The Petrolicious YouTube website is well-known now for some great videos, but there are some great written stories as well. Particularly interesting to me is the story of the late Ed Hugus' role in Ferrari's last Le Mans victory. 60 Years of Ferrari in the US
Growing up in Sebring and attending my first race there in 1968 at a very young age, the blood red Ferrari 512s and 312PBs really put the hook in me. Even my mother would even say, "Those Ferraris make all the other cars look like they're going backwards" such was the visible speed advantage they had on the track. Aside from the dramatic styling and the great noise the Ferraris made, there was always the other aspect of the sheen of blue oil smoke they always seemed to be blowing through their exhausts so there was always that element of their fragility as well. When we'd get into the pits and paddock though, watching the Ferrari technicians was another story. Their pit stops were complete shambles with every mechanic arguing and *****ing at each other in Italian throughout the entire stop. Even though we couldn't understand what was being said, we always thought it was hilarious that here was the best team on the track and their mechanics practically coming to blows in the pits over whom did what. It was a minor miracle they got their stops done at all and thinking about it now, what sort of an advantage they may have won by if for not all the delays in the pits. That was truly a great era. BHW
I remember when Ferrari pit stops were compared to "Chinese fire drills", a term which no doubt would be considered politically incorrect nowadays. Ferrari has certainly gotten better at their pit stops, haven't they?
Yes, when thinking about it, aside from the way the cars are built these days, the biggest thing has to be the precision of the pit stops we see in F-1 and sports car racing. I've had the opportunity to witness Audi Sport practice their pit stops and it is more akin to a military style type drill. The drivers practice their exchanges dozens of times with an engineer standing by with a stop watch and if the driver swap isn't done with in (I think it is) 17 seconds, they do it over and over until they get it right. Same for the crew with fuel and tire changes. It is all so carefully choreographed now that any hiccup costs the teams a huge advantage on the track. We may look back to the 50's and 60's even when the pit stops included changing tires using a hammer to loosen the knock-off wheels. There is also footage of teams putting a wet towel over top of the driver when refueling when the crew would place a huge funnel in the tank opening just aft the cockpit and the fuel would then go spilling out all over the place, completely dangerous and what a mess. Things sure have come a long way. BHW
