Riverside L.A. Times Grand Prix

    Oct. 29, 1972

I drove for Vasek Polak once, in this 908/02 Spyder.  The big 3.2 liter engine blew in practice after only a few laps.  It turned out to be a bad crank, but Vasek was rather unforgiving of anyone who lost an engine, so I never drove for him again.  Lucky to have this photo.

Davey Jordan at Vacaville;

with Hans Adam in the white jacket, and Dieter Inzenhofer in the orange jacket

A note from the Crewchief, Carl Thompson:


    Tony Adamowicz drove the car in the Can Am race at Riverside and broke the crankshaft.  It was not Tony's fault.  Polak had the crank cross-drilled (a big mistake).

    It is a 908/02 Spyder.  Polak had that car when I first went to work for him and he kept it until his death and then it was sold thru Kevin Jeanette and rebodied back to original.

    The car had a widened body for Can Am and had wider wheels.  10.5x15 front and 15x15 rear (normal for 908/02 was 9x15 front and 12x15 rear.) It also had a 3.2 liter engine instead of a 3.0 liter.  There was some extra chassis stiffening done.

    In 1973 we rebodied the car with an early 917/10 body cut down.  It looked more like a 908/3 with a wing.

    We raced the car in quite a few Vintage races, using Danny Ongias to drive.  Also a salesman for Polak named Gary Wright drove the car and now that I think about it so did Milt Minter and Bert Ohlander.

    P/S I have the tail section, doors, and front hood for that car here at my shop.


Best Regards

Carl Thompson  (ACTUAL MECHANIC ON CAR)

917-10 chassis on display at Porsche factory museum

Hans Adam works on Polak's 908 Note the classic Porsche wire-spoke steering wheel

Tony Adamowicz, Gary Wheeler, Tony a2z, Tony Adamowics, a2zRacer, Gary Wheeler, Tony Adamowicz

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