TOP 12 SEBRING ENDUROS

12 1975 BMW BRAIN BEATS PORSCHE POWER

BMW’s Jochen Neerpasch reckoned that if the German team was going to beat the hordes of Porsche 911 Carrera RSRs with its 3.0 CSL ‘Batmobiles’ then it was going to have to break them over the bumps of the Sebring International Raceway. That explains why he sent off a hare at the start of the race.

Hans Stuck, who’d qualified on pole, and Sam Posey were given that role. The best of the Porsches took the bait hook, line and sinker: the Brumos entry driven by Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood made contact with another car as its drivers strove to keep up; and the car fielded by Al Holbert Jr, in which he was partnered by Elliott Forbes-Robinson, was delayed by technical issues.

BMW opted to park the hare after it ran into oil-system issues and moved Stuck and Posey across to the car in which Brian Redman and Allan Moffat had driven the opening stints. The foursome went on to take a decisive victory, finishing three laps up on the Porsche of owner-driver George Dyer and his team-mate Jacques Bienvenue.

The best of the more-fancied Porsches, the Dave Helmick car in which he was joined by John O’Steen and John Graves, was a further four laps down, proving that BMW Motorsport boss Neerpasch had played a tactical masterstroke.

“Not only was Jochen a great boss, but he was an amazing tactician,” recalls Stuck. “He thought that the way to win was to have one car pushing hard from the start, and it paid off.”

11 1980 FITZPATRICK PROVES HIS WORTH

Sebring 1980 was the setting for one of the great drives by the unsung hero of British sportscar racing. John Fitzpatrick claimed victory together with his boss Dick Barbour in a race fought out by a flotilla of Porsche 935s.

A five-way battle boiled down to a two-way fight between the Dick Barbour Racing Porsche 935K3 and Bruce Leven’s factory-spec car shared with Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood. Leven stepped