by A. J. Baime
Looping around the circuit in the darkness, the Shelby American drivers got pit signals to slow down and lap no faster than four minutes. Miles’s #1 car was in the lead, Gurney’s #3 car second, McLaren’s #2 car third. The drivers had their orders: No interteam racing. The only things that could change the finishing order were mechanical problems and pit stops.
At 4:10 A.M., minutes before the first hint of sunrise, Miles pulled into the pit. And he stayed there. The announcer began to scream over the loudspeakers. The leading car seemed to be in trouble. The pit crew was working over the car but no one outside the pit had any clue as to the problem.
It was the brakes. Miles had worked those disc brakes hard. His pit crew had practiced for days preparing for this moment. They went to work changing the front brake rotors, using the quick-change system that Shelby’s chief engineer Phil Remington had designed. In minutes they finished a job that would’ve taken a small-town team of mechanics several hours. The French officials started bickering. Was this legal? They’d never seen rotors changed so fast. Miles’s crew performed the same procedure on the rear brake rotors at 7:34 A.M. Crafty pit work saved the race for Miles. The sun was up, the rain had subsided, and the #1 Ford was hammering down the road.
Miles was now in second place behind Gurney’s car, but a few minutes after 9:00 A.M., the #3 Ford pulled into the pit with a radiator leak. The water temperature gauge was pinned. Gurney couldn’t believe it. First Sebring and now Le Mans. His luck couldn’t get any more rotten. But some in the pit didn’t believe he had bad luck. They said he’d pushed his car too hard because every time he had the lead, Ken Miles was right behind him, nudging.
“There was some talk in the pits that Ford thought that Ken did not follow team orders and pushed Gurney to the point of breaking,” Miles’s crew chief Charlie Agapiou later said. “That was absolute bullshit. Ken followed his directions to the letter. When he pitted on lap one to fix the door, he lost several places. After returning to the race, he had to go like hell in order to get back in second place behind Gurney. That’s where he was told to be.”
At 11:00 A.M., Henry II’s helicopter landed at the airfield behind the grandstands. He and his family made their way to the Ford pits, where they were filled in on the latest developments. It had been a long, brutal night. With five hours to go, Fords were running one, two, three, and four. Miles’s #1 car was leading, followed by McLaren’s #2 car. It appeared Mrs. Ford was going to lose her $1,000 bet.
Shelby watched the cars speed by, his eyes bloodshot and irritated. The sun peeked from behind clouds and disappeared again. The hands on the Dutray clock moved slowly. Around and around the leaders drove, the cars now battered and bruised, coated in a layer of soot. They were so filthy, their racing numbers were partly obscured. With roughly two hours left, Leo Beebe, Don Frey, and other members of the Le Mans Committee crowded into the pit. They were going to win Mr. Ford’s war against Enzo Ferrari, that much was clear. They were going to get to keep their jobs. But still there was an air of sobriety, a sense that the unexpected was still imminent. Conversation turned toward the finish. The suits asked Shelby how he thought this story should end.
“Well hell,” Shelby said as cars darted past a few yards away. “Ken’s been leading for all these hours. He should win the race.” Shelby looked at Beebe. “What do you think ought to happen Leo?”
Beebe thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’d kind of like to see all three of them cross the finish line together.”
An interesting proposition, Shelby thought. If the first-, second-, and third-place cars crossed the finish line together, the whole Ford team would win. They could stage a tie and Miles and McLaren wouldn’t have any reason to race each other to the end and risk crashing or blowing their engines. The #2 Ford was only a lap behind the #1 car.
“Oh hell,” Shelby said, “let’s do it that way then.”
Beebe asked Bill Reiber, president of Ford-France, to talk to the officials and see if a tie could be arranged. There’d never been a dead heat at Le Mans before. Reiber did some investigating and returned.
“Leo,” he said, “the officials say if you want to do it, they can arrange a tie and they will cooperate with you.”
