www.porscheroadandrace.com Winning the World Endurance Championship 1981 Published: 3rd November 2017 By: Martin Raffauf Online version: https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/winning-the-world-endurance-championship-1981/ www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hours, 31 January/1 February 1981: Bob Garretson, Bobby Rahal and Brian Redman driving the #9 Porsche 935 (chassis #009 00030) would www.porscheroadandrace.com go on to win the race by 13 laps, having started from 16th on the grid The Flying Tigers strike again! Being the best on the planet in something, even for just a short while, has got to be a great feeling. The sense of accomplishment is high. But whatever it is, it’s not going to be easy. There are a lot of other people you are going to have to beat to get it done, especially if it is the World Endurance Championship. This was the Garretson Enterprises truck at the beginning of the 1981 season, showing Bob’s main crew members that year. The only major name missing is Gary Cummings, who joined the team in April of that year, at Atlanta In sports car racing in 1981, there were two FIA championships for Sports Cars, one for Makes and one for Drivers. The Drivers’ Championship was contested over a group of fifteen races, while the Makes’ Championship consisted of six specific races within those www.porscheroadandrace.com fifteen races. The factories, such as Porsche, BMW and Lancia concentrated only on the Makes races. The Drivers’ Championship then would most likely be won by a privateer, as the factories would not contest all fifteen of the races. Sebring 12 Hours, 21 March 1981: Although looking somewhat worse for wear, the #9 Garretson Porsche 935 finished 17th, earning valuable points towards the World Championship. This is the damaged car in the tent at the end of the race The 1981 races were: Race Championship Daytona 24 Hours Makes & Drivers www.porscheroadandrace.com Sebring 12 Hours Drivers Mugello 6 Hours Drivers Monza 6 Hours Makes & Drivers Riverside 6 Hours Drivers Silverstone 6 Hours Makes & Drivers Nürburgring 1000km Makes & Drivers Le Mans 24 Hours Makes & Drivers Pergusa Coppa Florio Drivers Daytona 6 hours IMSA Champion Race Drivers Watkins Glen 6 Hours Makes & Drivers 24 Hours of Spa Drivers Mosport 1000km Drivers Road America 500 Drivers Brands Hatch 1000km Drivers The Sports Car Championship consisted of many of the main long-distance sports car races around the world. Points were accumulated at each eligible race to determine the champion, and races were on both sides of the Atlantic to give equal opportunities to US and European teams. There was a prize paid by the FIA of $45,000 to the winner which was a lot of money in 1981! The key to winning was consistent finishes, you would not have to win every race, www.porscheroadandrace.com but you had to finish and accumulate points. You had to enter a number of the races and do well in the ones you entered, as it was almost impossible for any one driver to enter all fifteen of the races. The races included many varied types, such as, IMSA races, World Makes Championship races, and IMSA Champion Spark Plug races, and even the Spa 24 hours. The one thing they had in common was that they were all 500 miles, 1000km, 6 hours, or longer. Riverside 6 Hours, 26 April 1981: (left) Bob Garretson and Bobby Rahal discuss the www.porscheroadandrace.com upcoming race in the garage at Riverside. (above) Bob Garretson makes a pit stop during the Riverside race. Co-driver Roy Woods is at the door, while the other co- driver, Ralph Kent Cooke, watches from behind the wall. Gary Cummings cleans the windscreen, as Bruce Anderson (front) and Roger Hamlin fuel the car. They would finish 4th We had become acutely aware of this championship in 1980, losing it by just five points. John Fitzpatrick, despite winning more races lost the title to John Paul Sr. by five points and Dick Barbour was another four points behind, so it was a very close result. For 1981, Bob Garretson decided he would attempt to make amends and win it. www.porscheroadandrace.com Le Mans 24 Hours, 13/14 June 1981: Bob Garretson, Annie Verney and Ralph Cooke finish sixth overall and second in the IMSA GTX class in the #42 Porsche 935 (chassis #009 00030). This photo was taken just before the Ford Chicane, which leads onto the start/finish straight The season started well enough, winning the 24 hours of Daytona, in Bob Garretson’s 935 K3. Further early races resulted in points finishes at Sebring (17th), Riverside (4th), Le