1928 Le Mans

1928 — Two months before the sixth running of the 24 Hours, Dr Benjy Benjafield organized a small band of motoring brothers, with the Bentley Le Mans team as an informal nucleus. The British Racing Drivers Club was conceived as a largely social entity to promote motor sports in general and celebrate any special or noteworthy performance, usually with a fairly serious evening meal, and to extend hospitality to racing drivers from oversees. The BRDC got its first big chance at Le Mans on June 16, 1928.

New rules finally recognized the reality that fans had known since May ‘23 and crowned an overall winner in addition to the obtuse Biennial Cup and the quaint Index of Performance.

Bentley was joined by green cars from Aston-Martin, Lagonda (supported by an enthusiastic confederation of Britain’s top Lagonda dealers) and front-wheel-drive entries from Alvis. American cars included a quartet of white Chrysler Model 72 two-place open tourers (with rumble seats to satisfy the four-place rule for large-displacement cars) and a sinister looking funereal-black Stutz DV (pictured above leading). This noble Black Hawk roadster – with the potent Model AA OHC engine and Stutz’ celebrated underslung worm final drive – allowed an extraordinarily low center of gravity.

The paragraph requiring the drivers to raise the tops of their cars was finally erased for the ‘28 race, and the 4:00 o’clock sprint was judged to be even more exciting with the Bentleys, Aries and the lone Stutz away first.

Frank Clement demolished the lap record from a standing start, raising the ante to 72.7mph in the No. 8 Bentley. The Chryslers joined the green parade, just behind the Stutz. On the third lap, Robert Laly’s Aires, that had been annoying the Stutz at close quarters just a lap earlier, pitted unexpectedly and retired.

The Bentley Boys were constantly in the company of the three-speed Stutz, though usually in the lead. Premium American cars of the era relied on flexibility and the paramount virtue of torque to define their high performance capabilities. Top speed and the ability to reach top gear quickly from rest were the ultimate American automotive virtues of the Twenties and Thirties. The Stutz’ juicy torque curve was so flat that only the two top gears were required once the black No. 1 car achieved walking pace leaving the pits.

The Stutz vs. Bentley duel continued into the night and morning when the first tarnish on the Bentley badge appeared. While a flat tire had hobbled the Davis/Chassagne Bentley for nearly three hours, it was the near the 10-hour mark that the 4 ½-liter No. 2 of Clement and Benjafield went to the dead car park claiming a water pump failure. In fact, vibrations had cracked the chassis, slowly dislocating the lower radiator hose and allowing all coolant to escape and the water pump to – quite naturally – quit. That left only the No. 4 Bentley of Le Mans rookies Capt. Woolf Barnato and Bernard Rubin to fight the Stutz.

That battle continued into Sunday afternoon when the problem that had visited the Clement/Benjafield Bentley was found to be endemic, and the whole posture of the leading 4 car slowly became deranged. W.O. Bentley discovered that certain benefits of racing at Le Mans went well beyond commercial and promotional considerations. The 4 ½-liters’ chassis-cracking problem had never appeared before and, without the abuse of Le Mans, might have been ultimately unearthed by his customers – an abhorrent prospect to a man of Bentley’s character.

The problems in the Stutz pit were somewhat more conventional but even more crippling. The Black Hawk had lost all but one gear, and even the lurching Bentley with Barnato aboard was able to keep a one-speed Stutz at bay. No such troubles on the Birkin/Chassagne Bentley that was racing the clock to qualify for the ‘29 race. In the final hour, Birkin reeled off a stunning fastest lap of 79.126mph en route to fifth place behind two Chryslers, the crippled Stutz and heroic No. 4 Bentley of Barnato and Rubin.

The little 1100cc Samson won the Rudge-Whitworth Cup and the No. 27 Alvis won the 1100-1500cc category and sixth overall. The two-liter class victory went to French-driven Italia but was outrun by the Alvis and the 750-1100cc class winning B.N.C.

The performance of the American cars was sufficient to earn the respect even of the Bentley Boys and most of the newly minted BRDC members whose generous hospitality went only so far.