Olivier Gendebien in a slightly dented RS-60. He and Hans Hermann were the backup to the team of Graham Hill and Jo Bonnier. Bonnier/Hill were scheduled to drive #42 but opted out to take #43. Bad mistake as their car failed.

The ever young Hans Hermann going under the MG bridge towards the esses. Proving that smooth is fast, the pair won by 9 laps. Remember there were no full course cautions to bunch the pack together to create photo finishes.

Brumos Porsche entered #44 for Bob Holbert and Roy Schechter. Schechter was a retired air force pilot. Holbert was a many time Porsche champion and father of future champ Al Holbert. The pair would be second overall.

Difficult to say if it is Roberto Mieres or Anton vonDory driving the Argentine Porsche. The car failed about half way.

To help finance the race Alec Ulmann signed an agreement with AMOCO oil as the fuel provider. Ferrari and Porsche had contracts with Shell & BP and could not send factory teams. Instead Porsche had Jo Bonnier putchase and enter the cars. His race car #43 and the #46 failed to finish. Hmm, was it the fuel?

Pete Lovely drives into the dusk in the #8 Ferrari TR-59/60 entered and co driven by Jack Nethercutt. They were 3rd overall and won the 3 liter class.

Jack Nethercutt in his Ferrari. Nethercutt ran a well organized operation all the way down to painting his helmet the same color as the car. The Nethercutt Museum is a must visit when in CA.

Augie Pabst and Ed Hugus in the #10 Berlinetta were 4th. It is odd that with all the hundreds of photos we took at Sebring this is the only fairly close shot of #10.

A beautiful 250GT California driven by Allan Cannell in this image. George Reed owned and co drove the car to 5th overall. The car was the short wheelbase version and not yet homologated and had to run in the SP class.

Chuck Daigh casually flies in the #7 TR 59/60. He shared the car with Richie Ginther. They never ran lower than 3rd and led briefly before dropping out.

The stunning canary yellow Berlinetta of George Arents and Bill Kimberly. This same car raced for a few years in the SCCA and sold in 2022 for 7.5 million pounds..

How can you have too many photos of gorgeous cars I ask again. The 246Dino of Ricardo and Pedro waits for battle on Saturday morning.

The Stugis/ d’Orey Berlinetta follows Jim Jeffords #3 Corvette into the esses. The Vette ran well finishing 157 laps and 26th overall. The Berlinetta had a much better day finishing 6th.

Another 250GT California. This one from Bob Publicker, co driven by George Constantine and Dean McCarthy. This crew would finish 10th overall

#11 Cooper Maserati of Hap Sharp & Jim Hall follow a typical Sebring pack of cars. A factory Austin-Healey, an OSCA and a Corvette. Current followers get nervous about 4 or 5 divisions Back in the day you couldn’t count how many different classes were on track.

The highest placing Corvette of Chuck Hall (Jims brother) and Dick Fritz streak past a course marshal standing very close to the track. They won the 5.0+ class and were 16th overall.

Dan Gurney co drove with Stirling Moss in this tipo 61 Maserati. They led up until just after the half way point. The transmission failed and by lap 136 they were out.

John Colgate and Fred Spross were in #19. The car ended up with Spross flipping in the esses. The car went over 3 times and an AP photographer was there and shot the entire accident. Spross was OK but goggle it for some amazing photos.

Joe Shepherd’s 356 Carrera passes the big Healey of Gil Geitner and Lew Spenser. Both cars had good races with the Porsche winning 1.6GT and an amazing 9th overall.

The #40 MGA twincam passes the #35 AC Bristol that had the LR wheel come off. Two of the three twincams finished the race. #40 was owned by BARC member John Wright for years.

BMC were all in for 1960. The had 4 twincam MG’s, 3 big Healey’s and a couple Sprites. Of course they would need publicity photos.

Johnny Cuevas and his Carrera broke a crankshaft. Cuevas raced at Sebring from 1958. Cuevas was Cuban living in the USA. He was a well known collector or pens-writing pens.

The Argentinian Roberto Mieres. Mieres raced sports cars and F1 earning 13 world champ points. Roberto is one of only 5 people who have competed in F1 and competed in the Olympics. At Sebring, his RS-60 Porsche would not finish.

The Freddy vanBeuren Alfa. The Mexican entry won the 1300 class and was 18th overall after a long battle with Tom O’Brien’s Alfa. Brothers Javier & Adolfo Velásquez co drove with Freddy.

Classic Sebring. AC Bristol, Arnolt Bristol, Elva Courier with a WWII cargo plane as a backdrop. BARC thinks Sebring should bring back some of those grand planes and scatter them around the circuit.

The Peter Ashdown, Charles Vögele Lola Mk I. The car was owned by the Swiss Vögele and was driven quickly to win the 1100cc class and finish 17th overall. Simply one of the most beautiful sports racers.

Late afternoon on Thursday. Crews and cars are waiting for dusk and for night practice. It still amazes me that the only barrier separating the track from the pits were haybales.

