12 Hours of Sebring Race 1966

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• published: 08 Jun 2014
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The 1966 12 Hours of Sebring was an endurance race held at the 5.2 mile (8.3 km) Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida, United States on March 26, 1966. It was the sixteenth running of the endurance classic and the second round of the 1966 World Sportscar Championship season. The race proved to be a disastrous event; one of the darkest in American motorsports history. Ford had just come off a 1-2-3 triumph at the first 24 Hours of Daytona in February, with 2 of their 7-liter engined GT40 Mk.II's being run by Carroll Shelby. They had effectively trounced Ferrari and Porsche, and were looking to do the same thing at Sebring in March. Ford's assault on Sebring (which has always been a good preparation run for Le Mans) was unprecedented. There were 11 GT40 Mk.I's, Mk.II's and a special X-1 Roadster (which was a heavily modified GT40 Mk.I with an aluminum chassis, a Mk.II nose, no roof and a 7-liter 427 engine, the same motor in a Mk.II) at Sebring- these cars were entered by at least 5 different teams- all of whom had direct factory support. The two main works teams, however, were Shelby-American, a team with direct connections to Ford and seasoned with lots of road-racing experience; and the Holman & Moody team, which was known for its successes in NASCAR. There were also 2 works Ferrari's (originally there were supposed to be 5) and 2 Chaparral 2D's. American Dan Gurney qualified his Shelby-entered Mk.II on pole position with a lap record of 2:54.6, followed by the new Ferrari 330P3 of Bob Bondurant and Mike Parkes, then a Mk.I of Britons Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart, then another Mk.II of Americans Mark Donohue and Walt Hansgen, then the X-1 of Briton Ken Miles and American Lloyd Ruby and then a Chaparral 2D of Americans Jim Hall and Hap Sharp. Ford would dominate yet again. Gurney and Grant were leading- and on the last lap, while Gurney was driving, the car's engine failed. People at the pits were expecting Gurney to take victory- but Ken Miles crossed the finish line first in the GT40 X-1. Gurney was pushing his GT40 Mk.II on the course, and he made it to the finish line. Although pushinlg a car during the race was illegal- and the car was disqualified, and the Holman/Moody entered GT40 Mk.II was awarded 2nd place. 3rd was an Essex Wire entered GT40 Mk.I of Skip Scott and Peter Revson, and then a works Porsche finished 4th. Text from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_12_Hours_of_Sebring CO22 For Licensing: Global ImageWorks, LLC., 65 Beacon Street Haworth, New Jersey 07641 info@globalimageworks.com telephone: 201-384-7715 fax: 201-501-8971