Goodyear's first major international victory

In my Masten Gregory article, I had indicated that the 1965 Le Mans 24 Hour win by Masten and Jochen Rindt was Goodyear's first overall international victory as I had misunderstood this excerpt from Goodyear's website: "At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Goodyear takes its first overall international victory, with drivers Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt in a Ferrari. Richie Ginther scores Goodyear's first Formula One Grand Prix victory in Mexico, and Jack Brabham brings home our first Formula One World Championship."

http://www.goodyear....acing_1960.html

Also on this site, it states: "In 1960: Goodyear wins its first major international race in sports cars with Masarati driver Sterling Moss at the Grand Prix of Cuba."

However, since the Cuba Grand Prix sports car race did not count towards the World Sports Car Championship, wouldn't the 1960 Nurburgring 1000KM sports car race in which Moss and Gurney won in a Camoradi Birdcage Maserati really be Goodyear's first "major" international win?

The way I see it is that the 1960 Cuba Grand Prix was Goodyear's first victory in an international event. The 1960 Nurburgring 1000KM was Goodyear's first major win in an international event and the 1965 Le Mans win was Goodyear's first outright win in major endurance race.

Your thoughts and opinions please.

Not to be an ass, but did they 'win' or was it a case where they supplied the entire field and won by default? I allways get a kick out of Goodyear's yearly proclamation of how they've won 400 races in a season or something.

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
Not to be an ass, but did they 'win' or was it a case where they supplied the entire field and won by default? I allways get a kick out of Goodyear's yearly proclamation of how they've won 400 races in a season or something.

No, they won as I remember Dunlop being the other main tire supplier at that time. Maybe Pirelli too.

Originally posted by Joe Fan
The way I see it is that the 1960 Cuba Grand Prix was Goodyear's first victory in an international event. The 1960 Nurburgring 1000KM was Goodyear's first major win in an international event and the 1965 Le Mans win was Goodyear's first outright win in major endurance race.
Your thoughts and opinions please.

It's all a matter of definition. Assuming Goodyear did win those races, the way I would put it is:
The 1960 Cuba Grand Prix was Goodyear's first victory in an international event. The 1960 Nurburgring 1000km was Goodyear's first outright win in major endurance race and the 1965 Le Mans win was Goodyear's first outright win in race the public might have heard of.

David, thanks for your reply but how could a 1000 kilometer race be considered an endurance event? NASCAR has the Coca-Cola 600 mile race at Charlotte every year and they don't consider this an endurance event.

Like I said. it's a matter of definition - you have yours, I have mine
But you try lapping the Nürburgring for 1000km at racing speed and then tell me it's not an endurance event
It took Moss and Gurney seven and a half hours in 1960 - I don't know how long the Charlotte 600 lasts, but I suspect it's a lot less than that

According to Motor Sport, the Moss/gurney Maserati at the Nurburgring 1000kms ran with goodyear on the front and Pirelli on the back, at least at the start.

Originally posted by David McKinney
It took Moss and Gurney seven and a half hours in 1960 - I don't know how long the Charlotte 600 lasts, but I suspect it's a lot less than that

So, it is about 4 hours per driver.* The very first Coca-Cola 600 in 1961 was 5 hours and 20 minutes long with one driver. Today, the Coca-Cola 600 is about 4 to 4 1/2 hour race.

* Unless you are Stirling Moss sharing a car with Jack Brabham

Originally posted by Roger Clark
According to Motor Sport, the Moss/gurney Maserati at the Nurburgring 1000kms ran with goodyear on the front and Pirelli on the back, at least at the start.

Very interesting. Thanks for looking that up Roger. Perhaps the 1961 Nurburgring 1000KM that Masten and Casner won, was Goodyear'sr first really big sports car win? I have read that on the last pit stop of the 1961 race, cord was showing through on Masten's rear Goodyears but they didn't have any spares to replace them with, so Masten had to drive the final three laps with questionable tires. However, when I talked to Bob Wallace the other day he didn't remember that being the case.

Let me tell you from experince .......the World 600 now, coke 600 ,at Charlotte is a endurance race...it gets HOT in charlotte in May....Drink a six pack of beer and never have to pee sweat it out....thats why they moved the race to nite time .....that and the indy 500 and TV time and money and you know the story.

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
Not to be an ass, but did they 'win' or was it a case where they supplied the entire field and won by default? I allways get a kick out of Goodyear's yearly proclamation of how they've won 400 races in a season or something.

There would have been very few Goodyear racing tyres in Europe at that time, so far as I know, perhaps only on cars that had come direct from the US? It was a long time before they were in a position to supply all the cars in any race. When we started building tyres in Wolverhampton it was as much as we could do to supply Brabham's two cars. There was a lot of wheel changing in the paddock. But yes Ross, it does look pretty silly to claim victory when you are the only one in the race. Can't blame them for trying to get publicity, though. That's why they're in it.

Lyn M