Challenge to Early S Owners with Engines Built by Indianapolis 500 Champions

[mshaver51]

Although I'm guessing that I'll get some flack on whether this is a "technical" topic, I am hereby offering a challenge to other Early 911S members by saying that the newly reconstructed engine for 1968MY 911 SWT #11880001 is the ONLY 911 engine which was built by a member of a racing team that has won the Indianapolis 500.

I managed to coax Paul Ross, of Ross Motorsports, out of retirement to build me aluminum case 2.0. Paul has 28 years of racing experience, including stints with AJ Foyt, Pancho Carter, and the Bettenhausen boys, and Paul won the Indy 500 in 1996 with Buddy Lazier driving.

(It should not be necessary to say this, but I hope it is obvious that this challenge is offered for entertainment purposes, only. We're just trying to generate some friendly discussion amongst the membership.)

Oh, and just to make sure that we are open-minded on this topic, if your car's engine was built by a champion of one of the lesser races, like Daytona, Talladega, etc., please feel free to mention that, too. We can include the information in some sort of 'secondary' class of responses.

(Let's have a little fun....)

[csbush]

My 911 engine was rebuilt by Bob Jones- son (and factory trained Porsche magician) of TWO time Indy 500 winner Bill Jones. Not that rare here in San Antonio. Bill has done a bunch too They are awesome

[RSTarga]

^^^^ Just as Chuck, my engine and car were rebuilt and maintained by Bill and Bob. They manage to do some Porsche work between Offy engines. Bob still drives his midget from time to time.
Bill helped out a guy by the name of Hans Mezger when he tried his hand at Indy.

[mshaver51]

very cool that the discussion is begun...

okay, so, since Bill Jones didn't drive the car, what years and what teams did jones wrench for when he won?

[RSTarga]

1955 and 1956 with Jack Zink Racing
They won the Championship in 1955 too.

[Jon B]

...is the ONLY 911 engine which was built by a member of a racing team that has won the Indianapolis 500.

Just to be clear, teams such as Hemelgarn Racing did not build their own CART or IRL engines.

Jon B.
Vista, CA

[RSTarga]

Much like F1 once the Offy engine disappeared, none of the teams even touched their engines. The manufacturers pretty much supply engines ready to drop in. Bill bought some of the tooling from Drake engineering for the Offy engines and now has improved and reproduced many parts for restorers and the circle track community. There's always an engine or two or a car lurking in the shop. It's amazing how simple these cars were, Beautiful cars, but they were death traps too.

[RSTarga]

Here are a couple of teasers:

[mshaver51]

it always makes me smile when people share information. many people associate clubs like the registry with a 'monolithic' focus -- in our case being Porsche 911s. but when the discussion moves past our obvious interest in 911s, we find that the m,embers have interests and knowledge that reaches far out of the Porsche environment and into other fields, like IndyCar. and for me, the IndyCar connection is a bit ironic, given the relationship between Porsche and IndyCar.

i could not be happier than to hear of other engines built by IndyCar Team members that won the 500. and the additional information (like the comments about the old Offys) is equally invigorating.

this is really cool and yet another testament to the intellectual capital in this community. of course, the engine suppliers built their engines for IndyCar. (i hope i didn't mis-state my premise.) Paul actually told me that there were lots of IndyCar mechanics that were in the Porsche world. it simply seemed that an entertaining way to start the conversation was with a challenge.

I'm still interested in hearing of other connections of our cars with IndyCar and the 500 (and other races). are there more out there?

[Jim Breazeale]

Hi Mike

I bought my 71 911T in August, 1973 from Paul Ross when he lived in San Carlos, Ca and worked for Mario Andretti. He used to commute from the SF Bay Area to Indianapolis in the car. Paul wrote me a note in August of 1997 wanting to buy the car back. I don't think he would mind me posting a copy of the note. I have redacted his phone number. I politely declined, by the way. It did lead us reconnecting after 24 years. He found out that I founded EASY and I found out that he moved to Indianapolis and founded Ross Motorsports, doing work on Porsches and Indy cars. It's a small world!

Regards

Jim