Merzario/Ickx Ferrari 512S three more laps in arrears, third.
I love the variety of cars in these events putting aside the performance differential arguments and issues. The Siffert/Redman cat-amongst-the-pigeons 917 amidst the Fleming/Johnson/Fleming Fiat 124 Coupe and Wonder/Cuomo Ford GT40.
And below in the midst of the Waldron/Lanier/Barros MGB and Clutton/Tatum Ferrari 275 GTB/C. Eyes on your mirrors folks…
Seppi again, this time in front of the Patterson/Sanford Porsche 911T.
Bibliography…
Automobile Year 18, Team Dan, MotorSport, Dave Friedman Archive
Tailpiece…
‘I’m leavin’ on a jet plane…that’s Daytona Beach International Airport behind. DC9.
Finito…
primotipo... 