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Planetlemans talks To Vic Elford

By Gabriel Portos ⋅ June 5, 2007 ⋅ E-mail this post ⋅ Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

There was a time when racing drivers were active and competitive in circuits, roads or just a patch of dirt in the middle of the forest. Excelling back then was not what you call simple but Vic Elford did it in all fronts, even forcing success on one of the top manufacturers as you will see later. With an amazingly detailed memory and a charming personality it was a real privilege to spend time talking to Vic about racing, cars, rallys…

PLM- Vic, how did you force Porsche to do rallying with the 911?

VE- Your expression is exactly right. I had had a terrible year with Ford and I was looking for a change so I went and proposed Huschke von Hanstein (Porsche racing manager at the time) to use the 911 for a rally program. His answer was "we have no money and no rally program at Porsche" but I borrowed a car for Corsica and that was the start of the 911 in rally.

PLM- You became a Porsche driver and were there at the rise of the 917 in the Salzburg team and I wanted to ask you a question about that. I have read often how Porsche Salzburg was given a advantage over John Wyer’s team who were actually the factory team…

VE- That is not true. Wyer’s team had a lot more money than Salzburg in 1970 or Martini in 1971 but he always wanted to be 100% sure of everything. For example, Wyer did not want to use the long tail (Langheck) 917 at Le Mans in 1970 so they went for the short tails. But Ferdinand Piech (Development manager at Porsche then) simply said "you don’t want the long tail? Elford gets it". The same happened in Monza, we were all driving the 4.5 liter engine but Piech brought the new 4.9 liter and offered Wyer to run it. Wyer’s response was "we’re not ready for it and I want nobody else to use it" to what Piech replied as he did with the long-tail "you don’t want it? Elford gets it". The engine was in fact fantastic but Wyer did not want any risk. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great manager but he was very conservative. Piech and i on the other side were the opposite, always looking forward, always wanting to go a step further. And that’s why we became good friends, we could accept a bit more risk so I was always ready to follow him in doing so.

PLM- You run such a risk in 1969 with the brand new 917 at Le Mans, everyone always talks of the Ickx vs Herrmann duel but you guys were leading them by…

VE- 8 laps! Both cars were 8 laps behind and this is an achievement nobody talks about. The car was unstable but I was used to rallying so for me the feeling was familiar…

PLM- How did it feel to go into Hunaudieres with a car like the 1970 917 LH, number 25?

VE- Wonderful! My philosophy for Le Mans (same as Ferdinand Piech had) was always to have the fastest car. You should not race other people, wear down the car, just be faster. You did not need to race anyone with the 917 long-tail, it was 25 mph quicker than the rest!

PLM- But you also liked twisty races like the Targa Florio.

VE- I always loved the Targa, I have a lot of passion for that particular race. As a matter of fact I gave an interview to an Italian journalist that came all the way to Florida a few years ago, this was part of the 100^th anniversary of the Targa and she told me I was the quickest in the Targa and how was that possible. My answer was simple, I was the only driver that knew every inch of it, I had memorized the track completely.

PLM- I love that story where the wheel you lost became a table and the owner told you many years later that he had it.

VE- (laughs) It’s my favorite as well! Actually in June’s edition of Motor Sport there is a picture of me I had never seen before, you cannot actually see the cafe in Collesano where I met the wheel-table owner but it is there round the corner!

PLM- Let me ask you about another advanced car, the Chaparral 2J.

VE- It was an amazing experience. I was surprised initially that Jim Hall had asked me to drive it. He told me they had been looking for somebody who could work well on the car. He knew I worked well with engineers and he thought I knew what i talked about . I enjoyed the relationship with Jim as much as I did with Piech, it was a breakthrough, very advanced car. Actually he had had an accident running in Trans-Am so I was the first one to really drive the car to the limit, a real guinea pig. Nobody knew how the car would behave at the limit and then..nothing happened, it behaved perfectly!! It was not an easy car to drive, e.g. it had no clutch but it was really good, and in 3 weeks I’ll be driving it again!

PLM- Really?

VE- Yes, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and I already warned them they will have to distribute earplugs!!! (laughs)

PLM- How was your partnership with Gérard Larrousse?

VE- We drove in a similar way but our friendship goes further than that. During my first year in rally with Porsche (1968) I did the Monte Carlo and then in Corsica Porsche wanted also a French driver since there were good commercial opportunities. They asked me suggesting my best friend among French drivers, Jean-François Piot, but I suggested Larrousse. We’re still friends now and I’m actually visiting him in the south of France after Goodwood. We have the same philosophy, very quiet, got along well, we never had an argument! I always felt very comfortable with Gérard.

PLM- You are a Ringmeister, the real Nürburgring, the Nordschleife was a major challenge, impossible to memorize said Fangio…

VE- I hate to disagree with Fangio but…like the Targa I knew every inch of it. In 1966 I drove there the Marathon (84 hours) with Jochen Neerspach in a Lotus Cortina. In order to get everyone the right time to sleep and eat we had decided to run seven and a half hour stints.

PLM- Seven and a half hours of the Nordschleife???

VE- Indeed! Actually we were leading when we had to retire after 72 hours. In 1967 I did my first 1000km there with Neerspach in a 2 liter Porsche 910, we were not as quick as the 2.2 liter cars but we led until the last lap when alternator problems got us back to third. My second year on the marathon, now with the 911, I was chosen to drive the nights so I did four seven-and-a-half nights of the Nordschleife…after that I knew every blade on each tree (laughs). After that in 1970 and 1971 I won both the 1000 and 500 km races.

PLM- Pretty good memory then…

VE- I am lucky to have an excellent photographic memory, I memorized every race, I even memorized pace notes so I was repeating pace notes in my mind while driving automatically.

PLM- Vic, are you racing at historic events?

VE- No, I don’t race anymore. There’s too many amateurs with money buying very fast cars and racing them. The last time I did that was for the Can-Am 30^th Anniversary in 1996 at the beautiful road America circuit but it was too dangerous. So I only drive demonstrations at Goodwood, Monterey Historic, Porsche Rennsport here down the road…
PLM- Would you say there is a"best" car you have driven or…

VE- The 917. It had a bit of everything: looks, power, speed…It was a man’s car, you needed to tame it. It was the sort of car that separated the men from the boys. And for road cars the 911 in all its forms, the latest Carrera models are just fantastic!

PLM- Do you follow endurance racing these days?

VE- Not a great deal, except for Formula 1 (luckily) racing is going backwards. Everybody is more concerned with entertainment than racing. Look at Grand Am, it’s a great example of that. Regulations are such that any progress is blocked, cars are ugly as hell, they all look the same and there’s no reward for performance. One of the teams had developed great fuel economy and was able to do 1 fuel stop less than the rest even in this 2 hour 45 minute TV race format we have these days. So what did they do? They forced a compulsory stop before 45 minutes!!! So there goes all the hard work to improve, the team’s fuel economy was punished rather than rewarded. Same in the ALMS where LMP1s and LMP2s are evened out, performance is brought back to the level of the worst cars…. Same with the Diesel and Gasoline dispute, every step forward is blocked by rules. From a racing point of view it’s not good and guys like Piech, Forghieri.. they would pull their hair if they were managing teams now! Races should be won by the best racers in the best cars.

Charming, frank, outspoken. Vic Elford has been a personality in motorsports for over 40 years and it was both a pleasure and an honor to be able to share a conversation with him. Thank you Vic and enjoy Goodwood!

gabriel@planetlemans.com