Taking One For The Team... [PIC]

Nice car but your information on the race is incorrect, Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby dominated the 1966 24 Hours of Dayton winning the race 8 laps ahead of second place Dan Gurney and Jerry Grant, the first and second place cars were out of Shelby American Inc. with Miles/Ruby completing 678 laps and Gurney/Grant completing 670 laps, the third place car was the Holman & Moody car 9 laps down with Walt Hansgen and Mark Donahue. 

Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby also won the last 12 hour of Daytona race in 1965. Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby were never challenged in the 1966 24 Hours of Daytona. 

Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby were two totally different people but they clicked as a driving pair as both like the same car set up. 

The 1966 Sebring Race Dan Gurney was supposed to win per team orders but he lost the engine at the last corner and rolled to a stop, Ken Miles was to finish second per team orders but when Gurney lost his engine Miles passed him and won the race, Dan Gurney pushed his car across the finish line but was disqualified as that was a violation of the rules, if Gurney would have just stayed in the car he would have been credited with a second place finish but when he pushed the car he was disqualified from the race results. That gave Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby both the 1966 24 Hours of Daytona win and the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring win, Lloyd Ruby was not able to go to the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans because he was injured in a crash so Miles was paired with Denny Hulme for Le Mans. 

Back to the Sebring race some like to claim Ken Miles caused Dan Gurney to blow up his engine but that is not true, Ken Miles was in the Ford GT40 X-1 Roadster which was lighter than the coupe and Ken Miles told his crew that Gurney was driving to hard pulling Miles out of the corners, the GT40 X-1 Roadster was actually faster than the coupe and Miles was told not to push it in qualifying and teams back then decided how their cars were going to finish the race bar an accident or mechanical failure.

Here is the finishing positions of the first three cars for the 1966 24 Hours of Daytona. 

A little information the the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, you will hear some people claim that Ken Miles broke the team rules but that is not true, those same people will also say that Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon were faster than Miles and Hulme and Miles broke the team rules passing McLaren again not true. What these people always leave out is Shelby was a Goodyear race tire dealer and he ran Goodyear tires on his cars but McLaren and Amon were both under contract to Firestone and they asked to be allowed to run the Firestone tires due to their contract with Firestone and Shelby allowed them to run the Firestones. 

This is what people leave out, on McLaren's first pit stop the Firestone tires were blistering and they would not have had a chance in the race if they stayed on the Firestone tires, so McLaren/Amon's first pit stop took much longer then it should have putting McLaren and Amon way down the running order in the race, the reason their pit stop took so long was Shelby told them he would put Goodyear tires on the car but McLaren/Amon had to get Firestone to approve the switch to the Goodyear tires, that took a little time to get that approval from the Firestone representative at the track. From that first pit stop on McLaren and Amon were on Goodyear tires instead of Firestones. 

Ken Miles was robbed of the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. Miles and Hulme were a lap ahead of McLaren and Amon and there is a photo showing the scoring tower with Miles/Hulme with a 1 lap lead on the field earlier in the race. It is said Ford did not want Miles to win because the attention would have been on him being the first driver to win the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the same year, Ford wanted all the attention on Ford and not a driver. 

I'm impressed with these photos AND ALL the knowledge you two possess; you guys are true hard-core fans!

WOW!!! I read a completely different narrative.

@rich-sufficool 

And hey, Pal; stop posting pics of VW's here and pawning them off as GT 40's!