Brian Redman Talks – Redman in Redmond

Brian Redman Talks – Redman in Redmond

By Jay Gillotti and photos by Curtis Creager

We were greatly honored to have Brian Redman as our guest for the Porsche Club of America Pacific Northwest Region’s 50th Anniversary last November. An additional special treat was provided by the folks at Vintage Racing Motors who allowed us to re-unite Brian with 917 chassis 017/004, the car he raced at Le Mans in 1970. It was my pleasure to moderate a tech session for about 40 of our members and presented here are some gems of recollection in Brian’s own words.

On choosing to drive with Jo Siffert in the factory Porsche team in 1969:

Brian Redman: I raced at Daytona with Vic Elford but after that race, Rico Steinemann, the Swiss team manager for Porsche said ‘Brian, do you wish to be #1 in your own car?’ Meaning I could choose a co-driver then be #1. Well, as #1 you got to do everything. You got to set up the car as you liked it and you got the majority of the practice time if that’s the way you wanted to go. Or, he said, ‘Would you go as #2 to Siffert?’ Well, Siffert was about the quickest of the 10 drivers. I thought, ‘I think I’ll do a bit better in terms of race wins’ if I go as #2 but knowing the disadvantages of being low down on the totem pole in everything, publicity, time in the car, etc. Jo and Brian went on to win 5 of the 10 races as Porsche secured the World Championship for Sports Cars.

Brian meets the 917 at Spa, 1969:

BR: Siffert went out in the 917 and he came back and I said ‘what do you think?’ He said ‘we stick wiss zee 908!’ So, I was standing there, it was raining, it wasn’t pouring but it was raining, it was miserable. Herr Bott, head of engineering at Porsche, saw me standing there. I was trying to hide, actually. ‘Brian’ he says, ‘try zee 917.’ I said, oh, it’s raining, I’m not sure I want to. ‘No, no, you try it.’ So I get in. Well, it’s my first time in a 917 and I’m really uncomfortable. My head’s on the roof, my knees are up against the back of the wheel, I’m hunched up. I start it, wup-wup-wup, and it had a giant windshield wiper, they said it came off a Boeing 707. So, I turn it on, it was parked on the left, and ‘wooosh’, it flew off! ‘Went into the pits. So I switched off and got out. Herr Bott says ‘Brian, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘Herr Bott, the windshield wiper’s gone’. ‘Ya, ya’ he says, ‘drive slowly’. So, I did two pretty slow laps, I can tell you.
Brian and Jo won the race in a 908 and Brian set fastest lap.

Regarding the test session in October, 1969 at the Osterreichring that solved the 917’s handling problems:

BR: I think it was Saturday. John Horsman, the engineer for John Wyer, saw that the front of the cars were covered in bugs. And then, there were no more bugs, some on the windshield and then the tail, of course, went down then up and right at the end, at the tip of the tail, more bugs. And so he said there’s no air going on the back. So he borrowed tools and the equipment, aluminum panels, duct tape, plywood, from Porsche and he just flattened the deck, like that. It wasn’t ready that day – we went down into the village where we were staying and they finished the work that night.

The next day I went out in it and instead of doing 1 lap as I’d been doing all the previous day, with the changes that they made, I stayed out for, like 7 laps. I came in and said ‘now we’ve got a race car.’ 4 seconds faster! 4 seconds and when you think of how you fight for tenths of a second… By the end of the day, with some more fiddling around and putting it on Firestone tires, it was 5 seconds faster. The original aim, when they got there, was to try and equal the fastest lap that had been set in the race a couple of months before. That had been done by Jacky Ickx in a Gulf-Mirage with a Cosworth-Ford DVF engine. That time was about two and a half seconds faster than the 917 had been in the race, so now, we were 5 seconds faster than the 917 had been and more than 2 seconds faster than the fastest lap set in the race.

Passed by his own car, Daytona, 1970:

