In Honor of a Warrior

Partway through an evening of kind words, warm recollections and congratulations, the moderator came on the mic and said: “George, we’ve had several speakers here; I’m surprised the term ‘anger management’ hasn’t been used yet!”

Poor George Follmer could only join the laughter filling the Petersen Museum’s banquet hall. This racer’s long, honor-rich record is replete with powerful drives and hard-fought victories, but even he must agree that—in those days—his mastery of a racecar outmatched that of his temper.

Famously, his fists clenched in fury, he chased 1974 Shadow Can-Am teammate Jackie Oliver around a garage. Later that season, he repeatedly bashed his own car into the same rival’s, finally forcing himself out. And, in a letter read during the evening, his 1973 Porsche Can-Am teammate Charlie Kemp recalled watching this:

“One of the most memorable races that I remember was between Mark Donohue and George at Mid-Ohio. George led that race for a long time driving the 917/10, which was not as easy to drive as the 917/30. Both (Porsches) had tire marks on the sides after the race…. Lap after lap at over 200 mph in the straights. Finally the superior handling of Mark’s car won out. What a race.”

Parnelli Jones, Follmer’s Trans-Am partner in Mustangs and himself no shrinking violet on the track, came to the lectern to recount a race that he had been leading until he went off course and damaged his own car.

“One thing I can say, George is one hell of a racer…. (he) was second, not too far behind me, and he started runnin’ all over me. Of course I wasn’t real forgiving to let him go by. (laughter) The crew said, ‘George, stay behind Parnelli, stay behind Parnelli.’ So the last few laps he had to stay behind and he was fuming. I mean he was furious—he wouldn’t even get out of the car.

“He was always a great friend. We never had any arguments among ourselves. We spent time together between races, water skiing, picnics, became really close. I really, truly consider him a real friend, not just a great race driver, but a true friend.

“He’s never threatened to beat me up, either!”

 John “Woody” Woodard told a story of conversion. The longtime crew chief for Roger Penske was working with Mark Donohue’s Trans-Am Camaro in 1969 when he first witnessed Follmer and Jones in action.

“All I could say was, who are those guys? I came from East Coast, SCCA gentlemen racing, and I’d never seen anything like it. There’s paint trading all over the place, fenders bashed in, bumpers (and) wheels breaking …

“I was also an avid reader of Speed Sport News and Competition Press and I recall reading articles about George being reprimanded for excessive driving. I had an impression he was a little rough on the race track, but he was driving for somebody else, I didn’t care.

“Fast-forward to 1972 …” Woodard told of Penske’s deal to campaign the ultra-powerful, turbocharged Porsche Can-Am car and of the program’s major setback when Donohue suffered a testing crash just before the Road Atlanta race.

“Roger flies in, takes me off to the side, says, ‘Woody, I’ve just made arrangements for George Follmer to drive the car this weekend.’

“I said, ‘Are you crazy???’”

As laughter subsided, Woody clarified, “Maybe I didn’t use those words or that tone, but I was concerned. We only had one car left, very few spare parts, and I didn’t know George. I’d only seen how he raced the Trans-Am. He’s going to step into the most powerful road racing car that had ever been built?

“He got in that car and sat on the pole, won the first race. I believe he lapped the field. I was just blown away. (Two races later) George sat on the pole, ran in the rain, didn’t lose it, again lapped the field.”

That season ended with the Penske Porsche Panzers crushing the previously dominant McLaren team and Follmer winning the series championship. Forty years later, his once-skeptical crew chief gazed fiercely down from the lectern and gave George the ultimate mechanic’s thumbs-up:

“I was so worried about the aggressive driver that I’d read about and seen in action. I was so worried about him destroying my racecar. He never put a scratch, not a scratch, on the car. He was a first class driver. George, you’re my man.”

Also coming up to speak or sending in their good wishes were a host of others who figured in Follmer’s career: Scooter Patrick, Ronnie Kaplan, John Morton, Judy Stropus, Roger Penske, Sam Posey, Jim Hall, Don Nichols, Dan Gurney; what an incredible group of stellar competitors who had stepped forward to toast one of their own.

As I listened to all this with half an ear, trusting my recorder while I focused on my camera, my memory pulled up story after story of my own. I’d watched some of those epic Trans-Am battles, and covered that record-shattering ’72 Can-Am season. I’d been there at Road Atlanta when George used a rental car to learn a difficult, very fast track he’d never seen before, then set about taming the equally unfamiliar but even trickier, twitchy, throttle-laggy turbo-Porsche. It packed practically a thousand horsepower. I remembered what he’d said were The Captain’s orders:

“I’m not to crash, and I’m to win.”

A year later, I was at Kyalami when George stepped into another wholly new world and in his debut Grand Prix drove an F1 Shadow to a point-paying 6th. In Barcelona at the next race, I watched him come home 3rd.

At the Petersen, I told him I wished he’d stayed in F1 longer than his one season—I’d have had so much more to write about.

F1, Can-Am, Trans-Am, USRRC, Indycars, Formula 5000, center-seat Can-Am, NASCAR, IROC, Le Mans, IMSA, vintage racing … versatile, tough, forceful George Follmer was a contender in anything and a winner in most. He earned four championships.

Only thing … he never once chased me around a garage.