Rearview Mirror

POC HistoryIn The Rearview Mirror

By Don Kravig, Precision Motion

Last month’s visit to Sonoma Raceway or (Sears Point as it was referred to for 35+ years), brought back a whole raft of memories from the 1970s and early 1980s...when the POC and the SCCA were on that track constantly. The POC had so many connections to Sonoma that I will try and list just a few. Early member Howard Meister (POC Member #2715) actually owned that track for a period in the 70s - 80s. Howard was a very well known IMSA competitor, racing RSRs in the GTO class and later 934s and 935s. You can pull up his IMSA record to see just how good he really was. Wayne Baker (POC Member #3316), won the Sears Point IMSA GTU race in 1981, from the pole. You might find it interesting that it was the last professional race won by a Porsche 914, and oh...by the way it was a 4 cylinder 2.0 liter. We will get back to Wayne in a minute, but first let me take you back to the “mightiest” Porsche of all time - the Porsche 917-30 and my unforgettable ride in it. As most of you know, the 917 was homologated as a naturally aspirated coupe in the late 60s, and the story of how Porsche pretended to have 100 completed cars would be worthy of Dwain Dement. Anyway in 1969-1970 the 917 won Le Mans, and I believe 16 world championship races which led to the banning of the 12 cylinder naturally aspirated engine. In 1971 Porsche, not to be outdone, obtained the services of Mark Donahue, turbo charged it, and entered it in the American Can Am series which was the haven or purview of the most powerful sports racing cars ever made! Milt Minter, (POC Member #2106) raced both the naturally aspirated and the turbo charged versions of the 917 and used to describe the 917 as his favorite race car of all time. By the way these cars had no computers of any kind. His

WAYNE BAKER PORSCHE

MARK DONAHUE 917-30

Daytona International Speedway 1981, the Andial Porsche 935 of Howard Meister, Harald Grohs, and Rolf Stommelen.

Photos: Don Kravig

stories from various races were absolutely hilarious. Last time I saw him was at the re-release of Steve McQueen’s Le Mans movie, where he absolutely cracked up the private audience consisting of Porsche Big Wigs and other invited guests. “Uncle Miltie” was a class act, and has been greatly missed. George Follmer, (POC Member #703) won the 1972 Can Am Championship with the first iteration of this 917 called the 917-10. This behemoth easily bested the McLaren’s, Shadows and other super cars of the time. This car was raced at around 950hp. By late 1972 expecting a massive challenge from the Chevrolet powered “Shadow Team” Mark Donahue and Team Penske helped develop the car to where it would make over 1600hp in qualifying. I believe they raced it at 1100hp but it had adjustable boost. The 917-30 completely dominated the 1973 Can Am season, setting pole positions and shattering track records wherever it went. The final weekend’s racing at Riverside Raceway included Mark Donahue winning all the IROC races in an RSR as well as the Can Am Championship. The Arab oil embargo and the gas crisis effectively destroyed unlimited racing. The 917-30 was retired to the Penske garages, although they pulled it out in 1975 and managed to set a world closed course record at Talladega which stood for 11 years. Sadly, Mark Donahue was killed in Europe at a Formula One race in 1975. Which leads me to Otis Chandler (POC Member #3128) who bought the 917-30 from Penske for his private collection. Otis Chandler was an avid racer and sportsman in the Hemingway mold, loved fast cars and had a private collection that much like Jay Leno’s, all had to run. You can find Otis’ name in various professional racing records in IMSA, and his company, the Los Angeles Times sponsored the 6 hour enduro at Riverside International Raceway for many years. He was also well known in the celebrity circles of racing. Which leads me to the now defunct Ontario Motor Speedway and “THE RIDE”.

Up until Ontario closed its gates, the POC and PCA had a combined event at Ontario Motor Speedway which was a 2.5 mile oval (very similar to Indianapolis) and about 2.5 miles west of the current Fontana Auto Club Speedway. The start/finish line was actually built from bricks donated by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It had a fabulous race museum and a 22 turn clockwise road course that utilized the front straight away of the oval and part of the banked turn 3 and 4 it was much like Auto Club’s roval today, except longer and faster. Interestingly the road course was partially designed by Mark Donahue. So, back to the story of “THE RIDE”.

