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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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