DSC historian David Greenhalgh ventured from Sydney to New Jersey to see what light can be shed on the famous finish at Le Mans in 1966.
*****
Ford v Ferrari is probably one of the better motor racing movies.
As with the Lauda v Hunt contest in Rush, it helps that the underlying story is so compelling: Ford’s sledgehammer attack on Le Mans ’66, how the company’s programme interacted with the individuals who were tasked with carrying it out, and all the drama (and mystery) of the finish of the race.
But in one key aspect, the scriptwriters adopted an approach which ironically featured exactly the same lack of subtlety for which Ford’s Le Mans campaign in 1966 has so often been criticised. The depiction in the film of Ford’s racing manager Leo Beebe was not just a caricature, but sought to paint him more like a pantomime villain; in essence, when he is on screen, the audience is expected to boo and hiss.
Not surprisingly, the film prompted many people to reach for their keyboards to defend Beebe. Some of these people knew him personally, others objected to the film’s apparent lack of balance in his portrayal. But there is no doubt that Beebe is an intriguing, interesting and important part of Ford’s Le Mans story, as his papers, held in Rowan University, New Jersey, clearly show.
Born in 1917, Beebe met Henry Ford II (who was also born in 1917) in the US Navy during World War II. Lieutenant Ford wrote the Navy a glittering reference in support of Beebe’s application for commission as an ensign, emphasising his leadership, co-operation, perseverance and endurance.
Henry Ford was discharged from the Navy in 1943 after the death of his father Edsel created serious concerns in high places about the management of Ford Motor Company, which was the third biggest defence contractor in America. It was thought that young Henry could help to steady the ship, which he duly did. And after the reference he wrote for Beebe in the Navy, it was hardly surprising that Beebe joined Ford Motor Company in 1945.
Nineteen years later, he was selected to oversee the racing programme. He protested to Lee Iacocca, who had made the initial contact, that he’d never been to a motor race, but Iacocca reassured Beebe that it was an organisational role, which was very much Beebe’s forte.
Beebe thus became the middle man between the top Ford brass and the teams, the latter of which were led by hardnosed racers like Colin Chapman, John Wyer, Carroll Shelby and John Holman. Beebe had only been in the job a week when he was at Charlotte for a NASCAR race, only to see a Ford driver, Fireball Roberts, die from injuries sustained in a dramatic pileup.
Beebe then engaged in some fairly tense renegotiations of the Indianapolis contract with Colin Chapman, effectively reducing Ford’s financial contribution for 1965 to no more than providing the car. Good deal, that… And as the GT40 campaign struggled in its early days, Beebe delivered his famous killer line: “I don’t know anything about motor racing, but it’s obvious that you don’t either”.
Beebe also asserted, in a long interview with David Lewis in 1988 whose full transcript is in his papers, that he had a lot to do with choosing the 7-litre engine for Le Mans in 1965. This was another issue on which he had clashed with Wyer, who was no fan of Beebe and was adamant in his memoirs The Certain Sound that the tried and true 4.7 litre would have been a better choice. Maybe Wyer was vindicated in 1965, but the decision to go with 7 litres looked fairly prescient by the time of the 1966 and 1967 races.
Beebe again showed his mettle in practice for the 1966 24 Hours. Graham Hill’s co-driver Dick Thompson in the Alan Mann Racing Ford Mk II was involved in an accident, the ACO wanted to throw the car out of the meeting, so Beebe threatened to pull out all eight of the works Fords. The ACO folded. Beebe was interviewed for a newspaper story, also held in his papers, and reflected, “If I did that [withdrew all the Fords] they [ACO] wouldn’t have a race left. Of course, I wouldn’t have a job either”.
It was a remarkably brave move by Beebe, although presumably he would’ve backed down at the last minute if the ACO hadn’t caved in. Imagine telling Mr Ford that, er, sorry, I got my nose out of joint and decided to withdraw all your cars… Even so, it shows how determined Beebe was to get all eight of the Company’s cars to the start.
And then there’s the small question of what happened to two of those eight cars at the finish.
My detailed article on the finish can be seen at www.dailysportscar.com/2016/06/17/le-mans-1966-the-golden-mystery, so I won’t repeat all those points here. Suffice to say, nearly all of the leading players involved in the finish have contradicted themselves over the years, let alone each other, such that the true story is likely to remain a mystery forever.
As I drove towards New Jersey, I thought that the most likely explanation of what happened was that (a) the responsibility for the decision about the finish lay with Beebe, not Shelby or anyone else (b) Beebe was aware of the “distance rule”, which meant that in the event of a dead-heat between Bruce McLaren and Ken Miles, McLaren would be declared the winner because he was further back on the grid than Miles, so had travelled further in the 24 hours and (c) despite all the countless smokescreens then and since, the finish of the 1966 race comes down to a team manager making a decision, as has happened in hundreds of major races over the years.
