Yahoo Autos Why I Love IMSA
The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) observes its 50th anniversary in 2019 and has already assembled a celebratory coffee-table book, which distracted me adequately through the fracking of an upper molar. I'd show you a picture of the book but there's nothing to see. Just a flat-black cover with an IMSA logo, as if the anniversary were for the American Funeral Association. What ought to be on the cover is any of the Porsches driven by Peter Gregg (41 IMSA wins) and Hurley Haywood (34 wins), a duo who also happened to prevail in IMSA's first sports-car race in 1971, driving a Porsche 914/6.
The book costs $170, which is a little precious, especially since several of the photos are so out of focus that I searched around for 3-D glasses. I was at least pleased with IMSA's unforced acknowledgment of the drug-smuggling years-you know, Randy Lanier (six wins), the three Whittington Brothers (14 wins combined), and the father/son John Pauls (10 wins for Senior, 19 for Junior). I recall watching Senior punch Junior in the face at Mosport. Junior's crime was a qualifying error. In the book, Senior is described as "a man whose seatback and tray table were rarely in the upright and locked positions." I attended the inaugural Miami IMSA race in 1983, where Senior climbed the scaffolding of the stewards' tower "like a vengeful Spiderman, intent on fisting it out with the officials." Back then, we called him the Pirate because he was nuts about boats and also nuts.
In the book, Jim Mullen (10 wins) recalls a race in which his Porsche 934's mirror was loose, so he asked the crew to secure it. Instead, team leader Wayne Baker ripped it clean off, explaining, "I never use the f*@king thing anyway." Mirrorless in the race, Mullen balked my lifelong pal Bill Adam (eight wins), smacking Bill's Group 44 GTP Jaguar off the track in a jubilee of green and white shrapnel. "Bill and I raced together for years after this incident," Mullen noted, "but he never mentioned it to me. 'What gentlemen these Canadians are,' I thought, feeling terribly guilty." Twenty years later, Bill met acquaintances of Mullen's who asked if he knew Jim. "Know him?" Bill groaned. "He put me off in Portland and wrecked both my race and our car." The truth is, Bill was likewise a mirror molester, once ripping off my rental car's rearview mirror after a race at Laguna Seca. We were right then being chased by John Paul Jr., and Bill said, "It's not healthy for you to see what's happening back there."
I used to work for Roush Racing, which is tied in IMSA entrants' wins, at 48, with Brumos Racing, remarkably. One of our drivers was Bruce Jenner (two wins), who co-drove a GTO Mustang. My memory is pigeon pudding these days, but I recall being paired with Jenner in a hotel room, which I've never felt the need to mention until recently, now that we would be the kind of couple any Colorado baker would work for. Jenner wasn't much of a driver but was terrific in endurance races because he never dinged the car. "Not fast enough to crash," claimed crew chief Charlie Selix.
Toward the back of the book, the authors list "50 Great IMSA Drivers," in which our other Roush ace, Willy T. Ribbs (10 wins), is included for reasons abstruse. Willy was an irascible ex-boxer who, just before a Sears Point race, rubbed camphor oil all over his bare chest during a press interview. "It warms me up," Willy claimed. When I asked him to complete his self-massage more remotely, he said, "Phillips, I've always wanted to pick you up." I never knew what he was getting at.
Another curious choice in the 50 greats list is David Loring (16 wins), who alternately raced Camel Lights and lived in the Alaskan wilderness. David was a reclusive guru, a fast-lapping mystic who once returned from Hermitville with a Mazda-powered Denali, a car he'd built himself and drove to victory on its debut at Lime Rock. Several of us fainted. I always figured David was maybe Howard Hughes's chauffeur.
Also in IMSA's great 50 is Jack Baldwin (24 wins), a woolly blond bear of a guy whom I met at Riverside where he was debuting a new Camaro. The car was secretly half carbon fiber with an engine set back so far that it served as a center console and drink holder. I asked Jack if it was legal. "Probably somewhere," he said.
In fact, IMSA was infamous for occasional legal blindness during scrutineering. Witness Charlie Kemp's 1976 Mustang, which stood only 42 inches tall-I've petted taller dogs-and whose exhaust pipes snaked through the doors. IMSA bitched that the pipes impeded a quick exit, so Charlie (one win) fitted them with hardware-store hinges.
That's why I love IMSA. I mean, in Formula 1, Ace Hardware doesn't play that big a role.
From the April 2019 issue
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