Vintage Motorsport’s 2019 Sept-Oct Issue now available

 

My first time working timing/scoring at Daytona 24 Hours.
I walked into the timing scoring trailer in the first turn into the infield
and said I'm here to work timing scoring.

A guy half way down the aisle said: "Here you can take my cars"
Cars?........I had thought I would doing only one car..........

He said:: "They are all Porsches".
.....and they were....they were all 908 long tails and running 1-2-3 at the time.

I thought: I better not mess THIS up.

and I didn't...I fell into a rhythm....
They were 51, 52, 53
they would appear right at the same number of minutes every lap......
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We had a clock that would flip to another second or minute or hour, every second
and a spotlight shining across the track whether the car was on the track or coming out of the pits.
The Prototype cars had a lit luminous panel made by Sylvania on both sides that was their number circle.
Cheaper cars had a forward-facing dash light from an MGB beside their number circle.
Thank goodness for the spotlight.

Dave and Sheila Haskard of MacDill Sports Car Club wrote a continuous strip of car numbers
and never missed a car as they drove by. The continuous strip was compared with the numbers and the cars's
individual cards that the timers (me) filled out each lap.
The Haskards never missed a car....for years....
Today Daytona uses transponders to score the cars.
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In 1969 several classes ran at the same time, and Daytona took every car that qualified.
If the car ran, the car qualified.
The field also included street cars like MGB's, Triumph Spitfires, and Bug Eyed Sprites running along with the "prototypes".

My Porsches were TWICE as fast as the Bug Eyed Sprites.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be passed in the same spot lap after lap for 24 hours?
....and then being passed AGAIN on the same track, in a different place by the same car?
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Those were good times. We got unlimited access to the entire track including pits, paddock , everywhere.....
We could stand right behind the pits and see them change tires only 10 feet away.
Workers got a small patch that said "Ds24" and a stylized track.
It was the first patch on my MacDill Sports Car Club Jacket.
We got one more entry into our SCCA timing/scoring logbook.
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