Certainly, this is the view taken by Leo Levine in Ford: The Dust and the Glory, who quotes Beebe as saying, “Anyone can question the judgment, but no one can say it was not a consciously arrived-at decision… to have Ken win would have been more expedient and more popular. But the extent to which McLaren and Amon had played exactly to our rules militated against Miles. The result was not necessarily even popular with me”.
Beebe’s interview with David Lewis takes up the point: “Ken Miles, who later died, regrettably didn’t win the race that year. I had some real difficulties over that. But he was a daredevil and I pulled him in and literally engineered the end of that race – one, two, three”. The Beebe papers include a very impressive, hardbound collection of Le Mans ’66 photos, arranged to look like a scrapbook, which was presumably presented to him with thanks for his efforts. There is a stylised image saying “Finis 1, 2, 3”. Well, quite.
It is therefore tempting to think that Beebe was the only main player who followed a consistent line about his own actions at the end of the race; certainly, Miles, McLaren, Shelby and Amon didn’t do so, while the specialist media spectacularly failed to establish the true story while the trail was still hot.
And yet…
The Beebe papers include another newspaper interview, quoting him, “The decision to try for a dead-heat finish was made nearly three hours from the finish after consulting with a race steward who said nothing of the rule later invoked [i.e. the “distance rule”]. With only 45 minutes left, an interpreter came to see us and explained the rule. By then, it was too late…. As a team, the decision was the right one and I would make it again. It was unpleasant for Miles, but the rule was learned too late”.
If we assume for a minute that the “distance rule” did actually exist (some people, including Carroll Shelby, say it didn’t), then the ACO can join the long line of people who have changed their story about the race, because the first official consulted by Ford should have known the rules. Even so, the above paragraph amounts to quite a concession by Beebe. Remarkably, Art Evans asserts in his biography of Ken Miles that Miles knew about the distance rule, so if Miles did, then Beebe most certainly should have; it’s a team manager’s job to know the rules.
It also means that Beebe’s – and the film’s – assertion that he had decided which one of the two drivers was going to win is simply not right. When the orders went to Miles and McLaren at the last pit stops, they were told no more than to cross the line together. Surely nobody at Ford was so naïve to think it was going to be literally a dead heat i.e. impossible to see which car was ahead. Either the black #2 McLaren/Amon or the powder blue #1 Miles/ Hulme Mk II was going to be slightly in front.
If the chronology in the Beebe papers is correct, then from 3.15 to 4pm, Beebe knew that McLaren was going to win, but not before then. Contrary to popular belief, his tactical decisions as team manager had not made a McLaren victory inevitable.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, it may well not have worried Beebe too much which one it was. For all the subsequent controversy, it was a crushing victory for Ford Motor Co. Beebe had faithfully discharged the order given to him by Henry Ford on the business card carried in his wallet for the rest of his life, “You better win.”
True, it was probably Beebe’s decision (though some people put Shelby and Henry Ford into that frame) to slow Miles down towards the end for the formation finish, but the fact is Beebe then lost control of the race from the drivers’ point of view; there was never a direction that McLaren should win.
Before the conversation with the second official 45 minutes from the end, Beebe simply didn’t know what was going to happen; it all depended on how the two drivers would react as they came to the flag. By the time Beebe learned about the distance rule at 3.15pm, it would have been ludicrous to pull the drivers into the pits try to explain, and choreograph, the situation. All Beebe could do now was wait for 4pm.
Logic would say that Art Evans, who spoke to Miles about the race, must be right, and that Miles “purposely slowed down” as they crossed the line. But like many other theories about the race, there is a counter argument: if Miles knew the distance rule existed, he must have known he had lost the race the moment the cars crossed the line. So why did he head for the winners’ circle; surely he wasn’t quite that brazen, if he knew he had lost? Somehow, he genuinely thought that he had won, such that no matter what Beebe had or hadn’t decided in the last three hours, the outcome of the race still lay with Miles and McLaren.
None of it adds up. One of the newspaper clippings in the Beebe papers refers to the “confusing, thick volume of French rules for the famed race”. Is this just journalistic licence? Surely the teams like Ford must have been given copies of the regulations no later than the start of practice. After the race, why did no journalist of the day have the brains to get hold of the regulations, from either Ford or the ACO?
Of course, it is possible that some diligent journalist did so, but if so, he or she has kept very quiet about it ever since. Since nobody outside the ACO has (apparently) seen the regulations, not only is there uncertainty about the distance rule, but we don’t even know for sure where the race ended. Was it at the start of the pits, as Ronnie Spain asserts? Was it at the chequered flag, in which case the whole dead heat fanfare is ridiculous because McLaren was clearly ahead of Miles anyway?
Or was it out on the circuit at precisely 4pm? If so, maybe in the depths of the ACO archives, there is a report from a sector marshal on the Mulsanne Straight which says, “Precisely 4pm. Car 1 well ahead of car 2”.
After all the web of contradictions and misinformation about the finish of the 1966 race, nothing would now be surprising.
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David Greenhalgh wishes to thank Sara Borden, archivist at Rowan University, New Jersey, for her assistance in making the Beebe papers available.
Pics come with courtesy of Beebe Archives