What did the boss think? Beebe had a chat with Henry II and Mr. Ford approved. What a statement they would make! In the pit, McLaren stood readying himself for his last shift. Shelby approached him with the idea of a dead heat, and the pilot was pleased. If it weren’t for the trouble McLaren had with those Firestones at the start, and seconds lost with tire executives arguing in the pit over which rubber his car should be riding, he could’ve been in the lead anyway. Politics had slowed him down, and he had as much right to the win as anyone.
“Why don’t you bring the cars over the line together?” he said in his New Zealand accent. “It would be much better public relations. Get a good picture.”
At 2:46 P.M., Chris Amon slowed the #2 Ford into the pit for a final stop. His teammate McLaren was there, ready to jump in and finish the race. McLaren explained the situation.
“Who’s supposed to win?” Amon asked.
“I don’t know,” McLaren answered, cryptically. “But I’m not going to lose.”
At 3:01 P.M., Miles’s teammate Denny Hulme pulled the leading car into the pit, where Miles was waiting, readying himself to bring the winning car home. The crew checked the tires, brakes, and oil carefully. While they added fuel—27 gallons, enough to get the car to the finish line—Miles and Hulme leaned back against the pit wall, both wearing their helmets. Shelby walked up behind them. He put his left hand on Miles’s shoulder and spoke softly, ordering Miles to slow his pace and let McLaren catch up. Miles listened, staring through his sunglasses at the pavement beneath his feet. His body ached from exhaustion. The clouds had thickened and it appeared once again that the sky was ready to let loose on the crowd. When Shelby was done talking, Miles nodded his head.
“So ends my contribution to this bloody motor race,” he shouted. He pulled off his shades and threw them across the pit. Heads turned. The mechanics knew something was up, but they didn’t know what. All they knew was that Miles was suddenly furious. When Miles climbed into the cockpit, one of the crew leaned in.
“I don’t know what they told you,” he said, “but you won’t be fired for winning Le Mans.”
Miles threw the car in gear and rode off. Shelby watched him pull away. Miles was alone in the cockpit, with no one to control him. His destiny lay in his own hands and his right foot. He could keep up his speed and become champion of the greatest car race on earth, bring in the victory of a lifetime, a victory he had earned. He’d done the development work on this car. He’d won Daytona and Sebring. Victory would make for the triple crown. Or he could slacken and fall back into the dead heat. Give away the lead at Le Mans.
In the pit, the executives watched Miles, keeping their eyes on their stopwatches, waiting to see what he would do. Miles made those suits terribly nervous. On the track he kept an easy pace, and slowly the #2 Ford began to catch up. Miles lapped 10 seconds slower than McLaren, who was inching his way forward, gaining on the leader.
It would be a tie.
Suddenly Ford of France’s Reiber appeared again before Beebe with an urgent message. “Leo, the officials now say a tie isn’t possible.” Reiber explained that, apparently, according to the rules, McLaren’s car had qualified slower, so he had started farther back. Which meant at the finish, if there was a tie, McLaren’s car would have traveled the farther distance over 24 hours. McLaren would win by about 20 feet.
“Oh my God,” Beebe said, “that’s not what we want at all. Is there any basis for appealing that?”
“No,” Reiber said.
Beebe found himself in an excruciating predicament. What were they going to do now? They could call Miles and McLaren back in, inform them of the rules, and let them race it out. But that would be too risky. They could call them back in and tell McLaren to slack off
so Miles would win. But Miles had earned a reputation. Hadn’t he ignored pit signals to slow down, both here and at Sebring in March? Miles had rubbed some of the suits the wrong way. McLaren had been with the program since day one, long before Miles and Shelby, and he was one of the most well-liked men in racing. If Beebe let Miles win, he’d be giving the race to a guy that hadn’t always been a team player. Miles was, however, an American citizen, which Beebe had to factor into the equation. There were innumerable angles to consider. All the while, the clock’s minute hand rounded toward 4:00 P.M.
In the end, Beebe decided to do nothing. It was too late.
