I hope you’ll forgive me for including this fabulous pic of Kenny from the 1973 Six Hour but, trust me, it is relevant. From time to time here I like sharing stories of people who have performed amazing feats on motorcycles, especially those who have accomplished long-distance rides. Today I want to share another though it is a little different, I hope you will appreciate it.
Long before I was a motorcyclist I was a car racing fanatic and, as with my motorcycling trivia, my head was filled with motorsports trivia. One of the truly great feats of endurance in car racing, though it had a sad ending was the performance of the Frenchman, Pierre Levegh. Most of us remember him for his part in the tragic accident at Le Mans in 1955 that claimed not only his life but the lives of 83 spectators, men, women and children. However, he was already an accomplished long-distance driver and, in 1952 he drove the Le Mans race single-handedly and was leading by over four laps when a crankshaft bearing came loose just one hour from the finish of the race. A truly amazing effort.
I still follow car racing, though at a greater distance than before and I am more interested in car racing history than I am in current performances. To this end, I love reading the great stories published on the “World of Motor Sport” Facebook page. Amongst the many contributors to this fabulous resource is a retired teacher (perhaps that’s part of the reason I like this guy?) called Louis Galanos. Louis is making it his business to especially document the endurance races at Sebring and Daytona during the 1960’s. He liberally peppers his articles with photos that he took at the time and the depth of his research is quite astonishing. I am going to share one of his stories this morning as a way of highlighting an amazing feat of endurance but also as a thank you to him for bringing back memories of names, places and races that I remember from when I was a kid, following these events from afar without the benefit of the internet.
This is a long article but persevere, I promise you, it is worth it.
“In just a couple of days will be the annual running of the Daytona 24-Hour race, or as they call it today The Rolex 24 At Daytona. Most of you are familiar with some of the legendary drivers who raced there back in the day like Gurney, Rodriguez, Donohue, Andretti, Gregg among others. But some of you might not be familiar with a legendary driver by the name of George Waltman who had the nickname of “Ironman.” He is a Daytona 24 legend not for winning the race or being one of the top ten finishers but for being the only driver to enter and finish the 24 Hours of Daytona without the help of a co-driver and without the help of a pit crew.
Yup, he did it ALL on his own in 1968. Waltman, a WWII veteran, lived in Freeport, New York and became a “gentleman racer,” following the war racing for fun, not profit. He began racing sports cars in 1954 and was a regular in races staged in Nassau, Bahamas. He decided to enter the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1960 and In 1961 he made a solo drive at the race repeating in ’62 & ’63. In his racing career he completed 54 races with four class wins and one overall victory in 1965 at a SCCA Regional. His biggest achievement was the 1968 Daytona 24 which was his only start in the Daytona race.
The car he drove at Daytona in ’68 was a 1964 Morgan Plus 4 that friend and mechanic Ali Lugo found in a police impound lot. Waltman and Lugo made some minor tweaks to the car and outfitted it with a new set of Michelin X radial tires. Waltman then drove it from Freeport, New York to Daytona Beach, Florida (1,049 miles) for the race. He entered the car under the team name of Aztec Racing and himself as the lone driver.
Back then there were no rules about driving solo but FIA regulations did require a driver to take a one-hour break for every four hours of racing. He did just that and used that rest period to do maintenance on the car, grab a snack, go to the bathroom, etc. When away from the car he put a sign on the windshield that read, “Out To Lunch.” When he needed to take a nap one of the crew from a nearby pit would wake him when his hour rest time was over.
Waltman would finish the race in 30th position overall just behind the James Garner American International Racing Corvette team which had four drivers and a full pit crew. His time on the track was not without some drama. With less than one hour to go in the race part of the radiator cooling fan broke and punctured the radiator. He was forced to pit and his resourcefulness as a former B-29 pilot, and amateur racer, then came in handy. He had ten sticks of gum and had everyone standing around him chew the gum. He then lumped it into one big blob and plugged the hole in the radiator. He then topped off the radiator with coolant, got back in the car and took the checkered flag which was what he really wanted to do.
His achievement at Daytona did not go unnoticed by Speedway founder Bill France, Sr. who congratulated him after the race and took him on a parade lap in the pace car after the race. When all the hoopla and news interviews were over George did some minor repairs to the car, changed the oil and then headed south to Miami for a short visit before returning to his home in New York. He did all of this on the same set of Michelin tires he put on the Morgan before leaving New York for Daytona. A true legend in motorsports history.”
I would normally say that any more than two wheels is too many, but I hope that you will find this 4 wheel story inspiring, I sure did. Thanks to Louis Galanos for the story.