1.
GV PAN OVER cars and crowd with cars lined in background
0.10

2.
CU Porsche Turbo (No. 9) in pits
0.14

3.
CU second-place getter Turbo Porsche (No. 5) and Charles Mendez gets in behind wheel (TWO SHOTS)
0.24

4.
GV cars moving to starting grid
0.29

5.
GV race starting
0.37

6.
SV car 5 in pits for tyre change soon after start
0.46

7.
GV cars rounding bend and under bridge down straight and into bend (TWO SHOTS)
0.56

8.
GV white car on outside (left of frame) cuts in front of yellow Porsche 914/S (No 85) which brakes, slews off track with smoke pouring from tail, official out with fire extinguisher and driver clambers to safety (TWO SHOTS)
1.10

9.
GV PAN Car 9 (Akin) leading around bend
1.14

10.
GV NS race in progress
1.22

11.
SV Marshal waving chequered flag for finish
1.25

12.
GV winners escorted into arena, cheered by crowd and drivers leave car (TWO SHOTS)
1.36

13.
CU driver drinking soft drink
1.38

14.
SV winning team with trophy and champagne bottles
1.55


In third place was the Porsche Turbo team, of Bob Garretson, Gary Belcher and Bob Bondurant.




Initials KM/1810


SPORT: MOTOR RACING

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Motor racing...and Porsche Turbo cars took the first three places in the Coca-cola Twelve Hours of Sebring race in Florida on Saturday (17 March). The winning team of Bob Akin, rob McFarlin and Roy Woods averaged more than one hundred and three miles an hour. They finished one minute and fourteen seconds ahead of a mixed nationalities team -- American Charles Mendez and John Paul, plus Englishman Brian Redman.

SYNOPSIS: The race attracted more than seventy entries, chasing a first prize of ten thousand dollars.

This car, another Porsche Turbo, finished out of the money, but here's the machine number five that eventually came second, with Charles Mendez climbing behind the wheel.

This an important race on the calendar, with results counting towards the Winston GT and the World Challenge for Endurance Drivers. And they're under way.

Number Five was soon back in the pits for a tyre change. It stayed there for sixteen minutes while a brake master cylinder was also replaced. After ten laps, a Porsche Turbo, driven by Florida driver Hurley Haywood, was leading from another Porsche, driven by Californian Dick Barbour.

A near disaster. The white leading car cuts hard in front of John Hulen's Porsche nine-one-four, which slews off the track, but comes safely to a halt. Only twenty-eight cars finished the race.

Akin was consolidating his position, moving closer to the lead during the trickier conditions after dark.

Akin was leading when it counted -- at the chequered flag. Home state fans had ben rooting hard for Florida drivers during the race, but mobbed the winning team, whose members hailed from New York, California and Oklahoma.

Akin is a versatile driver, having also qualified his won 1959 Cooper Monaco for the Kendall Vintage Grand Prix event at this meeting. But nothing could match winning the big one.