EASY DOES IT
Just over fifty years ago on 14 June 1970, Porsche achieved the first of its recordbreaking 19 wins at Le Mans, when Richard Attwood and Hans Herrmann crossed the finish line in the Porsche 917 – arguably the most iconic racecar of all time.
Now, like some surreal dream, 80-year-old Attwood is watching me climb in to the driver’s seat of a 917 on a sodden Sonoma racetrack north of San Francisco, California, calmly offering a few tips ahead of my first ever drive of this legendary machine. Unbelievably privileged barely covers it. Nor does unbelievably nervous.
The 917’s feathery fibreglass dihedral door hinges up and forward (taking a chunk of roof with it) and I slot down into the driver’s seat, with an improbably small second seat alongside to cheekily meet the two-seat regulations. I’m almost lying down,
