CSX2459R - A Tribute to Lew Florence and Jamie Bargelt

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Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

I think it is more likely Ferrari knew that they didn't have a car to compete with the Daytona Coupes for 1965 so they did not bother. Ferrari would have likely lost in 1964 if they had not canceled the last race when the Daytonas were actually competing against the Ferrari GTOs.

For 1965 Alan Mann just seemed to need to show up with the cars and not bother to push the Daytonas hard to win. So being beaten by smaller displacement cars is understandable when Alan just wanted the cars to finish the races. On the other hand Bob Bondurant wanted to actually race and go for the overall wins, but Alan did not want that.

Ferrari thought that Shelby had gotten the 427 cars Homologated, and they would put a Daytona body on the cars. What Enzo didn't know, the FIA had gotten wise to Carrol and him and demanded to see the 100 cars, which neither had! The reason the Daytona's were so slow, was the 289 engines. Mann would get the engines from Shelby, then send them to Stuart Mathieson, to have them rebuilt, then after every race they would junk the engines and repeat the above process. Even then, the cars had to stay below 6,500 rpm. Even then, the privately entered Ferrari's gave them a hard time, hence, Mann's comment on being glad Ferrari wasn't looking at them! Alan was glad he didn't have to race the 427s. No, Bob only did that once, then he became very disciplined, which paid off when he took the checkered flag at Reims, finishing fifth overall, Sears came in second with only 7 cylinders, and clinched the Class III Championship, plus Mann won 100 bottles of Campaign from Jabby Crombae for a bet that Sears couldn't finish! Bob's codriver Schlesser tried to race but Mann new the Championship was everything so threatened to replace him, he slowed down, but his wife was furious and threw a Champaign bottle at Alan's head. Mann was a better team manager then Shelby. He could get drivers to do what ever it took to get more points, Shelby would have won in 64, if he had finished more cars, instead of having broken cars every where.