Mans (6th). A variety of drivers had assisted Bob up to this point, including Bobby Rahal, Brian Redman, Roy Woods, Ralph Cooke and Annie Verney at Le Mans. The plan was that Bobby Rahal would run most of the races with us after Le Mans, however after the Cooke/Woods and Garretson break-up at Le Mans, Bobby signed to drive most of the rest of the races with Gianpiero Moretti, so Bob had to find different co-drivers. At the Daytona championship race, Bob drove with Joe Varde in his Mazda RX3, and although they had some issues, they finished. For Watkins Glen, since it was a makes race, Porsche supported us by providing www.porscheroadandrace.com Rick Mears and Johnnie Rutherford to drive with Bob, which resulted in a third place finish (winning the over 2-litre category), behind the two factory Lancia Monte Carlo cars. Le Mans 24 Hours, 13/14 June 1981: The #42 Porsche 935 K3 driven here by Ralph Kent Cooke which finished in sixth place overall. Just behind can be seen the works Porsche 944 LM of Barth/Röhrl which finished one place behind the 935, in seventh place For Mosport (Canada), Bob did not want to go through the hassle of taking his car and team across the border to Canada, so he arranged to drive with Mauricio DeNarvaez, who was running a second car in the Moretti team. Bob was hoping to bring his mechanics to work the car, but Alistair McNiel, the team manager of the Moretti/DeNarvaez group, did not want any of the Garretson crew on the team. I guess he was afraid we would learn some secrets or something. After negotiations, he was convinced to take one man, Gary Cummings. Gary arrived and found that the car was not prepared to our standards, so the www.porscheroadandrace.com night before the race, he and Bob himself stayed late into the night to work on the car and get it to a level they were happy with. They were rewarded the next day with seventh place in the 1000km, whereas Moretti’s Joest Moby Dick car (driving with Rahal), fell out with problems. Brands Hatch 1000km, 27 September 1981: The #50 Garretson Enterprises Flying Tigers Porsche 935 K3 (chassis #009 00030) sits in the pits during practice for the Brands Hatch 1000km race in 1981 For the penultimate round at Elkhart Lake, Bobby Rahal had arranged for Jim Trueman (the owner of the Red Roof Inns hotel chain, and Bobby’s Indy car team owner) to drive with us. However, at the last-minute Jim was called away on business issues, and Tom Gloy was brought in as a stand-in. Tom, a former Trans-Am champion, was from California and got along great with the team. What more could we ask? It turned out, nothing really. He helped www.porscheroadandrace.com us to get fourth place in that race, in fact beating Bobby Rahal in the Moretti Moby Dick Car who ended up in fifth place. We had some fun with our good buddy Rahal, chiding him about being beaten by his stand-in, Tom Gloy. Harald Grohs had won both the Mosport and Elkhart Lake rounds in the Andial 935 partnered with Rolf Stommelen, so had closed the point gap markedly. Basically, we had to finish in front of him at the final race at Brands Hatch in the UK, to win the title. The good news was we would have Bobby Rahal back on the team for this last race. The bad news was, we had to ship all our kit over to England and battle the Europeans on their own turf. There would be all kinds of cars in this race, including the Kremer 917-81, a new Ford prototype, a Lola T600, and multiple 935s, including of course the one entered by Dieter Schornstein for himself and Harald Grohs. www.porscheroadandrace.com Brands Hatch 1000km, 27 September 1981: The #50 Garretson Enterprises Flying Tigers Porsche 935 K3 (chassis #009 00030) is followed closely by our friends from Kremer in the Porsche 917/81 during the Brands Hatch 1000km race. The 917/81 driven by Bob Wollek/Henri Pescarolo retired after 52 laps with suspension failure We once again prepared the car, chassis 009 00030 as best we could, leaving nothing to chance. The race itself was sponsored by Flying Tigers Air Freight. Bob got sponsorship from them for the race, and they agreed to fly the car over from San Francisco. This was the famous air freight company founded in 1945 by actual ex-WW2 Flying Tiger pilots, who flew the Curtiss P40 fighters in China against the Japanese for Chiang Kai-shek. The company was subsequently bought out by FedEx in 1988. We put on the Tiger decals and took the car www.porscheroadandrace.com up to SFO (San Francisco airport), put it on a pallet, and they stuck it on the 747 freighter to London.