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Davey's Recollections of Vasek Polak
By Davey Jordan
Page 3
 Davey Jordan in the Porsche 911, at turn 4, Santa Barbara,
1967.
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A lot of things had changed at Vasek Polak since
I had raced the Spyder in 1964. His endless day work schedule was paying
off. He had acquired another business location about a mile and a half
south of the original at 199 Pacific Coast Hwy., Hermosa Beach, and had
started handling BMWs along with Porsche. He was also making frequent
trips to Germany, and while he was there he would buy an old dilapidated
V W Bus, and fill it with obsolete Porsche factory racing parts, then
ship it to the U.S. We all wondered what he would do with all "that
stuff". He had also managed to get his wife and two young adult
children into the United States. Vasek was able to go to all of the
events, and it made traveling interesting. We had several races out of
Region, and Vasek and I would fly to some of these events. I am the type
of person that likes to leave for the Airport early, and have plenty of
time for parking, to get checked in and etc. Vasek was the exact
opposite, I would be waiting with the plane being boarded, afraid we
might miss the flight, when Vasek would come bustling in with his tie
flying and suit coat flapping, his duffel bag in hand. He would always
say the same thing, "Davie hurry we must run" as he past me by
at full speed. At the local events, young Vasek jr. was always at the
races, and sometimes it was comical to hear a like minded father and son
argue how something should be done. The 1967 911 s Porsche was the class
of "C Production" and our record was 12 firsts, 3 seconds, 1
third and 3 DNFs. It should be said that a lot of the cars success was
due to a young Dieter Schoepfling, who was responsible for the cars
preparation (one of the three founding partners of Andial). We won the
Southern Pacific National Championship, the only real disappointment of
the whole season was getting beat by Alan Johnson at the National
Championship runoffs in Daytona Beach. Again this would be my last race
for a while for Vasek, as I had signed a contract with Shelby American to
race the new Toyota 2000 GT in C Production in 1968. Milt Minter would
fill my seat in Vasek's 911s.
Davey Jordan driving Vasek Polak's Porsche 908 at
Riverside 1971.
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My next opportunity to drive for Vasek came in
1971, and again a lot of things had changed since 1967. He was a Porsche/
Audi Dealer, a BMW Dealer and a Saab Dealer.
The Saab and BMW Dealerships were separate From
the Porsche/ Audi store. He was heavily involved in the Can/Am with Milt
Minter driving his 917, crewed by Alwin Springer (now the president of
Porsche Motor Sport of North America). For the local rounds of this
series he planned on running a Porsche 908 as a sister car to Milts. Hans
Adam his BMW service Manager was preparing the 908 in his spare time and
suggested to Vasek that I drive the car. Vasek agreed, and another
adventure with VP Racing began.
 Hans Eisele, Adam and the Porsche 908, 1971.
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Our first race in the 908 was at the Laguna Seca
Can/Am. The 3.0 liter 908 was greatly over matched against the 7-liter
plus McLarens and Lolas. Our only bright spot was that we out qualified
the only other 908 in the line up, driven by Steve Matchet for Tony Dean
who had actually won a Can/Am race in the rain with that same 908. Our
car was also entered in the amateur support race, which we easily won. In
the Can/Am race the brakes on the 908 faded to the point of being no
brakes, so I brought the car into the pits, Hans and the crew replaced
caliper seals and bled the red hot brakes, and sent me back out. To this
day I have no idea how they were able to do this work as hot as the
brakes were. After the race Vasek told me I should have pushed the car
harder in the support race to find this problem. We were classified as
"running and finishing in 20th place". Milt finished 9th in the
917.
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