Sunday, May 19, 2019

coolest thing I've read in weeks, how Louie Unser won the 1961 Pikes Peak race - genius tactics


Louis J. Unser. drove a tour bus up the Colorado road several times a day as a teenager, and it paid off with consecutive 1960-61 Pikes Peak Hill Climb wins.

and his experience from winning the 1960 hillclimb taught him a way to put the odds of winning the next in his favor: be the last to make the run up the hill.

In Joe Scalzo’s 1971 book, The Unbelievable Unsers, Unser explained that he was counting on quicker qualifiers to sweep the unpaved road clear of loose gravel.

“During the qualifying run Louie had purposely stopped his car, parked, and chatted with some spectators along the side of the road for a few minutes,” Scalzo wrote. “His time, with the delay, was of course very slow.” That advantage combined with on-and-over-the-edge driving defeated Turner’s 406 Galaxie by the smallest margin ever recorded: 2.4 seconds.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/louie-unser-gave-chevys-new-409-thrilling-early-victory-pikes-peak-1961/

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