Issue link: http://digital.nexsitepublishing.com/i/1246257
MAY 2020 WWW.PNWR.ORG 45 Carefully separating race data sheet pages for scanning. Reviewing the draft of Gulf 917 with John at his home in Arizona, 2017. continued on next page Halloween 2017 was a day I won't forget. Duncan Newell and I went to Tucson to visit with John and review the first draft of my book. He couldn't always remember answers to the tiny detail questions that I was asking about, but he clarified many points and did a lot to keep me in the right direction. We also had a bit of an adventure scanning his period race data sheets from 1970-71. These 47 year old documents were on delicate oil skin paper, taped together and in an English format looseleaf notebook. We very carefully removed the tape so each page could be scanned and then worked hard to make sure each page returned to the notebook in the proper order. Those scans became one of the best features of my book. A life well-lived? Well, John's father was an accomplished mountaineer and John went along on many climbs including the Matterhorn in 1951. That was the same year he saw his first motor race, the Goodwood 9-Hour. After service in the RAF, John went on to study at Cambridge and became an accomplished (and published) motor sport photographer. After applying directly to Aston Martin, he began an apprenticeship in 1958 and started working with the legendary John Wyer in 1961. He followed Wyer to Ford Advanced Vehicles in 1964 and worked on the GT40 project including supervision of street car builds. When Wyer set up his own racing team in 1967, John became Chief Engineer and supervised the mechanics and race car preparation. Sponsored by Gulf Oil, the JW Automotive Engineering team went on to claim the Manu- facturer's World Championship in sports car racing, for Ford, in 1968. They won Le Mans in 1968 and 1969 with their aging GT40s, defeating Porsche in the process. In their two seasons as the factory Porsche team, Wyer, Horsman and company won 13 races with 917s prepared in their workshop at Slough. They contributed a large share of the points toward Porsche's Manufacturer's Championships in both years. In 1972, JWAE became the Gulf Research Racing team and Horsman took over as team principle and racing manager as well as the engineer for the John Wyer and John Horsman (red coat) with the 908/03 at the Nuburgring, 1970.