In the morning driver’s meeting, Gottlob’s team was slapped with the ultimate disrespect when his car was voted by his competitors as the most likely to drop out of the race first. But at this point finishing the race was the last thing on Gottlob’s mind. He just wanted to start it. By noon the repaired transmission was back in the hands of Blatchford and Wanko, undergoing a lengthy re-installation. With the car up on jack stands, the other crew members set tire pressures and filled the fuel tank while Dave Dooley donned his fire suit in the hopes that they could still beat the clock. For everyone else, the pre-race ceremonies were festive and fun. The cars of Mario Andretti, Brian Redman, Jacky Ickx, Dan Gurney, Mark Donahue, Peter Revson, Pedro Rodriguez and a host of world famous drivers already sat quietly on the grid. Andretti wore a bright red Firestone jacket over his driver’s suit as he chatted with his crew on pit road, followed continuously by a host of photographers. He took a moment to pose with a beautiful Filipino redhead named Gloria Diaz who had just won the Miss Universe pageant. The new #6 Owens-Corning Corvette driven by Tony DeLorenzo and Dick Lang had been fast all week and was a favorite to win. They would start in 20th position overall. Their stablemate, the #7 Corvette of SCCA A/production National Champion Jerry Thompson and John Mahler, was even faster and would start 11th. Both Owens-Corning Corvettes had been completely rebuilt for Daytona. No fewer than eight crewmen neatly clad in matching uniforms pushed the #7 car to its starting position while the driver walked casually behind, his helmet hanging on one arm and his wife on the other. Everyone paused for the national anthem. Bob Johnson, Robert Johnson and Jim Greendyke, drivers of the 1968 black and gold #8 Corvette, stopped clowning around and sang along. They were confident, having qualified toward the front of the GT field and 16th overall. Shortly afterward, around 2:30 pm, Johnson’s crew pretended to wax the car while posing for a photographer’s Super 8 film camera. The Corvette brand was well represented. John Greenwood had brought his 1968 factory L88 from Detroit, while Or Costanzo’s Corvette had qualified 27th overall and was expected to be a contender. Although there were plenty of Porsche’s, MGB’s and Shelby GT350’s in the field, this was clearly going to be a Corvette showdown. Moments before the command to start engines, the #7 Owens-Corning Corvette crew stood atop the pit wall, anxiously waiting for their driver to cruise by so they could salute him with a collective thumbs-up. Sixty-five cars stood by in rows of two, anticipating the command to start engines. The only empty spot on the starting grid was way back in 34th position on the outside of row 17. It belonged to Cliff Gottlob and Dave Dooley. At exactly 2:45 pm, the transmission installation on Gottlob’s L88 was finished and the car was dropped off the jack stands. Scheduled to drive first, Dave Dooley climbed into the cockpit and started the engine. There was no time for testing or a run through the gears. He drove the car straight onto the grid. Dooley didn’t even shut off the engine. By the time he arrived at his starting position, fastened his helmet and tightened his shoulder harness, the pace car was leading the field slowly out onto the racing surface for parade laps. He revved the engine to 3,000 rpm’s, let off the clutch and rolled down pit lane with no guarantee that it would shift into second. Gottlob’s crew was stuck at the end of pit lane, the closest stall to NASCAR Turn 4. Covered in oil and still holding the tools with which they had re-installed their transmission just minutes before, they could finally accept that by some cosmic miracle, they were in the race. No one knew if they could finish. They weren’t even certain they could make enough pace laps to take the green flag. But at long last, they were ready to start the 24 Hours of Daytona. 36