The excitement mounted during the final laps, as it always did at Le Mans. Spectators watched McLaren’s black and silver machine stalk the leader until, as one in the crowd put it, “the car was cruising dead astern like a great black shark waiting for the kill.” The announcer spouted wildly, unaware of the prefinish arrangements. Henry II watched and waited. The Dutray clock struck 4:00 P.M. A light rain began to fall, and in the pit the crews and executives stood on their toes in the mist so they could see the leaders when they rounded the White House bend in the final lap. The millions spent, the lives lost—all of it had led to this, America’s finest hour in international racing.
They appeared—three cars riding in a tight pack, moving slowly toward the checkered flag. Miles and McLaren flanked each other in the #1 and #2 Shelby American Fords, and just behind Dick Hutcherson was piloting a Holman Moody Ford in third, #5 in gold with black trim. Hutcherson was twelve laps behind, almost exactly 100 miles. Neither Miles nor McLaren knew of the ruling, that McLaren would be declared the winner on a technicality. As they drove next to each other, moving perhaps at just 40 mph, both must have believed that they still had a chance at the lone victory. Hands on the wheel, feet on the pedal, all either had to do was step down for one moment, speed ahead, and the checkered flag would be their own for eternity. Perhaps they made eye contact in those final seconds. As a race official moved into the middle of the lane to wave the flag, McLaren suddenly moved forward, ahead of Miles. But it made no difference.
The checkered flag waved and the crowds swarmed onto the pavement. It was, to employ the great sports cliché, pandemonium. The drivers had to be careful not to run anyone down. Miles’s teammate jumped into the car’s passenger seat, keeping the door open and waving at the fans. They believed they had tied for the win and Miles moved the car slowly toward the podium. French officials stopped him, explaining that Miles had finished in second place. There was confusion. Miles’s crew chief ran up to the car.
“I think I’ve been fucked,” Miles told him.
For some minutes, the crowds grew more confused. What was happening? Who had won? In the broadcast booth, the ABC commentator scratched his head on camera. The officials didn’t seem to know what was going on.
“Let’s face it,” Phil Hill said, “they know exactly what’s going on down there. We’re the ones who are confused.”
Finally, it became clear to all who the official winners were. Henry II stepped onto the podium along with McLaren and Amon. The Kiwi drivers were handed huge bouquets of flowers and magnums of Moét. They stared awkwardly at the crowds. This was not how they intended to win. But in the official books, their victory was logged. They had traveled 3,009.6 miles at an average speed of 131 mph (including pit stops and all those slow corners), faster and further than anyone had ever gone before at Le Mans. Officials impounded their car and checked through a list of regulations, prodding its innards and taking fluid samples as if performing a mechanical autopsy.
As the ecstatic “Star-Spangled Banner” blared from the loudspeakers, the crowds cheered the winning drivers and waved flags of all kinds in the air. The Deuce raised a glass of champagne to his lips and in that stony face of his—which so rarely revealed any emotion in public—the world saw a genuine smile creep up and lock in.
Alone in the crowd, Miles stood in the drizzle, flabbergasted. He was wearing a Goodyear jacket now and a striped toque, and he held not a flute of champagne but a glass of Heineken. His face was crunched into a look of awe and gut-wrenching frustration. Cameras snapped at him and he could do nothing but hold his glass up, his tired eyes blank. He had indeed been fucked. He’d lost by some 20 feet. It was later that Miles saw McLaren face to face. The two men stared at each other. Miles grabbed the new Le Mans champion in his arms and gave him a bear hug. The race was over.
McLaren and his teammate Amon were given a little taste of what it was like to be in the Deuce’s good graces. One VIP party followed another. Their pictures appeared in newspapers all over the globe, standing on the winners’ podium with Henry Ford II.
“From there on,” McLaren later recalled, “it was checkered flags, Champagne, and chauffeur-driven cars. Chris and I were flown to the States to attend Ford receptions. The enormous Lincoln that collected us at New York airport was flying a New Zealand flag on one wing and the Stars and Stripes on the other. In the plush drawing-room about 30 feet behind the engine, we swept through New York, feeling very much like the reigning monarch with all the peasantry peering in. Now I know how tough it must be at the very top.”
