Go Like Hell

by A. J. Baime

  Now he’s in his office on the phone: “Hello, butter bean. When I heard what you did, you could have cut buttonholes in my behind. My opinion may not be worth a pin whistle, but I think you’re dumber than a hundred head of billy goats.”

  Now he’s interviewing a new secretary: “How would you like to work in a snake pit for a real snake?”

  So much change was afoot that spring. Some of the old guard from the Venice shop didn’t take to the LAX facility. Men in suits worked there. Gone were the Friday drunken lunches at the Black Whale that lasted until closing time. Some of Shelby’s employees were getting their notices from Uncle Sam. They were packing their bags not for the next race but for Vietnam.

  Ken Miles was putting in the hours preparing GT40s to race Ferrari at the Daytona Continental. The team had eight weeks, and the cars had been taken apart so many times, they’d lost all their original design settings. “It may sound odd,” Miles said, “but our first job was actually to get the cars back to where they had started.”

  One morning Miles and a crew from Shelby American headed to Willow Springs, a racetrack deep in the desert outside the town of Mojave, north of Los Angeles. The track had long straights and fast sweeping bends—just like Le Mans. It was a god-awful place. Everyone wore boots as it was rattlesnake country, and shades to protect the eyes from sand riding the wind. Technicians from Aeronutronic, a Ford-owned aerospace company, met the Shelby American team. The California-based outfit employed experts in the instrumentation and aerodynamics of missiles that traveled 18,000 mph. They were going to conduct an experiment.

  The Aeronutronic technicians rigged a computer into the passenger seat of a GT40. It was space-man gear, the most sophisticated aeronautical equipment on earth, and it filled half the interior compartment. The computer sensors aimed to gather air pressure and temperature readings inside the car’s ducting. The data would be transmitted to a trackside truck where a technician was stationed. An oscillograph would measure engine revolutions on paper right in the cockpit. It was almost certainly the first time computer equipment was used in the development of a racing car on the track.

  Meanwhile Shelby’s GT40 team manager Carroll Smith was going to gather similar information the old-fashioned way. Using Scotch tape, he stuck pieces of cotton yarn in tight rows all over the driver’s side of the car (the right side). The movement of the yarn would tell the driver and anyone watching the direction of airflow when the car was in motion. Miles slipped on his helmet and lapped at slow speeds. A chase car followed, inside which a snapper aiming a Polaroid captured the movement of the yarn on the car’s body.

  According to the data from Willow Springs, the team discovered that at least 76 horsepower was being lost due to poor air ducting. Air was entering the car but it had no efficient exit. Over the next weeks, Miles and chief engineer Phil Remington redesigned the ducting and the lubricating system. They ditched the Italian wire-spoked wheels in favor of Halibrand magnesium wheels, shaving off thirty pounds, and fitted wider Goodyear tires on the rear, with lots of rubber that could grab at the pavement. They added larger front brakes so the car could be driven faster into turns. The engines were tuned to pump out 450 horsepower with gobs of torque. Though Shelby didn’t know it at the time, some members of the team popped pills to keep the energy flowing. Amphetamines fueled all-night work sessions.

  Reporters were showing up, eager to scoop the story. What was going on behind those closed doors? Unlike at Shelby’s old Venice shop, where there was an open-door policy, everyone had to go through security to get on these premises.

  “We have several advantages over other people who have played with the car,” Miles told a reporter days before Daytona. “We can react to a suggestion—we can do something right now. We don’t have to go through elaborate procedures of putting through formal design changes. If we decide we don’t like something, we can take a hacksaw and cut it off. Practically everything we do is a panic operation. But if anyone can do it, we can.”

  Miles was accustomed to the grind. He’d spent the last two decades building cars and racing, moving from shop to shop and motel room to motel room. As a young man in England, he’d heard his calling in the howl of a sports car engine. He grabbed his wife Mollie and headed to Hollywood, a burgeoning hotbed of speed, and he’d been on the proverbial road ever since. During the 1950s, Miles became a cult figure in the Southern California sports car scene—amateur racing at its best. He was known for his delicate touch and lightning-fast reactions. He opened a small tuning shop next to a pizzeria on Vineland Avenue, just off the Hollywood Freeway. (“The same careful workmanship that has resulted in ten years of uninterrupted success in competition can make your car run better too.”) But he was always short on money, and when the Internal Revenue Service padlocked his doors, he joined Shelby American in early 1963.

