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1973 Daytona 24 Hour – an Auspicious Debut for the Porsche Carrera RSR

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1973 Daytona 24 Hour – an Auspicious Debut for the Porsche Carrera RSR www.porscheroadandrace.com 1973 Daytona 24 Hour – An auspicious debut for the Porsche Carrera RSR Published: 2nd October 2020 By: Martin Raffauf Online version: https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/1973-daytona-24-hour-an-auspicious-debut-for-the-porsche-carrera-rsr/ www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: The start 1973 Daytona 24 hours led by John Watson in the Mirage on pole www.porscheroadandrace.com 1973 saw a return to normality for the Daytona 24-hour race. The distance was set back at 24 hours, after running only a 6-hour length in 1972. Ferrari in 1972 had petitioned the FIA to keep races at 6-hours, as the reliability of the 3.0-litre prototype cars (312PB) was suspect over a 24-hour distance. For 1973, Bill France petitioned to have the Daytona race returned to 24-hours distance in the World Championship and the FIA (international rules body) concurred. The car rules remained unchanged. The prototype cars running for the world championship were 3.0-litre cars, but the bulk of the field was GT cars of various types and sizes. Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: Reine Wisell sits in the Lola T282 Ford during practice. This car was entered by Scuderia Filipinetti would succumb to ignition problems www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: The lone Matra 670B takes on fuel at the pumps during practice Not many of the European prototype teams bothered to make the trip. Ferrari and Alfa Romeo stayed home, not trusting their cars to run for the 24-hour distance. Apparently, at first they agreed to come but demanded large starting money from Bill France, which he refused to pay. John Wyer entered two Gulf Mirage Ford powered prototype cars. Driven by Derek Bell, Howden Ganley, Mike Hailwood and John Watson, they were quick but not expected to last the distance. These were powered by the 3.0-litre Cosworth F1 engine that was de-tuned as much as possible. One lone Matra 670B was entered for Francois Cevert, Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Henri Pescarolo. Matra was using this race as a test for Le Mans, and this car seemed to be the favourite. There was a lone Lola T282-Ford, also with 3.0-litre Cosworth, entered by Georges Filipinetti for Reine Wisell, Hugues de Fierlant and Jean- Louis Lafosse. Reinhold Joest entered his Porsche 908-3, while slower than the newer www.porscheroadandrace.com prototypes, this car was thought to be more reliable and in with a chance should the others falter. There was also an older 908-2 for the Canadians Rudi Bartling and Harry Byzek, as well as an even older 910. The rest of the large field was made up of various GT cars. Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: The Porsche 908/2 of Canadians Rudi Bartling, Klaus Bytzek and Bert Kuehne would finish 12th overall www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: The #57 Porsche 908/3 of Reinhold Joest, Mario Casoni and Paul Blancpain enters Turn 1 at Daytona. The car would retire after around six hours with transmission problems Up until this time, the Porsche 911 in racing had basically been a modified street-car and the 2.5-litre 911S used in GT racing in 1972 was just that. Porsche realised in 1972 that they had fallen from the ranks of outright sports car race winning capability. The all- conquering 917 had been dropped after 1971 by the FIA rule change to limit prototype sports cars to 3.0-litre engines. The somewhat dated 908-3 was non-competitive with newer offerings from Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, and Cosworth based cars such as Lola and Mirage. The 2.5-litre 911S was even starting to struggle against GT cars with larger engines such as the Ferrari Daytona and De Tomaso Pantera. Due to homologation rules, Porsche realised they would have to build a whole new model, which they called the Carrera RS. This car was completed in late summer of 1972 and included the duck tail rear spoiler, wider wheels and tyres and increased engine capacity to 2687cc, hence the name 2.7 RS. For racing, the cylinder bore was increased slightly to 92mm (from 90mm) resulting in 2808cc, which then was the 2.8 RSR. www.porscheroadandrace.com This Porsche promotional photo from 1973 shows the 911 Carrera RS 2.7 (left) next to its big brother, the 911 Carrera RSR 2.8 (right) The Porsche factory brought two of these cars (2.8 RSR) to Daytona for the 1973 24-hour race. Although these were ostensibly GT cars, they had not yet completed the FIA www.porscheroadandrace.com homologation process (as the required 500 units had not yet been built), so had to be entered as prototype cars. The factory did not run these cars themselves, instead they loaned one each to Roger Penske and Peter Gregg to enter and run. While these were quicker than most of the other GT cars, they were not competitive on lap times with the real prototype cars. This was the first actual race for the Carrera RSR, a car which would prove to have an amazing record over the coming years. Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: Greg Syfert, Woody Woodward and Mark Donohue work on the RSR engine change during practice on the Penske RSR www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: Mark Donohue leaves the pits during practice in the Penske RSR Peter Gregg’s car was prepared by his Brumos race team in Jacksonville Florida. He and Hurley Haywood, his co-driver, had won the 1972 IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) championship driving a 2.5-litre 911S, so were very familiar with the 911 based cars. www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: Derek Bell in his Gulf Mirage. While fast, the car would drop out early with clutch issues www.porscheroadandrace.com Roger Penske of course was well connected with Porsche. He had run the factory 917-10 in the Can-Am championship of 1972 and won it for Porsche, breaking the many year McLaren strangle hold on this series. George Follmer had won the championship with support from lead Penske driver Mark Donohue who had missed several races due to a broken foot from a crash in the 917 during testing at Atlanta. These two, Donohue and Follmer, would drive the Penske entered car painted in dark blue Sunoco Oil colours, a long time Penske sponsor. Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood, overall winners in www.porscheroadandrace.com the #59 Carrera RSR 2.8 Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: The #6 Penske RSR of Mark Donohue and George Follmer enters the west Horseshoe in the Daytona in-field during practice Derek Bell took the pole in his Mirage M6, followed by the Matra, the second Mirage and the Lola. John Watson took the lead at the start and led for the first five hours or so from the Matra. The Bell/Ganley Mirage had early alternator and clutch issues and was retired. The Joest 908-3 started at the back after missing qualifying due to a fire, but after five hours was up to third. At the five-hour mark the leading Mirage had a long pit stop to replace the clutch, the same malady as its sister car. By late evening the Joest 908 dropped out with a broken transmission. This left the Matra with a huge lead over the two RSRs of Penske and Gregg. However, this changed shortly thereafter as at 12h30 Sunday morning, the Matra engine failed. www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: The Matra 670B of Francois Cevert, Henri Pescarolo and Jean-Pierre Beltoise would lead by a large margin, but the engine failed just after midnight www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: The Matra enters Daytona Turn 1 It was later determined that some defective bearings had caused the failure. For sure the locals who lived near the speedway were rejoicing, as they would not have to listen to the screaming V12 engine all night! The two RSRs had been battling the whole race up to this point, with both teams eager to show Porsche they could get the job done. The Penske car had eked out a slim lead of one lap or so over the Gregg car but by 04h30 however, the Penske car pitted and was out with engine failure. This left Gregg and Haywood with a large lead over the nearest pursuers. www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 3-4 February 1973: The engine fails on the Penske RSR around 04h00 on Sunday morning As the chief mechanic at Brumos, Jack Atkinson explained, they had received a new engine from Porsche for the IMSA finale race in November of 1972 and had the flywheel come off due to the flywheel bolts being loose. Hence, when he got the new RSR he had stripped the car given to him by Porsche and had gone through it all, checking both the practice and race engine for Daytona. He again found the flywheel bolts to be loose! He had told Penske about it, but the Penske guys, thinking Peter Gregg was playing psychological games (which he was known to do), ignored the warning. The Penske engine had the flywheel bolts come www.porscheroadandrace.com loose during practice. The engine was replaced with the race engine, but it had failed after some 14 hours with a suspected valve issue.
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