The 917 era

Yes indeed, I'm VERY familiar with the 917. That first reference of a win noted in my posting was the tip of the iceberg for this car. You are right, they dominated everything.

I was there at Talledega,the day Roger Penske flew Mark Donahue into the center of the race track in a helicopter. Mark walked over to a nicely prepared 917 with over 1000 turbocharged horsepower at the time, and on his first full lap of Talledega, he broke the world record for sustained average speed on a closed race track. Be broke it again on the next two laps and then drove into the pits. They made an announcement, everyone cheered, and off he went in Penske's helicopter to Watkins Glenn.

Those were the days!!!!!

The 917 was clearly a new era, coming along after the era of the pushrod V8 big block had pretty much taken it's course. As Porsche does with their road cars, engineers couldn't keep their hands off the 917, and it just kept getting faster and more reliable. That car is one of the alltime significant milestones of automobile racing.

Regards,

Paul