Quote:
Originally Posted by Cobrakeith
Robert, you can be assured they were winning races  |
Yup, and you all know that I respect history for being what it is... The small block Cobras, the small block Daytona Coupes, and the GT40's all had VERY impressive racing careers, and Shelby's involvement was instrumental in that.
HOWEVER: For as often as we hear guys thanking Carrol Shelby, Pete Brock, Ken Miles, and Bob Bondurant for these successes, there is another team of guys that should ALSO be thanked as well: The executive management of General Motors.
Because, if GM had green-lit the 125 production Corvette Grand Sports required to meet the factory homologation requirement for factory Classes A/B and GT, history would most certainly been written just a BIT differently.
Bob Bondurant once stated that he would not have left Chevrolet racing and gone over to Shelby if the GM bean-counters hadn't killed Corvette racing in 1963; and even the 5 pre-production Grand Sport Corvettes that DID race privately in the GT prototype classes, cleaned house on just about EVERYTHING they went up against (and also provided racing career spring-boards to famous racing names like AJ Foyt, Roger Penske, and Jim Hall, as well as giving a famous dentist from Washington DC (Dick Thompson) a second shot in the arm in the world of Corvette racing.
So yeah, Shelby deserves ALL the credit they get for their racing successes in the mid 60's... No argument.
But if GM hadn't bowed out, and if Zora Duntov had been allowed to continue developing the Grand Sport as a factory sanctioned and homologated race platform; then I suspect that ole' Carrol would have had a much bigger dilemma on his hands, than how to beat Enzo Ferrari...
Alas, we'll never know, and the "coulda woulda shoulda"s are just a fun thought experiment; but one thing history teaches us for absolute CERTAIN:
Nothing kills the thrill, excitement, and adrenaline buzz of hard core racing, like a bunch of suit and tie wearing corporate accountants...