[sand_man]

Posting this on behalf of our fallen Grady Clay:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/154732-porsche-mystery-driver-week.html
Credit to user jluetjen for the picture and the original thread

Originally Posted by Grady Clay

I won’t swear that is the car. I don’t remember what the outside of the car looked like.
It was a GTU (2.8) class at the Daytona 24 hour. Another PCAer and I were snared to drive with the owner’s wife. We showed up on Tuesday as requested and stood around waiting for more than a day. When the car showed, it was still in pieces and the engine not yet completely assembled. When they got the engine together it would only turn over with the jack handle between two bolts on the flywheel. Believe it or not it finally ran on the track, abet very slowly. The owner paid my way back to Denver and my guys pulled the MFI 2.8S out of my 914-6, converted it to 911 configuration and had it on a pallet for me. We took it out to Stapleton and I flew back to Daytona with the engine as “excess baggage.”
As I recall, we ran as high as 7th with my street engine (it is still in the 914-6). The owner’s wife was pi$$ed that she wasn’t going to be in the car at the finish and smoked the tires going out of the pits at about hour 20. We spent the next four hours replacing CV joints in sequence and finished 20th something.

My apologies if I’m relating events not about the 911 in the illustration.

The next race weekend was Sebring and I drove Bob Garretson’s 935K3 with much more success. Jerry Woods was crew chief and the professionalism showed. I think we finished seventh OA.

Garretson’s was the team that went to LeMans with Paul Newman. They won the Daytona 24 the year before (Garretson, Rahal, Redman.) I was volunteer crew for that race. They were anointed “The Best Private Porsche Team in the World.” Thanks guys for letting me be part.

Best,
Grady