Across from the pits, old incandescent bulbs try to illuminate. The Good year Blimp above the track keeps spectators informed and sells them tires. Today, the pits are as bright as noontime.

The Best of Times & the Worst of Times. Buddy Horton is finishing up repairs to his Elva Courier completing only 92 laps. Behind, the #44 Porsche of Bob Holbert flashes by at dusk. The Porsche would finish 2nd overall and complete 187 laps.

Social life before the start. Shelby, Zora Arkov, Pedro with Paul Whitman (straw hat) and a friend chat with Lisa, Roger Penske’s wife.

Phil Hill in the shark nose, high back TRI-61. Hill and his mate Olivier Gendebien won by two laps over its sister car #15.

Ferrari #15 finished second. Originally driven by Willy Mairesse and Giancarlo Baghetti, it was taken over by Richie Ginther and von Trips when their rear engined car failed.

Amazing as it seems, the Rodriguez brothers car ran all 12 hours. Their TR59/60 was only 1 lap from 2nd and 3 from first. The brothers were always fast but rarely finished endurance races.

An odd pairing of Jim Hall and George Constantine in this unusual 2.5 liter Dino. While beaten by the Holbert/Penske RS-61, they did finish first in the 2.5 class and 6th overall.

The remarkable story of Denise McLuggage and jazz saxophonist Allen Eager in this Berlinetta. They drove the car from New York, won the GT class and dove it home. This is Eager braking for the hairpin.

Buck Fulp and Skip Hudson drove this more conventional Dino to first in the 2 liter class. It was not quick and finished only 18th overall.

Hello Fernando, the Ferrari’s side was hit hard by our #8 Aston with Sherm Decker at the wheel. The Ferrari continued until its differential packed up.

Cunningham had given up on Jaguar as they had no current cars. The team switched to Maserati and had great success with the tipo 61 Birdcage. Here Walt Hansgen races the tipo 63 rear engined car. Bruce McLaren was his co-driver. The car was a dnf.

The photo says it all. Moss with his arms out, relaxed posture and going faster than anyone. At the hairpin in the birdcage he shared with Dan Gurney.

Here is the barcboys story. The Aston-Martin DB4 GT of Bob Bucher and Sherm Decker. The car was sponsored by John Bunch, but the car was all Aston-Martin on a team run by David Ash.

The 2nd DB4-GT was driven by Bob Grossman and Duncan Black. We always felt our black car was the gunfighter and the white car was the sheriff.

Taped up and ready to go, Bucher (straw hat) talks it over with Dave Ash (back to camera). Decker in back with the same straw hat chats with an official.

Big Jake Bucher, complete with his old leather strap helmet gets out of the car in practice. Bucher would finish the season as the SCCA FM champ in his Porsche RSK. Oh, he bought a new helmet at the track that he wore during the race.

Bob Grossman was a big man. In this photo at the start he is climbing into #7 and ready to go 12 hours with Duncan Black as his co driver.

The white #7 Aston on the long back straight.

Sherm Decker races into the black car. Decker was a good high school football player and athlete. The car stumbled while starting and did not get off quickly.

Decker flies by in the opening laps. Always a hard charger, he found the Aston’s brakes were so cold he could not stop at the hairpin and used Tavano’s Berlinetta to make the turn.

At the first stop, Rex Woodgate pounds out the RR fender . The entire side was raked when Decker hit the Ferrari.

Rex then switched to the RF which was also dinged in the collision.

Far more serious were the frozen wheels on both Aston’s. The cars has not standard Borrani wheels to take bigger tires. They were tight on the splines and literally welded themselves. Rex, the ultimate mechanic worked tirelessly to fix the problem.

IN this shot Rex is using a long bar to try and pry or loosen the wheel. Believe me, Woodgate was a big, strong man, yet even with his strength the wheels would not budge.

The last solution was to hacksaw the wires and hope to then pound the wheel off the hub.

While Rex worked on the white car, Decker is headed towards the hairpin with the RF hub already broken. Sherm would park the car and take the long walk back.

The factory Sprite of Ed Leavans and John Colgate race one of the Alfa Sprint Speciales. The Sprites beat the Alfa’s handily. Colgate drove Healey’s almost exclusively. Leavans, a Canadian, drove for the factory at Sebring many times.

The #1 Corvette is stranded while the Rushin/Stevens TR3 goes by. Yenko did get the car running and finished 151 laps. The TR-3, with its removable hardtop, finished 3 laps in front of the Corvette.

Penske in #51 Porsche passes the Bud Gates/ Harry Heuer Corvette. 65 cars started the race. The Vette was a late entry which explains its high number of 83.

You’d never see this today. In 1961 there were no buildings at the track. In this photo, most of the Ferrari team is being prepared in an old body shop in downtown Sebring. How many millions are those cars worth today?

This is how the barcboys got to Sebring. The Nicholas 1950 Ford flathead V8 made it 1200 miles down and back again. Note the custom trunk support.