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Porsches at the Watkins Glen Six-hour Endurance Race

Story by Harry Kennison, Photos by Greg Glassner and Richard Mitter

Vintage Corner is pleased to welcome a couple of contributing photographers this month who have kindly submitted some images from the 1969 and 1971 Watkins Glen Six-hour Endurance races. Back in the late '60s and early '70s, Watkins Glen, nestled in the heart of the Finger Lakes Region in upstate New York, hosted one of three U.S. rounds in the World Championship for Sports Cars (Daytona and Sebring, Florida being the other events). Fans attending the six-hour race at the Glen actually got twice the racing for their money, as a CanAm race was held on the same weekend.

I met Greg Glassner at last year's Fall Foliage Tour when he navigated for PCA member Keith Welty in Keith's beautiful silver 2005 Boxster S. In fact, the pair followed me for the whole event and we shared a table at Basil's where we talked about the need for new material for Vintage Corner. A few days later, Greg sent me a photo from one of his visits to Watkins Glen in 1971.

The other photos from the 1969 Watkins Glen race are courtesy of my old college roommate, Richard Mitter. He and I have been going to races for 40 years now, but this six-hour race at the Glen was one he attended and I couldn't make it. Although he'd never admit it, Mitter is an accomplished motor-racing photographer, having been published most recently in the British monthly publication Motor Sport as well as in Pete Lyons' book CanAm Photo History.

We are always looking for old Porsche racing photos for Vintage Corner, as it's not only a great way to share part of the Porsche mystique with other club members, but it also helps me out as I'm running out of old Porsche photographs! So dig through your old photos and send them to me at harry.kennison@comcast.net. I'll be happy to turn them into a story for Vintage Corner.

 


  Click on any photo to enlarge it

Brian Redman in his Porsche 908-2 storms past the Tony DeLorenzo Corvette, en route to an overall win at the 1969 six-hour race in which he co-drove with Jo Siffert.

Vic Elford and Dickie Atwood drove their Porsche 908-2 to a fine second-place finish.

American Porsche pilot Joe Buzzetta, sharing his 908-2 with the German Rudi Lins, completed a 1–2&ndash3 sweep for Porsche in the 1969 six-hour event.

The second-place Gulf–Weyer Porsche 917K driven by Jo Siffert and Gijs van Lennep leads the #6 Sunoco Ferrari 512M of Mark Donohue and David Hobbs, with the factory 312B Ferrari of Jacky Ickx and Mario Andretti in hot pursuit during the 1971 Watkins Glen Six-hour Endurance race.