So There, Chaps

It was supposed to be a private war --Ferrari v. Ford, just like last month's Daytona Continental. But then some interlopers appeared. There were the Ferraris and the Ford GTs, plowing around Sebring as if they had the course all to themselves, when all of a sudden -- zip! zip! -- a couple of monstrosities from Texas went scooting past.

With their sharklike snouts and flat fannies, the homemade Chaparrals of Oilman Jim Hall, 28, would not win any automotive beauty contests. Their Chevrolet engines put out 450 h.p. compared with 385 h.p. for the Fords and 350 for the Ferraris, but instead of manual gear boxes, they had--that's right--automatic transmissions. "Better acceleration," Hall insisted, and in a practice run for last week's twelve-hour Prix de 1'Endurance, he tooled around Sebring's 5.2-mile course in 2 min. 57.6 sec.--nine seconds better than the fastest Ford.

"We're Prepared." Ferrari's Luigi Chinetti tried to plead nolo Commendatore, claiming that the cars were not really representing old Enzo at all--they were just individual entries competing as individuals. To prove the point, Chinetti had the cars painted five different colors. A Ford mechanic admitted that the Chaparrals were "the fastest cars here, no doubt about it." But could they keep running for twelve hours? The automatic transmissions were certain to impose an extra load on the Chaparrals' brakes--since they would be unable to gear down on Se-bring's 13 curves. Snorted Hall: "We've got heavy-duty stuff on these cars--bigger brakes, bigger tires, bigger wheels. We're prepared."

Race conditions could hardly have been worse. The temperature was 94DEG, and clouds hung low overhead. Dashing across the track for the Le Mans start, two drivers leaped into their Ford-Cobras, punched the starter buttons--and sat there feeling silly when nothing happened. An Italian Grifo sports car ran off the track, injuring two spectators, and a French Abarth-Simca piled head-on into a palm tree. But Hall's only problem was Dan Gurney, the "rabbit" of the Ford team, whose job was to battle the Texan for the early lead, try to make him burn out his engine. Hall gave better than he got: gunning his Chaparral round the course at 104 m.p.h., he smashed the track record by a fantastic 3.5 m.p.h.--and it was Gurney who broke down, trying to keep up.

It Floats. At the halfway point, Hall was already five laps ahead of his nearest pursuer, a Ferrari--and still pouring it on. "We're afraid of rain," he wryly explained during a pit stop. "This is a light car with big tires, and it floats when it hits a puddle." The rains came, so heavily that waves of water washed up the Chaparral's nose into the cockpit. Hall had to cut his speed to 10 m.p.h. But the Ferrari was having trouble too, gave up with four hours to go. The rain stopped, and the race was over. At 10 p.m., still five laps ahead and coasting, Hall swept under the checkered flag and gaily called for a bottle of champagne.

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