to be shared by Richard Brooks and Dick Hutcherson. NASCAR and the Le Mans race organizers paid the expenses for the teams and transportation.Don't for a minute think these good ol' boys were being served as gator bait to Europe's racing elite. Hutcherson had already been to Le Mans as a member of the previously mentioned Ford GT40 effort, finishing third overall in 1966 teamed with Ronnie Bucknum. Herschel McGriff was the most seasoned road racer among them.
, the Two Monsters. But that wasn't out of fear or disdain; it was a term of endearment, one shared by the enthusiastic, international crowd. According to a period race report by Richmond News Leader sportswriter Randy Hallman, the cars and teams were swarmed."From the moment they arrived in France, the hulking Detroit beasts created a stir, fans flocked around the cars wherever they went.
"That was the first thing that came up at the meeting. 'Put side mirrors on the big American cars!' Of course, we did. You know, we could go down the straightaway faster than anybody. It would go over 200 down the Mulsanne straight, blowing by those Porsches and all, but when I got to the 90-degree corner at the end of a run, I couldn't make it stop."
"Them big pistons just wouldn't take it, and we burned up the first two engines in practice. We added head gaskets to get the third engine to last, and NASCAR was trying to round up some higher-octane gas, but couldn't. We didn't do a good job of representing the class, and maybe that's why it didn't run a second year. If we'd have run the whole race, and finished, maybe it could've worked.
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