  He lived with his wife and son in a little cottage on Sunday Trail, tucked into the Hollywood hills on rugged, winding roads off Mulholland Drive. His neighbors were accustomed to seeing his picture in the papers holding a trophy. They were used to seeing him jog by shirtless in the morning, the ropy muscles in his arms flexing with the weight of two-pound dumbbells. Out front of his cottage Miles usually had a Cobra or some other hot car parked, and when he drove his son to the hobby shop in town, the shop would empty out. A crowd would gather around the latest ride he was testing—hardly a Formula One car, but surely the hottest wheels in the neighborhood.

  Miles had never gotten any offer to drive Formula One, never driven at Indianapolis. He’d never ridden that swaying train south through the Italian Riviera to meet with Enzo Ferrari in Modena. He’d given himself to a life of speed, and yet, strangely, the world of elite international racing had passed him by. As a technician and driver, he was for the most part self-taught. Now at forty-seven, for the first time in his life, he was working on a project with major financial backing.

  There was a side to Miles that few of his colleagues, almost all of whom were younger than he, could understand. Miles was of that generation that had lived through World War II. He’d driven tanks in the British Army, on reconnaissance and recovery missions. His unit was among the first to pass through the Nazi death camp at Bergen-Belsen. His son Peter remembered his father telling the story of a time Miles ran around the corner of a building in the midst of combat right into a German officer. Both pulled their guns; Miles’s lightning-fast reaction served him well. He’d lived through the kind of experiences that could shatter a man’s nerves forever, or harden them until they became unbreakable. In the 1960s, Miles wore a filthy army jacket. He didn’t talk much about the war but he wore that jacket like a flag on his back.

  Working for Shelby, Miles wasn’t supposed to race. He’d been hired as a competition manager, engineer, and test driver. But he couldn’t stand it in the pit. He was building cars to beat Ferrari, and nobody was going to keep him out of the cockpit. He was going to compete.

  One night Miles was working late in his office on the paperwork for entry at Le Mans. It was busywork, laborious and boring. Present was Shelby’s photographer Dave Friedman, who had to take pictures of various auto parts to file with the papers. Talk of racing’s death toll came up. Miles had seen his share of top-flight talents come and go.

  “You know,” he said, “I’d rather die in a racing car than get eaten up by cancer.”

  Miles had managed to stay alive over years battling on racetracks in cars he had built himself with virtually no safety equipment. His every breath was a testament to his skill.

  On a February morning in 1965, four station wagons pulled into the empty infield of the Daytona International Speedway. Two transporters carrying four Cobras and two Ford GT40s followed. In the pit area doors wrenched open and out poured fourteen drivers, twelve mechanics, three engine technicians, two logistics managers, one team manager, one chief engineer, and Carroll Shelby himself in black pointed boots and a black cowboy hat that looked like it belonged to Jesse James. These men had haircuts a
nd they were clean shaven. Shelby had given the orders. They might have been renegades, but now they were representing Henry Ford II.

  They were first on the scene. Daytona was an American temple of speed. There was an eeriness about Daytona when its grandstands were empty. Miles pulled out a camera with a long telephoto lens that had a sticker on it—“Happiness Is a Hot Rod”—and gazed through the lens at the empty grandstands. Only a fraction of the thousands who’d soon fill those seats would know who he was.

  Miles was on the verge, and he knew it.

  The Daytona Continental 2,000 Kilometers was America’s longest race, laid out over a 3.81-mile road course that winded through the oval track’s infield. The race featured one thing that sports car drivers who didn’t race stock or Indy cars weren’t used to: the thirty-one-degree banked turns, so tall and steep they were a challenge to walk up. Driving through them was like driving across the side of a skyscraper.

