1968 American Road Race of Champions, Riverside

[Eric Gratz]

The Collections of the Henry Ford have a number of photos of the American Road Race of Champions (ARRC) held at Riverside International Raceway in November, 1968. The photos below are part of the Dave Friedman Collection. There were a number of early 911s at this race including the Don Burns 1968 911S driven by Alan Johnson that was recently rediscovered.

The Sedan B race was held on November 23, 1968 and included

#2 Fred Baker
#69 Wilbur Pickett
#75 J.W. McClughan
#79 Don Zacharie
#81 Gary Wright
#83 Don Pike
#84 Alan Johnson
#87 Gil Ranney
#86 Sarah Gregory

The C Production race was held on November 24, 1968 and included

#5 Tim Startup
#14 Milt Davis
#15 Alan Johnson
#16 Milton Mitner


https://www.thehenryford.org/collect...-asc&view=grid






Attachment 564149

[adam912]

MAN I miss that place. My Dad took me to just about every race at Riverside. I was there for the Porsche IROC races, Donohue's amazing run in the 917, lots of Vintage races.
My Mom had a '58 Porsche Normal coupe, Dad had a Morgan +4. What fun it was when the two raced head to head in (I think it was) E Prod!.

[Chuck Miller]

These are FANTASTIC Eric !!!!!

In the first photo the Toyota 2000 was driven by Scooter Patrick (usually partnering with Davey Jordan in the sister car, both out of Shelby)
Both Scooter and Davey were SUPER Porsche drivers...

The two orange '68S's #15 and #16 of Johnson and Minter were run out of Richie Ginther's race shop part of John von Neumann's Competition Motors...

One of the B Sedan Alfa GTA's was owned and driven by local SoCal hot shoe Vic Provenzano...
My friend Hector and I would help pit for Vic two years later at the Riverside and Laguna Seca 2.5 TransAm's...

Wonderful memories...... THANKS !!!!

[Flunder]

I was a junior dipstick fooling around with cars at the Corvettes of Massachusetts autocross events in 1968.

While Ralph Mooney's Irish Green 65 car was always the fastest 911 at those events, the FTD was often won by Peter Consiglio, based out of Worcester, Mass. and running engines in his 427 Cobra comp roadster put together by the local FoMoCo maestro Gus Zuidema. Consiglio also won the New England SCCA regional A Production honors that year and earned an inviitation to the '68 ARRC.

At the 1968 ARRC Riverside runoffs, Consigiio held third position for most the AP race, outclassed by the GM supported L88s. But he ended up taking the AP trophy home anyway after getting his Cobra across the finish line ahead of race leader Tony DeLorenzo, whose L88 Corvette got tangled up with another coke bottle Corvette, both spinning on the last lap.

Winning at the runoffs was just huge in those years. Great post Eric, this is my favorite sports car era!

[Eric Gratz]

Here are a few more shots of 911s from the race

[Fubawu]

Does anyone have details on the #16 car. From the pictures I've seen Milt was racing an orange 911 S in late 67 to mid 68. As I mentioned to Chuck earlier I was thinking it might be a 67 car.

Does anyone know of Tangerine cars that raced on West coast from 67 onwards?

[Eric Gratz]

Here’s Milt in a 911 with a 68/69 door handle. Maybe someone can date this picture to understand if this was a 1968 MY or 1968 MY car.



https://www.early911sregistry.org/fo...r-driving-suit

[Chuck Miller]

If I remember the story correctly (it's been a long time) the 2 orange cars were '68S's shipped to von Neumann late in '67 for the '68 racing year...

Harold Broutner (sp?) was Richie's shop foreman and Johnson's racing mechanic, and Klaus Holthaus was Minter's...

As far as I know Competition Motors campaigned these same '68 SWB C/Production cars in 1969...

Also in '69 the same Competition Motors team was the US support when the factory brought over 917 PA 'flounder' for Seifert to test and race...

[Eric Gratz]

Chuck,

I think your recollections are correct.

Here are two pictures from the Rev Institute collection of photos from the 1969 SCCA National held at Sears Point on July 19th, 1969.

Alan Johnson was the driver for #1 and Milt Minter the driver for #2. The SWB vent windows can be seen in both pictures.

https://library.revsinstitute.org/di...on=p17257coll1

[Fubawu]

Doesn't it seem odd to bother with importing a 68S opposed to running a 67S. Was it complicated getting a 68S into the country as it didn't meet regs?