Car Guy at Heart - from LA Times

Otis Chandler’s avocations made almost as many headlines as his newspapering. He just missed the U.S. Olympic Team as a shot-putter, “the biggest disappointment of my life”, was charged by an elephant and trampled by a musk ox while big game hunting, practiced both deep-water and fly fishing and was an accomplished surfer. He was also one of us, a lifelong car and motorcycle guy. He was involved with the grand classics and his cars were seen on the lawn at Pebble Beach including a 1973 Best of Show with his Mercedes 540K Special Cabriolet. In his fifties, he became an accomplished racer, driving a brutal Porsche 935 in professional IMSA races and the legendary ex-Donohue Porsche 91730 Can Am car in vintage racing. He was also seen cowtrailing his motorcycle or making long, fast two-wheel desert runs.

My father “Big Don” Kravig was the event master, (or what we now call the VP of

Motorsports) for the OMS event, and he and Otis had a very interesting relationship. More on that later. The fun part was, he would call Otis on the phone and say “we have Ontario Motor Speedway for the 3 day weekend and by the way they gave us Thursday for free” so, Otis would always drag out cars from his private collection. I have pictures of the 91730 on a two car open trailer being personally brought to the track by Otis and professional test driver John Thomas. John Thomas had “Big Don” Kravig at POC Driver meeting instructed me the year previously at Ontario Motor

Speedway and once they had the 917-30 off the trailer and had completed a few runs with it, he invited me to join him for a ride on the track. The Can Am 917s were required to have two seats, and even though the drivers side was full size and took up most of the cockpit, they squeezed a very tiny passenger seat and angled it toward the driver to keep the passenger’s head under the roll bar. To this day, it’s hard for me to describe that ride as anything other than surreal, being shot out of a cannon, or possibly taking a ride in a fighter jet with no canopy. I know they had the boost at the lowest setting which was probably 1100hp, Otis could barely drive it, and it was all that John could handle for sure. But, what an experience!

Sadly the 917s are long retired, and have all wound up in private collections now.

I believe number 30 was restored by Bruce Canepa and is now in a private collection, although I think it has been loaned out to the Porsche Museum a few times. The Porsche 914-4 arrived on United States shores in late 1969 and had a VW/

Porsche emblem on the back. It was roundly criticized and even some Porsche

Clubs would not let it in until it started winning, and winning BIG. The center of gravity, polar moment, center of effort, wheel base, weight distribution (among other things racing engineers look at) were almost identical to the Porsche 917.

That along with an aerodynamic coefficient of 0.29, made this new Porsche the

sleeper of all time. As developed for SCCA Racing, Porsche 914s won numerous SCCA Championships, 1970 Le Mans GT class, and other events world wide. Alan Johnson (POC Member #721) and author of “Driving in Competition” was probably one of the best known of the 914 competitors. All of which takes me around the long way, to Wayne Baker (POC Member #3316). Wayne was a fantastically talented engineer and driver in the Donahue mold, and saw the inherent possibilities of the 914-4. By 1977, he was bringing a 1500 pound 2.4L 914-4 to Willow Springs and regularly putting it down in the low 1.28 range. He was so successful with it, he built a 1,680 pound 230hp IMSA car to the rules of the time, and ran the IMSA circuit in 1981 with it, qualifying at pole for the GTU Class at Laguna Seca, and leading the race until a broken axle in the corkscrew took him out. He also won the Sears Point race from the pole and was on the pole at Riverside where he was taken out during the 6 hr, in turn 9 by a slower competitor. I believe he told me that the car had a top speed of 168mph, and it took a long time to get around the banking at Daytona. Wayne was overall winner at the 12hrs of Sebring in 1983, and I’m going to revisit that race when we cover POCs relationship with Daytona and Sebring in later articles. Wayne is still active today in vintage racing, and can still be found at his shop, Personalized Autohaus in San Diego, probably thinking about or talking about race cars. What a pioneer. Next month we will take a spin through POC History to all the tracks that are no more, and sadly some that are about to become no more. We will chat about about Vasek Polak (POC Member #394) as part of that journey. Until then, Seeya on the Track!

Buyer and Seller of Collectible Porsches

Anders Hainer / anders@evamotorsllc.com / 818-351-5172

EvaMotorsLLC.com

Thanks to all ourfriendsat POC foraterrific year of club racing, friendship,andmemories. We look forward toa fun, fastfuture together.