Phil Hill in the shark nose, high back TRI-61. Hill and his mate Olivier Gendebien won by two laps over its sister car #15.
Ferrari #15 finished second. Originally driven by Willy Mairesse and Giancarlo Baghetti, it was taken over by Richie Ginther and von Trips when their rear engined car failed.
Amazing as it seems, the Rodriguez brothers car ran all 12 hours. Their TR59/60 was only 1 lap from 2nd and 3 from first. The brothers were always fast but rarely finished endurance races.
An odd pairing of Jim Hall and George Constantine in this unusual 2.5 liter Dino. While beaten by the Holbert/Penske RS-61, they did finish first in the 2.5 class and 6th overall.
The remarkable story of Denise McLuggage and jazz saxophonist Allen Eager in this Berlinetta. They drove the car from New York, won the GT class and dove it home. This is Eager braking for the hairpin.
Buck Fulp and Skip Hudson drove this more conventional Dino to first in the 2 liter class. It was not quick and finished only 18th overall.
Hello Fernando, the Ferrari’s side was hit hard by our #8 Aston with Sherm Decker at the wheel. The Ferrari continued until its differential packed up.
Cunningham had given up on Jaguar as they had no current cars. The team switched to Maserati and had great success with the tipo 61 Birdcage. Here Walt Hansgen races the tipo 63 rear engined car. Bruce McLaren was his co-driver. The car was a dn
The photo says it all. Moss with his arms out, relaxed posture and going faster than anyone. At the hairpin in the birdcage he shared with Dan Gurney.
Here is the barcboys story. The Aston-Martin DB4 GT of Bob Bucher and Sherm Decker. The car was sponsored by John Bunch, but the car was all Aston-Martin on a team run by David Ash.
The 2nd DB4-GT was driven by Bob Grossman and Duncan Black. We always felt our black car was the gunfighter and the white car was the sheriff.
Taped up and ready to go, Bucher (straw hat) talks it over with Dave Ash (back to camera). Decker in back with the same straw hat chats with an official.
Big Jake Bucher, complete with his old leather strap helmet gets out of the car in practice. Bucher would finish the season as the SCCA FM champ in his Porsche RSK. Oh, he bought a new helmet at the track that he wore during the race.
Bob Grossman was a big man. In this photo at the start he is climbing into #7 and ready to go 12 hours with Duncan Black as his co driver.
The white #7 Aston on the long back straight.
Sherm Decker races into the black car. Decker was a good high school football player and athlete. The car stumbled while starting and did not get off quickly.
Decker flies by in the opening laps. Always a hard charger, he found the Aston’s brakes were so cold he could not stop at the hairpin and used Tavano’s Berlinetta to make the turn.
At the first stop, Rex Woodgate pounds out the RR fender . The entire side was raked when Decker hit the Ferrari.
Rex then switched to the RF which was also dinged in the collision.
Far more serious were the frozen wheels on both Aston’s. The cars has not standard Borrani wheels to take bigger tires. They were tight on the splines and literally welded themselves. Rex, the ultimate mechanic worked tirelessly to fix the proble
IN this shot Rex is using a long bar to try and pry or loosen the wheel. Believe me, Woodgate was a big, strong man, yet even with his strength the wheels would not budge.
The last solution was to hacksaw the wires and hope to then pound the wheel off the hub.
While Rex worked on the white car, Decker is headed towards the hairpin with the RF hub already broken. Sherm would park the car and take the long walk back.
The factory Sprite of Ed Leavans and John Colgate race one of the Alfa Sprint Speciales. The Sprites beat the Alfa’s handily. Colgate drove Healey’s almost exclusively. Leavans, a Canadian, drove for the factory at Sebring many times.
The #1 Corvette is stranded while the Rushin/Stevens TR3 goes by. Yenko did get the car running and finished 151 laps. The TR-3, with its removable hardtop, finished 3 laps in front of the Corvette.
Penske in #51 Porsche passes the Bud Gates/ Harry Heuer Corvette. 65 cars started the race. The Vette was a late entry which explains its high number of 83.
You’d never see this today. In 1961 there were no buildings at the track. In this photo, most of the Ferrari team is being prepared in an old body shop in downtown Sebring. How many millions are those cars worth today?
This is how the barcboys got to Sebring. The Nicholas 1950 Ford flathead V8 made it 1200 miles down and back again. Note the custom trunk support.
prev / next