Junie Donlavey with the Truxmore Ford Torino Le Mans bound stock car at his Richmond, Virginia shop, Swansboro Motor Company. This was in May of 1976 the day before the car, outfitted with headlights and windshield wiper, was put into a container to be shipped to France for the 24 Hours of Le Mans race to be run June 12-13. The France Family of NASCAR and Daytona International Speedway had made a deal with the organizers of the Le Mans race to set up an "exchange of classes" between Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona to promote both races. Donlavey's car would be shared by his regular NASCAR driver Dick Brooks and Dick Hutcherson. Hutch had retired as a NASCAR driver with 14 wins in Cup racing from 1964 through 1968 and had driven Le Mans once before, finishing third in a Ford GT40 sweep of the top three spots in 1966. Donlavey's Ford Torino lasted 11 hours before a gearbox failure sidelined the team.
Bob Tullius in the Group 44 Jaguar V12 XKE at the June 1976 SCCA National Championship Races at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia. In 1975 Tullius had won 12 of 17 races in SCCA B Production and the national championship in this car. Tullius is legendary as a driver, race team owner and motorsports marketing innovator for Triumph, British Leyland and Jaguar. He ran one of the most successful road racing teams from the 1960s through the ’80s. During his Group 44 Inc.’s 25-year run, they celebrated nearly 300 overall victories while competing in three of the toughest road racing series in America: SCCA Club Racing, IMSA GTP endurance events and SCCA Trans-Am pro contests.
Alain de Cadenet, who found success as a sports car racer and went on to fame as a television host in several series about great old race cars, has passed away at 77 on July 2, 2022, of cancer in California. Here de Cadenet is in his British Post Office sponsored Mirage GR7 Ford in the May 27,1978 Can-Am race held at Charlotte Motor Speedway the day before the NASCAR World 600. He would finish 10th in the race. That weekend he let me take a photo of NASCAR star Cale Yarborough sitting in his car wearing a cowboy hat which ran in Autoweek.
