A Piece of 24 Hours at Daytona History

[ancrdave]

Found this photo of George Waltman (sitting in car) taken after the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona... This guy had one of the more unique races in the history of racing in general...
George was from Great Neck, NY and drove the car, a Morgan Plus 4, from NY to Florida and entered the race... He had no pit crew, just himself... He drove the entire race by himself but rules stated he had to get one hour of rest during every four hour stretch of the race... He re-fueled the car himself, changed tires etc. and got a nap or bite to eat each time he was required to rest... He even put a sign on the windshield that said "out to lunch." 65 cars started the race and George was the last car still running at the end finishing in 30th position... 335 laps behind the winner!! He then cleaned the car up., changed the oil and drove it back to NY!!!!

[Joe]

Great story and a great looking car.

[williston19]

Sad you cant do that today,,,,but you can go Chump Car Racing!

[lmracer]

Very cool story!!!

[oneoff]

I'll bet no one including the winner had more fun than George!

[egspeedway]

Thanks for another great picture and story. Just goes to show even Walter Mitty could have done it. If I had your job I would be like a kid in a candy store you and Eddie take good care of the archives and again thanks for sharing them with us.

[jacko241]

What a cool story! Thanks for sharing that, Dave. Conversely, when we ran the Rolex 24 in '08 and '09 with my our family owned privateer team, we had a crew of 15 and 5 drivers!

[Bosco]

I'm really dating myself here, but.............I was there in 1968 at the 24 hr and cheered for "Morgan Man" as we called him. We talked to George in the paddock during the race when he came in for one of his "naps."

Interesting, determined guy.

[ancrdave]

If you remember, he ran the race wearing a black leather jacket... Here's a picture I took of George during the race with my Kodak "Instamatic" camera... I was 15 years old then... my goodness...