BR: In those days, it was a huge field of 75 or 80 cars and some very slow cars. On the 3rd lap, we were lapping the tail-enders! So we gained four miles in 4 minutes or so. Well, our trouble started about 4 or 5 in the afternoon when, on the back straight, and there was no chicane in those days, we were getting about 210 miles an hour coming on to the banking. Just before the banking there was a group of Trans-Am-type cars, Mustangs and Camaros, there were 4 or 5 of them, they were slip-streaming each other (but) there was room down the middle. I flew down the middle and just as I got past the front car my left rear tire burst. So, the tire went flailing around, hitting everything inside (the car). We lost about 20 minutes in the pits repairing the damage. And then, at about one in the morning we had a fuel leak, we lost another 20 minutes. About 2:30 in the morning, I’m coming off the banking at well over 200 miles an hour, there’s a bump and boom! I spin all the way down the pit straight but didn’t hit anything. The right rear suspension had fallen off. A bolt had broken and that took another 20 minutes. Now, we’re back somewhere in 5th or 6th, driving like maniacs, of course, which is fun! About 6 or 7 in the morning the clutch failed. So now, it’s pushed behind the wall and that’s it, we’re finished. Maybe 30 minutes later, David Yorke, the team manager said ‘Brian, I want you to drive’ (the Rodriguez/Kinnunen car) which was leading. So I did a session in that car and just towards the end of the session, on the pit straight, Siffert comes flying past me waving! They’d changed the clutch in like 45 minutes or something, unbelievable. We took 2nd place from the Andretti/Ickx Ferrari 512 with not very long to go. Brian drove both the 1st and 2nd place Gulf 917s in that race.

From the Brands Hatch 1000 KM race in 1970:

BR: This was the race that really made Pedro Rodriguez’ reputation. He got called into the pits early on for passing under the yellow flag and he didn’t take any notice (of it) for some time but then eventually came in and Nick Syrett, clerk of the course, gave him a telling-off, you know, and then when he went back out, he went berserk. He had a fantastic race. I was lying second. I got tapped by Chris Amon in the Ferrari 512 and it spun me. I went into a banking and I couldn’t get out because the tail came up over the roof. Anyway, I’d been complaining to Porsche engineering, to Herr Bott in particular, about why were Porsche building these aluminum space frame chassis when everybody else had monocoques or semi-monocoques. So, when I got back to the pits, it’s raining, I’m muddy and Herr Bott says: ‘Brian, are you okay?’ I said ‘yes, thank you, Herr Bott.’ He said: ‘Now you see – the 917 is a very good car to have a crash in!’

Le Mans, 1970:

BR: Well, Le Mans in the rain was not any fun at all because of the high speed on the straight. You know, going down the Mulsanne straight, I well remember, (late Saturday) afternoon, it’s still light but the rain is pouring down and of course, water’s coming in, in every direction, as usual. In the distance, all you can see is a ball of spray ahead of you. You can’t see what the car is or even where it is. Then as the speed’s getting up around 170 or 180 miles an hour, you’d hit a patch of water and wuuump! The rear wheels broke loose! You drive into the spray and you hope that the guy’s on the right hand side of the road. I’m not sure of the time, probably one in the morning or something like that, still pouring with rain, and now Jacky Ickx has caught up to Siffert but he’s 4 laps behind, at least 4 laps, might have been more, and they’re racing. (Brian makes a face). Ickx went off the track and a corner worker was killed. (Shortly after Ickx’ crash) Siffert came out from the chicane behind 3 slower cars and they were all sort of having their own race. They were spread out a bit. He came diving in to go between the right-hand car and the pits and right in front of the Porsche pit, if he timed it deliberately he couldn’t have done it any better, he missed top gear. So we all heard the engine, ‘bwaaap’ ….that was it.

Le Mans 1979 in the 936:

BR: I got a call from Porsche, would I like to drive the 936 with Jacky Ickx? This looks like a great opportunity. But I was a bit rusty, and hadn’t done many races, really, in the last two years, following my neck-breaking accident in the first race for the “new” Can-Am cars at St. Jovite in 1977. So, we go to Le Mans and it’s okay, Jacky comes in at the end of the first session, I think we were leading. I go out and at the end of my first lap, I go through the chicane by the pits and if you’re going into the pits you have to go right immediately. It’s not like it is today. And the car didn’t feel quite right as I took the right hand part of the chicane, so you go left, you go right, and when I took the right-hand part, it didn’t feel right. I didn’t have time to think, you know, whether it was the car or whether it was me. And I thought, ‘it’s probably me’, so I carried on. Now, I arrive at the Dunlop curve at 180 miles an hour and I turn and spun. The left rear tire had gone flat. That’s what I’d felt in the chicane. And I go ‘round the Dunlop curve and as it’s going around it’s spinning and I hear the bodywork coming off, flailing, the tire failing around and suddenly I’m heading at the barrier and I just went like this (motions flicking the wheel) and missed it! I went down through the Esses and I stopped at the corner going on to the straight, got out, and in the toolkit we had a hand saw, a hacksaw blade with duct tape wrapped around it. I cut the tire off the rim and it took me… forever. Then, I drove it, on the rim, 7 miles back to the pits. Cars are going past me at 200 miles an hour (chugging sound as the car bounces along the verge). I thought, ‘this is it’, but they fixed it, unbelievable! And about midnight, we’d come back. We’d actually come up the field, about 20th or so, rain pouring down, lightning. And I’m above the pits with my oldest friend in the world, Ian Green, and I’m not feeling too happy about this, I can tell you. Suddenly, on the television monitor – ‘Ickx is stopped’. That’s a pity…. 20 minutes later: ‘Ickx is going again’. Fuel pump drive belt had broken. We carried a spare and he changed it. Now, ‘Ickx is stopped again’. Now he’s at the Mulsanne corner, stopped. Oh, 25 minutes later, ‘Ickx is going again’. Now he comes in the pits and Herr Singer looks up (motions for Brian to come down). I shake hands with Ian, this is my last time, I’m dead. ‘Goodbye’ I said. ‘Goodbye’. Get in the car, drive like a maniac, doing 200 miles an hour in the pouring rain. And I’d done about 45 or 50 minutes and I get the pit signal. We normally went about an hour and a quarter between pit stops. I come in, Norbert Singer says: ‘Herr Redman, you can get out of zee car. We were disqualified one hour ago.’ (Laughs) So, they’d thrown Ickx another belt wrapped in a sandwich….