  Soon the pit lane was crowded with mechanics and the track filled with fast traffic. One by one, inexperienced drivers pulled their feet off their accelerators on that banked turn. Mortality was speaking to them. One Shelby American competitor pulled into the pit shaking with fear so bad he could barely step out of the car. The unmistakable song of an Italian V12 announced the arrival of World Champion John Surtees and the new Ferrari Le Mans prototype—the 330 P2, a 4.0-liter, dual-overhead-cam, midengine racer with a wing-like boom traversing an open cockpit.

  Shelby approached Miles with another man in a cowboy hat. This, Shelby said, was to be Miles’s teammate.

  Miles eyed the stranger suspiciously. He had puppy-dog features, brown hair, and dull eyes. He was a late arrival, a Texan just like Shelby. When Shelby said his name, he pronounced it “Lawd Ree-oooby.”

  Miles had heard of Lloyd Ruby. He was an Indy-car driver, a Gasoline Alley veteran. Shelby could read Miles’s mind. Miles had done round-the-clock development work on that GT40 and this cowpoke was going to screw up the car. Miles had no patience for anyone who didn’t think as fast or drive as fast as he did.

  Ruby headed over to the track hospital for his medical exam. When it was time, he ambled over to the GT40 wearing a helmet with a Texas Lone Star front and center like some kind of sheriff’s badge. He moved so slowly, he seemed drunk. From the moment Ruby took the Ford onto the track, however, he was flat out. When he flew into that banked turn, the Shelby crew stood and watched him.

  “Jesus Christ,” someone said.

  Lloyd Ruby could drive.

  On race-day morning, Shelby got his team together early. Leo Beebe had flown in from Dearborn. “This is a team effort,” Shelby began, the drivers gathered around him. “The goal is to finish as many cars as high up as possible. Just let things take their natural course. If you happen to be in front, fine. If you happen to have an extra long pit stop that puts you back to fourth, I’ll give you instructions as to whether you should try to pick up time or hold your position.”

  At 10:00 A.M., as thousands watched from the grandstands, three dozen cars thundered down the opening straight. Shelby stood in the infield, the brim of his cowboy hat shielding his face from the sun. He kept his eye on Surtees, who easily led the race. This track brutalized cars, and Shelby knew his only chance was if Surtees broke down. Then it happened: a tire blown on the banking. Surtees fishtailed in a cloud of smoke and dirt onto the grass. His Ferrari was done for the day. Flinging rubber had wrecked some of its bodywork.

  Switching off, Miles and his teammate Ruby took command of the race. Miles knew how to maneuver that banked turn—foot down, feeling the cracks in the pavement jimmy the suspension. The sight of Miles jetting into the banking at 190 mph got the crowds on their feet. As the sun began to set, Shelby noticed something strange. When Miles pulled into the pit, he leaned in to talk to Ruby. Miles had an English accent so heavy, some couldn’t understand a word he said. Ruby’s Texas drawl was so thick, he needed an interpreter himself. Miles couldn’t sit still. A nuke could detonate near Ruby and he might not blink his eyes. But they understood each other on a deeper level. Miles called the shots and Ruby had no problems. The car ran perfectly, smooth and fast.

  It was after 10:00 P.M. when the checkered flag waved. Shelby’s cars placed first through fifth. Eight weeks of preparation, and they had finally brought Henry II a checkered flag.

  Down at Victory Lane, Miss Universe, Corinna Tsopei of Greece, presented Miles and Ruby their trophy. Then the party started. “I got drunker than shit,” Shelby later remembered. Running on empty—no food and little sleep—it didn’t take much. Miles wasn’t a big drinker, but Ruby could crawl all the way into a Jack Daniel’s bottle. Leo Beebe’s cigar poked from out of an ear-to-ear smile.

  The next morning, the front pages of newspapers across the country detailed the world news. President Johnson’s precarious position in Vietnam was causing panic in the Capitol. Martin Luther King was calling for peace following the shocking assassination of Malcolm X in Harlem. In the sports pages, readers found something to smile about.

  An American car had won a sanctioned international race for the first time in more than forty years.

