Norm's version is pretty accurate as to how Ken Miles raced a Tiger with Don Sesslar's number on it.
The best description I've seen is in John Morton's book (pgs 159 to 163) since it's the most complete with the advantage of being written by an eye witness and participant in the events.
Before the Tiger was even introduced, Sports Car Forum was pitching Rootes for the job of anchoring east coast Tiger racing as SCF was already doing with the Alpine. However Rootes decided to put all their 1964 Tiger eggs in the Shelby American basket. The Shelby deal even provided options for a multi-car Tiger team.The first few months with Shelby American yielded little advertising material but that started to turn around in June with a win at Willow Springs. Rootes quickly opened a Shelby American work order to build a Tiger for Sesslar to drive.
By early summer the Rootes Sports Car Forum Alpine effort with Don driving clinched Don another SCCA National Championship while the Shelby American Tiger effort still wasn't producing positive results. Rootes decided to transfer the Tiger from SA to SCF.
The first weekend in September the Tiger was raced by Shelby American at Santa Barbara and then was flown by Flying Tigers to Chicago's O'Hare field where Sports Car Forum personnel picked it up and towed it to Road America. The Shelby team was there to race their Cobras in the 500. Lew Spencer's number 45 was removed and replaced with Sesslar's #74. (Back in the day, drivers usually raced under their own numbers: Ken carried 50, Sesslar 74 and Lew Spencer 45. (John M. later carved a similar niche with his 46.))
The plan was for Miles to co-drive with Sesslar. However Don broke a few ribs when he crashed an Elva Porsche in practice. He test drove the Tiger in practice but decided he physically couldn't race. Ken drove the car alone and won the race.
Perhaps the luckiest occurrence was that Ken punched a hole in the radiator during practice. A band-aid fix was put in place and surprisingly the persistent overheating problem did not re-occur. The team apparently abandoned the pure 100% ethylene glycol coolant they had been running in the Tiger and replaced it with plain old water with its much better specific heat characteristics curing the overheating.
As far as the trophy goes, it appears to be legit. I would like to reunite it with the other remnants of the SA Tiger and asked the seller if he'd take $600 for a "buy it now". He declined. I'm facing how much I need an artifact versus how much I need a new set of tires. (We burn up about a set each race.)
The 1963 Bp winner of the same (Badger 200) race, John Morton, concurs that it appears to be authentic. He cites detail similar on both trophies and adds, "I'll sell you the 1963 Trophy a hell of a lot cheaper than that!" I think he wants new tires.
a comment about the Friedman book's Tiger section...
...don't get me started. Please never quote Dave!
Dave shot great pictures, but with the Tiger's story, fact checking was clearly optional and ignored. However it's great for us to have the pictures today.
Example: Lew crashed the Tiger on both a Saturday and Sunday in May at Laguna Seca. Dave wrote, "Spencer never set foot in the car again." Dave might have read his own writing about Lew's Tiger win at Willow in June to give himself a hint he needed better research. I've stumbled on other Tiger races Lew ran after Lagua Seca including Willow, Cotati, West Jordan UT, Kent WA, and Santa Barbara.There's probably more. Lew confirmed to me that Santa Barbara was actually the last time he raced a Tiger.
Another wives tale is that Lew went on to prepare and race other Tigers.
One day, maybe 8 years ago, while we were sitting around in our Tiger pits at Sears Point, Lew told John Morton and me that the only Tiger he ever raced was the Shelby American Tiger.
Mystery 50: that car was later raced by SCF in the first SCCA Runoffs (11/64) and finished 4th or 5th in Bp. (Dan Carmichael was the SCF driver. The engine that Ken broke when he raced at Riverside was later repaired and is still around.)
bt
at the beach
