Phil Kubik and I traveled south to Florida again in late winter to join the Skirmants and Red Nicar Racing, our English support group, for the traditional kickoff to our vintage racing season at the HSR Sebring Endurance Challenge. This trip saw us sharing Phil’s car, the always reliable #139 white ’64 356C Coupe (we alternate his car and mine). Phil enjoys a unique status within the Club, serving as the resident curmudgeon due to his vast experience and often acerbic commentary. He takes his role seriously and doesn’t suffer fools lightly. We always look forward to this event because we get to reconnect with friends we’ve not seen since last season (and we get to flee winter in Michigan).

Thursday evening, HSR held the second annual party on the circle in downtown Sebring. Phil followed the police escort into town and parked #139 with the other racecars and began answering questions from the townsfolk. After brats and a beer, he found a nearby bench to sit on and struck up a conversation with a local fellow. This guy looked like he had been ridden hard and put away wet more times than not and Phil found out that he had been implanted with both a pacemaker and a defibrillator, testament to his outward appearance. Imagine Phil’s surprise when he learned that this man was only fifty-six years old. Imagine that fellow’s surprise when he found out that our beloved curmudgeon was seventy-seven! You know what they say, it’s not the years, it’s the mileage.

Lane Mally and Bob Garretson (yes, that Bob Garretson) flew in to round out the team and we set about practice, bedding tires and brakes, qualifying and racing. Garretson was along to co-drive with Skirmants in the (3) hour Enduro on Sunday. For the endurance racers, the rest of the weekend, even the sprint races, is just preliminaries, nothing more than a warm-up. As you’ve read here before, the racecars representing 356 Enterprises treat the entire three hour race as a sprint, going all-out all the way (hey, no worries—they’re Porsches).

Porsche was very well represented in the Vintage Enduro as the field of (55) entrants only showed (7) cars from other manufacturers. My buddy Burt Levy complains about the preponderance of Stuttgart’s finest in the long races but even he admits the truth of it is that it’s tough to keep old British cars running for the times and distances involved. Anyhow, with qualifying done and the Klub Sport race completed, the undercard was now done and the main event could proceed.
Over the course of the weekend, Barbara had come down with some bug that knocked her down hard and had fought valiantly to get well enough to run the 356 Enterprises pits on Sunday morning. No sooner than she had gained strength than Vic had come down with the malaise. Now we’re scrambling to line up a co-driver for Bob in the #70 Roadster. Paul Swanson rises to the challenge and he and Bob start working on strategy and stint times.

Meanwhile, Phil and I have settled our strategy and it’s pretty simple; Phil starts the race and drives as long as he can and then we swap and I drive to the end. Really pretty simple except that we have to make (3) five-minute pit stops within certain regulations and the car won’t run more than 1 ¼ hours at full-throttle on a tank of fuel (110 leaded). So while our strategy seems simple on the face of it, it’s really more complex as we have to coordinate driver swaps and refueling with the possibility of full-course yellows and one “surplus” regulation pit stop. That’s OK, we’re up to it, that’s why we earn the big bucks. With all of our planning set and our contingency measures memorized, Phil suits up, buckles in and heads down to the false grid while I head to the pits.

Phil is legendary for his skills and wiles at the start of races (it’s one of the reasons that I love racing with him) and he is proud to demonstrate that age and treachery can beat youth and enthusiasm. Today is no exception and in the first lap he moves the well-placed #139 another nine or ten positions up the field, passing a bunch of cars that clearly out-qualified us. As the race winds on, the field starts to spread out and those cars he passed can finally find their pace (and their wits). Slowly, they begin reeling him in but he doesn’t just roll over and play dead, Phil figures they have to earn the pass and he has a ball dicing with all these guys, one after the other, as the laps wind on. Fighting particularly hard with one competitor, he over-cooks it in the hairpin and spins off the course. Even so, he only loses 20 seconds on the lap.

After awhile, he’s tiring and signals me that he’s going to bring ‘er in so we set up for a full stop with refueling and oil top-off. Bill Stevens assists me with the refueling stop and Phil climbs out of his car after nearly an hour of full on sprint racing. Great job! At the five-minute mark, I’m off and running, well into the shank of the race and with the pit stop rotations begun, I have no idea of our position in the field, only that Phil has done very well at keeping us up where we wanted to be. Only a few laps into my stint, I get a little too aggressive passing a couple of 356’s ahead of me and run wide on exit of one turn, clipping the track-out rumble strip harshly and suddenly, ‘ol #139 is down on power. Damn! It feels like I broke an exhaust rocker. I do my best to limp around but have nothing to fight with as the two tubs I’d just passed retake me. I dive into the pits and Bill reacts perfectly, hopping over the wall and raising the engine lid to diagnose the problem. Luckily, it’s traced to a sparkplug wire I had knocked loose with my trip over the curbing and he sets the Coupe singing again.

I burn off the rest of the pit stop and chalk it up as lucky that we had a surplus one to dispense with. Back on track, I give chase, passing those I can catch and being passed by those I can’t hold off. Among the huge number of Porsches, the field holds a good number of 356’s. George Balbach and Mark Eskuche in George’s Roadster, Dale Irwin in his Speedster, John Winter partnered with Bob Blain in John’s Coupe, Paul Swanson and Bob Garretson in Skirmants’ Roadster, and John Biggs with Bill Keith in John’s Speedster.

When I come in for my last refueling stop, I overshoot our pit stall and the crew has to scramble to run fuel cans, fire extinguisher and top-off oil a half-dozen stalls down the wall to take care of me. Off I go for the final stint, still unsure of our position but running strong. Soon enough, the laps wind down and I take the checker. Entering the pits following the cool-off lap, #139 is not waved to Victory Lane so I know we didn’t win our class (although we weren’t expecting to considering our competition). Phil flags me into our pit box and gives me a bear hug—it’s over and we’ve finished a grueling endurance race.
By the time we’ve loaded the tools and spares and headed back to our compound, the results are out and Phil and I finished 2nd in class, 16th overall and one lap down on the class-winning Speedster of Biggs & Keith. Phil and I are ecstatic having finished ahead of the likes of Erwin, Swanson/Garretson and Balbach/Eskuche. I credit it to the spectacular start that Phil made, putting us in position to finish so high up the field. That curmudgeon has his moments.