Not very “Aerodynameek” and a few too many – Le Mans 1982

The Garretson Developments Sports Car team entered two cars at Le Mans 1982, a March-Chevrolet and a Porsche 935. The March was an 82G, the March IMSA GTP car. The March was a fast car, but fragile. Most of the problem was due to the use of the Hewland DG300 gearbox in the original design. Used no doubt to save weight, it proved unable to handle the torque of the 6.0 liter Franz Wiess Chevrolet engines that we ran in the car. In the IMSA races up to this point we had constant gearbox issues, snapping input shafts and such. At Sebring, something broke in the gearbox after about an hour that left the car stuck in fourth gear, so we just continued and ran the rest of the 12 hours stuck in fourth gear and still finished second. We would have won easily with a functioning gearbox, as the car was much quicker than the 935. Bobby Rahal, Jim Trueman, and Skeeter McKitterick would drive this car at Le Mans.

The Porsche was our old reliable car we had been running since 1979, chassis #009 00030. This is a car we had built from the ground up in 1979 and knew very well. Bob Garretson, Annie Charlotte Verney and a Dallas businessman/racer, Ray Ratcliff, would drive this car.