  14

  220 mph: February–June 1965

  AT THE CAVALLINO, a waiter slid a plate onto a table in front of Enzo Ferrari—a simple dish of fish and rice. Ferrari had invited a journalist from The New Yorker to sit with him at lunch. It was a rare occasion: he was in the mood to talk, and he unburdened himself on an array of philosophical topics.

  “Women are more intelligent and dominating than men,” Ferrari said. “Men are creatures of their passions, and this makes them victims of women. Ettore Bugatti, a great driver and racing car builder, and a fine gentleman, once told me, ‘The perfect machine does not exist, mechanically speaking. The only perfect machine is a woman.’”

  Did Ferrari have friends?

  “There is something disgusting about the word friendship. To me it represents something sublime, but I have not found it so in reality. I have no friends.”

  A social life?

  “No, none. Life passes soon enough. If you want to do one thing well, you have to work at it fast. A Ferrari may not be a masterpiece in exactly the same way that a great work of painting or sculpture is. It represents the work of many men bringing to life the ideas of Ferrari.”

  Religion?

  “I prefer living in a state of problems and contradictions to believing in religion. You must be courageous in looking at the truth. Only he who looks at the truth is a whole man. He who says, ‘Everything is good—let’s go on,’ is a fool. There are two kinds of people who do not ask themselves questions—those who are without conscience, and those who are religious. To me, religion is action. Sometimes, when driving on the autostrada at night, seeing the stars, I feel that there must be something infinitely grand that created this gigantic mechanism—but something that has no bodily existence. Not like what they teach you about religion in the schools. Moreover, I do not believe that this power, if it exists, is necessarily benign. It may also be evil.”

  In Modena, Surtees walked the streets greeting well-wishers and signing autographs. A sighting of the World Champion striding the cobbles brought great pride to the locals. Italy was a nation of hero worshippers, and Surtees embraced the fanfare. When he walked into cafés—an Englishman in Italy—people stood and applauded for him.

  But as the 1965 season began to unfold, the tension at the Ferrari factory began to tighten once again. Surtees spent days developing the new Le Mans car, breathing in the rubber dust at the Modena Autodrome, working with the technicians at the factory. As the warm weather arrived, he and his wife moved from one exotic city to the next. At the Grand Prix of Monaco there were celebrities and the beautiful harbor full of yachts festooned with lights. At the French Grand Prix the top qualifier won one hundred bottles of champagne. But there was barely a second to soak in the glamour. Surtees would be steering into a bend at 150 mph at one moment, then it was off to the airport for the next to
wn.

  Disastrous starts plagued Surtees all spring long. Broken engines, bent metal. Memories of the 1964 World Championship season were fading fast. Team manager Dragoni seized the opportunity, attacking the English driver while trying to elevate his Italian Lorenzo Bandini to number one on the team. Surtees’s relationship with Dragoni was like a tire worn down to the canvas, ready to blow, the consequences dangerous. The bitching match played out in the press. “La polemica di Surtees favoriva Bandini?”

  The World Champion refused to accept blame for the Formula One team’s disappointing performance. It was this rivalry with the Americans, he argued. The F1 campaign was being neglected because Ferrari was allocating his resources to the sports cars, to fending off Ford and Shelby. “Naturally, from a commercial point of view, Ferrari has to consider this first,” Surtees said bitterly in a filmed interview that could not have endeared him to his colleagues at the factory. “F1 comes last.”

  For Ferrari, it was the usual: interteam feuds, problems, and contradictions. There was conflict at every turn. As the next clash with the Americans approached, Ferrari took on the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), international racing’s governing body, over a new GT called the 275 LM (for Le Mans). To race a car in the GT class, Ferrari had to prove he’d built one hundred examples (for this was a production car, a customer car). He hadn’t built anywhere near one hundred. The FIA had let Ferrari slide in the past, but not this time. The 275 LM would have to race as a prototype, making it obsolete. Ferrari had spent many lire and work hours on the car. He played a trump card. He put out a statement and the headlines appeared all over Europe and North America.

  “Ferrari Cars Quit World Title Meets.”

  What was racing without Ferrari? He was so powerful, he could pull the plug on the whole sport single-handedly. But he was bluffing and everyone knew it.