25/03/2023
Another article written for StickeredUp4LeMans, in the build up to the Le Mans centenary race meeting.
The countdown continues until the centenary 24 Hours – just ELEVEN weeks to go.
This is also the number of drivers who have won the race driving for the manufacturer with a car nicknamed “the fastest truck in the world”, namely the Bentley Motor Company.
While present at the first race, W.O. Bentley was very sceptical of the concept of a 24 hour race. “I think the whole thing’s crazy,” he declared. “Nobody will finish. Cars aren’t designed to stand that sort of strain for 24 hours.” But he did witness one of his cars come home in 4th place, with the fastest lap, changed his mind, and the dye was cast, starting with a win in the 1924 race with the same car and drivers, John Duff and Frank Clement, who had come 4th the previous year.
As factory commitment to the race intensified, results over the next two years were disappointing, with no Bentley finishers despite the increased numbers of entries. But this was to lead to a golden era as between 1927 and 1930, the Bentley name was to again top the results.
The 1927 event was won by Dudley Benjafield and Sammy Davis in “Old Number Seven” after the pair of works cars were damaged in a multi-car pile-up at Maison Blanche and forced to retire. Although the car was also damaged, their team were able to repair it enough to be able to keep going on the track, repairs which included strapping a torch to the windscreen to replace its smashed headlights!
A year later, the race’s first triple winner, Woolf Banarto, topped the result sheets in 1928, 1929 and 1930, with a different co-driver each year, namely Bernard Rubin (1928), Henry Birkin (1929) and Glen Kidston (1930). But then the team was disbanded, a victim of the Great Depression, with the company sold to Rolls Royce, and the name consigned to racing history books with just the eight original “Bentley Boys” as winners.
That was to change in 2001, when the name Bentley returned to the entry list as part of rebranding brought about by Bentley becoming a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group. A three year project was launched, and in 2003, three more “Bentley Boys” were added to the winner’s list when Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Guy Smith won.
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