1977 Le Mans

1977 — Hurley Haywood won the 24 Hours of Daytona for the third time in February 1977. He remains convinced that that performance -- including his mad midnight-to-daylight eight-hour marathon when co-drivers Graves and Helmick could not be found! – got him the call that put him in a Porsche 936 for the 42nd running of Le Mans.

Before Daytona, Haywood was suspicious that Porsche's new turbo 935 was not quite ready to win Daytona and opted for a familiar Carrera RSR. He was proved correct. But his duties at Le Mans called for him to share a Group 6 936 with second generation Porsche strong man Jurgen Barth instead of the 935 he imagined. No matter. It was Le Mans and a shot at winning the most important sports car race in the world on the first try.

What followed was beyond the imagination of those who wrote the spare script for Steve McQueen’s "Le Mans".

Haywood had no delusions that he was in the back-up 936. Jacky Ickx and Henri Pescarolo were the point men of Porsche’s two-car Le Mans effort for '77. They faced a four-car effort from Renault with Derek Bell as the only alien in the bunch.

Again the A442 was good enough for the pole position (Jean-Pierre Jabouille) with teammates Patrick Depailler and Jacques Laffite alongside. Ickx was next beside the Patrick Tambay/Jean-Pierre Jaussaud Renault. The Belgian was surrounded. Hurley and Jurgen were on the fourth row.

The tricolor appeared on schedule at 4:00 o’clock, waved by none other than Pierre Ugeux President of the CSI. The moment was a decisive victory for the A.C.O., as over 350,000 spectators jammed the tribunes and woods around the circuit. Le Mans made the front gate of even the British GP look puny. Now Ugeux could report the fact to the FIA in person on Monday morning.

The first clue regarding the conduct of the race occurred instantly. Rene Arnoux saw fire in his mirrors as he approached Mulsanne in the fourth A442, the "test mule", run inside the Renault team by Martini F2 manager Hughes de Chaunac. The marshals got the fire extinguished, but Arnoux’s day was done before the end of the first lap. Jabouille led the first lap followed by Rolf Stommelen in the Martini-Rossi 935 and Ickx's patient 936 (pictured).

Stommelen pitted the rapid 935 on the eighth lap with a loose rocker shaft. The problem was easy to fix but the remedy – more oil – would have to wait another eight laps; Stommelen was obliged to restrain himself for another 70mi when the A.C.O.’s lube-rule window would open. The relentless de Cadenet Lola pitted four laps later with clutch trouble. The fix took 15 precious minutes, and the No. 5, hero of the ’76 race, plunged down the order.

The Haywood/Barth 936 struck trouble in the second hour: a fuel injection pump replacement consumed 24min and the No. 4 936 backed down the scoreboard rapidly. Ickx was an easy second for Porsche, sandwiched by two A442 Alpine-Renaults. There were entirely too many retirements before afternoon became evening.

Ickx had restrained himself to the point that, by the end of the third hour, three Renaults led the Martini Porsche. But the 936 had greater range than the yellow A442s, and Ickx was content to race to a conservative plan. He pitted for service and relief from Henri Pescarolo in the third hour. All according to plan.

The frequency of pit stops played to Porsche’s favor. As the Bell/Jabouille Renault reentered the race Pescarolo went into the lead. The Frenchman fought over the lead for three laps with Jabouille in the Renault getting the advantage over the Pescarolo/Ickx Porsche.

A lap later, Pescarolo was missing. He had pushed the 936 too hard on the big run to Arnage. A trail of white smoke and a DNF were the result. It was the crystal moment of the race.

While the fans settled down to watch "le processionale" which they were certain would now follow, Porsche made an adjustment to their driver line-up. While Pescarolo walked home, Ickx joined Haywood and Barth in the surviving 936.

