1969 Yenko ZL1 Camaro Sebring race car

[JoeC]

Corvette News June/July 1969 article states that Yenko/Grossman won GT class (beating the Owens-Corning Corvettes) finishing 10th overall in a 1969 Camaro with a Bill Hartley built aluminum 427 ZL1 Corvette engine. There is a B&W photo of the car showing it in a dark color wearing number "5". I believe it had the Yenko Dealer sponsorship on the side but there is no side view picture in the article. Winning GT class in a 12hr endurance race is quite an accomplishment for anybody and is even more impressive for a relatively small Chevy dealership without big sponsorship. This ZL1 Yenko race car may have been shown in a movie for just a second. I was watching a James Garner made movie/documentury on Speedvision with a title something like "James Garner Makes the Racing Scene". The movie shows Garner racing at Sebring and other tracks and there was a clip where a red Camaro with what looked like "Yenko" on the side, drove by the Garner car. I unfortunately did not tape the movie so I thought it may have been an hallucination. The Garner Lola-Chevy is shown below the Camaro. Here is the article.

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1169942&a=8610131&p=40303280
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1169942&a=8610131&p=40303282

[bowtie3168]

Joe,
That is a very interesting piece of information. Thanks for sharing it.I just watched a video in which that Bill Jenkins discussed the problems that they had with the ZL-1 engine. Jenkins stated that when he used an aluminiun block that he favored a "Can-Am" casting over the "Camaro-Corvette"casting. I wonder what mods Bill Hartley did to make the engine in that car to make the engine more durable?
Andrew

[JoeC]

From what I read, the ZL1 block was used for the road racing GT Corvettes and performed well where max rpm was around 7000. When Jenkins ran his drag racing motors up to 8500 rpm the ZL1 power curve would drop off more then an iron BB. The theory was that the iron sleeves of the ZL1 block would "move" at high rpm causing poor compression sealing and less hp. Jenkins switched to the stronger CanAm block which used the 4.440 bore Siamese cyls and a destroked crank to get 430 cu in. The larger bore opened up the valve area and made more hp. The CanAm BB Chevy motor also dominated CamAm racing beating Ferrari, Porsche, and Ford, who all had more expensive exotic engines, until Porsche went insane and built their duel turbo 1100hp 12cyl.

[GMH454]

The ZL-1s were also used in Trans Am Camaros circa 1974-1975 (I think). Frank Gardiner won the British Touring car championship twice with a ZL-1 2nd Gen Camaro, and Bob Jane won the Australian Touring car championship twice with a REAL ZL-1 in the early 70's.
Jane only lost one engine in 2 years. Only ran 11/1 compression. My guess would be Yenko in 1969 did the same. Greenwood ran 9.5/1 compression in his ZL-1's in the mid seventies. Probably because FIA made him run on pump gas.
Terry

[Chevy454]

JoeC:

I was scanning some pictures for Speedvision the other day, and I remembered that you posted something about James Garner and Yenko, so I thought I would add this picture for you:
http://ortrackm.missouri.org/~yenko/PIC8.gif

[JoeC]

thanks for posting the pictures. Don is most known for racing Corvettes but as we can see he also had some wins in Camaros. I mentioned James Garner's movie called "The Racing Scene" directed by Andy Sidaris. It was about Garner racing in 1969 and showed Yenko for only a few seconds as he drove by Garner's car. I have been looking for it on video but no luck so far.

[JoeC]

*

[Edited by JoeC (02-15-2001 at 03:45 PM).]

[Jeff H]

Check on Speedvision because they have run a special show on Garner's racing and movie stuff. They've shown a bunch of old race footage.

[JoeC]

Speedvision is where I first saw the movie. I have e-mailed them to see when it will be aired again and I am also looking for it on video.