On driving the 935 and Le Mans, 1980:

BR: I started driving for Dick Barbour in 935s and Dick Barbour was a fantastic character, and ran a very good operation. Bob Garretson, in Mountain View, prepared the cars, they did a fabulous job. At Road America, Dick had said ‘Don’t touch the boost.’ So I didn’t touch it, I left it at 1.2 bar. I couldn’t understand why I was qualifying in 7th and 8th and, you know, running okay in the races. So I said to Rolf Stommelen ‘can I ask you a question?’ ‘Ja, Brian, what is it?’ I said ‘Do you ever touch the boost, you know, in qualifying?’ ‘Brian….’ he says, ‘do I ever touch zee boost? I turn it as far as it will go!’ We should have won Le Mans in 1980 in the Kremer K3. It was on pole position, although, the French authorities changed the rules after qualifying. They said, ah, it is not the fastest lap for the car. It is the average of the 3 drivers. That put a French car on pole position. It was another terrible, miserable wet race. We were leading and it went on to 5 cylinders. I remember about six in the morning, ‘cause it was light, the rain’s coming down, I just got out and I was cold and wet. But you stay for one lap just to see everything’s okay and Dick Barbour took over from me. At the end of the lap he comes in the pits and I see through the rain, his hand waving. I go ‘round to the side of the car. He said ‘Brian, you guys are paid to drive in conditions like this, get back in!’ So we finished 5th overall and first in the IMSA class.

On Pedro Rodriguez and Brian’s solo victory in a 500 KM race at Imola in 1970:

BR: People are always asking about Pedro. I only ever drove with him once and that was for Matra in 1969 (non-Championship race at Montlhery in France). About 2 years ago at Daytona there was some kind of presentation for something and there were about 10 journalists there, no spectators. But after the presentation a Mexican journalist came up – ‘Brian, did you know Pedro Rodriguez?’ I said ‘yes, yes’. “Was he a friend?’ I said “yes, kind of, much as you are with racing drivers’. He said ‘did you talk together?’ ‘Yes, yes.’ “What did he say to you?’ I said, ‘Well, we drove together for Matra in 1969 and after the race he said ‘Brian, it’s a great pleasure to drive with a driver who is almost as fast as I am!’ (huge laughter) At Imola, in 1970, it was a non-Championship, pretty long race, it was 500 kilometers, just over 300 miles. And it was hot, the 917s were hot and Pedro was in one car, I was in the other. We were driving single-handed and Pedro had an accident fairly early on. So, at the fuel stop, he’s all dressed ready to go, he rips the door open, he says ‘Get out, get out, you are very tired!’ I said “thank you very much, Pedro, I’m not tired at all, I’ll see you later!’

Brian went on to win that Imola race, the only solo driver victory for a Gulf 917, September 13th, 1970.

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After Brian’s talk, he slid behind the wheel of the Gulf 917 and we think it was the first time he had sat in that particular car since the midnight hour of June 14th, 1970 at Le Mans. We got a further thrill when his left hand went to the ignition key and the big 12 cylinder rumbled to life. Brian blipped the throttle a few times and all was right with the world.

Brian Redman Talks – Redman in Redmond Photo Gallery

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[Source: Jay Gillotti; photo credit: Curtis Creager]