Inside Scoop: Rick Kopec talks about Carroll Shelby

SHARON — “You’d better win.”

These were the words Henry Ford II used to motivate team leader Carroll Shelby and his recently formed Ford auto racing team as they set out for a third time, trying to topple the Ferrari juggernaut that had dominated Le Mans for as long as anyone could remember. 

The race and the multi-year drama that led up to it are the subject of a new film, “Ford v. Ferrari,” in local theaters starting Nov. 15. 

To put the film in perspective, The Lakeville Journal interviewed Rick Kopec, who lives in Sharon. Kopec is an auto racer, car collector and co-founder of the Shelby American Auto Club, as well as a long-time friend of Carroll Shelby. 

According to Kopec, the 1966 24-hour Le Mans race was a classic clash between American down-home ingenuity and European elitism. American racers typically drank beer; they viewed Continental drivers as a “wine-and-cheese crowd,” Kopec said. Of the world’s three most important touring car races at the time, Le Mans was both the only European one and the biggest deal. International reputations and huge egos were at stake. So were the careers of the racing team members, as Ford’s message, printed for them on a business card, not-so-subtly implied.

As Kopec described it, Lee Iacocca and Henry Ford were still smarting from Enzo Ferrari’s rejection of their earlier offer to buy his firm, an attempt to lift their brand’s prestige. 

Worse yet, none of the 1965 Ford GT entries at Le Mans had managed to survive the physical punishment inflicted by an unforgiving race course and relentless high-speed driving. That embarrassment only inflamed American passions. To get revenge, Ford was willing to bankroll three teams of cars and drivers, pit them against one another to bring out the best, and flood the field with an armada of vehicles. 

Ford was late to racing, but money was no object. Kopec recalled, for example, that when flaws emerged in some race car windows, Ford bought first-class seats to fly replacements from Corning Glass Works to France. Ford also created a computer simulation of the Le Mans course to optimize the GT40’s engine, transmission, and brakes for the 24-hour ordeal, Kopec said, running the engine on a dynamometer for days at a time.

For Ferrari’s part, heavyhanded American demands during negotiations had put “a burr in his saddle”, according to Kopec. Through consistent commitment and technological excellence, Ferrari’s drivers had beaten the best that either Europe or America had to offer. To Ferrari, Ford was a maker of family cars, lumbering behemoths that had no business on a race track. 

Into this maelstrom came Carroll Shelby, a shrewd Texan racer and entrepreneur whose own driving career had been cut short by heart problems. Shelby had earlier fast-talked Ford and a British firm, AC, into backing him as he developed a new racer using Ford’s 427 cubic inch big-block V8 engine. 

The result, the Shelby Cobra GT, had unleashed unprecedented horsepower into touring-car racing, hitting speeds nearing 200 mph. Ford brought in Shelby to lead the Ford team, which grew to include Phil Remington, a mechanical genius, as well as fabled drivers Bruce McLaren and Ken Miles.

The suspense of the legendary race and the clash of monumental egos make the film a must-see for race enthusiasts, but Kopec advises them not to examine the film too closely. Just like a high-performance engine and chassis, the personality clashes, rivalries and the race itself have all been tweaked for maximum dramatic effect in the movie, according to Kopec. 

“It’s not a documentary,” he advised, pointing out that some of the conflicts shown never actually happened, including fictional fisticuffs between Shelby and driver Ken Miles. The cars shown in the race sequences are replicas, too, not originals. GT40s are too valuable: according to Kopec, a race-pedigreed one today commands a sales price to collectors of $2 million to $3 million.

Rick Kopec will be at The Moviehouse in Millerton following the showings of “Ford v. Ferrari” on Friday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 17, at 1 p.m. There will be a question and answer session with Kopec and Skip Barber from Lime Rock Park. They will be joined on Sunday by Sam Posey.