The Upstart

The little, beetle-backed Porsche looked like an upstart kid tagging along after the big boys last week as the 6$-car field roared away in the tenth annual twelve-hour endurance race over the runways of an old bomber base outside of Scoring, Fla. Strong favorites were the flashy Ferraris, and the new, deep-throated Maserati that was driven in relays by the crack team of California's Dan Gurney and Britain's redoubtable Stirling Moss.

In the early, hectic jockeying, California's James Hughes missed a turn in his green Lotus, killed Photographer George Thompson of the Tampa Tribune, and then was killed himself as the car flipped onto its back. For six hours the Porsche team of German Cafe Owner Hans Hermann, 31, and veteran Belgian Driver Olivier Gendebien, 36, patiently waited back in the pack. One by one the Ferraris broke down under the strain as the Maserati bellowed to a six-lap lead. But at 6:10 p.m., just as headlights flickered on, Moss eased his low-slung car off the course with a wrecked differential.

From then on, Sebring was a boat race for the Porsche, a car with an engine half the size of the Maserati's. It mattered not that the winning Porsche's time was only 84.93 m.p.h. At Sebring, the race is to the sure, not the swift.

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