Audio... It is a scratchy old recording taken off an LP. It's pretty cool actually with the scratches. It's from the "Sounds of" series. It is an English production that was done on various races, Le Mans, Sebring, etc.
I'll send you a copy for the cost of the CD, poatage. $5 maybe??? Fund my paypal and include your address. Both 1964 and 1966 come on one CD.
thestrunks@prodigy.net
I found this speech by Edsel B. Ford II on Ford's racing interest...
SPEECH: EDSEL B. FORD II -- 100 YEARS OF RACING
Ford Racing 100
Edsel B. Ford II video script
January 25, 2001
Hello, and welcome.
This is a special year. This year we celebrate a century of Ford Racing.
A hundred years - - that means Ford Racing is actually two years older than our company itself. Not only is our racing tradition older than our company, but there might not even have been a Ford Motor Company without racing.
How could that be?
Well, you have to look at where my great-grandfather, Henry Ford was in 1901.
He was 38 years old and had failed at his first auto company start up. Henry Ford was financially strapped, and suffered the humiliation of moving his wife and his only son to his father's house to save money.
The auto industry, it seemed, was growing up without him. Nearly 60 companies were already making automobiles, and most of them were produced in New England and Europe, not in Detroit.
At that low point, Henry Ford might well have slipped into obscurity as just another dreamer with a vision. He needed to get the world's attention, and he knew how.
Henry Ford built a racecar. Racing, then as now, popularized motoring, and was a way of proving how one could produce both power, and even more important, endurance.
The nationally publicized race was on October 10th, 1901 at the old Grosse Pointe Blue Ribbon Track. It was such a major event that even the courthouses in Detroit closed down for the day to let the lawyers go to the race. Now can you imagine that today?
The stands were packed, as an estimated 8,000 crowded in to see the competition.
The ultimate event of the day was the 25-mile race. And, frankly, no one thought Henry Ford had a chance.
Henry Ford built his car with the help of designer Otto Barthel, and racer Ed "Spider" Huff. They named it "Sweepstakes."
"Sweepstakes" was a good name because the race was a gamble, a long shot at best.
Ford was racing against Alexander Winton, already known as the best racecar driver in the United States. Henry had never raced against another car before.
The race promoters, in fact, were so certain that Winton would win that they picked out a beautiful cut glass punch bowl set as the trophy. They figured it would look well in the bay window of the Winton home.
(Pause)
Another reason Ford's Sweepstakes was unlikely to win is that it was out-powered. The other cars typically had more than 40 horsepower, and Winton's car had 70 horsepower. The Ford racer had a two-cylinders producing just 26 horsepower.
That was significant, as Henry Ford was trying to prove something else with his design... that an efficient, lightweight vehicle could out perform the big cars. It's worth noting that the family car he eventually produced, the Model T, also would have 26 horsepower.
It was a great race. Winton took the lead early and held it for seven of the ten laps. Then Winton's car began to sputter, and Sweepstakes surged ahead. Henry passed him right in front of the grandstand… and drove on to win by a big margin. He averaged 45 miles per hour.
(Pause)
Watching from the stands was a number of people who would step forward and offer to support my great grandfather's car making dream. It was the race that changed the world. For it allowed Henry Ford to establish Ford Motor Company in June of 1903, to prove his belief in low-cost production, and to create the car that literally put the world on wheels.
(Pause)
Henry Ford established two traditions that day. First, the Ford racing tradition that has endured through four generations. My father, Henry Ford II, carried on that tradition in the era of Total Performance, taking Ford to wins in NASCAR, at Le Mans, and the Indianapolis 500. And I have in my own way attempted to carry on that tradition throughout my many years at Ford.
The second tradition my great-grandfather established is more personal. He stepped out of the Sweepstakes, and said "Never again." "Put Winton in the car," he said, "and the Ford will beat anything in the country."
As much as my father and I have loved racing, we have had the good sense to follow Henry Ford's example and stay out from behind the wheel. Instead, Ford has engaged the Winton's of every generation - - men like Jim Clark, Mario Andretti, Bill Elliott, and, of course, my close friends, Jackie Stewart and A.J. Foyt.
And all of this tradition, all of the Ford automobiles in this century, really turned on a single race in 1901.
(Pause)
A footnote to history is that sometimes it gets away from us. The trophy Henry Ford won that day was in his home until after he died in 1947.
By then, nobody seemed to know the importance of that cut-glass punch bowl. It went to an art gallery in New York, then was sold to a private collector. Nobody has seen it since.
We did find "Sweepstakes," and now we're completely restoring the original car. We're also building two replicas for demonstrations.
As for the punch bowl trophy - - it's probably being used as a fruit bowl in someone's kitchen. We want it back. We're going to engage the public to help us find our first, of so many, racing trophies.
So I hope you can see why this is so important a year for us at Ford. Why the 100th anniversary of a single race is more than just history to us - - it is our heritage.
Throughout this year, we will be celebrating the Ford racing heritage with numerous events. I hope you will participate in many of them, for now you know the story behind our most important one.
Please join us as we start on the second century of Ford Racing.
Thank you.
Past Cobra vs Ferrari Races at LeMans
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