Miles returned to his little cottage on Sunday Trail in the Hollywood Hills, with its rugged floral gardens and the cat that knew how to sit on the toilet. Everyone knew he was embittered. “He just couldn’t get over it,” his teammate Denny Hulme later said. Miles declined to give many interviews, but he did talk to Bob Thomas of the Los Angeles Times, who he knew well. “I considered we had won,” Miles said about the now infamous photo finish. “But we were placed second by a technicality. I feel the responsibility for this rests with the decision by Ford, over my protests, to make the finish a dead heat. I told them I didn’t think it would work.” After the interview, Miles pleaded with the reporter. “Robert,” he said, “please be careful how you report what I have said. I work for these people. They have been awfully good to me.”
There wasn’t much more to do or say. One summer morning, Miles awoke, dressed himself, got in his car, and went back to work.
Appropriately, Henry II had the last word on Le Mans in 1966. The world was changing. Communist countries aside, borders no longer existed when it came to industry. This was a new era unfolding. “We don’t want to buy Ferrari anymore,” Henry II told one reporter before leaving France. “Now we fear most of all the Japanese.”
24
The End of the Road: June–August 1966
PARANOIA ATE AT John Surtees as he hurtled down the motorway in his Ferrari 330 GT, en route to meet with Mr. Ferrari. It was Wednesday, three days after the Le Mans finish. He had a press agent named Eoin Young with him. “I felt I ought not to be alone,” Surtees later explained, describing his state. He had broken his contract with Ferrari, and it was imperative that he get the kind of press he wanted. He wasn’t fired; he quit.
After they crossed the border into Italy, the pair pulled off the motorway into a roadside café to get some coffee. When Surtees walked into the café and got in line, the patrons spotted Il Grande John. As he stood there, more and more people recognized him. Then people rose to their feet and began to applaud for the British pilot. Had they not read their newspapers? The story was all over the place! But Surtees was a champion. He was used to the treatment. At this moment, however, the irony of it all stabbed at him.
Surtees and Young finally reached Maranello. Side by side they walked through the factory gate, their shadows trailing them on that bright summer day. Surtees was dressed as though he were entering a courtroom—dark business suit and tie, with a scuffed leather briefcase. They were met by Mr. Ferrari’s secretary Valerio, then Gozzi appeared. And finally, Ferrari himself.
The driver and his boss closed themselves into Ferrari’s office. These two men had always shared great respect. There would be no shouting. Surtees put forth his case: The team was throwing away opportunities because of absurd machinations and politics, he argued. He laid it all right there on Ferrari
’s desk, as perhaps no man ever had. What else was said in that office, only Surtees and Ferrari would ever fully know. “He made comments that explained a lot,” Surtees later recalled, “things that he never talked about again during his lifetime, so I am certainly not going to raise them after his death.”
The two agreed they would have to part ways, a “divorce” in Ferrari’s words. They had shared so many victories, and all the racing pundits would forever agree that, politics aside, they would have dominated Formula One in the 1960s together. But it was not to be.
Ferrari and Surtees emerged from the office. Gozzi and Young joined them and they did what anyone would have done in their shoes: they went across the street to the Cavallino and had a drink.
Two months later, in the California desert, August 17, 1966. In the pit at Riverside, Ken Miles took refuge from the cruel sun in the shade of a canopy. Shirtless, he squinted and scratched at the graying hairs on his chest. He’d spent the morning tearing up Riverside’s lap record in an experimental Ford racer called the J Car. In spite of Nader’s safety crusade, Henry II had recently announced a $10 million racing budget for 1967.
They were going back to Le Mans. Miles would have another shot at the checkered flag.
He’d driven exceptionally fast that day. Though the cockpit baked in the August heat, he was feeling strong and energetic. All those morning jogs through the Hollywood Hills had paid off. As he rested in the shade, preparing for one last run of the day, the crew checked over the car and changed the wheels. In the parking lot, Miles’s son Peter and a friend were messing around in a rental car. Behind the pits, a construction project was under way. With all the money flooding racing in 1966, Riverside was getting a $9 million makeover, with two new garages and offices to be occupied by Goodyear and Firestone.