Ickx summoned the beast. By 1:00 a.m. Sunday he had demolished Francois Cevert’s '73 lap record by 2.3sec – over 141mph. He was running down the Renaults, making the enemy rethink its strategy, re-plot fuel consumption, reconsider everything. This is the true mark of a great driver – the ability to grab a race by the throat and dictate its conduct in detail. It was clearly a role Ickx relished. Barth and Haywood also became infected with the joy of this romantic pursuit and took their cues from Ickx. It was the finest kind of teamwork.

At 3:00 a.m. the pole Renault, the No. 7 Jaussaud/Tambay A442, was in with a broken engine. Just past half distance, Depailler pitted the No. 8 A442 with a sick gearbox. Only Jabouille and Bell remained ahead of Ickx, Haywood and Barth. Six laps ahead. The surviving 936 had come from 41st place to second. "It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen," said Haywood calmly, almost 20 years later.

The rain came at dawn. Only Chris Craft in Alain de Cadenet’s Lola was affected. Craft, among the most unlikely candidates for aquaplaning, took a boat ride and spent several laps in the pits while the small and obsessively dedicated British team fixed the broken body and chassis bits.

The Bell/Jabouille A442 led until 9:00 a.m. A holed piston (too lean, too fast) ended a fine race and any possibility of a showdown between Bell and Ickx, who won together for John Wyer in '75. The 936 had been eight laps behind. It took just a half-hour to make up the deficit. Behind them Depailler and Laffite, their gearbox healthy again, took up the Renault cause. In the hour between nine and 10 A.M., they closed to within one lap of Ickx, Haywood and Barth.

Just before noon the surviving Renault rolled to a stop near Arnage.

If there were to be a French victory, now it would have to come from Harley Cluxton’s Franco-Arizona team by way of John Wyer Automotive. Vern Schuppan and Jean-Pierre Jarier had their Renault V6 turbo-powered Mirage a distant second, 17 laps behind Ickx/Haywood/Barth. All seemed, again, resigned to "le procession". Only Craft in the de Cadenet Lola was in earnest pursuit, chasing the No. 88 Jean Ragnotti/Jean Rondeau Inaltera GTP as the final three hours unraveled.

Behind them Peter Gregg – Hurley Haywood’s mentor and partner for two Daytona 24 hours victories plus a one Sebring 12 Hour win – led Group 5 in the 935 he shared with Claude Ballot-Lena. There were just 45min remaining.

Hurley saw the white contrail of smoke in his mirrors early enough to save the race. It was fat white smoke with lots of body. Oil. A blown turbo perhaps. He got the leading car to the pits in time, now trailing a huge plume.

They had holed a piston. Their lead was 19 laps, but A.C.O. rules demand a rolling finish. There was no time to rebuild the engine. The mechanics removed the turbo and spark plug from the dead cylinder, and the Porsche sat for 30min. At 3:50 p.m., Jurgen Barth left the pits ahead of a blue contrail for his final laps. He appeared again eight minutes later to begin the final lap.

According to Haywood, the honor of finishing should have gone to Ickx, but the Belgian had used his maximum time in the car. The crowd cheered and applauded Barth throughout the shuddering final lap. German car or not, it was a gallant and heroic effort. In the end, the margin of victory was 11 laps.

It was Jacky Ickx’s fourth Le Mans victory, and it tied him with fellow Belgian Olivier Gendebien atop Le Mans’ short list of immortals.

Hurley Haywood returned to Jacksonville as a member of that small and elite group of racers who have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the first attempt.

Chris Craft and Alain de Cadenet were fifth, less than a minute out of third place. Peter Gregg and Claude Ballot-Lena were third and first in Group 5. A month later Renault made its F1 debut. In England.

It was an extraordinary show – Le Mans at its weird best. The 24 Hours was back from the doldrums of '75 simply by ignoring the CSI’s divisive Makes and Sports Car dual championships.

What Pierre Ugeux reported to his CSI confederates regarding what was perhaps the greatest Le Mans race on record is still unknown.